by E. Lockhart
Though I managed to avoid the poodle turtleneck in favor of the navy hoodie, I was too weakened by the situation to stop my mother from buying me the coat with anchors.
1 Ennui: Another one of my new words. It means “listlessness, boredom.” As in, “I would save the world, but I suffer from ennui, which forces me to lie on the couch and eat spearmint jelly candies instead.”
2 I had been Noboyfriend for thirty-nine weeks at that point.
3 Nora is in a state of perpetual Noboyfriend—only pretty much without catatonia, depression or ennui. It has been sixteen and a half years of Noboyfriend for Nora, though she does appear to like boys rather than, you know, girls. She is possessed of a good heart, beautiful dark curls, the ability to bake and talk basketball simultaneously, plus enormous hooters and stable mental health—really, everything a guy could want.
But still: Noboyfriend.
4 Anime: Japanese animation. Jackson is obsessed with it, but me—not so much. Boring, boring, boring. Still, I’ve seen a lot of anime movies, because when Jackson and I were together, he always, always got to pick the film.
I Become a Baby CHuB
Oliver,
Welcome back from break.
The Senior Committee wants to have an extra CHuBS this year!!! Since the winter one was so successful. During the week-long sale, we raised more than $2,000 for the shelter. If we have a new one on Parents’ Day, we can do some good business. But here’s the deal: none of the seniors has time, what with prom and graduation planning, so we want the juniors to run it.
We thought of such a cute name for you guys: Baby CHuBS. It could have an Easter theme.
What do you think??? Come find me after class and we can chat.
—Gwen Archer
—written on white notebook paper with ballpoint, in round handwriting; folded in thirds like a business letter and passed to me under the table during French V.
the reason a popular senior girl like Gwen Archer was writing me a note in first period French V was this: due to circumstances semi-beyond my control, I was the member of the junior class with the most bake-sale experience. Every year before the winter holidays, the Tate Prep upper-classmen organize this Charity Holiday Bake Sale (CHuBS) to benefit a homeless shelter in downtown Seattle; every year all students are also required to log a certain number of community service hours. I joined CHuBS when I was a sophomore, shockingly behind on service and deluded by romantic fantasies of baking for Jackson. I had this idea that I would secure his undying love by means of chocolate-cream-cheese goodness.
Not so much.
Anyway, I did well in CHuBS even though I’m completely unskilled in the kitchen. I had good ideas for cupcakes, which was important because despite its charitable mission, the sale is really a competition: whose adorable creation can best attract the gluttons of the Tate Prep Universe? Girls bring in reindeer cookies with pretzels for horns. Seven-layer ultimate fudge. Santa Claus cupcakes. Sugar cookies baked onto Popsicle sticks.
December of junior year, Gwen Archer—now head of CHuBS and one of those hearty Future Doctors of America so prevalent at Tate Prep—corralled me into a second season of bake-sale insanity. Volunteers were scarce, and Gwen asked me to recruit. She must have been so blinkered into her world of Senior Committee, tennis team and community service perkiness that she didn’t bother to read the things written on the walls of the girls’ bathrooms or notice the blue-green spots of leprosy1 that covered my body.
Meghan hadn’t done a single service hour all year, and we’re required to do forty, so she was on board. Nora, although she is completely the person who volunteers for all kinds of do-good projects through her church without even trying to snag school credit for them, agreed to help too. She likes to bake. So the three of us had worked the December bake sale together junior year.
Archer’s idea of CHuBS was all about marshmallow sculptures. She forced us to make them. Did you know that with a pair of kitchen scissors, some white frosting, an assortment of adorably small candies and many, many hours of labor, ordinary marshmallows can be transformed into miniature snowmen who sit atop cupcakes, wearing jolly gummy hats, M&M buttons and maniacal licorice smiles?
They can.
