Rules for Being a Girl

by Candace Bushnell

  “You heard me,” he says, lifting his arrogant chin.

  Gray nods easily. “I did,” he agrees, taking a step closer, then another; now Jacob does back up, only he’s misjudged how close he is to the side of the algae-covered pond. A slippery rock gives way under his foot and he goes pinwheeling backward, landing in the chilly, smelly water with a splash so noisy and dramatic half the party breaks into applause.

  Gray looks at Jacob for a moment, then back at me, trying not to laugh and doing an overall admirable job of it.

  “Sorry,” he says, sounding a little sheepish. “I know you don’t need me to protect you.”

  I reach to cup his face with both hands, stamping a kiss on his mouth like a seal of approval. “You know,” I say, “I think I can make an exception just this once.”

  I don’t have to be home for an hour yet, so we swing by Gray’s house, a tidy Cape Cod with carefully tarped rosebushes planted underneath the windows and a porch light shaped like a star hanging over the red front door. Inside it’s warm, the air fragrant with the scent of sandalwood incense; I spy the orange flash of a cat as she darts up the stairs.

  “Home!” Gray calls, hanging our coats on a hook by the doorway.

  “In here!” a woman’s voice calls back.

  Gray leads me through the living room, which is lined with bookshelves on two walls and art prints on the others, a blue velvet couch facing a pair of architectural-looking chairs. It’s not how I pictured his house, and it must show on my face, because Gray nudges me in the side. “Were you imagining like, the whole place decorated in the colors of the New England Patriots?” he asks.

  “Shut up,” I say, though he’s definitely on to me at this point. “No.”

  “You totally were,” he says with a laugh, then nods at the bookshelves. “How exactly did you think I came up with a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale so fast?”

  He leads me through the formal living room and into a den, where two women are sitting watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and drinking wine, a second orange cat purring on the sofa between them.

  “Hey, baby,” one of them says, lifting her face so that Gray can drop a kiss onto her cheek.

  “This is Marin,” he says. “These are my moms, Heather and Jenn.”

  “This is Marin!” the brunette—Jenn, I think—crows, like she’s heard about me before.

  I smile.

  “Mom,” Gray says, looking faintly embarrassed. “Jesus.”

  We chat for a little while, about the book club and about my editorials for the Beacon, which I guess he also mentioned.

  “How was the party?” Heather asks.

  “Kind of boring,” Gray says, though I’m not entirely sure if he means the potluck or Hurley’s; either way, he leaves out the part about Jacob and the algae pond. “We’re gonna get some food and go upstairs.”

  “Door open!” Heather calls after us, and Gray makes a face for my benefit.

  “Noted!” he calls back. Then, more quietly, “Jesus Christ, Mom.”

  “We heard that!” Heather yells.

  We head into the kitchen, which looks like it was recently redone, with stainless appliances and a big window above the sink overlooking the yard.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say, hopping up onto a stool. “Do you call both your moms ‘Mom’?”

  That makes him smile. “I mean, yeah,” he says, opening a box of Cheez-Its and digging out a bright-orange handful. “What else would I call them?”

  “No, I just mean, how do you keep them straight?”

  Gray gives me a weird look, like possibly he’s never stopped to think about it before. “Well, I mean, there’s only two of them,” he says. “And my sister always just kind of . . . knows which one I’m talking about? I don’t know. I didn’t think it was weird until right this minute, so thanks for that, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say with a smile, taking the box of crackers from his outstretched hand. “Also, I gotta say—obviously I don’t know them, but those guys don’t seem like the type to get super worked up over whether you play lacrosse in college.”

  Gray’s eyes narrow. “In the five minutes you talked to them?” he asks pointedly, and I can tell I’ve hit a nerve.

  “Okay, fine,” I say, “Fair enough.”

  “They just . . . want me to be a college guy, that’s all.” Gray shrugs. “And if I can’t get in on my grades, then . . .” He trails off. “I don’t know,” he says, picking the box of Cheez-Its up off the counter and using it to usher me out of the kitchen. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You will,” I promise, and follow him up the stairs.

