E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

It was one of the first warm days of spring, and Angelo was out on Juana’s front lawn throwing sticks for seven dogs at once. He had this system of three sticks in rotation, so he was throwing constantly. The dogs were going berserk. He was taller than the last time I saw him, and he’d let his hair grow out, so you could see the curls. He was wearing an oversize football jersey and baggy jeans. “Ruby’s suffering from a broken heart,” my mother announced. “Her boyfriend dumped her. Angelo, you cheer her up. Roo—help him throw the sticks.”

“Elaine!” snapped my dad. “When will you learn to give the girl some privacy?”

“People shouldn’t have secrets,” my mom said. “Besides, he probably already knows. I told Juana everything on the phone.”

“Elaine!”

“What?” My mother put her hand on her chest as if to proclaim innocence. “She’s my oldest friend!”

“Hey, Roo,” said Angelo. “I’ve got a system going on. Check it out.”

“See?” said my mom. “He wants her to help him. Go on, Roo. We’ll see you inside.”

They went up the steps, my dad muttering at my mother in a low voice.

Angelo and I threw sticks for a while. My hands got covered with dog slime. We didn’t say much, but he did show me how the little mutt named Skipperdee would never drop a stick unless you picked her up and squeezed her. Whenever she brought one back he’d scoop her up with his left hand and squeeze her under his arm while throwing another stick with his right to get the other dogs out of the way; she’d drop the stick, he’d pick it up with his right, put her down with his left, throw the stick and she’d be off again. Also, he had a system of throwing two sticks at the same time, so that the smaller dogs would have a chance against the Labradors, who went for it hardcore.

After a while we went in for dinner. My dad and I ate until our stomachs were sticking way far out, because Juana is a great cook and we’d been eating the macrobiotic-sludge-and-breakfast-cereal diet for weeks. 6My mother ate a lot, too, bare-faced acting as if fried plantains, spiced shrimp (which I didn’t eat), vegetable jambalaya and ice cream with sugared pecans were all part of her normal regime.

“Roo doesn’t have a date for the big dance Saturday night,” my mother said, as we were all eating dessert on Juana’s porch while the dogs roamed around peeing on the grass. “It’s on a boat. And she has the most beautiful dress. But no date.”

“Mom!” I wanted to die.

“Angelo could take her,” Juana said, picking up my mother’s cue. “He’s not doing anything Saturday.”

“Mom!” (This, from Angelo.)

“What, honey?” said Juana. “You could take Ruby to her dance. She went with you to homecoming last year. I bet it would be fun.”

I looked at Angelo, sure he was thinking what a nightmare it would be to be trapped on a boat with a bunch of prep school kids he didn’t even know. “Sure,” he said, smiling. “Sounds good.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks.”

“I should wear a suit, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Okay. What time?”

“Eight-thirty. The boat leaves at nine.”

“No, no, Roo,” interrupted my mother. “You two should go to dinner first. It’s Roo’s treat.”

Angelo laughed and gave me a look, like “Ag! Our moms are such freaks.” But he said “All right”—and would I like to get Italian, because he’d heard of a good place?

“I’ll loan you two the station wagon,” said Juana.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” said Angelo.

So: I had a date for the Spring Fling, even though I got it in the most embarrassing possible way.

I felt a tiny bit more cheerful all day Wednesday.

Until Kim called Wednesday night with the news about her and Jackson.

From then on, my head felt clogged, like I had a cold, and my chest felt hard and hollow inside. I was in a daze. Literally, everything looked blurry, and my throat was so closed up I could barely talk. Fortunately, Nora and Cricket were still friends with me then, so at lunch both days I got Nora (who had her license) to drive me off-campus for French fries, so I wouldn’t have to sit with Kim, or see Jackson in the refectory.

Cricket and Nora basically took the attitude that everything would settle down once I got over the shock. Nora made me some cupcakes and put her arm around me a lot. She framed a photo she had taken of her and me at a lacrosse game. Cricket talked loudly about other subjects and cut cartoons out of the New Yorker and put them in my mail cubby. They were happy for Kim, and sorry for me, and they figured I’d be too shattered to deal for a week or two—and then we’d all go back to normal.

But I couldn’t even look at Kim, I felt so betrayed. I avoided her even though it meant changing my seat in almost all my classes. More and more every hour, I stopped feeling the sadness I was supposedly going to get over—and started feeling angry. Even though she had been “nice” about the whole thing, and told me herself on the phone, and never kissed him until he had dumped me—I just didn’t think she had been nice at all, really. I thought she was a conniving, lying, man-stealing bitch, and I hoped she would fall in a volcano and die a horrible lava death. 7

But I kept my mouth shut and tried to retain what little dignity I had left.

The Friday afternoon before the dance, I came out of lacrosse practice and there was no one to drive me home. Jackson had picked me up every week before, and I was in such a tangle of misery I hadn’t even thought to ask anyone in the locker room for a ride. I was the last one to leave, and I went outside and realized I was the only one still there.

I called home from the pay phone. My dad said he’d come pick me up, but it’s a forty-minute drive at rush hour, so I sat down on my backpack and tried to do my French homework as the sky grew darker. I wrote about four sentences before I started to cry.

I just sat there, tears going down my cheeks, not even covering my face.

Then Jackson’s Dodge pulled up in front of the gym. I felt like an idiot, crying there all by myself—although I have to admit, a tiny part of me thought maybe he’d be deeply moved by how shattered I was and realize I was the girl for him after all. I looked down at my French notebook and tried to get my breathing still. Jackson stopped the car, got out and leaned against the hood.

“Hey, Roo, I was hoping to catch you,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you have a ride? I can take you home, if you want.”

“My dad’s coming. He’s running late.”

“How you doing?”

“Pretty good,” I lied.

“Can we talk?” He sat down next to me, leaning his back against the red brick of the gymnasium.

“Sure. What about?”

“I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you around all week.” 8

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what Nora says.”

“Let me speak for myself, okay?”

“And Kim is shattered you won’t talk to her.”

“Poor baby.” My voice was bitter.

“Roo, don’t get mean. I’m checking to make sure you’re okay. I really care about you.”

“Right.”

“You do know that, don’t you? I hope you’re okay with all of this.”

“And if I’m not okay, what are you gonna do about it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We were pretty close. It’s hard on me to see you like this.”

“Poor you.”

“Listen, we can still go to the Spring Fling, if you want. I’d like that, actually. Can we go to the dance?”

“You aren’t going with Kim?”

“She has to go out of town with her family. She left this afternoon.”