and the credits would roll,
and Whip and I
would walk off together
arm in arm into the sunset,
and Max would stand there
waving after us,
fondly nodding his head…
But this isn’t a movie.
So I Quit Laughing at Max’s Joke
Even though it’s funny.
And I yank my hand back from Whip,
in a way fully intended to show him
that I think he’s seriously
invading my space.
Because there’s a part of me
that’s not at all satisfied
with Whip’s little apology.
A part of me that wants to know
exactly what it is he’s sorry for.
But there’s no way
I’m going to come right out and ask him.
Because I’m scared that his
things-I’m-sorry-for list
won’t be long enough to suit me.
No matter how many things are on it.
When I Stop Off at Dukes Coffee Shop
To buy a pack of gum on my way to school,
the guy behind the cash register
starts getting way too friendly.
“You’re Whip Logan’s daughter,
aren’t you?” he asks.
“What gives you that idea?” I growl.
He points over to the magazine rack.
And there, right on the cover of Us magazine—
is us!
He grins at me.
“I’ve written a script that has a perfect part
for your father in it,” he says.
“Make sure he reads it, okay?”
Then he shoves a heavy envelope into my hands,
and says, “The Bubblicious is on me, Ruby.”
I wish it
was on him—
stuck in his hair!
As I head out the door,
a middle-aged woman grabs my arm
and asks me to autograph her copy of Us.
Sometimes I feel like screaming
even louder than those monkeys
in my recurring dream…
The Longer I’m in Caliphonya
The more I feel
like that guy Holden Caulfield,
from Catcher in the Rye.
Because
I can’t help thinking
how phony everybody seems.
Just look under any rock.
I bet there are more phonies in Lalaland
than there are cockroaches in New York City
Take the kids here at Lakewood, for instance.
Fake smiles flash on and off their faces
faster than strobe lights.
There are girls in my class
who’ve already had their breasts done.
I swear to God.
Holden Caulfield’s just a character in a book.
But I’m real.
I’m made of flesh and blood and bone.
Flesh and blood and bone
that’s aching
to go home.
And the worst part of all is:
there isn’t any home
to go home to.
Last Night
I woke up in the middle of the night
and I was so jazzed
because I’d finally remembered a dream!
It was completely surreal—
all about Ray and me and hundreds of babies
living in Ruby’s Slipper together.
I whipped open my blank book
and recorded the whole thing
in minute detail.
Then I drifted back to sleep,
deeply relieved that I’d finally
have something to show Feather.
But this morning
when I woke up and opened the book
to read what I’d written…
What the—?!
Every single page
was still blank!
I felt totally ‘Iwilight Zoned.
Then I realized what had happened:
I’d only dreamt that I’d remembered my dream.
So then I wrote down that dream.
And hoped I wasn’t
just dreaming.
When Feather Asks Me
If I have anything to “share with the circle,”
I open my dream journal ceremoniously,
and read the dream about the dream.
Everyone in the room cracks up.
And I have to admit,
it is pretty funny.
All around me,
kids give me the thumbs up.
Even Colette.
Feather flutters over to me,
saying, “I knew you could do it!”
And she pulls me to my feet for a hug.
Without thinking, I let my head fall,
resting my cheek on her shoulder.
Just the way I used to with my mom.
Then she starts going on and on
about how my dream is such a
perfect example of what Freud meant
when he spoke about
dreams being the fulfillment
of our wishes.
And I just stand here,
with my head on Feather’s shoulder,
wishing it was Mom’s.
And Speaking of Wish Fulfillment …
Dear Ray,
If you were here right now ̷ If you were here … Well, let’s just put it this way: if you were here right now, you’d be real glad that you were here right now.
And speaking of you being here, I finally talked to Whip about Thanksgiving. The poor guy broke into a sweat and started asking me all about “the nature of our relationship.” He looked like he wanted to say no, but I knew he wouldn’t dare because I made sure to ask him right in front of Max. And Max was giving him this heavy-duty evil eye the whole time. So now it’s official!
But Thanksgiving’s still seven weeks away How will I survive till then?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Dooby
A Star Is Born?
