E. Lockhart - Real Live Boyfriends

“I don’t think I realized until now that this time next year I’ll not only be out of the Tate Universe, I’ll be out of my parents’ house,” I told Doctor Z later that week. “I’ll be living alone . In like, New York City or Philadelphia or Los Angeles.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll have to take care of myself.”

She just looked at me.

“What?”

More looking.

“I’m pretty much taking care of myself right now, since Mom left. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“It crossed my mind,” she admitted.

“Well, I just bring home take-out pizza and eat cereal for breakfast. It’s not like I’ve scrubbed the oven or anything.”

She nodded.

“Although I did clean the bathroom yesterday,” I admitted. “And I made Dad change his clothes and take a shower.”

“How did that feel?” Doctor Z asked me.

I hate it when she says shrinky things like that.

“I am trying not to have feelings about it at all,” I said. “And I’m succeeding pretty well.”

“Are you getting support from your friends? From Nora or Meghan?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t said anything.”

“Why not?”

“I’m sick of being Neurotic Ruby whose life is always in a crisis. I’m sick of self-loathing and self-pity. So I’m flushing it down,” I told her. “Crazy dad drooling Cheeto juice. Flush! Disappearing act by Mom. Flush! Dead Grandma. Flush! Noel with someone else. Flush! And then it’s like magic: no feelings!”

Doctor Z leaned forward. “I didn’t mean for you to pretend difficult situations don’t exist,” she said. “There are some things you can’t flush.”

Yeah, well.

“There’s a difference between letting something go,” Doctor Z continued, “releasing yourself of tension or a negative way of thinking—”

“You told me to flush and I flushed!” I protested.

“There’s a difference between stopping an obsessive thought pattern,” she said, “and denying your feelings or stuffing them down.”

Ag again. “You want me to do Reginald,” I said. “But I don’t want to do Reginald. I want to flush it all down and have a lobotomy.”

She smiled. “Those aren’t the same thing,” she said. “Flushing is setting yourself free of negativity, and the lobotomy is denial.”

“Fine.”

“Didn’t you use that word lobotomy about Noel?” Doctor Z asked.

“Probably.”

“Remind me what you said.”

“He was acting like he’d had one. I told him that and he got mad.”

Doctor Z nodded. “So what’s the similarity between Noel’s lobotomy and the lobotomy you want to have?”

I just didn’t want to feel the things I felt. I wanted to go out with Gideon and dream about college and just ignore the badness so completely that it wouldn’t affect me.

Oh.

Could that be what Noel was doing too?

Ignoring some badness so completely he was lobotomized?

“This isn’t making me happy,” he had said. “I came back from New York and I thought you would make me happy but I’m not happy.”

“But is that really a girlfriend’s job?” I asked Doctor Z, out of context. “To make someone happy who’s unhappy to start with?”

She just went with my change of subject. “What do you think?”

I shifted in my seat. “I think maybe it’s impossible to cheer people up when they’re really sad. I think they just have to be sad and all you can do is hang out with them because you love them.”

Doctor Z nodded.

“But then again,” I said, “if they’re drooling Cheeto drool out their mouths and watching daytime television for days and days on end, forgetting to shower, you may stop wanting to hang around them.”

Doctor Z leaned forward. “Are we talking about Noel or your father?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I honestly don’t know.”

Dad wasn’t there when I came home from therapy on the bus.

He didn’t come back at dinnertime—not that there was dinner, really, but I did order pizza.

I got worried around ten o’clock and called his cell.

It rang on his desk. He didn’t have it with him.

At one in the morning, when he still wasn’t home, I called Mom’s cell, but she didn’t pick up. I hadn’t talked to her in the ten days since she left, but I’d been too mad to call more than twice.

In the morning, I called her again. No answer.

So I called Meghan.

“You’re calling early,” she chirped.

“My dad’s gone missing,” I told her. “And he took the car.”

“What?”

As soon as I heard the concern in her voice, it all spilled out. How Mom left in a huff for an extended vacation. Dad drooling on the couch and sleeping on the floor, depression over Grandma Suzette and more depression over Mom leaving.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Meghan said.

“You were busy with Finn,” I said. “And I was trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“I’m coming over,” said Meghan.

When she saw the state of our houseboat, she cringed. Old pizza boxes, dog food spilled on the floor, empty cans of pop piled on top of the fridge. Kitchen sink stacked with dishes, garbage cans overflowing. “Denial isn’t working for you, sweetie,” she said. “I’m calling Nora and we’re going to clean this place up.”

“We have to find my dad first,” I said. “He might be dead.”

Meghan laughed. Until she realized I was serious. “Let’s check his e-mail.”

So we did. It was already downloaded and the program open on his computer. We didn’t have to enter a password or anything.

He had been reading his mail, apparently, despite appearances to the contrary. Nearly every message was open, and a few had reply marks next to them.

“There are notes from your mom here,” Meghan said.

“Really?” As far as I knew, Dad hadn’t heard from her since Halloween.

“Yeah.” Meghan opened the most recent one.

Kevin,

The coast is gorgeous.

Miss you.

I have an idea for a new show that Juana is helping me outline. It’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve been onstage, and I think that’s why I’ve been miserable.

You know I hate copyediting, and if I don’t perform anymore, my whole life will be copyediting when Ruby goes off to college. Do you see?

The women’s retreat has got me writing again.

Also, I bought a red negligee. I’ll show it to you when I get back.

Love,

Elaine

“Ag,” I said. “I did not need to read that last bit.”

“Your parents are so cute together,” Meghan said. “They’re in love.”

“They’re insane and neglectful,” I said.

“But in a cute way.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s on the seashore. She’s finding herself,” said Meghan. “She needed a break from him, but now she misses him.”

“At least they’re not getting divorced,” I said. “I thought they were probably getting divorced.”

“They’re not getting divorced if she wants to show him her red negligee.”

I shook my head to get the bad image out. “We need to find my dad,” I reminded Meghan.

“He’s probably not dead,” she said consolingly. “He’d stay alive for the negligee.”

We looked at the e-mails again. Lots of questions about container gardening, a note from Hutch about working again when he returned in December, more container gardening. Then there was one from Greg, Dad’s neurotic friend with the panic disorder, dated yesterday. He said he’d sprained his ankle in the shower and was in the “slough of despond.”