E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

But after the weirdness of that one interaction died down, it was actually okay having Meghan over. We watched some goofy stuff on after-school TV until her mom picked her up.

4. Gideon (but it was just from afar.)

Gideon Van Deusen is Nora’s older brother. He graduated already and took a year off, driving around the country visiting unusual places like the world’s only corn palace and the museum of surgical science. Then he’s going to Evergreen, deferred admission.

I liked him starting in sixth grade, when he was in ninth. He had intense eyes. It began when I was over at Nora’s house playing video games. Gideon must not have had anything better to do, because he was hanging around with us. He told a funny story about how the week before, his youth group leader from church brought in two loaves of banana bread for everyone to eat. One loaf was nice-fluffy and sweet; the other was all sunk in and weighed like a pound. The leader said the second one had been made with the exact same ingredients as the first—only they were put together in the wrong order. He told the kids that the wrong order made the whole banana bread taste gross, and it was the same thing with sex. If you had sex before marriage, you had done it in the wrong order. And you would turn out gross. But if you did everything in the right order, meaning not having sex until your wedding night, you came out wonderful, fluffy and sweet. Angel material. So all the boys and girls should save themselves for marriage.

I thought this story was exotic because (1) my family doesn’t go to church, and before Gideon told this story I hadn’t even realized that Nora’s family did, and (2) when Nora went into the kitchen to get us all some pop, Gideon told me that he liked the gross, heavy banana bread better.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you have to think for yourself,” he said. “You can’t believe everything people tell you.”

“But did it really taste better?” I wanted to know.

“Not really,” he said. “Politically.”

“Okay, but did it at least taste kind of good? Or were you faking?”

“That’s not the point, Roo. You know that.” He said it like he had confidence in my understanding.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I know.”

It was then that I decided that Gideon was fascinating, and wrote “Ruby loves GVD” on the bottom of my sneaker that same night. I started tracing over it with a purple Magic Marker, whenever I was bored in class. Within a week, it had become this nice lettering that looked like calligraphy.

Then one day, I put my feet up on the chair in front of me during assembly. 1Nora saw the sole of my shoe. “You mean GVD, Gideon, my brother?” she cried.

I blushed.

“Ag! I can’t believe you like my brother!”

“She loves him,” squealed Kim, grabbing my foot and turning it so she could see. “That’s what she wrote.”

“Don’t angst, I swear I won’t tell,” promised Nora.

“I won’t tell either,” added Kim. 2

“But since when do you like him?”

“No, since when does she love him?”

“He’s a nice guy.” I yanked my foot away.

“Nice doesn’t make you love someone,” said Kim.

“Ugh,” said Nora. “He’s gross.”

“He’s different,” I said. “He wants to be a musician.” 3

“You think he’s cute?” asked Nora, wrinkling her nose in disbelief.

Of course I did. He was—and is—incredibly cute in a messy, rebellious way. “Not really,” I said.

“His eyebrows grow together.”

I loved his eyebrows. I still love his eyebrows. “It’s more his personality,” I said, feeling stupid.

“And he never cleans his room. There’s mold growing around up there.”

He was unusual, I wanted to say. He had better things to do than be tidy. “Don’t tell!” I begged.

Nora shook her head like I had revealed an interest in bug collecting, rather than her brother. “I said I wouldn’t.”

But of course she did. Or at least, she hinted. That very afternoon, as I was heading across the quad to the library, Gideon caught up to me. “Roo, I hear there’s something on your shoe that I should see,” he said.

“What?”

“On your shoe.”

“There isn’t anything.”

“I think there is.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Come on, let me see it.”

“No!”

“Please?”

“It’s nothing, leave me alone.”

He tackled me, laughing, and I fell onto the grass, squealing, completely embarrassed, oh, the horror, having never told a boy I liked him, ever in my life, smelling his Coca-Cola smell, laughing and almost crying and worrying that he would notice I didn’t have any boobs yet and that my sneaker was stinky.

As soon as he saw what was written on the bottom of my shoe, though, Gideon’s face changed. I don’t think he knew what it would say, just that it would be something about him. And here is the reason that I still like Gideon Van Deusen, with his lovely hairy eyebrows: He didn’t laugh, or tease me, or tell me to get away. He sat up very seriously, and said, “Roo, that’s so sweet. I’m flattered.”

“It’s only a doodle,” I said, looking down at the grass.

“No, it’s nice. I’d much rather it was you writing about me on your shoe than that annoying Katarina.”

“Really?” Katarina was considered adorable by almost everyone.

“Sure,” he said. “Write on your shoe all you want. Write a whole book. Fine by me: I’d be famous!”

He slung his backpack over one shoulder, and was gone.

I didn’t speak to Nora for a week. 4Then she said she was sorry, and I got over it.

Nothing else ever happened between Gideon and me.

I’d see him at the Van Deusens’ house. My heart would thump.

He’d say, “Hi, Roo,” and be too busy to ever say much else.

But I still think about Gideon. I wonder if he was lonesome driving across the country on his own. I think of him playing guitar out on a wide prairie by a campfire, or learning to surf off the coast of Big Sur. I asked Doctor Z if it was psychologically questionable to like a boy three years older who will never, ever like you back. 5Or to still think about a boy who has never even touched you, except for that tackle on the grass.

“It’s normal to have fantasies, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Doctor Z.

“It doesn’t feel normal,” I said. “I thought about him even with Jackson.”

“When you and Jackson were out together?”

“No. When I was alone.”

“What did you think?”

“Just what it would be like, if he liked me.”

“What would it be like?”

“Like everything was easy,” I said, after a minute. “Like everything was simple.”

“Life isn’t simple, Ruby.”

“But it would be,” I said, “if I…” I found I didn’t know what to say.

“Did it feel simple with Jackson? When you first liked each other?”

“For about a month,” I said. “Then it got complicated.”

“A month isn’t very long.”

“I know,” I said. “But it was a good month.”

Jackson Clarke put a tiny dead frog in my mail cubby near the end of eighth grade. I knew it was him because Cricket saw him walking away with a small, dripping Ziploc bag. We couldn’t figure out if the frog was meant to be mean (and if so, why would he single me out?)—or if he had a crush on me, and this was his idea of a gift (maybe he was a science dork?).