Feather decides we need to take a break
from our discussion of
Freudian dream interpretation techniques
versus Jungian ones,
and do some improvs.
She says it’ll help us all
get to know each other on a deeper plane.
So that our collective unconscious
will be more collective,
or more unconscious, or something like that.
I squeeze my eyes closed and think,
“You can’t see me. You can’t see me. You—”
But she picks me to go first anyhow,
and sticks me with Wyatt Moody,
the worst Brad Pitt wannabe of them all.
Feather asks Wyatt to choose a prop.
So he digs around in his pocket for a minute,
snickering at some kind of private joke,
and then pulls out this floppy rubber thing
and plops it into my hand.
I stare at it blankly for a second,
trying to figure out what it is,
until some wires finally sizzle in my brain
and I suddenly realize
that I’m holding a condom!
A red-hot flash of lightning zaps through me,
and without even thinking
I fling it to the floor.
Which causes everyone in the room to break up.
Even Feather. That bitch.
Then, with throbbing cheeks,
I launch into an improv.
It’s all about how angry I am with Wyatt
for always making me buy the condoms.
“Why the hell don’t you ever buy them?!”
But I don’t even let him answer.
“Why am I always the one wh
o has to do it?
I am so sick and tired of it.
From now on, you no buy, you no sigh.
No glove? No love. No way, Jose, no how!”
And I guess all my real embarrassment and anger
makes it seem like I’m doing a pretty good acting job,
because when I finish with my tirade a few minutes later
everybody starts clapping,
even Wyatt.
And I nearly faint from shock.
And from how much fun I just had.
Is that how Whip feels when he acts?
Suddenly I have a million questions
I want to ask him.
Then Wyatt says, “You were awesome!”
And Colette smiles at me and says, “Yeah.
You’re a real Whip off the old block.”
And when she says this, it’s truly bizarre.
Because half of me feels proud,
and the other half feels horrified.
Lunchtime
I’m heading toward
my usual solitary table by the window,
when Wyatt motions for me
to come and sit with him and his friends
instead.
They all start waving and calling out my name.
Which is way strange,
because before today
I had no idea that any of them
even knew my name.
I’m too stunned to blow them off,
so I walk over and sit down across from Wyatt.
Right away he starts telling all his homies
about how cool it was
the way I handled that improv today.
“You should try out for Pygmalion,” he says.
Then he grins this deeply
Brad Pitty smile at me.
And I notice for the first time how
gorgeous he is underneath all that stubble.
Wyatt locks eyes with mine,
tucks his chin down just a little,
lifts his left eyebrow
slightly higher than his right one,
and presses his knee against mine.
Suddenly,
this wave of heat shivers all through me
and the sun seems to be beaming
straight out of Wyatt’s eyes,
directly into mine.
Without thinking,
I grin right back at him.
But then I realize what I’m doing—
and stop myself.
How could I be so unfaithful
to Ray?
It’s So Weird to Think
That I’m not even
in the same time zone as Ray.
That when it’s lunchtime out here,
Ray’s already heading home from school.
And when I’m eating dinner,
Ray’s finishing his homework.
And when I’m still asleep,
Ray’s eating breakfast.
And when I’m eating breakfast,
Ray’s eating lunch.
And it’s so weird to think that when
Ray was heading home from school today,
I was eating lunch.
And flirting with Wyatt.
Bad Ruby.
Bad, bad Ruby.
The Most Astonishing Thing Just Happened
I stopped off at Book Soup
on the way home from school
to buy Laurie Halse Anderson’s new novel,
and who do you think was standing
right in front of me
in the line at the counter?
Brad Pitt!
The real one.
I’m positive it was him.
That was pretty astonishing in itself.
But that’s not the thing
I’m referring to.
The thing I’m referring to
was that when Brad turned around
and flashed his sizzling smile at me,
I suddenly realized that even if
Brad Pitt himself asked me out,
I’d say no.
Ray’s the only one I want.
