E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

After summer vacation, people seemed to have forgotten all about the whole thing. There were new rumors to circulate; the old jokes weren’t funny anymore.

But Finn and I remembered. I never spoke to him if I could possibly avoid it. I never chased him in tag, sat near him at lunch, never partnered up on field trips, nothing. I didn’t want to risk being teased again, and I’m sure he didn’t either—but every now and then I still got that sweet, shrimpy look from him, across the crowded playground.

By the start of sophomore year, he had deshrimped himself. His hair had darkened (though he was still blond), and he had become an athlete. He was quiet, good at computers and science; he played violin in the orchestra. Cute, in a soft, slightly big-nosed way. Not popular, but not geeky, either. Just there. We still didn’t talk to each other. It had become old habit by then. If the seat next to him was empty, I automatically didn’t sit in it. If I saw him in the halls, I didn’t say hi—and he didn’t say it, either. No contact at all, besides the looks. Until—

“Know what’s true?” Kim said, a week after school started, tenth grade year. She and Cricket and I were sitting on the grass outside the refectory after lunch, drinking pop and people-watching. 1Cricket was braiding her long blond hair into tiny braids.

“Tell me what’s true,” I said.

“Finn Murphy is a stud-muffin.”

I opened my Brit Lit notebook and flipped through it. Years and years of pretending Finn didn’t exist had made this an automatic reflex. But Cricket nodded. “I think you’re right,” she said, looking across the quad to where Finn was kicking a soccer ball around with a couple of other boys. “He is a muffin. 2There’s no denying it. But he’s a studly muffin. And that makes all the difference.”

“I hung out with him after school yesterday,” Kim said.

“No way!” Cricket hit her with a straw.

“Way. I went to the B&O to do homework and he was working behind the counter. 3It was dead in there and his boss was off, so he came out and sat with me.” Kim looked down at her lap.

“Was it a thing?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think it was a thing.”

“What kind of thing?” Cricket wanted to know.

“A thing thing.”

“A thing thing? You mean, really?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, was it, or wasn’t it?”

“Okay, it was. It was definitely a thing thing.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you saying there was kissing?”

Kim looked at the sky. “I’m not saying there wasn’t.”

“You kissed Finn Murphy?” squealed Cricket.

“Cricket!”

“Kanga had a thing thing/kissing thing with Finn Murphy yesterday afternoon and we’re only hearing about it now?” Cricket sounded outraged.

“I had a lot of homework,” said Kim.

“That’s no excuse. You could have e-mailed us, at least,” said Cricket. “You are shockingly out of line, young lady. Thing things with stud-muffins that no one else knows about? What is the world coming to?”

“Wait!” I held up my hand. “It is only a real and true thing thing if the kissing thing was good.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Cricket said. “Was he a good kisser?”

“Was there tongue?” I asked.

“And was it only a little tongue, or a whole big slurpy tongue?” Cricket asked.

“And where did it happen?” I said. “Did he tongue you right there in the B&O?”

“Or did he walk you home?”

“Or what?”

“I didn’t say I kissed him,” said Kim, looking pleased with herself. “I only said that he’s a stud-muffin this year.”

“He’s a good kisser, then,” said Cricket, standing up to go to her next class. “Look how she’s gloating. That’s a happy Kanga.”

Within a week, Kim and Finn the stud-muffin were going out and it was common knowledge. I had just started seeing Jackson (#13 on the list, my now-ex-boyfriend and the reason for nearly all the debacles of sophomore year). Cricket had a boyfriend named Kaleb from summer drama school, and Nora had—well, Nora can talk about boys with the best of them, and in eighth grade I know for a fact that she tongue-kissed three different guys in a single month—but she hasn’t gone out with anyone like a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I think she’d like to. It just doesn’t seem to happen. She takes pictures and rows crew and plays basketball.

Anyway, the sudden glut of actual boyfriends led to many new and fascinating additions to The Boy Book, the most important of which was a list of Rules for Dating in a Small School. Here they are:

Don’t kiss in the refectory or any other small, enclosed space. It annoys everyone. (Hello, Meghan and Bick!)

Don’t let your boyfriend walk with his hand on your butt, either. It is even more annoying than kissing. (Meghan again.)

If your friend has no date for Spring Fling (which is the sort of dance where you need a date, and you get a corsage, and all that) and you already have one, you must do reconnaissance work and find out who might be available to take your friend. 4

Never, ever, kiss someone else’s official boyfriend. If status is unclear, ask around and find out. Don’t necessarily believe the boy on this question. Double-check your facts.

If your friend has already said she likes a boy, don’t you go liking him too. She’s got dibs.

That is—unless you’re certain it is truly “meant to be.” Because if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and who are we to stand in the way of true love, just because Tate is so stupidly small?

Don’t ignore your friends if you’ve got a boyfriend. This school is too small for us not to notice your absence.

Tell your friends every little detail! We promise to keep it just between us.

I was happy for Kim. She had never had an official boyfriend before—and Finn seemed to do all the right things. He called her, he took the bus over to her house to watch movies on TV, he left her notes in her school mail cubby—the place where we usually got notices about assemblies or sports events. He also sat around on the quad with us, and at our lunch table lots of days—which meant that suddenly I was hanging around with this boy that I pretty much didn’t speak to.

I could have started speaking to him, of course. That would have been the normal thing to do. I could have tried to make friends with him, like Nora and Cricket did. Not close friends, but goofing-around friends. Cricket called him Blueberry and wouldn’t tell him why, and Nora went with Kim to watch soccer games and took action pictures with her Instamatic. But some part of me felt scared of talking much to Finn—or of being seen with him. I could still hear Katarina’s singsong voice, “Ruby and Finn, sitting in a tree …” and it was hard to break that old habit of avoiding any seat that was open next to him.

Also, I didn’t want Kim to think I was trying to steal her boyfriend, if rumors did start up again.

So I was civil. I said hi, and all that, but I basically didn’t deal with him if I could avoid it—and he basically didn’t deal with me. It was easier that way.

In late October, after Kim and Finn had been going out about six weeks, Kim nailed me on it. “Do you have a problem with Finn?” she asked me. We were eating ice cream bars and sitting on my deck. It was probably the last warmish day before the heavy Seattle rains set in for fall.

“Not at all, he’s great,” I said.

“Because you hardly even talk to him.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“You give him the cold shoulder.”

“I don’t mean to, Kim. I have a lot on my mind.” (I didn’t, though. It was an excuse.)

Kim looked concerned. “Like what?”