The Book - E Lockhart

Dear Kaptain Kangaroo,

My friend’s boyfriend is annoying and I wish she’d break up with him. What should I do?

Answer: Suck it up, baby. All guys are annoying sometimes. Even most of the time. Unless you’re going out with them.

Dear Kaptain Kangaroo,

What if he’s mean to her?

Answer: Different situation. If he puts her down, makes her do sex things she doesn’t like, or does any of those horrors you read about in magazines, you’re entitled to tell your friend he sucks.

Dear Kaptain,

But what if he’s not tangibly mean, he just makes her feel terrible with all kinds of manipulative weirdness?

Answer: Are you talking about the whole Valentine’s Day thing?

Nora: And the cupcakes and how he talked to Heidi all night at Kyle’s party in December and a million other small horrors.

Cricket: Like how he blew her off for that basketball game and then made her feel guilty for being mad.

Nora: Exactly.

Cricket: I know. It sucks so much. The Kaptain has no answer. You’ve really stumped her this time.

They were writing about me and Jackson, of course.

But I had never had any clue they thought that about the stuff that had been going on. I’d always thought they liked Jackson, and considered me lucky to have him.

And now it turned out they thought he treated me badly.

And I knew it was true. But it was different to see it written down by people on the outside.

Part of me went right into Jackson-girlfriend mode, even though I hadn’t been his girlfriend for almost half a year, thinking: They don’t know him. They don’t know how he is when he’s alone with me. How it is when we kiss. What it’s like when we hang out at his house, the way he writes me all those funny notes, the way he laughs at my jokes.

And another part of me was thinking:

I am better off without him.

I am better off without him.

I am really, truly better off without him.

Which I had never thought before.

Saturday morning at dawn, we all had to meet at a ferry dock two hours north in Anacortes, where a charter boat was taking us to Canoe Island. My dad drove me. My hands were shaking so badly whenever I thought of seeing Kim again that I started to wish I had some of the pills Doctor Acorn had been so cranked about.

As we drove, I tried to do a therapy assignment Doctor Z had given me awhile back, which was to acknowledge to myself precisely what I feared, rather than letting it be vague.

Ruby’s List of Canoe Island Paranoias:

1. Kim will repeat her version of the Spring Fling debacle to anyone and everyone who doesn’t already know it, and any small bit of the Canoe Island contingency who were friendly to me will turn cold and mean.

2. Once Kim has reminded the boys what a slut I supposedly am, they will harass me and the whole trip will be one long siege of dick photography–type jokes. 3

3. Kim will haze me in some way, like pouring soup on my sleeping bag, throwing out my swimsuit or putting garbage in my duffel bag.

4. Kim and I will get in some completely embarrassing public argument.

5. Kim will make Nora stop talking to me.

6. And Noel, too.

As my dad sped the Honda along the freeway, I massaged my own hands (a therapy relaxation technique) and reminded myself:

Kim is not the devil. She’s a person.

A person you used to love.

Her whole agenda in life is not to torture you. She probably never even thinks about you.

And please. She’s not going to pour soup on your sleeping bag. This is eleventh grade.

You survived May and June sophomore year and the world didn’t come to an end. The two of you saw each other every day in school. So much time has passed since then that seeing her shouldn’t be any big thing.

So why are you freaking out?

Dear Kaptain,

I am guilty. Because of Jackson and the notes and the hiking up my skirt to show off my legs.

And I know he’s stepping out on her.

And Kaptain, in June of sophomore year I had nothing left to lose.

But now I have Nora and Noel. If they ditch me, all I’ll have is Meghan.

Answer: What’s done is done (with Jackson). What you know about the stepping out is none of your business anyway. And if Noel and Nora are really your friends, you won’t lose them. And if you lose them, then you don’t want that kind of friend anyway.

But Kaptain…

Answer: What now?

Kaptain, I’m just getting more and more freaked out the more I think of all this stuff.

Answer: You’re being completely irrational.

Me: It’s how I feel.

The Kaptain in my head didn’t reply.

I breathed as deeply as I could and watched the buildings fly by outside the car window.

When we arrived, Kim wasn’t there yet. The ferry dock was bustling. The air was damp, and seagulls were wandering around looking for snacks. Kids were saying goodbye to their parents, sleeping bags and suitcases piled around them.

Here’s who was there:

Varsha and Spencer from swim team, plus Spencer’s boyfriend (Imari, captain of the boys’ team),

Nora and Noel,

three senior boys who were very studious and hung around together all the time (Kieran, Mason and Grady),

two quiet senior girls I’d never talked to (Mei and Sierra),

Courtney, a senior who used to go out with Jackson when they were ninth graders, and two of her friends (who were basically interchangeable), a posse of giggling sophomores,

Mrs. Glass,

Mr. Wallace and Hutch. 4

Ag, Hutch!

He had never told me he was going.

Except Varsha, Wallace, Imari and Mei, everyone was white. Except for Hutch and Noel, everyone was wholesome. They were all wearing jeans and plaid jackets or chambray shirts—typical Tate outdoor activity clothes. They looked like they’d stepped out of some Northwest outerwear catalog. Even Noel had on a dark blue chambray, and Hutch was wearing new-looking hiking boots, though it’s true he sported his usual Iron Maiden biker jacket.

I was wearing a vintage skirt and a beaded sweater, with fishnet stockings and combat boots.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

My dad helped me unload my duffel, plus a sleeping bag we borrowed from a friend of his. I was supernervous and shivering, so I rooted around and found my jacket.

Nora came over (she’s always great with parents) and said, “Hi, Mr. Oliver,” and Noel said hello too. It was the first time he’d met my dad. Hutch held back, but Kevin Oliver was so cranked he leaped over a pile of suitcases and squeezed his shoulders.

“John!” he bellowed. “You’re doing this Canoe Island, then?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought for sure you’d do the greening project at the public school.”

Hutch shrugged. “I wanted to go somewhere.”

My dad nodded knowingly. “Anything to get out of the house at your age. I remember those days.”

“Something like that.”

“Well. Have fun canoeing.”

“We’re not canoeing, Dad,” I reminded him. “We’re reading philosophy.”

“Same difference,” my dad said, laughing loudly at his lame joke. “Okay. I’m gonna motor. Rock on, John! Keep an eye on Ruby for me!”

“Sure, man,” said Hutch, looking at the ground with a smile snaking across his lips.

Having thoroughly humiliated me by making heavy metal devil-horn hand signals at Hutch while the other fathers patted their kids on the back and shook hands with each other, my dad hugged me goodbye, told me he loved me and hoped I would bond productively with my peer group, and left—right as the Yamamotos’ Mercedes pulled up to the dock.