  Gray’s room is less of a surprise than the rest of the house, with white walls and bluish carpet and a signed Tom Brady jersey hanging in a poster frame above the desk. The bed is unmade, with rumpled flannel sheets melting off the edge of it. Gray scoops a pair of boxers off the floor and chucks them into the closet, looking goofily embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” he says. “If I knew you were coming—” He breaks off, seeming to think about it for a moment. “Well, no, honestly. I probably still would have been a total slob.”

  “Monster,” I tease, glancing around the room at the half-empty water glasses clustered on every available surface, paperbacks for book club stacked haphazardly on the desk. On the dresser is a photo of his moms standing on either side of a little boy with a slightly uneven bowl cut, his front teeth bucked like a cartoon character’s.

  “Oh my gosh,” I say, reaching for it before I can stop myself. “Is this you?”

  “Nah,” Gray says immediately, “it’s just some other little kid I keep pictures of in my bedroom.”

  “Shut up,” I tell him, completely unable to keep the grin off my face. “You were cute.”

  “I was . . . desperately in need of a haircut and twelve thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontia,” Gray counters, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning back on his palms. “That picture keeps me humble.”

  “Oh, right,” I say seriously, crossing the carpet to stand between his knees, his shoulders warm and broad and solid underneath my hands. “Because otherwise your ego would just explode all over the place, huh?”

  “Oh, totally out of control,” Gray confirms with a smile. “I mean, what with my athletic achievements, my outstanding academic record—”

  “Your legendary prowess with the ladies,” I put in.

  “I’m also tall,” he says, curling his fingers around my waist and pulling me closer. “Don’t forget about that.”

  “I would never,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around his neck and angling my face down until he gets the message and kisses me. I breathe a tiny sigh against his mouth. We’ve done this enough over the last few weeks that it’s starting to feel normal, which isn’t to say the thrill of it has worn off—the opposite, actually. Kissing Gray isn’t like anything else I’ve ever done. It’s not that I never enjoyed myself, fooling around with Jacob, but the truth is I never totally got what the big deal was. Half the time in my head I’d be somewhere else entirely—worrying over a missed problem on that morning’s calc test, replaying an argument with my mom—and I don’t think he ever actually noticed.

  With Gray I feel achingly, deliciously alert.

  Eventually he eases us back onto the mattress, the smell of detergent and sleep and boy all around me. The door is still open, but his room is far enough from the top of the stairs that the effect is the same as if we were the only ones in the house. Gray’s fingertips creep up under the hem of my T-shirt, touching the sensitive skin of my waist and tracing the very bottom of my rib cage. I shiver, and Gray’s eyes fly open.

  “This okay?” he asks, gaze searching.

  I pull back and look at him for a moment, hit by that sudden zing of recognition I never felt before.

  I see you, I want to tell him. I think you see me too. “Yeah,” I tell him. “This is good.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Gray’s got a lacrosse game the fol
lowing Thursday, so I head off to book club without him—we read “Age, Race, Class and Sex,” this week, and I was thinking about suggesting we watch the PBS documentary about Audre Lorde, but when I walk into Ms. Klein’s classroom after eighth period Dave looks surprised to see me at all.

  “You’re here?” he asks, pulling a bag of pretzels and a tub of onion dip out of his backpack. It was his turn to bring snacks today. “Doesn’t Gray have that big game against Hartley?”

  “I mean, yeah,” I say, ignoring the twinge of guilt I feel at missing it—the same twinge I’ve been feeling all day, truth be told. “But he gets it.”

  “Really?” Elisa puts in, dropping her shoulder bag on the floor and plunking down in an empty seat next to Ms. Klein. “That’s the school he got kicked out of, isn’t it? Feels like kind of a big deal.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I say, snagging a couple of pretzels out of the bag and crunching thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to be that girl, you know? The one who drops her commitments to go cheer on some dude.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with supporting somebody you care about,” Elisa says, holding her hand out for the pretzel bag and waggling her long fingers until I pass it over. “I mean, you guys all came to my game, didn’t you?”

