Real Live Boyfriends

“I kept talking.”

“What about?”

“Canned mushrooms: Are they a valid topping with a flavor of their own, like canned black olives? Or are they just rubbery disgustingness? Blah blah blah. Finally the guy in front of me paid, and I asked to get my food to go just so I wouldn’t have to sit in the same restaurant with Nora. I can’t eat with someone hating me.”

Doctor Z didn’t say anything in response. She just looked at me in her gentle way.

“I wish I could forget about Nora and how she won’t forgive me when I abject begged her to,” I went on. “The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m with Noel.”

“How so?”

I paused, looking for the right words. “When Noel’s voice is on the phone,” I said, “or his name is in my e-mail, or his hand is holding mine—I feel this full out, flat-on happiness. It’s like he cancels out all the badness from the past two years at school, like he cancels out all my hateful thoughts and neuroses, like he’s my flashlight in a dark city.”

Doctor Z chewed her Nicorette thoughtfully. “I’m glad he makes you happy,” she finally said. “But I do have a concern about your flashlight metaphor.”

“How come?”

“Well,” she asked, “what happens if your flashlight goes out?”

1 No summer job: Most of the kids who go to Tate Prep don’t need jobs because their parents are loaded. I go there on scholarship.2 Panic attacks: Episodes of heart palpitations and the feeling that there’s just not enough air in the universe to fill my lungs.

    I sweat.

    I shake.

    It’s just complete badness and I feel like I’m going to die every time it happens.3 P.S. About the panic attacks. If you get these too, you should tell your doctor to rule out any physical crap that might be going on. Then if it’s only mental, the doctor can send you to the shrink.4 Rabbit Fever: My name for the kind of inadvertent sex mania I suffer from.

    Like, sometimes I think about people undressed whom I would never, ever want to see undressed in real life. I mean, if I saw them undressed in real life I would run screaming from the room, either because they’re way old and inappropriate (my swim coach, Mr. Wallace) or because they’re deeply unattractive as human beings (Neanderthal Darcy), or both (the headmaster).

The Revelation About Gay Chinese Penguins!

What to Do with Your Real Live Boyfriend in the Dark: for those moments when you’re alone, you want to make out or you don’t want to make out, or you’ve just made out and now you don’t know what to say, or the whole making-out thing is going too fast—or not fast enough.

(Instructions given by Meghan, Queen of Real Live Boyfriends, and transcribed by Roo for future use)

Just wait. Don’t talk. Don’t leap out of the car, the room, whatever. Don’t start kissing him like a kissing maniac, either, just to fill the time. Be there in the moment. See what happens next.

Alternatively, attack him like a kissing maniac. It is a fair bet that he will not think this is a bad idea.

Put your hand on his leg. Just leave it there. This will probably make him attack you like a kissing maniac.

If his hand is going where you don’t want it to go, just move it. This is perfectly good manners in a horizontal situation. If you have to move it more than twice, you can interrupt whatever’s going on and say: “Hello. I am moving your hand for a reason, you big dodo,” or something of that nature that is flirtatious and firm at the same time.

If you’re there in the dark together and it’s more of a talking situation, don’t ask: “What are you thinking?” For some reason, most guys are moronically incapable of answering this simple question. Instead, say something like: “I’ve always wanted to go to India.” Or “I want to bungee jump someday.” And see what he says.

    In the dark is a good place to talk about your dreams. Or his.

If you are getting to the upper or nether regions, there will be buttons and zippers and suchlike to negotiate. Do not just let him fumble around with your bra clasp or your shirt button for like six hours. He is not enjoying it. He is feeling superawkward that he cannot manage a simple button like a normal person.

    Just undo them yourself, if you want them undone. Trust me, the guy will be seriously relieved.

Likewise, you can just ask him to deal with his own buttons—so you don’t have to. Really, everyone will be so much happier.

If it gets to the nether regions once, every single time after that, have protection in your bag. Just in case. Even if you think there’s no way it’s going to get that far. Because it is way better to be all, “Oh, wait, I have something in my bag for just this situation,” than to end up pregnant or with some nasty disease. Believe me, your real live boyfriend will not think you are suddenly a famous slut. He will be majorly glad you came prepared and the whole experience will be like a gazillion times nicer if you are not feeling worried and guilty for being so lame as to be doing what you’re doing without protection.

And remember: every single time. Every single single time. Have it in your bag.

—dictated by Meghan and written by me into The Girl Book, my sporadically updated journal.

in the middle of the summer, before everything went bad with Noel, my grandma Suzette died. She was Dad’s mother, and she lived nearby in Bothell. She wasn’t that old—seventy-two— but she had this foot surgery a while ago that kept getting infected and somehow her blood got toxic and blah blah blah I don’t really understand it, but eventually it killed her.