by E. Lockhart
I was mad that Noel asked me to bodyguard him from Ariel, because I didn’t like her and she didn’t like me and I had to talk to her all through Chem.
I was mad he asked me because he shouldn’t have put me in the middle when I had nothing to do with his scamming adventures.
I was mad because he was being a jerk to her and now I was a part of it.
I was mad at myself that I didn’t say no when he asked me to be a bodyguard.
I was mad at Ariel for moving in on Noel.
I was mad at myself for being mad at Ariel, who had a perfect right to express interest in a single guy who after all had been making out with her only a few days ago.
All this was going on in my head as we walked toward the refectory, and I was trying to figure out what to say, because of course I actually wanted Noel to have nothing to do with Ariel ever again—but that would have been a ridiculous thing to say because that was what he was proposing to do in the first place—and so if I said that, it would make no sense whatsoever that I was mad.
Then Jackson Clarke walked by, jeans low on his hips, ratty red sweater with the holes in the elbows, hair scrunched down by a knit cap—he walked by and hip-checked me. “Hey there, Ruby, nice anchor coat.”
And I couldn’t answer Jackson, and I couldn’t answer Noel, and I started to feel that panicky feeling, the feeling like I couldn’t breathe and was going to die and my heart was ratcheting around in my chest like it wanted to burst out of my puny rib cage and maybe I would just keel over right now and die in the middle of the path, and then Noel and/or Jackson and preferably both of them would realize my tragic beauty and complete excellence and go on to be better men because inspired by my memory.5
Ag.
No air. Pain.
Beating chest.
This awful panic feeling was the whole reason I had to start going to the shrink in the first place, but I’d thought that now these attack things were over and I’d never have to feel this way again—but this was my stupid life, so apparently not.
“I gotta sit down,” I said to Noel.
There was nowhere to sit.
I plonked down in the middle of the path.
The muddy path, in my white coat with brown anchors.
There was no air anywhere. My chest hurt.
I tried to remember what Doctor Z said. Picture a meadow full of flowers. Breathe slowly. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
You are outdoors, Ruby, I told myself. There is enough air here for you to breathe.
You are young and healthy. You are not having a heart attack.
“Roo, what are you doing?” Noel asked. He knew I had the panic things. He’d just never seen me have one.
“I’m sitting down,” I said. The brick pathway was cold.
“Because you want me to be nice to Ariel?” Noel asked.
I shook my head.
“Are you sick?”
I shook my head again.
Jackson had stopped on his way to class. Now he bent over me. “You don’t look good,” he told me.
Thanks a lot.
“She’s all gray and clammy,” Jackson said to Noel. “She looks awful, don’t you think?”
If I had to be neurotic, couldn’t I turn glamorously pale and faint into someone’s arms and make him want to rescue me? Did I have to hyperventilate in an ugly coat and sit in the mud?
In through the nose. Out though the mouth.
There is enough air here for you to breathe.
You are not having a heart attack.
“What’s happening?” It was Nora’s voice. I saw her tartan sneakers in front of me.
“Roo looks really bad,” Jackson repeated.
“She sat down on the path,” said Noel.
“Leave her with me, you guys,” Nora said, ever practical.
They didn’t go.
“I’m serious. She’ll be okay. The two of you go on to class. Nothing to see here,” Nora told them.
“All right, if you’re sure,” said Jackson.
“I should get to English,” said Noel. “Roo, are you gonna be okay?”
I couldn’t answer.
“She’s going to be fine,” said Nora. “Please, leave.”
And so they did. Noel’s steel-toed combat boots and Jackson’s blue and orange Pumas walked off in the direction of the main building.
Nora, wonderful Nora, rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a Tate Prep hoodie. “Lift up your butt,” she said.
I did, and she scooted the hoodie under me, then sat down next to me on the little that was left of it, patting my arm.
We just existed there for a minute or two, not saying anything. I started to feel like I had enough air. “Don’t you have class?” I asked finally.
“I have fifth-period lunch with you, silly.”
Oh, yeah.
I pulled a bit of soggy grass out from between the bricks. “Jackson kept saying I looked awful.”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t. But I’d still rather I looked gorgeous.”
“You are gorgeous,” Nora said. “He’s a poohead.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
“What happened just now?” she asked me. “Oh, you know. Mental breakdown. Panic thing. My usual insanity,” I told her.
“I mean, what happened that made you panic?” she pushed.
I shook my head. She was a wonderful friend.
She was sitting on the path with me.
She liked Noel.
I couldn’t tell her.
1 For the record, the two boys were Hutch (fourth grade) and Shiv (freshman year).
Yes, Hutch. Certified retro-metal roly-poly and my dad’s gardening assistant.
No, I don’t want to talk about it.
2 Movies in which a makeover facilitates love: Grease; Pretty Woman; Sabrina (both versions); Working Girl; Clueless; The Breakfast Club; My Fair Lady; She’s All That; The Mirror Has Two Faces; Cinderella; Now, Voyager; Strictly Ballroom; Miss Congeniality; Moonstruck; The Princess Diaries; Never Been Kissed.