  “I mean, sure,” I say, “but that’s different.”

  “Why, because she’s a girl?” Dave asks. “Isn’t that reverse sexism?”

  “Reverse sexism is one hundred percent not a thing,” Lydia says immediately.

  “Well, let’s dig into that,” Ms. Klein says, setting her book of essays down on the desk like she suddenly suspects we won’t be getting to it anytime soon. “Can anyone explain to me why it’s not a thing?”

  “Because men unequivocally have more power than women in our society,” Maddie says easily, and I look at her in surprise—she’s been pretty quiet at meetings up until now, but her voice is confident and clear. “It’s like how racism against white people isn’t a thing.”

  Ms. Klein nods. “Racism—and sexism, and ableism—are all power structures,” she explains. “They’re systems of oppression that are larger than any one interaction. So when we’re thinking about them, it’s important for us to ask ourselves what groups of people have historically been in charge in our society, and how the ways that our institutions are set up make it possible for those same groups to hold on to that power.”

  “So, just to throw out a random, totally hypothetical example,” Elisa says, “a system where the entire school dress code is way more restrictive for girls than it is for guys—that would be sexism. Whereas Marin not going to Gray’s game because she’s trying to prove some point about something—”

  “That’s just dumb,” Lydia finishes triumphantly.

  “Hey!” I protest, but I’m laughing. After all, it’s not like they’re wrong. As much as I love this book club, I can’t act like I don’t wish I was somewhere other than here today. I care about Gray, as much as I’ve tried to keep myself from admitting it. I want to be there to cheer him on.

  Elisa glances at the clock about the doorway. “Game doesn’t start till four, right?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “I propose a field trip.”

  “All in favor?” Dave asks, and a half-dozen hands go up around the classroom.

  I feel myself grin.

  Hartley is only about twenty minutes away, the bleachers packed with onlookers and the whole place smelling faintly of locker room. Ms. Klein tagged along too in the end, following us in her tidy little Volkswagen, and the group of us find spots on the Bridgewater side, the fluorescent lights casting everyone’s face slightly green.

  “There’s Gray!” says Maddie, throwing a hand up to wave as we get ourselves settled near the top of the bleachers. I duck my face to hide my own instinctive eye roll at how swoony she sounds, but when I look up again Gray’s gazing right at me, and just like that the expression on his face erases any weirdness I felt about coming here. He looks—there is no other way to describe this, or the way it sets something burning warmly in my chest—delighted.

  Even after dating Jacob for the better part of a year, I have no idea what the rules of lacrosse are, honestly, but I like watching Gray running around down there—the easy way his body moves inside his red-and-gold uniform, the concentration on his handsome face. I know he’s got mixed feelings about playing for St. Lawrence next year, but it’s obvious he could if he wanted to: he’s a natural leader, shouting casual encouragement at his teammates even as he bolts down the length of the gym.

  Our team’s leading 3–2 and Gray’s heading for another goal when one of the guys from Hartley juts his lacrosse stick out in what looks to me like a purposeful jab. Gray spots it and tries to sidestep, but he’s not quite fast enough, and all at once he trips and hits the floor with a thud I feel in my spine. Beside me, Ms. Klein gasps, the kind of sound you never really want to hear from an authority figure. Lydia lets out a low, quiet swear.

  For a moment Gray lies still, unmoving; the ref blows his whistle, and a murmur goes up in the stands. Before I even know I’m going to do it I’m out of my seat and scrambling down the bleachers, darting through the crowd and out onto the field.

  “You can’t be out here!” one of the refs calls to me, but I’m not listening. Normally this is never something I would do—purposely drawing attention to myself, making a scene—but lately I’ve been realizing exactly what I will do, with a good enough reason.

  And Gray is a good enough reason.

