Rules for Being a Girl

by Candace Bushnell

  So I do, staring down at the table and telling them about my editorial and the response paper and ending with today and my conversation with Mr. DioGuardi. When I’m finished all three of us are quiet for a long moment.

  “Goddamnit, Marin,” my mom says, and when I look up at her I’m surprised to see she’s wiping tears away with her whole palm. “I am so, so sorry he did that to you.”

  We sit at the table for a long time, all three of us talking. My dad makes us a snack of cheese and crackers and grapes. They don’t ask any of the questions I’m expecting: Are you sure you weren’t confused? Did you give him the wrong impression? What the hell were you doing in his apartment to begin with? I don’t know why I feel a tiny bit guilty about that, like maybe they’re letting me off too easy.

  All of us startle when the back door opens and Gracie ambles through, back from her carpool with her cheeks gone pink from the cold.

  “I’m starving,” she announces, then registers all three of us sitting around the table like we’re conducting a séance. “What’s wrong?”

  I hesitate for a moment, then take a breath and smile. “Nothing,” I promise, offering her a cracker; sitting here between my parents it feels like maybe it could be the truth. “Everything’s okay.”

  I go to Chloe’s the day after Christmas, pulling my mom’s car into the driveway and skirting past the enormous blow-up snow globe on her parents’ front lawn. Every year the two of them get more and more into the holidays, three-foot-tall candy canes lining the flower beds and a motorized, light-up Santa waving from beside the chimney. To Chloe it’s literally the most embarrassing thing on the planet—none of our other friends are allowed to come over between Thanksgiving and New Year’s—but I’ve always thought it was kind of great.

  Once her mom lets me in I wave to Chloe’s brothers, who are sprawled on the carpet in front of the Christmas tree playing Battleship, and find Chloe still in her pajamas in her bedroom, watching an eyeliner tutorial on her laptop.

  “Hey,” she says, looking surprised when I knock on the mostly closed door.

  I frown. “We’re doing the mall, aren’t we?” Chloe and I have done the mall the day after Christmas for the last four years, returning ugly sweaters from our various family members and taking advantage of the clearance sales. We always end with a peppermint mocha at the scruffy hipster coffee shop in Inman Square.

  “Oh.” Chloe shakes her head, like this is totally new information and not something we’ve been doing since before we got our periods. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I just figured you’d be with Gray.”

  “What?” I didn’t even realize she knew about me and Gray, and it stings to think how little we’ve been hanging out. “Gray’s in New Hampshire with his cousins until New Year’s. But also, why would I be with Gray? This is our day, right?”

  “Right.” Chloe shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  I frown. “Do you not want to go?” I mean, obviously I know things have been weird with us, and I don’t 100 percent believe all the time she’s been spending with Kyra, but it would just be so much weirder to not do this.

  “No, we can,” she says, shutting her laptop with a look on her face like I just invited her for a rousing afternoon of digging a hole in the frozen earth. “I just have to shower.”

  “I mean, we don’t have to.” Suddenly it does feel like a bad idea, actually: Chloe’s lousy mood, yeah, but also the crowds, the chance of running into people we know from school. Running into Bex. I sit down on the edge of her unmade bed.

  “Can I tell you something?” I ask, picking at a loose thread in the quilt her mom made out of all her old day camp T-shirts. “Without you, like, freaking out?”

  Chloe raises her eyebrows. “Is it that you got Bex in trouble with DioGuardi?” she asks immediately.

  “I—” My eyes widen. “How do you know that?”

  “Everybody knows that,” Chloe says, sliding the laptop onto the mattress and climbing out of bed. “Like, the entire school.”

  “What? Seriously?” My heart drops. I purposely talked to Mr. DioGuardi on the last day before vacation to buy myself time before the gossip mill started grinding. “How?”

  “I have no idea,” she says, though she’s not quite looking at me.

  “Well, I mean, who told you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I mean, yeah, Chloe. If people are going around saying—”

  “Can you stop messing with that?” she interrupts, nodding at the quilt. “The whole thing is going to fall apart any second.”