3 Canceling catalogs and giving up bottled water: Actually, kind of true. My mother made those environmental resolutions for our entire family and forced Dad and me to promise we wouldn’t secretly buy water or resubscribe to the Abercrombie catalog, tempting as that might be. And lest you wonder about my heavy Starbucks consumption, Mom bought me and Meghan venti-size reusable thermos cups.
4 What a good person I turned out to be? Turned out to be? It sounds like a compliment on the surface, but actually what Ariel meant was: “All your life you’ve been a selfish person, and more recently you’ve been a roly-poly slut, so it never occurred to me you might do anything of value in the world.”
5 Movies in which the woman dies and thereby helps the hero to realize his full manly potential in the world, only, of course, bad luck for her because she’s dead: Moulin Rouge; Braveheart; City of Angels/Wings of Desire (same plot, different films); Dangerous Liaisons; Sweeney Todd (well, he only thinks she’s dead and he becomes a total psycho, but still); A Walk to Remember; The Prestige; Casino Royale (the Daniel Craig one, not the Woody Allen one); Harold and Maude; Love Story; and Finding Neverland. So you see where I got this idea. It’s everywhere! Despite being kinda sick.
I Receive a Frog Laden with Meaning
Hi, Roo,
You okay? I was concerned your anchor coat might be stained.
Here is a frog for ya, to cheer you up.
—Jackson
—on his signature pale green narrow-ruled paper, folded in quarters, with a funny drawing of a frog on the outside; found in my mail cubby, end of the day Wednesday.
back when we started going out, Jackson used to leave little ceramic frogs in my mail cubby each week. Long story. After those stopped, he still used to leave notes almost every day, funny things about nothing much—what he’d had for dinner, a stupid thing D
empsey had said, how he’d thought of me when something came on the television. But I used to wish for more frogs. They were a symbol of how happy we were together, and as things got complicated, as things got ugly, I hated all the frogless days and wished the frogs would return.
Now here was another frog, after all that time. Sitting in my mail cubby when I swung by after History of Europe.
Was it an innocuous frog? As in, Ruby likes frogs, Ruby was upset today, I’ll cheer her up with a completely innocent and free-from-connotations frog?
Or was is a Frog Laden with Meaning?
And if it was a Frog Laden with Meaning, what did it mean?
I love you again, take me back.
I feel nostalgia for when I loved you, but I don’t love you.
I want to see if I can make you love me again, because I like to be adored, but not because I love you.
I want Kim to look in your mail cubby and see that I gave you a frog and go wild with jealousy.
I like jerking you around because you’re such a sucker and you can’t seem to quit me.
I knew I should throw it in the trash and never think about it again, but I couldn’t.
During lunch on Thursday, Operation Sophomore Love was swinging as Nora and I came out of the serving line with our trays. There was Meghan, lip gloss shining, gray chamois shirt unbuttoned to show cleavage, standing at the head of a table full of sophomore boys and balancing her lunch tray against her hip.
“You do not!” she was saying.
“True story,” said a tall one with braces on his teeth.
“Then maybe I should go out for crew this year instead of tennis,” Meghan said. “Do you think I should?”
“Without a doubt.” A different sophomore, Italian-looking, with pale brown skin and thick eyelashes, was trying to get her attention.
“You’d be great at it,” said the one with braces.
Meghan touched her hair. “There are my friends,” she said. “See you boys later!”
“See you boys later?” I muttered to Nora before Meghan reached us. “Who on earth says ‘See you boys later’? She sounds like a film from 1954.”
“Only to you,” said Nora. “No one else watches films from 1954. The rest of us are watching movies in first run.”
I threw a raisin at her.
“How’s the Operation going?” I asked Meghan as she sat down with her tray.
She shrugged. “They’re hard to tell apart, that’s my biggest obstacle,” she said. “One is Mark, one is Mike, one is Dave and one is Dan. If any of them turns out to have a two-syllable name, that’s the one I’ll have to pick.”
I looked over. “Which is the one with the eyelashes?”
“Mike or Mark, but I don’t know which.”
“He’s pretty cute.”
“Yeah, but there’s another guy who looks a lot like him who just left. So this guy could be Dan, maybe. Oh, there’s one of them called Don as well.”
“I know that guy. Don who’s on the basketball team?” Nora said. “Didn’t we used to recognize these people from playing in the yard in elementary school?”
Meghan giggled. “I’m sure we did, but that was before puberty. They look different now.”
“Ugh,” I said. “I hate that word.”
“What word, puberty?” Meghan said.
“My health is delicate,” I told her. “Please don’t say it again or I may chunder.”
“What am I supposed to say, then?” said Meghan.
“Adolescence?” put in Nora.
“That’s hardly better,” I told them. “Say…um… mocha latte.”
“Mocha latte?” Nora cracked up. “What are you talking about?”
“Mocha latte sounds nice, doesn’t it? Mocha latte does not conjure images of acne and body odor and pubic hair that we don’t need to be thinking about any more than necessary. Mocha latte sounds tasty.”
“Okay,” said Meghan. “So they look a lot different after mocha latte than they did in elementary.”
