Being Friends with Boys

by Terra Elan McVoy

  Praise for Pure

  “I love this book. Like, love it love it. My heart expanded when I read it—

  yours will too!” —Lauren Myracle, bestselling author of ttyl and Shine

  “Terra Elan McVoy’s writing is, plainly speaking, wonderful.”

  —The Compulsive Reader

  “Fast, funny, and very contemporary.” —Booklist

  Praise for After the Kiss

  * “Richly allusive. The imagery is often startling with an originality that exhales into a perfect aptness for the experience.”

  —The Bulletin, starred review

  “A fresh, observant story.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Vivid.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  Praise for The Summer of Firsts and Lasts

  “Unflinchingly honest . . . I completely lost myself in this book.”

  —Lauren Barnholdt, author of Two-Way Street

  “A poignant portrayal of sisterhood, summer love, responsibility,

  betrayal, and forgiveness.” —Booklist

  “[A] well-told story that celebrates the powerful love between sisters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  terraelan.com

  Charlotte and Oliver have been friends forever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip consider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offering a girl’s perspective on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for the boys’ band. Char has a house full of stepsisters and a past full of backstabbing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refreshingly drama-free . . . until it isn’t anymore.

  When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl . . . and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them deciding he possibly wants to be more than friends with Char . . . being friends with all these boys suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.

  0512

  Terra Elan McVoy is the author of Pure, After the Kiss, and The Summer of Firsts and Lasts. She has had many jobs (and degrees) that center around reading and writing, from managing an independent children’s bookstore to teaching writing classes, and even answering fan mail for Captain Underpants. Terra lives and works in the same Atlanta neighborhood where Being Friends with Boys is set. To learn more about Terra’s life, visit terraelan.com.

  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman and Karina Granda

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Getty Images

  Author photograph copyright © by Jamie Allen

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Watch videos, get extras, and read

  exclusives at

  TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com

  being friends with boys

  Also by Terra Elan McVoy

  Pure

  After the Kiss

  The Summer of Firsts and Lasts

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition May 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Terra Elan McVoy

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau

  at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Karina Granda

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McVoy, Terra Elan. Being friends with boys / by Terra Elan McVoy. p. cm.

  Summary: Living with stepsisters and having a bad history with female friends, Charlotte enjoys the easy relationships that come with managing an all-male band but things get complicated when dating becomes an issue, and she is urged to sing in public.

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction 2. Dating (Social customs) —Fiction. 3. Bands

  (Music) —Fiction. 4. Stepsisters—Fiction. 5. Self-confidence—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M478843Bei 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011040176

  ISBN 978-1-4424-2159-2 ISBN 978-1-4424-2161-5 (eBook)

  This book is in part dedicated to

  Aubry, Baby Astor, and Anger Lad.

  But really it is for Amy Mc.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  I’m on my way up the stairs to my locker Monday morning when Abe comes down the other direction. He sees me and goes, “Trip’s out of the band,” over his shoulder, halfway past me on the staircase already.

  “What?” is all I say back. Really, I’m thinking three things at once:

  1. Oliver is such an asshole for not discussing this with me first.

  2. I knew I should’ve gone to practice on Saturday. And,

  3. Why didn’t Trip call me?

  Abe sees my face and points down the stairs. “I know. But I gotta head.”

  “Later,” I holler. Only his leather satchel, flapping behind him, hears me.

  I get to my locker and spin the combination. What the hell? What. The. Absolute. Hell? Has Oliver forgotten he never could have started a band without Trip? Or that I don’t have anyone else to— Which is when Lish walks by. She doesn’t stop, and she’s wearing the same noncommittal, straight-lipped smile she’s been offering me since that lame phone call of hers last weekend. But I can’t think about her right now. Trip, Trip, Trip, is the main thing. I’ve got to find out what happened between him and Oliver over the weekend, and how he feels about it. Unfortunately, though, I’ve also got to get to homeroom and then class, while simultaneously finishing last night’s reading assignment.

  “I know, I know,” Trip says when I round the corner after first period. His hands are automatically up at the sight of me, like I’m going to arrest him. “But it’s no big deal, I swear,” he assures. “Creative differences is all. It was mutual.”

  He’s so smooth, it’s like he’s selling cars. Or, more, like he practiced telling me this. Which makes me feel even more left out of the decision.

  “What happened?”

  He shrugs. “We were getting stale together.”

