The Boy Book (4 page)

Damn. Damn. Damn. Why did I have to say all that? Anya was going to think I was a complete antizoo loon, trying to get a job there so I could secretly unlock the cages and let the polar bears out to eat Seattle.

She looked down at the application I’d filled out and pursed her lips. “You’re a junior at Tate Prep?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, though there didn’t seem to be much point anymore.

“That’s a good school. Tell me about your studies.”

I rambled on about my American History & Politics class from last year, and how I was actually cranked to take Am Lit now, and tried to sound semi-intelligent for ten minutes. Then we said goodbye.

When I got home, there was a message from Anya on the answering machine saying I had the internship, if I wanted it, and I could work every Saturday from noon until six, and Fridays after school.

She said she thought I had a real sympathy for animals, and that was what they were looking for.

To celebrate, my parents took me out for ice cream. My dad kept calling me Zookeeper Roo. Then I spent the evening reading over
The Hidden Life of Dogs.

By the time I turned my light out, I hadn’t thought about Jackson for nearly four hours.

Your Business Is Our Business: A Pledge

We are your friends and
everything
is our business!

Just kidding.

Of course you have a right to privacy.

But in the pursuit of badly needed knowledge about the male of the species, we, the undersigned, do solemnly pledge to reveal in these pages any bit of relevant data on the subject at hand. That is, if you find out something about boys and you can benefit female-kind by explaining it, you will do so in this book.

Even if it is embarrassing.

For example, if you find out:

1. How to do the nether-regioning in a proper and sophisticated manner

2. Why some guys think it is cool to get drunk

3. Why they act different in front of their friends

4. What they say about us when we’re not there

5. What they
do
when we’re not there

6. Why they don’t want to dance at a dance (Hello? It’s a dance.)

7. Why they don’t call when they say they will

8. Why they don’t shave when they have wispy mustaches that are obviously ugly

9. Why they don’t want to talk about feelings, or

10. Why they chew with their mouths open
We need to know! And you must report back.
We pledge to reveal all relevant information.
Signed, in solidarity,
Kanga, Roo, Cricket and Nora

—written by all of us. Approximate date: October of sophomore year.

t
he morning after I got the zoo job, an e-mail from Noel showed up in my inbox. Send time 12:34 a.m.:

THE VAN DEUSEN HOOTERS NEED YOUR HELP: A PLEDGE DRIVE

No, they’re not endangered. In fact, these rare but hardy hooters are flourishing in their native habitat and well supplied with the necessary support

heh heh heh

anyway

The Van Deusen hooters are fortified with brassieres and whatever else they need for their daily maintenance. Their problem is the unlicensed reproduction and possible circulation of their likeness and the likeness of their owner, wearing nothing but soggy blue cotton bikini panties.

Please donate to the cause. Everything will go directly to the retrieval of the unfortunate images. Suggested items that will be gratefully received by the commission:

telescopes

art supplies

combat boots

infrared goggles

and Fruit Roll-Ups.

I wrote back from my dad’s computer while I ate a granola bar.

What about Hooter Rescue Squad, instead of Commission? Sounds more studly. How about a Saturday-morning cartoon: H.R.S!—we could rescue hooters in distress across the nation. There would be a beacon in the sky, like Batman has, only ours would be shaped like—well, you get my drift.

P.S. Do we have an actual plan? I have art supplies.

And Noel replied:

Plan is in the

um

planning stages.

Have stocked large quantities of Fruit Roll-Ups. Now we just need goggles.

“Roo, you parked too far from the curb.” My mother looked out the window of our houseboat, making her judgment from a hundred yards away.

“I did not.”

“You always do. It’s your weakness as a driver.”

Besides being a performance artist, my mom is a part-time copy editor, which she does from home. So she’s around a lot. Unfortunately.

“Don’t you think you should be more supportive of Roo’s driving?” said my dad, pouring himself a bowl of cereal and glancing out the window. “Roo, you parked beautifully.” He’s been giving me meaningless compliments ever since
Empower Your Girl Child
told him he had to build up my self-esteem.

“You can’t even see the Honda from here,” I said.

“I can see enough to know you did just fine,” said my dad.