“I love it!” said Nora. “Mocha latte has come upon the sophomore boys and they’re starting to look good to us.”
“Hooray for mocha latte!” cried Meghan.
“Listen,” said Nora. “If I asked Noel to go skiing this weekend, to this house party at my family’s mountain place, would you guys go? You know, to make it like a group thing?” She twisted a piece of her hair. “I’m allowed to invite friends, and this way it won’t be so obvious I really want him to go.”
“I’m there,” said Meghan. “You’ll be out of Noboyfriend by Monday.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Why?” Nora looked at me, surprised.
“I don’t ski. You know that.” I hadn’t even seen Noel since the whole bodyguarding panic attack debacle yesterday. I didn’t think I could stand to spend the weekend watching Nora flirt with him on the ski lift.
“You can use my old Dynastars,” said Nora. “The ones I used back when I was your height.”
“I still won’t be able to actually ski”
“Oh, come anyway. You can learn!” said Nora. “You can go on the bunny hill.”
“I don’t have a ski jacket.”
“Oh, I have three,” said Meghan. “I have goggles, I have everything. We’ll set you up.”
“My parents hired a chef for the weekend,” said Nora, “so the food’ll be good.”
“Can I explain something?” I said. “One: I hate being cold. Two: I don’t ski. Three: I hate sports with lots of gear. Four: I don’t even know what a bunny hill is. Five: People die skiing. Six: I don’t want to be one of them.”
“You play goalie,” said Nora. “You’re not really scared of gear.”
“And you’re not going to die on the bunny hill,” said Meghan. “Three-year-olds can ski the bunny hill.”
“Seven: I do not want to spend the day with a bunch of three-year-olds who ski better than me.”
“There’s a shelf full of mystery novels people have left at our house over the years,” said Nora. “You can hang out by the fireplace.”
She knew me very well.
“There’s a flat-screen TV with DVD, plus a minifridge in the den,” Nora coaxed.
“I have to work at the zoo,” I told her. “The penguins and the pygmy goats won’t know what to do without me.” I took a deep breath and tried to be a good friend. “But it’s great you’re inviting Noel,” I lied. “And you know what you should do in the mornings?”
“What?”
“You should bake those cinnamon buns,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes. Because even though the way to a guy’s heart is through his—”
“Nether regions!” cried Nora. This was an old joke.
“—there is no way romancing the stomach can hurt.”
“Hm,” she said. “I would never have thought of that.”
“Those buns are some serious deliciousness,” I told her. “And Noel is the kind of guy who would appreciate them.”
Nora hugged me. “Thanks, Roo.”
I felt slightly sick, but I smiled.
I Correspond with a Pygmy Goat
Dear Robespierre,
I often wonder if you mind being a pygmy goat. Does it make you feel inadequate next to the larger goats? Or do you feel supercute and adorable?
Also, do you understand English?
And do you, as a boy pygmy goat, ever worry about the girl pygmy goats? Do you feel conflicted and wonder whether you’re most fond of Imelda or Mata Hari? Or do you, perhaps, feel goatly affection for some full-size specimen like Anne Boleyn, and wish she would notice your pygmy charms?
Please reply as soon as possible.
Fondly,
Ruby Oliver
(the one with zebra-stripe glasses who scratches your ears the way you like)
—written by me on Woodland Park Zoo stationery and placed in a bright blue box labeled “Write to Our Farm Animals!”
after school the next d
ay Meghan dropped me at the Woodland Park Zoo. My internship there had started first term junior year, and now I was scheduled for Friday afternoons and Saturday days. It didn’t pay much, but I liked it. Plus, I needed the money. My parents made me pay for a percentage of the gas we used in the Honda, and I owed them for a school retreat I went on in November.
At the zoo, my job was to give a short lecture during the Humboldt penguin feeding and help out in the Family Farm. I had gotten quite friendly with the goats and llamas. I fed them little food pellets and stroked their soft, hairy necks and told them how good-looking they were. I didn’t mind if they chewed my sleeves or slobbered on me. I was always glad to see them.
Sometimes my job was to muck out stalls (only for farm animals, not for anything wild), and sometimes I wore a stupid-looking button that said “Ask me.” Then school groups and inquiring kids could pump me for information about the names of the llamas (Laverne and Shirley) or the way to work the food dispensers so you could feed the goats.
Doctor Z thought all this was good for my mental health. Working with animals got my mind off the badness of life in the Tate Universe and prevented me from using all my free time fixating on things like
Why Noel made out with Ariel if he didn’t like her, or
Whether Noel would start liking Nora on the ski weekend, or
Whether it was wrong to encourage Nora to win Noel’s heart with cinnamon buns when I didn’t really mean it, or
Why the suddenly single Jackson was telling me I looked bad and then drawing me a Frog Laden with Meaning, or
How insane I must be to scope Mr. Wallace’s chest hair when he was trying to talk to me about sports and literature.
When I got to the zoo, Anya, the intern supervisor, waved to me from her office as I signed in. “Hope you had a good vacation, Ruby,” she said, shrugging on her coat. “I’ll walk you halfway to the Farm, if you don’t mind.”