I myself have made them in Archer’s enormous yellow kitchen. I have also bought one, eaten half of it and thrown the rest in the garbage. Because marshmallows, unless heavily toasted in s’mores, are not as good as I thought they were in first grade.
In fact, they’re gross.
Go on, see for yourself. Eat a raw marshmallow and tell me you actually want to eat another one.
There were a lot of snowmen in the garbage can near the bake sale table at the end of the first day, actually, but Archer was not discouraged. They had sold well, after all, and since the sale lasted a week, her next project involved handmade marshmallows shaped like stars. Then marshmallow Santas and cupcakes shaped like turkeys.
The whole December CHuBS experience had been like shopping with my mother. I put in all this time and energy and ended up with something other people thought was adorable but made me want to chunder. So when I got Archer’s note in January of junior year, at first I thought: No way.
I’m actually not a good baker.
I’ve done all my service already.
If I run Baby CHuBS now, I’ll be expected to run Big CHuBS when I’m a senior. No way can a roly-poly2 like me manage to recruit a whole gaggle of underclassmen to do the grunt work of the weeklong December sale.
I am not a person who wants anything to do with marshmallow sculpture projects.
And—
I interrupted my own thoughts. Because this was a chance, actually. A chance to reject the dominant Tate Prep aesthetic of marshmallow sculpture in favor of my own roly-poly agenda.
What exactly that agenda was, I didn’t know.
Something different.
Something uncute.
Something delicious, maybe.
I told Archer yes.
1 More on leprosy: I finally Googled it. Turns out that despite its reputation, leprosy is not really that contagious, as far as diseases go. And the blue-green spots I keep talking about? They’re not actually blue-green. In other words, leper is actually a sucky metaphor for a social pariah like myself. I will have to think of a new word.
2 Roly-poly. The derogatory term formerly known as leper. Technically, a bug called a woodlouse. You have the same response to a roly-poly as to a leper: “Ugh, there’s a roly-poly here [on my plate, on my arm, on this bench, what-ever]—let’s move away.” Only, it’s nicer, because roly-polies are actually a tiny bit cute, plus they have a good name, so while the Tate Universe may not rate them, a few discerning roly-poly lovers will see their true merits and refuse to shun them.
P.S. There is also a kind of dessert called a roly-poly made with jam. That is not what I am talking about.
I Fixate on a Poncho
tuesday, Noel turned up in my Art History elective. Ms. Harada was showing slides, and he slid into the seat next to me shortly after the lecture started.
He was wearing steel-toed combat boots and a Daffy Duck T-shirt over a black thermal.1 His blond hair was free of gel (unusual for him) and flopped across his forehead.
I reminded myself to look at the art.
His profile, lit by the glow from the projector, seemed so pure, so clean. Like the delicate lines of his face had been cut from marble.
I’ve missed him, I thought. Even though we hadn’t spent much time together before the break.
Even though I hadn’t known I was missing him.
Noel flipped open his yellow legal pad and scrawled something across the top: “My hair looks weird, I know.”
He had noticed me staring at him. And yes, actually, his hair did look weird, but the rest of him was… well, he was Noel. I was cranked to see him; what did hair matter?
I turned to a new page in my notebook and wrote: Do you bake?
Noel: Why do you want to know?
; Me: Well, do you?
Noel: I reserve the right to remain silent until you answer my question.
Me: I am accidentally in charge of a bake sale.
Noel: Bake sale like the thing in December with marshmallow snowmen?
Me: We had snow women, too. With pink frosting bikini tops.
Noel: Excuse me while I retch.
Me: We also had snow dogs.
Noel: If by “bake” you mean do I construct marshmallow snow dogs, then no. I do not. My talents lie elsewhere.
Me: Not so fast! My policy is anti-marshmallow.
Noel: You seriously want me to make something for your sale?
I had written the first thing that popped into my head that wasn’t about Noel’s hair, since that didn’t seem to be a good direction for the conversation to go.
But yes. I wanted him to.