Meghan pulled her Jeep up to the dock entrance. I escaped out the door.

“Coffee?” I slammed the Jeep door and shoved my backpack down behind the seat.

“Of course.” She drove to the Starbucks drive-through window a couple of blocks away and ordered two vanilla cappuccinos to go.

“Bick sent me an e-mail yesterday,” said Meghan as we pulled out and got onto the freeway. “He finally got his college account set up.”

“What did he say?”

“I thought it would be better somehow,” she said. “I mean, he calls me every day, and he says he misses me and all, but the e-mail was like, about parties and a list of what classes he’s taking, which I already know.”

“Maybe he’s not a writing type,” I offered. “Some guys aren’t.”

“I want something to hold on to, you know? Like I want to reread it when I miss him, only when I do, there’s nothing that makes me feel any better.” She made her voice lower to imitate Bick. “I didn’t get to sleep till three and I have a wack headache. Gotta motor before the eating hall closes down breakfast.”

“Blah blah blah,” I said.

“He’ll be home at Thanksgiving,” said Meghan, “which is only two and a half months. Then Christmas and spring break. And next year, I can apply to Boston College or maybe Tufts, so we can be together.”

“Why not apply to Harvard?”

“I’ll never get in. I did too bad in German last year. Besides, I’m the kind of person who’s all about relationships,” said Meghan. “I mean, I’m going to college—of course I’m going to college—but it’s more important to me to be with Bick. Our love is the key. Everything else will work around that, don’t you think?” She paused to give the finger to the driver of a minivan that had just cut her off.

I was split between feeling envious of her having a real boyfriend—a boyfriend who called her every day and wanted to keep going out long-distance until she could join him in Cambridge—and a feeling of bitter pessimism regarding Meghan’s whole situation that I probably should have been talking about in therapy.

I mean, if a person (me) was legitimately possessed of mental health, wouldn’t she be optimistic? She would trust what Bick said, and trust what Meghan said, and believe in the power of young love.

But I couldn’t help thinking that:

1. Young love was foolish and all too often cruel.

2. Bick was extremely hot in a rugby-playing, scruffy-hair way—and there was a good possibility Harvard suffered a real dearth of genuinely studly guys. He was going to have a lot of temptation. Sexy Harvard librarian types were going to be throwing themselves at him right and left, whereas Meghan was stuck with the same old guys we’ve known since kindergarten.

3. Underneath her lip-licking, sexpot exterior, Meghan is no dummy. She gets As and Bs. She sings in the school choir. She runs track and she’s a great golfer. Is it wrong that I wished she didn’t think she was the kind of person who was “all about relationships”? She was acting like a complete throwback to the 1950s women we studied in American History & Politics last year: smart, accomplished women who gave up their aspirations in life to define themselves in terms of the men they married.

4. On the other hand, if she wanted to be all about relationships, why not let her, if that’s what made her happy? Maybe I had no political point whatsoever, and I was just jealous.

“I bet you could get into Harvard,” I said. “You should apply if you want to go.”

“I don’t know,” Meghan said. “Bick says the girls there are supersmart.”

“I can’t think about college at this point,” I groaned. “I’ll be lucky to survive another day at Tate.”

On Thursday, at the break after second period, there was a note in my mail cubby. My heart started pounding when I saw it.

Nora, maybe? She seemed less mad at me than Cricket.

Meghan? Probably not. We had just had Global Studies together.

Noel?

When I had it in my hand, I could see it was written on pale green paper that was very familiar. And it was folded in quarters, the way he always folded everything he wrote.

The note was from my ex. Jackson Clarke.

Last year, Jackson put notes in my cubby all the time. Funny stuff that he’d written while goofing off in class, or the night before as he was getting ready for bed.

Most days there had been something waiting in my cubby before lunch. And although we had arguments on the telephone, and there were so many, many little things near the end that made me feel insecure and oversensitive around him, the cubby notes were always easy. He liked to write, and could draw good cartoons. He had a favorite blue-black pen.

He knew how to make me laugh.

Then later, when I saw his quarter-folded green paper notes in Kim’s mail cubby, the thought of them made me sick to my stomach. It was like he had taken something that was just between us and given it to my replacement.