E. Lockhart - Real Live Boyfriends

I called Greg, even though it was eight a.m. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hi. Um. Sorry to call so early. It’s Ruby, Kevin’s daughter.”

“Hello, Ruby.”

“Dad never came home last night and I’m wondering if maybe he came to visit you?”

“He’s passed out on the couch,” said Greg.

Meghan and I drove to Greg’s place. We banged on the door for ten minutes before I heard Greg shuffling behind it. “Who’s there?” he said. He’s so messed up with the panic attacks he’s afraid to open the door.

“It’s Ruby!” I called.

Greg’s voice was defensive. “I don’t receive until after noon.”

“I know you’re up. I just talked to you on the phone,” I told him.

Greg cracked the door, then walked back into the apartment without greeting us. Meghan and I followed him. He was limping.

There were stacks and stacks of old newspapers and magazines lining the walls, and huge windows filled with plants. The desk was buried under old food cartons and paper, but out of it surged a large computer monitor Greg used for writing software. In one corner was an enormous flat-screen TV. In another was a Habitrail filled with wood chips and gerbils.

“This is my friend Meghan,” I told Greg.

He flinched but held out his hand to her.

Dad was asleep in his boxer shorts on Greg’s hairy brown couch. Greg shook him awake.

“Hey, Ruby,” Dad said, groggy.

“Are you okay?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m fine. It just got late, so I crashed.” He sat up and pulled an afghan over his lap.

“You’re really okay?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Then I am so mad at you, Dad!” I yelled. “How could you not call? Or leave a note, or anything? I was all alone in the house! I couldn’t reach Mom. I had no idea what had happened to you! I thought you jumped off a bridge!”

“I know, I know,” he said.

“You don’t know,” I grouched. “You don’t know I thought you jumped off a bridge. You don’t know I called Mom.”

He shook his head. “I would never jump off a bridge.”

“How am I supposed to know that when you lie on the floor all the time drooling Cheeto juice like a complete madman?”

Dad smiled. “Wow, you paint a pretty picture.”

“Seriously!”

Dad stood up and put on his pants, looking infuriatingly cheerful and not all that apologetic. “I know I was wrong not to call, Ruby,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Three little words.”

“What words?”

“ Guitar. Hero. Metallica. ” Dad pointed at the Wii on the coffee table. “We stayed up till four in the morning.”

“Let me make sure I understand,” I said flatly. “I thought you were dead and you were having Dude Time playing Guitar Hero.”

“He kicked my butt,” Greg chirped. “But he made up for it by running out for Chinese and an Ace bandage. I messed my ankle up the other day,” he explained.

“Doesn’t he know he has a kid?” I barked at Greg. “Doesn’t he know I’ve been worrying about him all night? What kind of father forgets to come home?”

“The game really cheered him up,” Greg explained. “I bought it for him back in September, but I never had a chance to give it to him.”

“I was processing a lot after my mom died,” Dad said to Meghan by way of explanation. “I didn’t return his calls.”

“He’s been depressed to the point of neglecting personal hygiene,” I said to Greg.

Dad ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I guess I was,” he said. As if it were far in the past. As if he hadn’t been lying on the floor yesterday . “Then Greg hurt his ankle, so, you know, I had to get up.”

“Your wife leaving you isn’t enough to get you up?” I said.

“She didn’t leave me. She took a break to go to Oregon with Juana.”

“That’s leaving.”

He shook his head. “That’s marriage. It’s complicated.”

“She acted like she was leaving. She hasn’t called.”

“Well, she left in a huff. But you know your mother. She loves to get into a huff over things.”

That was true.

“I know it’s hard to understand,” Dad continued patronizingly, “but Mom felt helpless and disempowered.”

“You know Elaine hates being disempowered,” laughed Greg.

My dad continued: “She was fighting with you all the time, fighting with me; the stress was too much for her, so she took a break. I thought you understood that.”

“No.”

“You acted so chipper, going out with your new boyfriend and everything. I thought for once I didn’t have to worry about you.”

“It’s called denial, Dad!” I yelled. “It’s not exactly healthy!”

Dad stood up. “Greg,” he said. “I’m sorry to bring an argument into your place. It’s not good repayment for the rockin’ evening of Metallica.”

“That’s all right,” said Greg.

“Meghan and I have to get to school,” I said. “Dad, will you be home for dinner tonight? I’m ordering it at seven and you’re in charge of dessert.”

“Yes, Ruby,” he said resignedly. “I’ll be home.”

Getting behind the wheel of her Jeep, Meghan sighed. “That poor Greg,” she said. “He really never leaves the house?”

“That’s totally what I’ll be like if I can’t head-shrink myself into some kind of mental stability,” I said.

“A shut-in with a Habitrail?” Meghan crinkled her nose. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, just you wait. I’ll have, like Great Danes and pygmy goats and maybe even a baby panda living with me. That’s what panic does to people if the attacks get bad enough.”

“You would never have a paisley bathrobe, though.”

“Seriously. Sometimes I don’t want to go places because I’m scared I’ll panic.”

“Like where?”

“Like school. Like CAP Workshop.”

“But you go to school.”

“Yeah, and I go to the stupid workshop, but my point is: I almost don’t. I can completely see how Greg got to be shut in like he is. I look at him and see my future sometimes.”

“Roo.”

“What? I’m being honest.”

“When was the last time you had a panic thing?” Meghan asked. “ ’Cause I haven’t seen or heard you talk about one since, like, the start of the summer.”

“I have them—” I was about to say I had them all the time. But she was right.

I hadn’t had one.

Not when Noel and I fought.

Not when he fell down the stairs.

Not when he ignored me at school.

Or kissed that girl.

Not when Dad lay on the floor. And Mom left.

I had not panicked.

Sometimes I had to sing retro metal in my head and breathe deep, or take off my glasses and be semi-blind, or cut class and take a shower—but I hadn’t had a panic thing in a very long time.

Shocking Disclosure in the Zoological Gardens!

Dear Robespierre,

Happy Thanksgiving.

I wonder if goats feel neurotic on holidays, like people do. When I was little, Thanksgiving and Christmas were just parties and pretty dresses and desserts. Then last year, I realized what a drunk Uncle Hanson is, and how stressed Dad and Grandma Suzette were. Suddenly, it wasn’t a party. It was an ordeal.

This year, I’m worried Dad will melt down again and start talking about his dead mother, just when he’s started to get up in the mornings and work on his newsletter. Also Uncle Hanson will be there and no Grandma Suzette to make jokes and encourage him to act normal. Plus Mom is making a turducken 1, and there’s nothing like a big meat-eating holiday to make her mad that I don’t eat what she cooks. So it’ll be a miracle if we make it through Thanksgiving without a descent into seriously bad family dynamics.