  Which isn’t true. Sure, they’ve been low-energy since school started. Even I told them so Thursday. But that doesn’t mean the band has to break up.

  “But what are you going to do? What are we going to do?” I squeak.

  It’s impossible to imagine Trip and Oliver not being together du
ring 100 percent of their free time, and me with them 80 percent of that. Now Trip will need to find new ways to avoid his father too. But, more importantly, there’s the Halloween dance we’re playing at. Coming up. In not much over a month.

  “I’ve got my own stuff,” he tosses back, pretending to adjust his glasses.

  I know he doesn’t. Not, at least, from what he’s been telling me in the notebook. He has the band. And his music obsession. And talking to me on the phone or online. And sometimes a dense Russian novel.

  “Yeah, but what about Sad Jackal?” I can’t keep my voice from rising even higher.

  “Everybody in the band will manage. Manager.” He tries to make me smile, but I just can’t right now.

  “But we—” My thoughts are racing.

  “Hey.” A hand on my shoulder. “I’ll reassure you all about it while I’m in French, I swear.”

  I reach in my satchel, give him the five-subject spiral notebook we’ve been filling with notes to each other since August. This morning in English all I wrote, in really big letters, was WTF? Are you okay? And Why didn’t you tell me? Standing here with him in the hall, my alarm feels both exaggerated and appropriate.

  “Okay, but—” I start again.

  “Okay, Mom.” He pats me on the head. “Get yourself to inferior algebra.” He raises his eyebrows toward my class door. “And here.” He holds out a CD for me. “A little more old-school electronica, since you liked a few on that last mix.”

  It’s amazing how easily this makes me unmad at him. “Thanks, I—”

  “Eh.” He shrugs. “It’s all part of my self-serving plan, convincing you you can’t do without me.”

  “I already know I can’t do without you. Because without these”—I lift the CD—“I’m stuck listening to my stepsisters’ crap all the time.”

  He points to the ceiling and winks, right as the late bell rings over our heads. I watch him stroll off, unconcerned, in his dopey splayed-foot walk.

  All I can think, before opening the door to face my fellow math torture companions, is I am going to kill Oliver.

  After a month of school, most of my teachers have already figured out my deal: I am the definition of an average student. I am who they need to keep the grading curve in check. This is my second round of Algebra II, though, because apparently, being too comfortable with “average” can lead to failing if you’re not careful.

  Still, I can’t focus, even more than my usual amount of not being able to focus. I’m steaming about Oliver making this decision without talking to me about it first. I mean, if you’re going to cut out the guy who creates the tunes, shouldn’t you tell the girl who writes all the words? Not to mention who coordinates practice, handles PR, schleps equipment, and makes sure there are enough energy drinks around? Couldn’t I have had a hint? And seriously, why is Trip out? He’s a great guitarist. There’s no way we’ll find someone as good as him in time for the dance, even if we have auditions every day.

  I honestly can’t imagine how Trip and Oliver have gone from “We have to spend every weekend together and even dress alike” to “Yeah, well, we’re not doing the band anymore.” I mean, bad couple of rehearsals or no, they can’t have both forgotten the awesomeness of Our Golden Summer. All we did was hang out at Oliver’s house. They’d play and I’d help them play better. It was so perfect, I didn’t care that Lish was gone half the time in California. I didn’t care that my sister was busy with college dorm shopping, texting her new roommate, and having farewell experiences with her high school friends. The guys stopped caring about their stupid nights in the cemetery and neighborhood pranks. They almost stopped caring about girls. After that last gig at Nimby’s went so well, Trip was so ramped up about the future that you could practically see the sparks coming out of his ears. It was all happening, and we all felt it.

  And now this. Now Trip is out. And if Trip won’t tell me what really happened, I’ll make Oliver do it.

  Unfortunately, today I only see Oliver at the end of the day, in the hardest class I have. There won’t be any good conversation until later, because our teacher is merciless. Sometimes she asks for our notes without any warning, so if we’re just writing bullshit or drawing pictures or whatever, trying to make it look like we’re concentrating when we aren’t, we’re totally screwed. She’s tricky and scheming like that. But, as a result, I think I’m doing better in her class than anyone else’s so far.

  Still, I can’t resist sneaking glances at the notebook again while Ms. Neff starts class with a short film. Trip’s new entry is long: a lot of it a goofy list of Things Charlotte Can Do When Not Taking Care of Sad Jackal (including a pottery class, which could be cool), but also he insists I don’t need to worry, and nothing will change between me and him. Which would be reassuring if I halfway understood what changed between him and Oliver, and how I didn’t see it coming.

