Being Friends with Boys

by Terra Elan McVoy

  He slow-smiles at me, shaking his head. From under those long bangs, his eyes are serious, and he holds out his hands as if in surrender. “I will be useful.”

  We’re getting close to the main building, the busy double doors.

  “That remains to be seen,” I tell him over my shoulder. “I’ll meet you this afternoon.”

  I don’t know why I think this as I walk off, but I hope to god he is not, in any way, looking at my ass.

  Waiting for Trip, to hand off the notebook before he has AP Physics and I have lunch period, I try to wrap things up by telling him about Benji and how I’m incredibly curious about this “study session.”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” I hear Trip call across the courtyard. “Editing is cheating. Raw, unbridled honesty is the whole point.” He gets to where I’m sitting and stands over me.

  “Oh yeah, like all the honesty in those mysteriously missing pages?”

  His hand goes to his chest. “Are you accusing me of censoring myself?”

  “No. I’m accusing you of not doing a better job of editing yourself. If you’re going to tear things out, you should really make sure they flow—” I start flipping, to show him, though he already knows the gap from August is totally there.

  “You were in a difficult place.” His face is fake sympathetic. “Jilly was getting ready to leave, and school was coming up, and I just didn’t think you needed to hear about me reuniting with my long-lost twin brother, who was also king of Persia and wanted me to be in that action movie with him and our equally long-lost uncle, the famous movie star.”

  “I don’t think Persia is a country anymore.” My eyebrows are frowning but my mouth is smiling.

  “I think you need to work on your geography.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “You are completely right.” He takes the notebook from my hands. “The point is that I’m going to be late, and we’re getting nachos in only two nights.”

  “You’re right—that is the point.” I pat my stomach.

  He moves off, back toward the stairs, and we holler, “See you—if I don’t see you first!” at the same time. The late bell rings over us, leaving me to spend the rest of lunch taping more Sad Jackal flyers in the open halls.

  When the notebook comes back to me before psych at the end of the day, Trip has ignored basically everything I’d said in it. There aren’t any How Oliver Should Break Up With Whitney cartoons, or any comeback in Jessica Stine’s defense (seeing as she is the third hottest girl in school) regarding my snark that I’m not sure whether what she had on this morning was a dress or just a T-shirt. Instead he’s written, in big block letters, DO NOT HANG OUT WITH BENJI MCLAUGHLIN. I’m all ready to write a snappy response when Oliver leans across the aisle to bump my fist.

  “Good work, Spider. The flyers look great. And did you see that six tabs are already missing off that one?”

  My shoulders flush with a proud orange feeling. Why this makes me ask, “Hey, what do you know about Benji McLaughlin?” I’m not really sure.

  Oliver shrugs. “Skate punk. Pothead. Basically decent. Why?”

  “He sits in front of me in history.” I try to say it with nonchalance. “Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to contract some horrible disease.”

  After school, I wait at the empty soccer fields for Benji to get done with his detention. I’m pretending to do my film studies reading, but after about two minutes, I have to call Trip.

  “What the hell ‘Don’t hang out with Benji’? In all caps? Like you’re my mom?” I say as soon as he picks up.

  “And a lovely good afternoon to you, too.”

  “What do you have against Benji?” I keep going. “He’s a total idiot.”

  “Why are you studying with him, then?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Benji is not at all interested in your Twentieth Cen. grade. Or his.”

  “You think I can’t handle Benji McLaughlin? I handle you every day.”

  He ignores my insult. “I think you can handle him. You just might not want to. Or maybe you will.” His voice is a little mean. “And he tears through girls, believe me.”

  Everything switches around in me then. It never would have occurred to me to think of Benji in any romantic way, but suddenly I am picturing us making out under the bleachers. I am picturing his hand in my pants.

  “So what if I did? Want to?” I stumble over the words. “And besides, when did you ever spend enough time with him to know how he treats his girlfriends?”

