The Book - E Lockhart

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So.”

“It was good.”

“That’s cool.”

“It was like a fifties thing. A musical. But by John Waters, the guy who made Pecker and Hairspray. ”

“Oh, yeah. That guy. I think I know who he is.”

“With the skinny mustache.”

“What? Maybe I don’t know after all.”

Another silence.

Was he hurt that I didn’t call him at his dad’s? Or that I went to the movie without him?

I didn’t know how to bring it up, and even if I did, discussing feelings with a clear telephone Neanderthal like Angelo was out of the question.

And did I even want to be making out with a guy who didn’t know who John Waters was?

“Okay, then,” I said. “Well, thanks for calling me back. I gotta go.”

“Sure. Bye.”

We hung up.

A second later, the phone rang again. “Roo?” It was Angelo, calling back.

“Yeah?”

“Lemme give you my cell number. In case you want to call it. I mean, you don’t have to, but if you do—”

“Sure,” I said. “Let me get a pen.”

I got one, and I wrote it down. “Okay, now I have it.”

“Good,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Later, then.”

“Yeah.”

Nothing from Angelo.

“I gotta go,” I said.

“Okay. Bye.”

Somehow, the tips from The Boy Book hadn’t helped at all.

On Monday the gossip about Nora’s hooters seemed to have died down, and Noel told me he covered all the stuff on the bathroom wall with a thick black marker. Tuesday, though, I was sitting on the front steps of the main building, trying to finish The Scarlet Letter for Am Lit, when Jackson plopped down next to me.

“Hey there, Ruby Oliver,” he said.

“Hey there, Mr. Clarke.”

Why was he sitting next to me? Why was he even talking to me?

Did I want him to talk to me?

“So what’s new? I haven’t seen you. How was your summer?”

“I went traveling with my mom. She was on tour with a show.”

“Elaine.” He said it in a knowing voice. “Did she drive you out of your tree?”

I loved how he used phrases like that. “Out of your tree.” Phrases no one else ever used, like he got them from his grandpa. And I loved how he already knew all about my mom, and I didn’t have to explain.

“A fair amount,” I admitted. “But I got to see Big Sur and San Francisco and some other cool places.”

He was acting like we were friends. Like everything was normal.

Maybe he thought that acting normal would make everything normal. Maybe he figured I didn’t hold a grudge.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been holding a grudge.

Shouldn’t I have been over everything by then? If I was an individual possessed of decent mental health, wouldn’t I just feel relaxed when my ex-boyfriend came by to say hello?

Or would a person of decent mental health be in touch with her anger and say, “Jackson, I don’t think you’re a good person and I don’t want to pretend we’re friends after what happened,” and walk away?

If my mind had been functioning, I’d have either said that and never spoken to him again—or else I’d have had a calm, friendly conversation like no badness had ever happened.

But my mind doesn’t function. I have no idea how anyone would do either one of those things.

And instead of being relaxed or angry, I was happy. So, so happy that Jackson wasn’t being a pod-robot who didn’t even know I existed, because when he did that (as he had been doing ever since the school year started and even since he’d written me the notes), I felt completely erased. Like I had been this girl Ruby with pretty legs and a boyfriend, and now I was nothing—a space where a human being once was.

It had been even worse since the notes, actually, because it was like there was some tiny bit of Jackson that saw me and remembered, but most of him was a pod-robot. Because of the notes, I could never get used to it, the way I might have if he was consistent, and whenever the pod-robot passed me in the hallway and didn’t even glance at me, the erased feeling would flood over me again like it was new.

“I’ve been to San Francisco,” he said. “I’m thinking about applying to Berkeley.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “It’s supposed to be great.” I looked down at my legs. I was wearing fishnets, and felt perversely glad. I crossed one knee over the other and saw Jackson’s eyes glance down.

Kim Yamamoto has traveled all over the world and can sail and knows all about different kinds of food. She is richer and more glamorous than me, plus she has a flat stomach and no glasses.

Compared to her, I don’t have much to offer, besides nicer legs. But maybe I could be the wacky, unpredictable girl; the kind who always fascinates more conservative men in the movies. 1Maybe I could derail him from his straight-arrow path and make him fall madly in love with my quirky free spirit.

“Are you going to Kyle’s party Saturday?” Jackson asked.

This was the first I’d heard of it. And if I went to the party, it was sure to be a nightmare. But that is not what quirky free-spirit girl would be thinking about. “Maybe,” I lied. “I might have plans with my boyfriend.”

Jackson looked surprised. “You have a boyfriend? That’s great, Roo. That’s excellent.”

“He goes to Garfield,” I said. “His name is Angelo. I think maybe you saw him at the Spring Fling afterparty?”

“Oh,” said Jackson. “Yeah, maybe I did.”

“We’ve been seeing a good amount of each other,” I went on. Hating myself as I said it, but loving the look on Jackson’s face.

“Well,” said Jackson, getting to his feet. “Angelo’s a lucky man.”

“I don’t know why I lied,” I told Doctor Z on that afternoon.

She smiled in a condescending way. “You don’t?”

“Okay, I do.”

“Why did you?”

“I wanted to hurt his feelings.”

“And?”

“Because it almost seems like Jackson wanted me to be heartbroken and lovelorn, and now he thinks I’m not. So now he’s disappointed that I’m not carrying a torch for him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s always known in the back of his mind that he could be with me again if he wanted, and the part of him that’s not a pod-robot would like to keep that as an option. Going out with me, I mean. Like some part of him is holding on to this connection we used to have.”

“Because he wrote you those notes?”

“Yeah. Which shows he still likes me. But on the other hand, it seems like he wants me to be perfectly okay and happy without him, because that would mean he didn’t do anything wrong. So maybe by pretending I had a boyfriend, I was really telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.” I sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Are you saying you lied to make him more interested? Or you lied to put him at ease?”

“God,” I snapped. “It was one tiny lie. Not a huge deal.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m just trying to get at what’s behind it.”

“Like I told you, I lied to hurt his feelings.”

“Um-hum.”

“So, that’s what it is.”

Doctor Z put a piece of Nicorette gum in her mouth. “Ruby, we should talk over why you missed your session last Thursday.”

Doctor Z never changes the subject. She usually lets me drive the course of the conversation.

I shrugged. “I just didn’t feel like I needed to come.”

“You didn’t feel like you needed to come.”

“My friend Noel invited me for pizza. And I have practically no friends, so I really wanted to.”

“Um-hum.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Because it seems like you’re mad at me.”