  When Ms. Neff turns the lights back on, it’s time to fake my interest in those class-participation points that she says will count so much. In between people raising their hands (me included), I scrawl a note to Oliver: What were you thinking? I pitch it expertly to his desk, which is one over and one behind mine. When it comes back it says: I just want more options, man. We need to have auditions. This weekend. You do a flyer?

  And you didn’t tell me, why????????? I shoot back as soon as Ms. Neff’s not looking.

  It takes him a long time to answer, and when he does, I’m at first angered and then embarrassed by what it says: Because I knew you would freak.

  As calmly and clearly—and not freaking—as I can after class, I explain to Oliver all the ways in which this is a terrible decision. I tell him he’s crazy and we need to ask Trip back.

  “It wasn’t like I fired him or anything,” Oliver says when I’m done. “And is it so wrong if I don’t want to sound like everybody else?” He bangs the back of one shoe against the toe of the other.

  “But Trip is just so good at coming up with the melodies and—”

  Oliver’s face twists for just a second. “Maybe it’s because you always show him the words first.”

  I cut him with my eyes. This is so not about that. It’s not my fault that Trip asks me questions about what I’m doing more than Oliver ever has.

  “Or maybe,” I huff, “it’s because he’s been playing guitar for longer than you have, I don’t know.”

  He presses his stick-up bangs back from his forehead and yanks his fingers through them. “Don’t you trust me? Trust Trip if you don’t. He’s the one who left.”

  Because if you gave any indication that you didn’t want him anymore, he’d sense it and take off, I want to say. I’ve learned at least that much about Trip in the last eight months. But then I see Oliver’s let-down face, how disappointed he is that I’m not automatically taking his side. How, since summer, I’ve been doing more of that lately. Siding with Trip. And I do need to give Oliver more credit. I wouldn’t be involved in this at all if he hadn’t liked those poems I did in English last year, and then asked me to help coordinate. Plus, he is great on rhythm guitar, and without him there’s no singer. I mean, Abe’s wicked on drums, but he can’t sing to save his life. And Oliver is . . . well . . . Oliver is the face, too.

  “You’re not out, are you, Charlotte?” For a second he looks actually worried that I might be.

  I snort. “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because just me and Abe, decisions will never get made.”

  We both laugh. Kind of at ourselves, kind of at each other.

  “I still don’t like it.” My arms are crossed in front of my chest, like some housewife with a rolling pin. I drop them to my sides.

  He hooks his arm around my neck and steers me down the empty hall. “I’m telling you, it will be okay. This is the right thing to do. Even Trip said so, right?”

  I think about the calm, even tone of Trip’s stuff in the notebook today. Of his hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Well, he just said that—”

  “I know wh
at he said, because I talked to him. It’s not like we’re not friends anymore. So it’s all cool, okay? Now let’s get out of here. There are lists to be made! People to call!”

  He pulls me out into the blinding sunshine, down the walkway to the parking lot. I’m grateful to be squinting, so he can’t see in my face that I both love and hate how he was right about me freaking, and also right about how maybe things aren’t going to be as bad as I think they will. How we both know this but aren’t saying anything about it. More than that, I love and hate that I’ve already got ideas for this audition flyer.

  By the time my stepsisters and I get home from school, though, some of my enthusiasm has gone out the window. Darby and Gretchen tried to outcomplain each other in the car, and then halfway home Gretchen got in another fight with her wrestler boyfriend, and we almost drove off the road when Darby reached over to turn off Gretchen’s phone. Home still feels strange, anyway, even though Jilly’s been off at college almost a month. I make myself a bowl of chips and onion dip and go upstairs, pretend I might do my homework, but our room—my room—isn’t any good, because I’m not used to Jilly not being in here. Not used to her bed being made and empty instead of crowded with her, splayed out, talking on the phone or, more likely, studying. I’m not used to my sister sharing a room with someone new off at college: someone cooler and crisper and who won’t fight about whose turn it is to do laundry.

  The sun slants in through my blinds and I stretch my hands out into it, making my arms into zebras. If I’m honest, Lish is missing from this afternoon too. I don’t know if there’s volleyball practice right now. I just know that if I try to call my former best friend, all I’ll get is a couple of rings and her voice mail.