  “Sorry.” I set it down, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on the knees of my jeans. “Are you mad at me?” I ask, although the answer is pretty obvious. What I can’t figure out is the why.

  Chloe scoops her bathrobe off the back of the closet door, draping it over her arm. “I just don’t understand why you even bothered asking what I thought you should do,” she says, shrugging inside her Bridgewater hoodie. “When, like, you obviously had your own agenda this whole entire time.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I protest. “I don’t have an agenda. What does that even mean?”

  Chloe huffs like I’m being dense on purpose. “It means you, like, decided you had this vendetta against him, and now—”

  “Against Bex?” I shake my head. “That’s not even—”

  “You know he’s probably going to get fired, right?” Chloe cuts in. “And we’ll be stuck with some hundred-year-old sub for the rest of the year who’s going to make us read a bunch of boring crap and write, like, detailed sequence-of-events responses, just because you couldn’t drop the rock about some dumb misunderstanding.”

  “Holy shit, Chloe.” I feel my throat get tight, my eyes stinging; in the whole entire history of our friendship, she’s never talked to me like this before. “What the hell is your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” Chloe snaps; then, looking over her shoulder at the hallway, she lowers her voice. “I just don’t understand why you’re being like this, that’s all. Like, why can’t you just admit you made a mistake—”

  “I didn’t make a mistake!”

  “So what, you think he’s in love with you?” Chloe laughs meanly. “Like he brought you to his apartment as part of some super-secret plan to make you his girlfriend?”

  “No, of course not.” My eyes are filling for real now, my vision blurring. I glance up at the overhead light, take a deep breath. “You realize you’re supposed to be my best friend.”

  “I am your best friend,” Chloe says immediately. “And part of my job is to tell you when you’re making a total fool of yourself.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “I think you’ve lost all connection with reality, yeah.”

  “Well . . .” And I shrug, because what else can you say to that? I stand up and sling my bag over my shoulder, wiping my face with the heel of my hand. “I guess today’s not such a good mall day after all.”

  “No,” Chloe says, still clutching her bathrobe in front of her like a shield. “I guess not.”

  I head downstairs and let myself out, dodging her mom in the kitchen. The boys are still playing in the living room, their trash talk just audible over the clatter of the Cartoon Network.

  “Sunk!” one of them says, gleeful. The sound of them laughing is the last thing I hear before I shut the door.

  Twenty-Two

  My parents and I meet with Principal DioGuardi and the school board over break, all of us sitting around a folding table on the stage in the auditorium. I wonder if they made Mr. Lyle come in specifically to set it up. I give the board my full statement, feeling weirdly like I’m performing in a play I never auditioned for; they assure us that they’re taking the matter very seriously, that they’ll be talking to Mr. Beckett as well.

  The rest of Christmas vacation is achingly quiet. Gray gets back from New Hampshire and takes me to breakfast at Deluxe Town Diner. Gracie and I go see The Nutcracker with my mom. My dad sit
s through about a million Hallmark Christmas movies without complaining, getting up periodically to get us more homemade marshmallow hot chocolate cookies, which I know is code for I love you and I’m here.

  My mom lets me take her car in my first morning back after break, the security blanket of knowing I could make a quick exit if I needed to. I slam the driver’s door shut before dashing across the parking lot, the pavement sleet-slippery under my boots. Icy rain slides underneath the collar of my winter coat, and I almost wipe out hard on the concrete staircase, catching myself on the railing just in time.

  I shake my hair out once I make it through the senior entrance and scan the bright, crowded hallway. Harper Russo raises her eyebrows, then whispers something to Kaylin Benedetto. Michael Cyr shoots me a giant, shit-eating grin.

  I duck my face and head for my locker, telling myself I’m being dramatic—this is my actual high school, not the establishing shot of a nineties teen movie. Still, I grab my books as quickly as humanly possible, edging past Cara St. John and Aminah Thomas in the bottleneck in the hallway.

