E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

“That was three years ago.”

“Which is why it’s time to go back.”

“Dad,” I whispered, loud enough for Mom to hear. “When she’s gone, we can eat anything we want.”

“Two months is a long time,” he said. “Let me think about it.”

“It’s done,” snapped my mother. “Ricki booked it yesterday.”

My dad stormed out and spent the rest of the evening hammering away on the greenhouse.

I had no interest in going on tour with my mother. Zero. None. To my way of thinking, it would be a complete waste; she’d be yapping in my ear all the time, feeding me tofu, demanding that I bond with her and never listening to a word I say. I’d have to see her show every night, and have theater managers pinch my cheeks and say, “Oh, Ruby! I’ve heard all about you. It seems like only yesterday your mother was doing that bit about your first menstrual period!” We’d sit in hotel rooms, night after night, watching television, when we could be sitting on the dock in the warm air. I’d miss swimming in the lake, and biking across town, and Meghan had said something about taking me out in her family’s motorboat. I’d miss the painting class I’d signed up for. I’d even miss seeing my father’s garden bloom, and the bumblebees that practically surround our houseboat every summer.

But then, one afternoon, I was coming out of Mr. Wallace’s office after meeting with him about my final H&P paper. I had stopped in the hallway to put my stuff in my backpack, and a voice I recognized said, “Ruby Oliver. Long time.”

It was Gideon Van Deusen. Him with his lovely hairy eyebrows. Back from his cross-country tour.

He was wearing a peace sign T-shirt and a beaded belt. Sunglasses. His hair was longer than last time I’d seen him. He sat down on the bench next to me. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“What, no ‘Nice to see you, Gideon’? No, ‘How you been, Gideon?’ Just ‘What are you doing here?’ That’s no kind of greeting.”

“Oh. Um. Sorry, I—” How could I be such a jerk?

“I’m teasing you, Ruby,” he said, laughing. “I need an extra recommendation for Evergreen from Mr. Wallace. There’s this advanced-level history class I want to take and they’re making me get one.”

“When did you get back?”

“Last week. Didn’t Nora tell you?”

I looked down at the floor.

“Or are you two still in a snit?” Gideon smiled.

“Me and almost everyone, actually.”

“She wrote me something like that in an e-mail. But Nora misses you. I know she does.”

“I doubt it.”

“She didn’t say anything directly,” Gideon admitted. “She’s just home a lot, lounging around. Messing with her Instamatic. Shooting baskets in the driveway by herself. Kim and Cricket are all in love, you know. Always out with the boys.”

“Yeah, I know.” I had honestly never thought about what Nora was doing when the rest of us were out with our boyfriends.

“You should call her.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged.

We sat there for a minute. I fiddled with the zipper on my backpack.

“I was in Big Sur last month,” Gideon said, finally. “You know where that is? South of San Francisco, along the coast. They have hot springs there, hot water bubbling up from underground, and you go in without any clothes, men and women together, lounging around naked with steam rising up. 2And I’m learning to surf.”

“Cool.”

“You need a wet suit that far north. It’s cold. But I kept at it and now I can stand up and catch a wave pretty damn good, if I say so myself.”

“Wow.”

“You would love it. You’re a swimmer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’d be good at it. You have that upper-body strength. Then I drove up to San Francisco,” he went on. “And I heard some awesome bands. You been there?”

“No.”

“It’s amazing. The wildest people walking through the streets. Men in drag. I did an open-mike night with my guitar at this coffeehouse. I pretty much sucked, but I got out in front of people and actually sang, can you believe it?”

“Good for you, rock star.”

“Well.” He laughed. “I felt like a goofball. But hey, I’m never seeing any of those people again, so what the hell?”

“Exactly.” It was very un-Tommy Hazard, getting up and singing badly in front of a crowd, but somehow it made me like Gideon even more.

“I never would have done something like that at Tate,” he said. “When I was here, my whole world was just sports, and parties, and refectory gossip. The Tate universe.”

“Yeah.” I knew all about the Tate universe.

“I’m serious,” Gideon said. “Chinese food like you’ve never eaten. Architecture. Landscapes. Before I came west, I was in the desert in Arizona. I saw the Great Lakes. I hiked some of the Appalachian Trail.”

Mr. Wallace cracked his door and stuck his head out into the hallway. “Van Deusen!” he cried, his face lighting up. “Slumming, are you?” He ushered Gideon in.

I was late for my next class, but I walked there slowly. Thinking about Gideon, naked in the hot spring.

And about San Francisco.

People in general are bad apologizers. Even my dad is—for all his talk about forgiveness. He doesn’t say sorry. He grabs my mom from behind and starts kissing her neck.

“Kevin, I’m still mad at you,” she complains.

“Oh, but you smell good,” he whispers into her throat.

“Kevin!”

“No one smells as good as you,” he moans, or some other ridiculousness, and before long she says, “Fine. Come look at this thing I bought today,” or something like that.

Mom is even worse. She sulks and pouts and storms around the house banging pots and pans, and then after a couple of hours she starts acting like everything’s okay again, and Dad and I are supposed to know that she’s over whatever it was and not to mention it again.

Other people apologize and don’t mean it. “Sorry, but you shouldn’t have …” or “Sorry, but I just didn’t…” They apologize while telling you that they were right all along, which is the opposite of an actual apology.

I am definitely a bad apologizer. I talk too much. I leave the whole thing until way too late, and then I babble on, and end up not saying what I mean and starting whatever argument it was over again. It never comes out right.

Well, truth be told, I usually still think the other person was wrong, and that’s probably why.

The next Thursday, Doctor Z looked down at the list and asked me about Noel. “It was only a rumor,” I said. “About me and him. One of forty-eight rumors, by this point.”

“He’s the one you held hands with at the party?”

“Yeah. He stands on the other side of the studio in Painting Elective now. I never even talk to him.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even think he likes girls.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a mystery.”

“You don’t have feelings for him?”

“It doesn’t matter, even if I did. I told him to fuck off. It’s not like he’d ever talk to me again.”

Doctor Z paused in her know-it-all way, like she was waiting for me to say something. I didn’t. “Why is he on your list?” she finally asked.

“Do we even need the list anymore?” I asked back. “I mean, what are we going to talk about once it’s finished?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

Silence.

“So why is he on your list?” she finally asked.

The thing is, I liked Noel. He was interesting. He was different. He was outside the Tate universe, at least a little bit. When he took me home after the Spring Fling and held my hand at the party, it felt good. I liked talking to him.