And now, she was walking down the hall with her books clutched to her chest, looking down at the floor while guys called, “Don’t hide that light under a bushel!” or, “Set ’em free, Van Deusen! Twins like that need a regular airing.”
God, it was like they had never been forced to take American History & Politics, where we spent nearly half a semester on the history of feminism. Everyone should have known, after that, that it’s completely retro and lame to make comments about other people’s bodies in the hallway.
“Hey, Nora, can you fly me somewhere with those hot-air balloons?”
It was like they’d never seen a boob before.
And maybe they hadn’t.
Besides the info Meghan and I got eavesdropping, the main person who filled me in was Noel DuBoise. He turned up in my Art History class and then again in Chemistry, where we decided to be lab partners as a way of lightening up what promised to be a painful semester of scientific suffering.
Here’s Noeclass="underline" blond, spiky hair that probably requires quantities of gel; nondrinker, clean liver, vegetarian but heavy smoker; pierced eyebrow; underweight; funny in a mutter-under-your-breath way. I’d known him forever, because everyone at Tate Prep has known each other since kindergarten,3 but I really only made friends with him in Painting Elective last year, and then he stood by me during all the debacles of sophomore spring, when everyone acted like I was covered with the strange blue spots of leprosy.
Noel is one of those people who doesn’t have a clique—but he isn’t a leper, either. I used to wonder if he was gay, but he’s completely not, though he definitely holds himself aloof from the rabidly hetero merry-go-round of our high school.
Noel looks at the Tate Universe as if he finds it all mildly amusing and sometimes a bit sickening, but he’s willing to participate for purposes of research so that he can bring back interesting tidbits of information to the ironic, punk rock planet where he really lives.
People like him for this quality. They invite him to parties. He can sit at anyone’s table. But he never really seems committed, if you know what I mean.
Noel and I hadn’t seen each other all summer. I had been traveling with my mom during the first half.4 Then, in August, he went to New York City to visit his older brother, Claude, who goes to Cooper Union.
Even when we were both in Seattle, Noel and I had never been the make-plans level of friends. More like Painting Elective friends who sometimes put notes in each other’s mail cubbies.
We didn’t call each other or anything.
At the end of the summer, though, Noel had sent me an e-mail. A New York City travel report.
Number of stairs to Claude’s walk-up apartment: seventy.
Number of lights in Times Square: a gazillion.
Number of dumplings consumed in a single sitting: eleven.
Number of times yours truly did not go to bed until four a.m.: eleven.
Number of times Claude called me a little punk: countless.
Number of gay dance clubs he dragged me to: three.
Name of person who busted out dancing and then fell on his little punk butt with all his brother’s friends looking: Noel.
I wondered if he sent the e-mail to more than one person, but then I decided I didn’t care. I had only one official friend (Meghan), and I couldn’t afford to get huffy. So I wrote him back:
Number of Popsicles consumed in a single sitting: 3.5.
Number of times my dad said, “Where did those Popsicles go? I was sure I had some in here”: six.
Person who is annoying me: my mother. Twenty seconds ago she went, “Ruby, I notice there is a lot of your stuff lying around the living room,” because she read a book called Empower Your Girl Child that told her not to tell me to pick up my damn stuff, because that kind of authoritative directive subjugates me when I’m supposed to be developing my autonomy. Instead, she’s supposed to remark on something I’m doing that she doesn’t like, using the phrase “I notice,” and then wait for me to make an independent decision to take the socially responsible action of…picking up my damn stuff.
Only I am wise to her wily parenting ways, because I read her book when she wasn’t looking!
Person who is making me laugh right now: John Belushi.5 (No, not here. That would be seriously weird and highly disturbing. On TV.)
Person I can see out my dad’s office window: Hutch.6
Person who has her driver’s license and permission to borrow the Honda on weekends:
Roo!
Roo!
Roo!
And Noel wrote back:
Why Hutch outside window?
And I wrote back:
He helps my dad in the greenhouse. Kevin Oliver = sole employee and proprietor of a gardening catalog/ newsletter/extremely boring publication entitled Container Gardening for the Rare Bloom Lover.
Hutch got a haircut.
Noel didn’t reply. But on that first day of school he asked me to be his Chem lab partner. Even though we didn’t have to do a lab until Thursday.
I nodded. After class, we headed toward the refectory for lunch, and Noel lit a cigarette, not caring if any teachers could see him.
I looked at his pale skin and his bony hand clutching the smoke, and he’d written “through page 40” on his knuckles in blue ink. I was thinking how good it was to see him, and how even though we hadn’t seen each other all summer, maybe we’d be friends, at least of the hanging-out-at-school sort, and also how he was really quite cute in an anemic sort of way, when Noel tossed his cigarette in the garbage and grabbed my arm. We were ten yards from the refectory entrance.
“Just a sec,” he said. “You can come with me if you want—” And he pulled me around the side of the building, behind a bush where no one could see us from the path.
I thought for a second he was going to kiss me and I didn’t know if I wanted him to because I hadn’t thought it was leading to that even though we had held hands that one time at the Spring Fling afterparty but maybe I did want it to lead to that—and his pale neck looked beautiful and his gray-green eyes had a sparkle and yes, I did want to.
But would he really kiss me right there in the middle of the Tate campus, halfway to lunch?
And was it a good idea for a person (me) with a bad reputation to be making out in the bushes on the first day of school?
Then Noel pulled an orange plastic tube out of his jacket pocket, inhaled, stuck it in his mouth and pressed the top down. He breathed in and out a few times, then put his hands on his knees and leaned forward, looking at the ground.
I could see the white skin of his back, between the top of his cords and his coat.
He stood up and puffed again.
He wasn’t going to kiss me at all.
I felt like an idiot.
“Don’t angst,” Noel said, looking at my shocked face. “It’s not crack.”
“I know,” I said, though I hadn’t been sure. Not being a crack smoker myself.
“I probably should have explained ahead of time. It’s kind of creepy to drag you into the bushes and force you to watch me inhale controlled substances.” He stood up and shoved the tube back in his pocket.
“You’re asthmatic,” I said, after a second.
“Since I was four.”7
“But you smoke.”
“Yeah.”
“That can’t be good.”
“No.”
“Then why do it?”
Noel sighed. “Because it fucking annoys me. ‘Noel, don’t forget your medicine.’ ‘Noel, stay inside—it’s dusty out today.’ ‘Noel, don’t work yourself too hard.’ ‘Noel, check in with the nurse.’ ‘Noel, don’t do this, don’t do that.’”