  “—always hanging out with him in the newspaper office,” Cara is saying, scooping her shoulder-length hair into a stubby blond ponytail. “I don’t know what she thought was going on.”

  “I wish Bex would try something with me,” Aminah chimes in with a snort, then happens to glance over her shoulder and spot me right behind her. The embarrassment on her face is nothing compared to the hot, prickly wave of nausea that rolls through my entire body.

  So. Everybody really does know, then.

  I shuffle dazedly through my first two classes, feeling like my head has been wrapped in gauze and I can’t see or hear or even breathe properly. All morning I try to imagine what I’ll do if Bex is in his classroom at the start of AP English, and all morning I try to imagine what I’ll do if he’s not.

  “You ready?” Gray asks, slipping his hand into mine as we head down the hallway, and I nod.

  I’ve been telling myself I’ll be fine no matter what happens, but I can’t deny the way my knees go wobbly with relief when I see the sub standing up in front of Bex’s classroom, a nerdy-looking middle-aged guy with a comb-over and a paunch.

  “Nice,” Gray murmurs, a smile spreading over his face as we take our seats. “See? Dude’s gone. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Yeah.” I muster a small smile of my own. It falls as Chloe comes in, stopping short at the sight of the sub.

  “Hey,” I say quietly, as she passes by my desk. “Can we talk?”

  Chloe ignores me.

  The sub introduces himself as Mr. Haddock—“like the fish,” he clarifies, looking visibly pained when nobody laughs—and launches into this week’s vocab lesson. He’s dry as toast and just as achingly boring as Chloe predicted. But I don’t care at all.

  Apparently, I’m the only one.

  “This guy suuucks,” Dean Shepherd mutters from the back of the room.

  “At least Marin won’t try to screw him,” Michael Cyr cracks in response. “I mean . . . probably.”

  I stare fire down at my notes, my face flaming. Gray fixes them both with a look.

  “Excuse me?” Chloe pipes up at the front of the room, raising her hand primly. “When will Mr. Beckett be back?”

  Mr. Haddock frowns. “He should be here tomorrow, I believe—but I have no intention of wasting the time I’ve got with you folks, so if you’ll open your books—”

  I lose the rest of what he says underneath the sudden roar in my head. For a moment I honestly think I’ve heard him wrong.

  Tomorrow. He’ll be back . . . tomorrow?

  God, I’m such an idiot.

  This isn’t finished at all.

  Once the bell finally rings I’m out of my seat like a sprinter at the starting gun, ignoring Gray as he heads toward me and stumbling down the hall toward the admin suite, where Ms. Lynch is eating a bag of Famous Amos cookies and hungrily scrolling a gossip site on her computer. “Is Mr. DioGuardi here?” I blurt.

  Her eyes narrow. “Excuse you,” she says, quickly minimizing the window; I wouldn’t have pegged her for a Rihanna fan, but I guess we all contain multitudes. I can’t wait to tell Chloe, until I remember Chloe and I aren’t speaking.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  You keep his calendar, I think but don’t say. You know I don’t.

  “Um, nope,” I manage, aiming for bright and winding up somewhere in the neighborhood of totally deranged. “Just a quick social call.”

  Ms. Lynch frowns. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  I take a seat in the outer office to wait, watching the seconds tick by on the ancient clock out in the hallway. It’s the better part of ten minutes before the door opens and Mr. DioGuardi comes out.

  “Marin!” he says, looking not at all pleased to see me. “Come on in. You were on my list of students to touch base with this morning.”

  I bet I was, I think bitterly.

  “Mr. Beckett is coming back tomorrow?”

  Mr. DioGuardi frowns. “Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the chair across from him. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The school board investigated your . . . allegations over the break. Ultimately, the disciplinary committee found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, so he’ll be returning to his classes for the remainder of the year.”

  “I told you about the wrongdoing,” I say, and it comes out a lot more like a wail than I mean for it to. I swallow hard, digging my nails into the armrests. Don’t be hysterical. Don’t be a crazy girl. “I just mean—”

  “I understand that, Marin,” Mr. DioGuardi says. “But without any corroborating statements, without evidence—”

  “No evidence—” I break off as the larger implications here start to make themselves clear. “So you think I’m lying?”