  I am glaring at the empty soccer field as though I am trying to stare Trip down. We are in dangerous, embarrassing territory this minute, him even hinting about my being with a boy. My last boyfriend, Clay, broke up with me weeks before Trip enrolled last semester, and I haven’t had a date or even a crush since. Though Trip dated someone for a while at the end of the year last year, it wasn’t that big a thing to either of them, and it was over before we started doing so much band stuff this summer. For most of our friendship, we’ve both been unattached. He hasn’t been interested in anyone, and I’m not the kind of girl that boys like, anyway.

  But as my long friendship with Oliver —and even Abe— has proven, when you’re friends with a boy and then suddenly you have to talk about dating, it can get strange. Sure, boys want to tell you all about their hookups, until they remember—by some slip in the conversation—that you’re a girl, and then they get weird and uncomfortable. It’s important to stay expressionless when it happens, even though you also have to keep doling out girl-sided advice. Because that’s why they’re telling you. They want to know what it’s like from a girl’s side. But if you ever attempt doing the reverse—talking about your own hookups or crushes—and especially if you even slightly mention any kind of physical whatever, everything shuts down and gets awkward. It’s safer to be completely neutral on the matter. It’s safer if they don’t think you have a vagina at all.

  “Look.” I change tactics. “It’s not like I don’t think Benji is a little . . . off.”

  “So then—?”

  I can just see him twirling his hand in that arrogant way.

  “So if you were in my history class, it might be different. But I have to make do with what I’ve got. So cut me some slack.”

  He’s quiet a second. I’m not sure what he’s going to say.

  “Like maybe you should cut me some slack about not hanging with Sad Jackal anymore.”

  My pulse accelerates and my face warms. “When have I ever given you any crap about that at all? I think that maybe you should care less who I care whether you hang out with or not.”

  Yikes. That was mean-sounding. And probably not English.

  “I’m just exploring alternatives,” he says finally.

  “Well, maybe so am I.”

  It feels like a fight. And yet it also just feels like a regular conversation. I’m not sure if I like either option. I’m not sure why.

  “Good luck with your studying,” he says. There’s acid in that last word.

  “Thank you.” I choose not to engage.

  We hang up.

  “Well, that was a disaster,” I say out loud.

  But I only have to look at my reading for about forty-five more seconds before I hear Benji crunching through the leaves and pine needles behind me.

  “’Sup,” he says when I turn around. Like he’s doing me a favor by actually showing up.

  I stick my film studies into my satchel, pull out the notes from 20th Cen.

  “I figure we should compare notes” is all I say to him.

  He clomps up onto the bleachers next to me. It is gray and overcast: looking like it should be cold, making it even more uncomfortable that it’s lightly humid and really too warm for a jacket, though he has one on. The minute he sits down, he rummages around in it (multipocketed, army-green canvas) and takes out a crumpled joint.

  “You can’t smoke that here.” My whole body is on alert, looking around for anyone who might see us. Coaches, stra
y teachers, Principal Hammersley.

  “You’re right,” he says, putting the joint to his lips and withdrawing a lighter from somewhere.

  “I’m serious.” I put my hand over his, stopping the lighter in its path. “I am not doing this if you are going to be high.” I’ve heard enough of Abe, Oliver, and Trip’s stupid pot-hazed conversations to turn me off the stuff forever, if I was interested in smoking anything, anyway. “It’s not part of the contract.”

  Benji’s brown eyes level at me. “Contract?” The joint bounces on his, I notice, very plump red lips.

  “I just—” I take my hand off of his. Part of me wants to wipe it on my pants. “I mean, I’m not drunk, so—”

  “You could be.”

  I don’t know if that means he thinks I might be, or if he’s giving me permission.

  “You can smoke when we’re done, whatever. I don’t care. But while we’re working, I need your actual brain.”

  “You need my actual brain.” His eyes are still on mine, unmoving. I stare him down. My hands are uncomfortably sweaty.

  Eventually he shrugs, finally taking the joint out of his mouth and burying it back in the depths of his jacket. There’s a tiny white speck of rolling paper left on his lip, but I’m certainly not going to tell him.

