The Boy Book (12 page)

—written by me and Kim, in my handwriting. Approximate date: November of sophomore year, following a long and boring phone call with Jackson where I couldn’t believe we were actually going out, we had so little to say to each other, and a conversation Kim had with Finn where she almost decided he was too much of a boring muffin to be her boyfriend anymore. There was a space at the bottom of the page where we’d hoped to add more tips—only we never thought of any.

w
hen I called Angelo, I reread the instructions from
The Boy Book
before I did it.

I was supernervous, because I wanted to see him again. I mean, I wanted to make out with him again, frankly. Nothing beyond friendship seemed to be going on with Noel. And Jackson hadn’t talked to me once.

I remembered the warm feeling of Angelo’s lips on my neck, and the way he unbuttoned my shirt, and the perfect curve where his bottom lip connected to his chin. But I wasn’t sure we had anything to say to each other.

I figured I’d ask him if he wanted to go see
Cry Baby,
this John Waters movie that was showing at the retro film place in the U District, and we could talk about John Waters maybe. Or Johnny Depp, or Iggy Pop, or Ricki Lake, who are all in it.

Juana answered the phone.

Ag. I had completely forgot that Juana would answer.

Now it was like I was broadcasting this thing with Angelo to our parents, which was a patently bad idea.

“Hi, Juana, it’s Ruby. Is Angelo around?”

“Roo, no, he’s at his dad’s this week. You want the number there?”

“Oh, um, no that’s okay. It’s no big deal. I had a question to ask him.”

“Ring him at Maximilian’s,” she said, giving me the number.

I wrote it down and hung up.

But I didn’t call.

I sat there looking at the phone and thinking how if I called Angelo at his dad’s, it would seem different. Not like just a thing that happened because our worlds collided, but a thing that I was
making
happen, a thing of more importance, a thing that was full of weight, instead of the light, airy, secrety thing we’d had so far.

While I was sitting there, the phone rang. “You get it!” yelled my mom from the bathroom, where she was drying off after a shower. My dad was sitting at his computer, printing out mailing labels for his catalog and writing pithy gardening tips for his newsletter. Lost in his world of miniature roses.

I picked it up. “Ruby, it’s Doctor Z.”

Oh my God.

I had blown off my appointment and never called.

“I’m calling to see if you want to reschedule the hour you missed.”

“Oh, um.” I was completely embarrassed. “I’m sorry, something came up.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “But you do know I have to charge you for any sessions you miss without twelve hours’ notice.”

I hadn’t known that.

My parents pay for the therapy, and Doctor Z doesn’t charge them too much because she works on a sliding scale, meaning people pay what they can afford to pay. But I knew they would
not
be happy to be shelling out cash for Doctor Z to sit alone in her office while I ate pizza with Noel.

“I don’t think I can,” I answered. “I have to work at the zoo tomorrow afternoon and Saturday.”

“Well then,” she said, “I’ll see you next Tuesday. I hope there wasn’t any emergency?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Good. Tuesday it is, then,” she said. “But Ruby?”

“Yes?”

“If you miss another appointment, I’m going to have to notify your parents.”

Friday was all right. Better than before. Nora sat with me and Noel and Meghan at lunch. Meghan hadn’t said any more about her new arrangement with Bick, and she didn’t mention him quite as often as she used to before he started talking about enlightenment and the full college experience. I didn’t feel like I could ask, “Hey, is your boyfriend squeezing it into anyone? Do you know for sure?”

So I didn’t.

I spent Friday afternoon doing my penguin orientation at the zoo, learning to read from the script. “Humboldt penguins are endangered. They used to be hunted for meat, skins and the oil that comes from the layer of fat under the skin. Today, they are primarily threatened by commercial fishing.” And “The sound penguins produce resembles the braying of donkeys. They also communicate with head and flipper waving.”

Saturday I did the Family Farm orientation and helped Lewis put in some more plants. That night, I went to
Cry Baby
with Meghan, and we drove home swooning about how hot Johnny Depp was before he got old. Sunday, I wrote a paper and did a bunch of Precal homework and bothered my dad and Hutch in the greenhouse.

Around nine o’clock, the phone rang.

“My mom told me you called.” It was Angelo.

“Oh, yeah, I did, a couple days ago.”

“I was at my dad’s.”

“She told me.”

“How was it?”

“Fine.”

A long silence. The kind you’re not supposed to have.

But it wasn’t my fault. He caught me unprepared.

“So what’s up?” he finally said.

“Not much. I did homework all day.”

“I mean, why’d you call?”

“I was gonna see if you wanted to see this movie,
Cry Baby.
”

“Maybe I do. What is it?”

“I already saw it,” I said. “I went with my friend Meghan.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So.”

“It was good.”

“That’s cool.”

