E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

I’m sure he meant well, but I wanted to call Kim a megaslut right back and not think about it anymore.

I let three easy shots in when we played Nightingale Girls’ School (I play goalie), and the whole lacrosse team was annoyed with me. And then after the game, I agreed to go to the movies with Cabbie, this rugby player I barely know who randomly showed up to watch girls’ lacrosse—and who probably only asked me out because he’s heard I’m a slut, thanks to Mr. Wallace’s epic discussion of that word, its historical context and its linguistic precursors, which had been the sole topic in the refectory and on the quad for the rest of the school day.

I don’t know why I said yes. I didn’t want to go out with him, really.

But I didn’t want to stay home on Friday night, either.

I thought I was putting on a pretty good face at dinner that night with my parents. Just sitting there, pushing my brown rice around the plate like usual. But then I had the fifth panic attack, right there at the dinner table, and that was when my mom decided I was surely becoming anorexic, my father was certain I was suicidal and my mother made Meghan’s mom come over and then called Juana and then called Doctor Z. 9

I started therapy the next day, finished writing the first draft of the Boyfriend List Friday morning—and then threw it in the trash at school like the mental patient that I am.

Monday morning, I got to school late because I took the bus (Meghan hadn’t shown up since the Spring Fling party) and found a Xerox in my mail cubby. It was a grayed-out copy of the pretty, cream-colored stationery my grandmother bought me, with Ruby Denise Oliver across the top. The paper had been crumpled and then pressed flat again on the glass of a photocopier.

It was my first draft of the boyfriend list for Doctor Z, out of order, with arrows drawn all over, names crossed out, names squeezed in, some silly doodles.

I looked at the wall of mail cubbies. The same Xerox was still sticking out of about ten mailboxes in the sophomore section, and a few more in the junior and senior sections—but it was clear that most people had already picked up their mail. I grabbed the few that were left and stuffed them in my backpack. And then yet again, my heart started hammering and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Was I going to die of a heart attack out of sheer humiliation? I stumbled over to the girls’ bathroom and sat down on the floor, wheezing and staring at the list. Horror.

Who had done this? Why?

Finn. Hutch. Gideon. Chase. Shiv. Jackson. Noel. Cabbie. All of them were Tate boys, though Chase and Gideon were long gone. Then Adam. Ben. Tommy. Sky. Michael. Angelo. Billy. No one would know who they were.

Except there was an Adam Bishop who took Painting Elective. And Ben Ambromowitz was a sophomore I knew from swimming. And Tommy Parrish had gone out with Cricket in ninth grade. Sky Whipple (the Whipper) was captain of the crew team. Michael Sherwood was in my Geometry class. Chase Hilgendorf was a cute freshman lots of girls had their eyes on. And Billy Alexander was a senior friend of Bick’s—or there was Billy Krespin, my Bio/Sex Ed lab partner.

Except for Angelo and Gideon, every single one of these names looked like the name of a boy who currently went to Tate.

What would people think?

That it was a list of boys I planned to sink my slutty claws into.

That it was a list of boys I already had sunk my slutty claws into.

That by putting the boys in order, I was somehow rating them. How good-looking they were; how good they were at kissing; how good they were in bed.

Whatever the interpretation, the list made it seem like I was basically a man-eater, chewing my way through Tate’s hunky population without so much as a batted eye for the poor, vulnerable girlfriends whose hearts were breaking right and left.

Anyone could have pulled the list out of the trash on Friday, but Kim was the only person who would have Xeroxed it.

I skipped first period and pretty much hid in the bathroom. Then I forced myself to go to class—Drama Elective. I could see the Xerox sticking out of some people’s binders as we stumbled through a reading of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, sitting in a circle and changing parts whenever the drama teacher noticed people getting too restless. Later, in the hallways, I could hear whispers as I went by.

Tommy Parrish and Ben Ambromowitz gave me weird looks.

The Whipper pinched my butt in the hallway.

Cabbie and Billy Alexander talked crap about me where I could easily overhear.

Ariel, because she’s dating Shiv, slammed into me so hard in the refectory line that my shoulder got bruised. “Ooh,” she said loudly, “I guess I wasn’t thinking about other people’s feelings.”

Michael from Geometry leered and waggled his eyebrows, then passed me a note that said, “You’re on my list too.”

Chase Hilgendorf said hi to me in the hall, then cracked up laughing.

In class, Finn growled at me under his breath: “You’ve made everything worse, you know.”

“What?” I asked.

“Why would you go and do that?” he whispered. “You know what Kim’s like when she’s mad.”

“I didn’t write it for everyone to see,” I started to say—but he turned away from me and wouldn’t talk anymore.

It went on like this all week. I went from being just a leper to being a leper and a famous slut. 10By Friday, the girls’ bathroom in the main building had a ton of anti-Roo graffiti.

“Who does Ruby Oliver think she is?” (This in Kim’s writing.)

“Mata Hari.”

“Pamela Anderson.”

“God’s gift to the male sex.”

“Ruby Oliver is a _____ (fill in the blank).”

“Lousy friend.”

“Fantasist.”

“Slut.” (Kim again.)

“Ho. Remember? We can’t say slut anymore.”

“Trollop.” (Kim.)

“Hussy.”

“Tart.”

“Chippie.”

“What is that boyfriend list? Your interpretation here.”

“Guys she’s blown, in order of size.”

“I hear she goes on her knees behind the gymnasium.”

“Guys she’s done, in order of conquest.”

“Guys she’s done behind other girls’ backs.” (Kim.)

“Do you think she really did Noel DuBoise? Who has he gone out with, anyway?”

“Do you think she really did Hutch? Gross.”

“Maybe he’s an acquired taste.”

And in Nora’s round printing: “Come on, ladies. She may be a lousy friend, but doesn’t everyone make lists of boys they think are cute? That’s probably all it is.”

“I hope she’s using birth control.”

“I heard she might have an STD.”

“Do you think she gave it to Billy A? He’s so hot.”

“Billy Alexander keeps condoms in his back pocket.”

“So does Cabbie.”

“Big deal if she did Cabbie. Hasn’t everybody done him by now?”

“It’s still skanky.”

I tried to wash it all off with a wet paper towel, but you could still read it with no trouble, especially the parts in black Magic Marker. I borrowed a scrub brush and some spray cleaner from the janitor’s closet and was down on my knees trying to get it off when Kim came in.

It was the first time I’d seen her alone since she started going out with Jackson. She ignored me and started putting her hair up with a barrette.

“You made that Xerox, didn’t you?” I said.

“What if I did? People should know what kind of person you are.”

“And did you start all this on the wall?”

“No.” She kept fixing her hair.

“You didn’t?”

“That’s none of your business.”