  Instead we sit there, side by side, our notebooks splayed across our laps. I’m amazed, looking at Benji’s tidy handwriting. He’s got everything from Dr. Campbell’s notes, plus little sidebars in the margins, tying in things our teacher mentions in his lectures. The ones that might be useful.

  “You don’t need me,” I tell him after a minute. “Your notes are perfect.” Meanwhile I’m copying the parts I apparently missed in class.

  “So, okay?” He is already reaching into his jacket, arching his eyebrows at me.

  I could be a prude, or I could have him think I’m at least a little cool. “Whatever, I don’t care.”

  I keep copying his notes, waving away the drifts of Benji’s smoke as they head in my direction. At one point he offers the joint to me. I glare at him.

  “Just being polite,” he mutters.

  That’s all we say. When I finish I hand Benji back his notebook, tell him thanks. I feel weird that he didn’t look at my own notes for more than a second or two.

  “My pleasure,” he says. His eyes are loose. He leans back on the seat behind us, and I see his gaze pause in the general area of my chest. “So, what now? You want to—make out a little or something?”

  “You have got to be kidding.” I’m glaring at him, but I also want to giggle.

  He shrugs again, leans down to put the joint out on the heel of his shoe. The stubby, stinky butt gets put inside the folds of his jacket.

  “Just sayin’,” he goes, aloof. “We’re out here, there’s time to kill, I’m gonna save your Twentieth Cen. grade. . . .”

  I arch my eyebrow at him, trying to joke back. “You still have to prove that part.”

  He can’t really think that I am going to make out with him in exchange for his notes? I feel blood thumping in my neck, the backs of my knees.

  “Okay, then.” He stretches, climbs forward, starts heading down the bleachers. Like nothing just happened. “You need a lift home?” he offers.

  “I’ll walk,” I say, firm, though I’ve never done it before.

  “Suit yourself.”

  His indifference is a little startling. I push my hair back from my face, try to shake some sense into my head. DO NOT HANG OUT WITH BENJI MCLAUGHLIN is behind my eyes. I follow Benji off the bleachers, and for a second I consider accepting a ride from him, but there’s nowhere for me to hurry to. Plus, I could probably afford to burn a few calories.

  “Well, thanks, Benj,” I say, to say something, when we get to the upper lot.

  He veers off toward his car and holds up his hand in a wave without saying anything else. I’m not sure if I’m glad he hasn’t insisted on driving me or if it’s rude. I decide to blame it on the pot, and take out my phone, text Dad to let him know what I’m doing. I’m half a block away from school when Benji passes by me in his old brown Volvo. He beeps and waves, but he doesn’t slow down.

  The streets between school and home are surprisingly trashed: Chic-fil-A bags, empty plastic bottles, and, gross, a discarded diaper. At first I’m indignant about the neglect, but before long I’m imagining Sad Jackal doing some kind of neighborhood cleanup, maybe with a performance at the school at the end? I’m taking my phone out to text Oliver the idea when it rings. I’m surprised but thrilled to see it’s Jilly.

  “Did you ever walk home from school?” I ask her, without saying hey.

  “I don’t think so, why?”

  “The whole way is covered with trash. It’s alarming.”

  “You’re walking? From school? What time is it?” I can hear her looking at her watch.

  “It’s fine. I’m almost home,” I lie.

  “Okay, well” is all she says. She can’t do anything about it anyway, even if she wanted to. We both feel it in the air between our voices.

  “So what’s up?” I ask.

  “I just wanted you to know that I’m not coming home for fall break,” she says, voice switching to her serious-and-practical tone.

  “You have fall break?” How many breaks do you get in college?

  She charges through, fast, like she’s trying to convince herself: “Adele and some other girls are going to Savannah that weekend, and it just seems like fun, so . . .”

  She needs me to tell her it’s fine.

  I step over some broken-up sidewalk, a plastic bag filled with what is either mud or— “Well, I didn’t even know you might come home, so it’s not like it’s a disappointment.”