  He’s struggling to sit up as I reach him, another ref and Coach Arwen and a bunch of guys from the team circled around him in concern. His ankle is already starting to swell.

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” Coach is saying, digging his cell phone out of his pocket.

  “No, no, no, I definitely don’t need that,” Gray protests, but when he tries to get to his feet his whole face goes sweaty and ghost pale.

  “Okay,” he says, sitting back down hard on the floor with a grimace. “Maybe I do.”

  He seems to register me for the first time then. “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi,” I say. “You want me to call your moms?”

  Gray shakes his head. “You can, but it’s going to be hard to get them,” he tells me. “My mom’s got a late-afternoon class. And my mom’s in court.” He looks at me, offering a weak smile; he’s hurting badly, that much is clear, though he’s trying not to show it.

  “See, this would be one of those times where it would be useful for me to call them two different things.”

  The ambulance arrives a few minutes later, a pair of tersely efficient paramedics peppering Gray with questions, moving his ankle gently this way and that. The one who’s a woman doesn’t look much older than us.

  Do you know what you’re doing? I want to ask her, flinching as Gray grimaces in obvious discomfort. Do you know how important he is?

  Finally they seem to agree it’s likely broken and he needs to get an X-ray, boosting him to his good foot and loading him up onto a stretcher. He’s taller than both of them, and broader; they remind me of a couple in a fairy tale trying to transport a fallen giant.

  “I’ll get over there as soon as I can,” Coach Arwen tells Gray, taking off his hat and scrubbing a nervous hand through his salt-and-pepper hair so it sticks up in all directions like the scientist from Back to the Future. “Do you want to have one of the guys ride along with you, keep you company?”

  “I’ll go,” I hear myself say.

  The crowd of faces turn to look at me at once. “Who are you?” the male EMT asks.

  “I’m his girlfriend,” I blurt.

  Gray raises his eyebrows with a smile. This is the first time I’ve used the g-word in front of him. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve used it at all.

  I leave messages for both his moms on our way to the hospital, then settle myself in a waiting room chair while the nurse takes him for X-rays, texting my own parents and the rest of the book club to let t
hem know what’s going on.

  Tell Gray we love him! Elisa texts back, along with a string of on-theme emojis. We won the game.

  Finally the nurses let me go and hang out with him while we wait for the X-rays to come back.

  “Hi,” I say, sitting down in the visitor’s chair beside his hospital bed. He’s still in his lacrosse uniform, a stretch of painful-looking turf burn on his forearm from where he fell.

  “I’m on a lot of drugs,” Gray announces grandly. “So, you know. No funny business.”

  “I would never,” I assure him, looking down at my hands for a moment. Lately I’ve been biting my fingernails again, a habit I kicked back in second grade when my mom took to painting them with white vinegar, and my cuticles are ragged and raw.

  Gray smiles a lazy, loopy smile. “It was nice hearing you call yourself my girlfriend back there.”

  I grin and roll my eyes. “It seemed faster than identifying myself as, like, founder of your feminist book club and new pal who sometimes hangs out in your bedroom.”

  He leans his head back against the pillow, his gaze surprisingly keen. “It does have kind of a ring to it, I guess. Then again, so does girlfriend.” He reaches for my hand. “I like you so, so much, Marin,” he tells me. “And not just because I’m a little stoned at this particular moment, and not just because I can’t get enough feminist theory in my life. I think you’re smart. I think you’re funny. And I think you’re fierce as all hell.”

  I try to stave off the sudden rush of emotion—fear of getting hurt again, relief that he’s okay, and something altogether bigger and warmer than that, something that fills my chest until it feels like I might burst from the sheer expansive size of it. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I finally say.

  I’m kidding, but Gray doesn’t smile.

  “I don’t, actually,” he says as he sits up in his hospital bed. “I really don’t.” He tugs on my hand then, pulling me forward until our faces are nearly touching.

  “You my girlfriend?” he asks, and his voice is so quiet.