  “Now hold on just a moment,” he says. “No one is saying that.”

  “Well then what are you saying?”

  “Marin—” Mr. DioGuardi pops his whistle into his mouth for a moment, then pulls it out again. When he speaks his voice is suddenly gentle.

  “Look,” he says, “is it at all possible you misinterpreted what was happening? With Mr. Beckett, I mean? No one would blame you, obviously. He’s one of our younger faculty members, and I see so many girls hanging around his classroom, or in the newspaper office. It would be perfectly understandable if you somehow misunderstood—”

  “Oh my god.” It’s out before I can stop it. I shove my chair back and jump upright. “I’m not listening to this.”

  Mr. DioGuardi’s eyes narrow across the desk. “Marin,” he says sharply. “I understand you’re upset, but may I remind you who you’re talking—”

  Stop using my name, I want to scream loud enough to shatter the windows. Instead, I press my lips together, remembering my manners. Swallowing down my own rage and fear.

  “You’re right,” I manage, the words like gravel in my mouth. I hold my hands up, forcing a cowed smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—you’re right.”

  Mr. DioGuardi nods with a thin smile—pleased, I think, to be in the position of being able to give me a pass in this trying time. “All I mean is that these things happen,” he continues. “And sometimes, once we’ve had time to cool off and reconsider a situation from all angles, we find we see things differently than we might have at first.”

  “Sure,” I say. I focus on the bookcase, on that photo of DioGuardi’s sons at the campsite. I want to rip it off the shelf and hurl it directly at his head, then encourage him to take some time to cool off and reconsider the situation from all angles. “I get it.”

  “Now,” he says, standing himself, “if you don’t have any further questions—?”

  “Um, nope,” I say, backing up toward the doorway. What else could there possibly be to ask? “I guess that’s it. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Of course,” Mr. DioGuardi says, and his smile is genuine relief as he shuffles me out into the admin suite. “I’m glad
we had this talk.”

  Twenty-Three

  “This is un-frickin’-acceptable,” my mom announces that night, slamming pots and pans around the kitchen like she’s thinking of starting a percussion ensemble.

  “I mean it. I’ve had it. I’m going to march in there and stick my boot so far up that man’s ass that he’ll be able to open up his mouth and read the L.L.Bean logo in the mirror. Then I’m calling a lawyer.”

  “Dyana,” my dad says from his perch at the kitchen table, sounding faintly weary. I cringe at the sight of the bags under his eyes. “Go easy, will you?”

  “You go easy!” my mother snaps, yanking open the fridge and brandishing a Styrofoam package of ground turkey like a weapon. “This is ridiculous. And frankly I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing our daughter it’s okay to get worked up over injustices.” She drops the turkey in the pan with a wet thud. “Which this is.”

  “Nobody’s saying it isn’t an injustice,” my dad puts in, getting up to check the potatoes in the oven. “I’m just saying that I don’t see how violence is going to help—”

  “It’s metaphorical violence, Dan.” My mom makes a face as she jabs at the turkey with a wooden spoon. “Mostly.”

  “Guys,” I protest weakly. “Please. I can handle this.”

  My dad scrubs a hand over his face. “Can you transfer out of the class?” he asks me. “I feel like that should be the first step, right?”

  I bite the end off a baby carrot and think about that for a minute, surprised by how simple he makes it sound. And it would be simple, really: there’s a non-AP senior English class that meets at the same time, two rooms over. They’re reading The Art of Fielding. It would probably be fine.

  I take a deep breath. “No,” I tell them, calm as I can manage.

  My mom raises one thick brow. “Why not?”

  I shrug, popping the rest of the carrot into my mouth and crunching hard. “Because then he wins.”

  My parents are both quiet then, the two of them exchanging a look across the kitchen. I think it might be worry. I think it might be pride. My mom sets the wooden spoon down on the counter, then comes over and slides an arm around my waist.