The Book - E Lockhart

Half the time, the person wasn’t there.

A fatally thin woman came in and folded herself into a corner seat. The sleeping man woke up and wandered out of the room even though no one had called his name.

“Maybe we should just go,” I whispered at 4:25. “I don’t like it here.”

“Not happening, Ruby.”

“Please, Mom. I’ve been okay for a long time.”

“You’re judging this place on appearances,” my mother snapped. “Besides, I already paid my copayment.”

“But—”

“You never have an open mind. Is it too much for me to ask you to keep an open mind?”

I slumped back down in my seat.

We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At 5:10, my mother stood up. “Come on, Roo. We’re going.”

“What?”

“This is disgusting,” she announced, in a typical Elaine Oliver reversal-of-policy-when-it-suits-her. “The treatment here is disrespectful and we’re wasting our time.”

I grabbed my backpack.

TWO. A week later, went to see the shrink my dad’s friend Greg uses.

Doctor Acorn, or Steven, as I was supposed to call him, was thin and dry. After talking to me and my mother for forty-five minutes, and listening to her tell him that I was antisocial and didn’t seem to have friends anymore and never went anywhere and had panic attacks, he recommended that I start on Prozac and Ativan. 2

“But I haven’t had a panic thing in months,” I said.

“That’s how we want to keep it,” he said. “Am I sensing some resistance here?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a good idea to get the baseline chemistry taken care of, then follow that up with the talk therapy.”

“But I’m not antisocial,” I said, turning to Mom. “I slept over at Meghan’s house three nights ago.”

“Compared to what she was before, she’s antisocial,” my mom said to Doctor Acorn. “Plus, there may be some sexual issues she wants to discuss with you. Right, Roo?”

“Mom!”

“Roo, you can be open with Steven. He’s heard it all before.”

There was no way I was going to tell Doctor Acorn about my scamming with Angelo—or anything else that was going on in my life. He was like a dried-up slice of apple, without any juice left inside, and he didn’t seem like he was listening to me so much as telling me what he thought was wrong with me.

I laid it out for my mother as soon as we left. No Doctor Acorn. No way.

“What are we going to do?” she moaned, with her head in her hands, sitting at the dinner table later that night.

“Stop making me see a shrink,” I yelled from my place on the couch.

“But it’s good for you,” my mother said.

“Mom. Vegetables are good for me. Sports activities. My job at the zoo is even good for me. But waiting for more than an hour with a bunch of madmen is not, and neither is taking drugs for problems I’m not even having.”

“Wasn’t Doctor Z good for you?” my father asked.

I didn’t answer him.

THREE. Meghan called Bick on his cell and a girl answered.

“Um, this is Meghan, is Bick around?”

And the girl said, “Oh, yeah, Meghan! I’ve heard all about you. I’m Bick’s friend Cecily.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hiya. Didn’t he tell you about me?”

“No.”

“The one from Maine, the one with the convertible?”

“Um, I don’t think so.”

“Bick went to get a drink—guys, do you know where Bick went?—and he left his cell on the table so I answered it. Oh my god, Holmes, you are so dead! Stop it! Oh my god, do you really go to Harvard?” Cecily was laughing, talking to some people around her, hardly even remembering she was on the phone.

Meghan hung up.

Bick didn’t call her back until the next day.

FOUR. Noel, Meghan, Nora and I were supposed to go to the movies on a Saturday night. But Meghan’s mom decided she had to stay home for dinner all of a sudden, and Nora’s brother, Gideon, surprised her family by driving down from Evergreen State College, an hour or two away, so Nora wanted to stay and see him.

I picked up Noel in the Honda. His mom wouldn’t let him drive the Vespa at night. His house was a big Victorian-style place in Madrona, and when I went inside, Mr. and Mrs. DuBoise (his mom and stepdad that he’s had for like fourteen years) were in the middle of a ginormous collaborative cooking project. The dining table was covered with vegetables chopped into tiny pieces, and Mrs. DuBoise had three open cookbooks stacked one on top of the other.

A couple of smaller DuBoises were running underfoot. Everything smelled like frying onions.

“We’re glad to meet you, Ruby.” The stepdad had a booming voice and was yelling over water running in the kitchen sink. “We’ve heard all about you.”

“I was hoping my reputation hadn’t preceded me,” I said—which sounded like a joke, but which I really meant, given the suckiness of my reputation.

“Ha, ha!” the stepdad boomed. “All good, all good, I promise.”

“Noel will be down in a minute,” his mother said, wiping her hands on her apron. “He’s doing something with hair gel.” 3

“No problem.”

“Do you want a pop?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

“What movie are you seeing?”

“Singin’ in the Rain,” I answered. “At that retro film place in the U District. They’re doing an all-musical weekend, and my mom said this was the one to see.”

“You must be some girl, Ruby,” laughed his mom, “if Noel is willing to go see a musical with you.” 4

“He made fun of us last week for renting The Sound of Music, ” added his stepdad. “He doesn’t even like My Fair Lady. I mean, what’s not to love about My Fair Lady ?”

“You mean, besides the fact that it’s completely sexist?” I asked.

“What?”

“It is. The man molds the woman into his ideal mate, changes everything about her—and she loves him for it. It completely bothers me. Shouldn’t he like her for who she is? Because by the time he realizes he loves her, he’s loving this shell of a person who has no sense of self.”

Mrs. DuBoise laughed. “I can see why Noel likes you,” she said. “I bet you give him a run for his money.”

“Excuse them,” said Noel, coming into the kitchen. “They’ve only just been let out of their cages.”

“I’m sure we totally embarrassed you, honey,” said his mother, blowing him a kiss. “Just thank your stars you weren’t here to suffer through most of it.”

“I suffered through enough,” said Noel.

“Back by eleven!” boomed the stepdad as we went out the door.

“Don’t forget your puffer!” yelled his mom.

We got in the Honda.

It had been an awful lot like picking him up for a date.

Singin’ in the Rain was most excellent if you like movies where people burst into song and tap-dance. Which I do, though not as much as I like movies where people don’t.

Afterward, we walked down one side of the Ave, which was filled with busy restaurants and boisterous college students, then back up the other side. There was a slight drizzle, like there usually is in Seattle, and the streets looked shiny in the lamplight.

When I asked, Noel talked about his asthma. He got a little touchy about it, though. Not like he was mad at me for asking, but like the whole thing just made him so angry that he hated to even have it mentioned.

To me it sounded like an annoying medical thing and not much else, but to Noel it was a box that he’d been shoved into. He was always trying to figure out how to push his way out.

He said that if his parents had their way he’d never go away for November Week, and he had to fight with them about it every year. How when he’d gone to New York City they’d given his brother Claude strict instructions about exactly when he should be taking his meds, as if they didn’t trust him to do it himself. How they were always yelling out the door that he bring his puffer or pop his anti-inflammatories.