“It was like a fifties thing. A musical. But by John Waters, the guy who made
Pecker
and
Hairspray.
”

“Oh, yeah. That guy. I think I know who he is.”

“With the skinny mustache.”

“What? Maybe I don’t know after all.”

Another silence.

Was he hurt that I didn’t call him at his dad’s? Or that I went to the movie without him?

I didn’t know how to bring it up, and even if I did, discussing feelings with a clear telephone Neanderthal like Angelo was out of the question.

And did I even want to be making out with a guy who didn’t know who John Waters was?

“Okay, then,” I said. “Well, thanks for calling me back. I gotta go.”

“Sure. Bye.”

We hung up.

A second later, the phone rang again. “Roo?” It was Angelo, calling back.

“Yeah?”

“Lemme give you my cell number. In case you want to call it. I mean, you don’t have to, but if you do—”

“Sure,” I said. “Let me get a pen.”

I got one, and I wrote it down. “Okay, now I have it.”

“Good,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Later, then.”

“Yeah.”

Nothing from Angelo.

“I gotta go,” I said.

“Okay. Bye.”

Somehow, the tips from
The Boy Book
hadn’t helped at all.

On Monday the gossip about Nora’s hooters seemed to have died down, and Noel told me he covered all the stuff on the bathroom wall with a thick black marker. Tuesday, though, I was sitting on the front steps of the main building, trying to finish
The Scarlet Letter
for Am Lit, when Jackson plopped down next to me.

“Hey there, Ruby Oliver,” he said.

“Hey there, Mr. Clarke.”

Why was he sitting next to me? Why was he even talking to me?

Did I want him to talk to me?

“So what’s new? I haven’t seen you. How was your summer?”

“I went traveling with my mom. She was on tour with a show.”

“Elaine.” He said it in a knowing voice. “Did she drive you out of your tree?”

I loved how he used phrases like that. “Out of your tree.” Phrases no one else ever used, like he got them from his grandpa. And I loved how he already knew all about my mom, and I didn’t have to explain.

“A fair amount,” I admitted. “But I got to see Big Sur and San Francisco and some other cool places.”

He was acting like we were friends. Like everything was normal.

Maybe he thought that acting normal would
make
everything normal. Maybe he figured I didn’t hold a grudge.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been holding a grudge.

Shouldn’t I have been
over
everything by then? If I was an individual possessed of decent mental health, wouldn’t I just feel relaxed when my ex-boyfriend came by to say hello?

Or would a person of decent mental health be in touch with her anger and say, “Jackson, I don’t think you’re a good person and I don’t want to pretend we’re friends after what happened,” and walk away?

If my mind had been functioning, I’d have either said
that
and never spoken to him again—or else I’d have had a calm, friendly conversation like no badness had ever happened.

But my mind doesn’t function. I have no idea how anyone would do either one of those things.

And instead of being relaxed or angry, I was happy. So, so happy that Jackson wasn’t being a pod-robot who didn’t even know I existed, because when he did that (as he had been doing ever since the school year started and even since he’d written me the notes), I felt completely erased. Like I had been this girl Ruby with pretty legs and a boyfriend, and now I was nothing—a space where a human being once was.

It had been even worse since the notes, actually, because it was like there was some tiny bit of Jackson that saw me and remembered, but most of him was a pod-robot. Because of the notes, I could never get used to it, the way I might have if he was consistent, and whenever the pod-robot passed me in the hallway and didn’t even glance at me, the erased feeling would flood over me again like it was new.

“I’ve been to San Francisco,” he said. “I’m thinking about applying to Berkeley.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “It’s supposed to be great.” I looked down at my legs. I was wearing fishnets, and felt perversely glad. I crossed one knee over the other and saw Jackson’s eyes glance down.

Kim Yamamoto has traveled all over the world and can sail and knows all about different kinds of food. She is richer and more glamorous than me, plus she has a flat stomach and no glasses.

Compared to her, I don’t have much to offer, besides nicer legs. But maybe I could be the wacky, unpredictable girl; the kind who always fascinates more conservative men in the movies.
¹
Maybe I could derail him from his straight-arrow path and make him fall madly in love with my quirky free spirit.

“Are you going to Kyle’s party Saturday?” Jackson asked.

This was the first I’d heard of it. And if I went to the party, it was sure to be a nightmare. But that is not what quirky free-spirit girl would be thinking about. “Maybe,” I lied. “I might have plans with my boyfriend.”

Jackson looked surprised. “You have a boyfriend? That’s great, Roo. That’s excellent.”

“He goes to Garfield,” I said. “His name is Angelo. I think maybe you saw him at the Spring Fling afterparty?”

“Oh,” said Jackson. “Yeah, maybe I did.”

“We’ve been seeing a good amount of each other,” I went on. Hating myself as I said it, but loving the look on Jackson’s face.

“Well,” said Jackson, getting to his feet. “Angelo’s a lucky man.”