Me: Do you know how to bake? Lots of boys don’t.
Noel: I am not lots of boys.
Me: Actually, I don’t know how to bake, either. Nora helps me.
Noel: What do you mean, “either”? I didn’t say I couldn’t bake.
Me: Can you?
Noel: Talk later. I want to hear what Harada is saying about Greek sculpture. This could be educational!
Me: Ha ha.
He grinned and flipped his legal pad shut, then remembered he was supposed to be taking notes and flipped it open again to a fresh page.
He spent the rest of the class period writing down facts about Greek sculpture. Afterward, he said he had a meeting with his college counselor and disappeared.
I felt bereft.
How could he write me that Chem class note and then brush me off?
What was up?
“It was not a pretty situation in Twentieth-Century Am Lit today,” I told Doctor Z after school.2 We sat in her office, which is housed in a large, unfriendly compound full of dermatologists and orthodontists and probably even philatelists3 and atheists on the upper floors. I hate the building, with its medical, astringent smell, but once you’re inside her door, she’s made it cozy. There’s a red couch for me and a brown upholstered chair for Doctor Z. Some masks and landscape paintings on the walls. A box of tissues on the coffee table.
Doctor Z was wearing a new poncho. It must have been a Christmas gift—or Hanukkah, or whatever holiday she celebrated. I saw the woman every week and had no idea what religion she was. I didn’t know if she was married, either, though I wondered about it all the time.
What was her real life like? What did she do in her spare time? Her last name is Zaczkowski, which I think is Polish, and her skin is medium-brown African American. She’s gently plump and has a penchant for handmade crafty-type sweaters and hippie sandals.
This poncho was a step out, even for her. It was made of velvety bright orange yarn and had sparkle fringe at the bottom.
It was very distracting.
How was I supposed to concentrate on my mental health when my therapist was encased in orange sparkle madness?
I felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to ask her if there was a reason for her poncho, though I knew doing so would cause nothing but problems. Plus, I’ve been in therapy long enough to be able to figure out on my own that I had this desire to talk about her poncho because:
I wanted to make myself feel superior to someone, anyone, after a crap day at school. Or
I was uncomfortable in therapy again after two weeks of winter break and felt the need to get the upper hand in the situation. Or
I was angry at Doctor Z just for existing and asking me personal questions, and being obnoxious about her poncho would be a form of retaliation. Or
I’d like to know more about Doctor Z and who the heck she is in real life, only I’m not supposed to ask, and the poncho had become a symbol of that forbidden curiosity. Or
Something was bothering me that I was scared to talk about, so my mind was repressing it massively and just thinking: Poncho! Poncho! Poncho! all the time. Or
All of the above.
“You seem distracted, Ruby,” Doctor Z said, popping a piece of Nicorette gum.4
“What?”
“You started talking about your American Lit class, but then you drifted off.”
Poncho! Poncho! Poncho!
“Oh, it’s not important,” I told her. “I’m doing some Reginald today.5 Even though I should be over the whole thing already.”
“There’s no ‘should’ about something like that,” Doctor Z said patiently. “Whatever you feel is valid. We all grieve on our own schedules.”
“Reginald.”
She smiled. “We all Reginald on our own schedules. Do you have a sense of what might have triggered your Reginald?”
Poncho! Poncho! Poncho!
“Ruby?”
Poncho! “Oh. Um. Yeah. Going back to school is hard. Because I managed to kind of forget the existence of certain people over break, and now they’re in my Am Lit class.”
“What certain people?” Doctor Z leaned forward.
“I was expecting it to be my favorite class,” I went on. “Because it’s taught by Mr. Wallace and I’m going to like Edith Wharton.6 But when I walked into the room, there they were.”
“Who?”
“Cricket McCall, Ariel Olivieri, Katarina Dolgen. Kim Yamamoto. And Nora. Sitting together.”
