E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t hear.”

“Come sit with us,” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to her table. I looked around for Jackson, Cricket, Kim and Nora and waved an “I can’t help it, she’s a madwoman” wave at them from across the room.

“Bick, this is my friend Ruby that I carpool,” Meghan said, sitting on Bick’s lap so I could have her seat. “You know, the one I always talk about.”

I smiled and nodded—but inside, I cringed.

“Hey,” Bick said. He flashed his smile at me, then leaned back into a discussion of some party Billy Alexander was having next week. Meghan whispered in my ear from her spot on his lap, pointing the seniors out like they were trophies she was proud of winning. “Debra, Billy, April, Molly, the Whipper, Steve.”

Of course, I already knew who all of them were.

For a second, I felt bad for Meghan. These people weren’t her friends. Not really. Except for Bick, I could see that they basically pretended she wasn’t there.

I wasn’t her friend either. Most of the time, I was annoyed that Meghan even existed. And here she was, dragging me over to meet her boyfriend, like the two of us were so close. Was I really “the one” she always talked about?

Carpool was different. I gave Meghan gas money every month, and she agreed to show up on time. It was a business relationship. We’d sing along to the radio and make up stupid lyrics, mostly. Sometimes we’d try on each other’s lip gloss or copy each other’s math homework. I’d bring these oatmeal cookies my dad used to make (before my mom went macrobiotic) and we’d eat them for breakfast.

I only knew about her shrink and her dead dad because she was very up-front about it and probably told everybody she knew. She’d bring it up at 8 a.m., while we were swinging through the Starbucks drive-thru window on our way to school—the same way she’d talk about her singing lessons or where Bick took her on Saturday night. She had never been over to my house or anything. 10

I choked down my salad as fast as I could. Meghan and Bick started tickling each other. A few of the senior girls rolled their eyes and stood up to leave. I took their cue and got up myself.

I hooked up with Kim and Nora on the quad, where I gave them a blow-by-blow of the whole weird lunch. We speculated about whether Meghan was still a virgin.

Two weeks later, not even Meghan was talking to me.

I took my raisin salad over to the table where Hutch sat listening to his headphones. We didn’t speak. I read my H&P homework while I ate.

1 Leper: Leprosy is a supercontagious disease that rots your body so badly that bits of you actually fall off. In the Tate Prep universe, a leper is someone with no friends.2 I know there are people who don’t have access to clean water and toothpaste and that my life is super privileged. Mr. Wallace talks a lot about poverty and the way it’s a cycle of problems that stop people from being able to get or keep high-paying jobs; they can’t clean up and dress up to get the job that they could do if they only had it—that kind of thing.

But this was not the case with John Hutchinson aka Hutch. He lives in a huge house in a gated community; I know, because it’s right near Jackson’s house, and I’d see him go by sometimes, his mom driving a Mercedes.

He was choosing to have dirty hair.3 For your edification, I related the Nora/Hutch conversation to my dad, and he explained it: Hutch was quoting a line from a 1980 song by a metal group called AC/DC. The scene of my dad singing this song (he knew all the lyrics) and playing air guitar is just too horrible to describe, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.4 That was so Hutch. His heavy-metal quote is not even heavy metal that other metal people are listening to, so there’s literally no one in his entire generation who could possibly have a clue. He’s into retro metal.5 More on that later. Right now, I just want to say again: Never throw anything away in a school garbage can that you want to keep secret. Never.6 Re: the lacrosse girls. The ones in my grade form kind of a sporty clique that I’ve never been part of. Maybe because I swim in the fall, and most of them play soccer. Or because I’m goalie, so I’m not out on the field with them. Or because (now) I’m a famous leper/slut. Anyway, they’re nice, but they’re serious; they’re on leadership committees and honor rolls. Not a lot of opposite-sex action is going on. They just don’t make me laugh, and I don’t make them laugh either.

They’re very team-spirity.7 Bick: His real name is Travis Schumacher. But have you ever seen the movie Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro? Scariest thing ever. De Niro plays a kind of sad, likable psychopath named Travis Bickle. If you ever hear people going, “You talkin’ to ME?” they’re imitating Taxi Driver. Anyway, Travis Schumacher… Travis Bickle … Bickle… Bick. There you go.8 Some more complaints against Meghan:

1. She’s always rubbing the back of her neck and moistening her lips with her tongue like she’s in a porn video (not that I’ve ever seen one). Whatever. It’s practically indecent, and very annoying, and boys seem to like it. At least, they stare at her when she does it, even if she’s only asking them about a homework assignment.

2. When people are sitting around in a hot tub (a very Seattle thing to do at parties), she’s always in a bikini. The rest of us wear T-shirts and boxers.

3. When we were reading Othello for Brit Lit, our teacher was trying to point out to us that it’s basically impossible to know anything for sure and certain, and asked if there was anything anyone in class felt we absolutely knew for sure. Meghan was the only one who raised her hand and this is what she said: “I know my boyfriend loves me.”9 I don’t think the senior girls like her much either. They eat lunch with her, but you never see her leaving with any of them, or sitting with any of them on the quad unless Bick is there too. After all, Meghan is a sophomore making time with the punk-rock-loving, rugby-playing, crew-rowing spiky-haired seniorness of Bick—and in a school as small as Tate, that seriously reduces the number of old-enough, hot-enough potential boyfriends for the senior girls.10 Except for one time, when her Jeep broke down just as she was dropping me off. She came in and called the tow truck. After that, she went into our bathroom, did whatever in there, came out and asked me, “Where’s your bathtub?”

She seemed almost freaked out when I told her we didn’t have one. Just the shower. I mean, it’s a houseboat. There’s not a lot of room—hello? Kim, Nora, Jackson and Cricket have been in my bathroom a million times and none of them ever said anything about it, and Meghan’s comment definitely gave me one of those moments that I have every now and again at Tate, where I think: I am not the same as these rich people.