  “I’ll be home for Thanksgiving,” she offers as an apology, not even hearing what I just said.

  “It’s fine, Jill. Really. Hey, Hannah’s letting us choose our own cereal again. No more Kashi, ha!”

  “No faaaaair,” she whines. But I can tell she wanted to have to soothe me a little more than that.

  “Yeah, well, me and Darby managed to wear her down. Only took a little over a week, actually.”

  I hear her say something to someone else with her. It makes me feel insignificant. And also like she’s not listening to me at all.

  When she comes back she says, “Well, we have Cap’n Crunch here too, so. But, I mean, are you okay? With the break thing? I don’t want you to feel like I’m . . .”

  What she doesn’t say is abandoning you.

  “You aren’t,” I insist, too fast, though somehow, with her bringing it up like that, it’s suddenly like she is.

  “Don’t worry” is all I say.

  “Well—” She sounds unsure. Ever since Mom left six years ago, it feels like I’ve always had to assure Jilly that there’s no way she’d ever turn into her. It’s annoying and a little unfair.

  “Send me a postcard or something, okay?” I try to say lightly. But immediately it’s the wrong thing to say, because it brings up all the postcards Mom sent, at the beginning. How we read them over and over, trying to decipher what more she might be trying to tell us in between those few lines.

  “I mean,” I go on, trying fiercely to repair everything, “just have a blast and Thanksgiving is practically around the corner, so.” Although, it’s still September. Halloween—our favorite holiday together—lies between now and when I’ll see Jilly next. The only way I’ll see her costume is if she posts pictures. The only way she’ll know about Sad Jackal’s performance at the dance is if I do the same. Instead of just being a part of each other’s lives, we have to make time to report on them. Which makes me not want to be on the phone anymore. Why did she bother telling me? I didn’t even know she was getting a fall break. I should’ve just let it go to voice mail.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay, then.” My voice has started cramping up in the top of my throat. I am such a stupid baby.

  “I’ll call this weekend. Give Dad a kiss.”

>   “Love you,” I mumble. I’ve turned onto our street and I can see our house now. The streetlights have all come on around me, even though it’s just starting to be dusk.

  “Love you, too. So much,” she tells me.

  And then she is gone.

  When I get to our driveway I just stand there, by the mailbox. Actual tears start to fall, hot and embarrassing. I don’t know why I’m crying. Jilly’s not coming home, but it’s no big deal. She’s in college. I didn’t know she even might come home. And this is what she’s supposed to do. I’m fine, really. I’m really absolutely fine. She can’t be involved in every tiny aspect of my life anymore. I knew that. I know it. It doesn’t mean she’s turning into Mom.

  Which makes me, immediately, want to talk to her. Mom.

  I check the time. She’ll be in her studio in the warehouse she rents with a bunch of other artists just outside of Taos. In exchange for answering the phone there, plus paperwork and maintenance things for everybody, Mom sleeps in a tiny loft upstairs. When she told me and Jilly about it, we made up all these stories about sophisticated artist parties and dark-of-night incidents with coyotes that we imagined Mom must be having. When we finally went to visit two years ago, though, Jilly said not even college students lived that way anymore.

  Wiping tears off my cheeks and clearing my throat, I dial the studio phone. Mom has a cell, but it’s never on. That, or she forgets and leaves it in her beat-up Jeep.

  “Hello?” she says, after eighteen or something rings.

  “Mom.” My throat is still twitching a little, from talking to Jilly.

  “Hi, sweetie. How are things?” She is breathy, loose. Like it hasn’t been almost a month since we talked.

  “They’re okay. Classes aren’t wretched yet.”

  “That’s good. I forget—you in them with anyone?”

  I tell her (again) about psych with Oliver, and then jump over school (so she won’t ask about Lish) to the band, the upcoming auditions.

  “I’m glad it’s going well,” she says. “Though I’m sorry Trip and Oliver have had a falling-out.”