Doctor Z nodded understandingly. “Did you want to join them?”
“No.”
Silence.
“I didn’t,” I protested. “Why would I want to sit with people who don’t like me? I mean, some of them tolerate me, but that’s about it, and I may be insane but I’m way over wanting to hang out with people who would write stuff about me on bathroom walls.”7
“I thought you said Nora was with them.”
“She was.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Nora is peaceful,” I explained. “Nora is a good person. She never takes sides. So Nora is still friends with Kim and Cricket.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, she didn’t know I had Am Lit third period Tuesdays, so she was perfectly entitled to sit by them. She had no way of knowing I’d be left out.”
“I’m hearing that you don’t want to blame her.”
Ag. I hate it when Doctor Z does that shrinky thing of repeating back to me what she hears. Poncho! Poncho! Poncho!
“Anyway,” I said. “We’re not fifteen anymore. No one was going to openly shun me. They all mumbled ‘hello’ or whatever and I slunk over to the geeky spot right next to Mr. Wallace.”
“Did you have any feelings about that?”
“No.”
“Anything you hoped or wished would happen?”
“No.”
We sat in silence.
“What else?” Doctor Z finally asked.
“I talked to Wallace,” I said. “About how Chelsea Lefferts was still going to be varsity goalie so I’m sitting out lacrosse this year. About my internship at the zoo and how I’m cranked to see the llamas and the goats on Friday. He asked questions about what I do in the Family Farm area. Small talk, really. I was actually trying to hear what Kim was saying across the table.”8
How come?”
“It sounded like she was explaining about her breakup with Jackson.”
“Ahh.” A small smile played around Doctor Z’s mouth. “So that’s what this is about.”
“What?” Poncho! Poncho! Poncho!
“You were diverting my attention.”
“From what?”
“We spent a bunch of our session today talking about Nora. But really, we were talking about Jackson. Weren’t we?”
She looked so pleased.
I hate it when she’s right.
Nora called me that evening around seven. She didn’t have lunch the same time as me on Tuesdays, so I had barely seen her since Am Lit.
“Please don’t be mad at me for sitting with those guys in class,” she said as soon as I answered.
I wasn’t mad exactly. I
just—I had wanted her to sit with me.
Only, how can you ask without sounding like a pathetic roly-poly? Please will you sit with me, Nora, instead of them? Pretty please?
Ag.
“I’ll sit with you from now on,” Nora told me. Without me asking.
And that’s why I love Nora. She understands the fragility of other human beings and wants to make them feel better. She really does.
“Come over and we can get in the hot tub,” she said. “I’ll call Meghan.”
It was too early in the term to have any homework besides Pre-Cal, so Meghan picked me up in her Jeep. Half an hour later we were in the Van Deusens’ hot tub on the back deck of their huge but still-cluttered house, drinking pop and looking at each other through the steam that rose from the wooden tub into the cold night air.
I looked at Meghan, sitting on the edge in her bikini with her hair knotted on top of her head, and Nora in a tank top and boxer shorts, submerged in the hot water with only her head and her big feet sticking out, and I thought, I have a good life.
If only I can manage not to ruin it.
Which meant, I have a good life. If only I can manage to forget about boys.
Noel. Jackson. Pretty much all boys.
If I remain in the state of Noboyfriend forever, everything will be okay. Nora will still love me.
“Did you see that note from Archer I put in your mail cubby?” I asked.
Nora groaned. “Baby CHuBS? That’s the stupidest name I ever heard.”
“I know,” I told her. “But Meghan’s doing it with me.”
“Didn’t we just do a bake sale in December?” asked Nora, wiggling her toes.
“Yes, but we need you,” coaxed Meghan. “You’re the only one who knows how to bake. Plus, we can call ourselves cochairs now. It will look good for college applications.”
“It’s hardly baking,” snorted Nora. “It’s snipping marshmallows and bits of Fruit Roll-Up into shapes.”