Hey Lizerini,
I haven’t heard from Ray in like three days. What’s up with that? Is he avoiding me because he’s dumped me for Amber and he can’t bear to tell me? My imagination’s taking me places that I definitely don’t want to go … Please! Put me out of my misery. Let me know what’s happening. E-mail me. Call me. Send me a telepathic message. Whatever. This sucks. Truly.
I hunger for Ray’s font. Is that, like, a sick thing?
Obsessively yours,
Ruby
P.S. Caroeron was fust leaving our house when I got home from school today 1 think maybe she and Whip are seeing each other on the sly. How bizarre is that?
P.P.S. I still can’t believe my father’s name is Whip. Have you ever heard a dumber name than that in your whole entire life?
Hmmm …
A dumber name than Whip? Can I get back to you on that?
Listen, Rubella, you have got to quit worrying about Ray hooking up with Amber. Didn’t you learn anything from all those years we spent playing therapy while the other little girls were playing house? Don’t you remember what I used to tell you when I was therapizing you? Worry is negative prayer. Besides, Ray isn’t the slightest bit interested in that smut tart. He never even seems to notice her, not even when she bats her lashes at him all during math class and keeps running her tongue over her lips like she’s doing a bad impression of Marilyn Monroe or something. I watch him the whole time, and trust me, he literally doesn’t even look in her direction. You rock his world, Ruby. So RELAX!!!
Love,
Liz
P.S. Cameron and Whip sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g …
We’ve in Dream Class
In our usual circle,
when suddenly the gong starts sounding.
Bong. Bong! BONG! BONG!
All of the kids leap up
and rush across the room
to duck under their desks.
They grab hold of a desk leg with one hand,
and cover their necks with the other.
So I do, too.
But my heart’s beating faster
than the wings of a hummingbird.
What’s going on?
Is that nonstop bonging
a signal that we’re about to be
attacked by a chemical weapon?
I glance up and notice Wyatt
trying to catch my eye from underneath his desk.
How can he think about flirting at a time like this?
Then
the gong stops ringing.
Just as suddenly as it began.
Everyone crawls out
from under the desks
and comes back to sit in the circle.
At which point, Feather commends us
for our quick response to “the crisis.”
The crisis?
I nudge Colette and whisper,
“Do you mind if I ask you
what the heck just happened?”
“Oh, that?” she says,
blinking her lavender eyes at me.
“That was just an earthquake drill.”
An earthquake drill?
Oh, Jesus … Give me a good
old-fashioned hurricane any day.
At least you know when they’re coming.
I’m Heading into the Cafeteria
When for some unknown reason
Colette grabs my hand,
and leads me away from the throngs
to sit together on a bench by the pot garden.
Just the two of us.
Like I’m one of the inner circle or something.
And in two seconds flat, we’re talking about sex.
She tells me that none of her friends are virgins.
“You’re considered a freak around here
if you haven’t lost your virginity
by the time you turn fifteen,” she
says.
“They don’t call it El Lay for nothing.”
She says she lost hers
with a mega-famous movie star’s son.
She tells me the name of his father,
but makes me swear not to tell a soul.
She says they did it in his pool house during a party.
“It only took about a minute,” she says.
“It was over so fast it wasn’t even funny.”
“Did you love him?” I ask.
She looks startled. “Yeah. I guess.
Yeah. Sure. Why else?” she says with a shrug.
Then, suddenly, she asks me how far I’ve gone.
Can she be trusted
with such highly classified information?
I take a deep breath.
Then I confess: “Only to second base.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“But when you did that improv,” she says,
“you seemed so … I don’t know …
so … experienced.”
“Well, my boyfriend Ray wanted to go further,”
I tell her. “Much further.
But I guess I wasn’t ready.”
I feel my face turn three shades of pink.
“Oh God,” I moan. “I feel so backward,
so completely infantile telling you that.”
But Colette just laughs.
“Don’t be silly. You’re not from El Lay.
Besides, take it from me:
You aren’t missing a thing.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m missing a thingy.”
And both of us crack up.
I hope she’s wrong about sex, though.
Because If and When I Decide to Go All the Way
I don’t want it to be like it was for Colette.
With somebody that she didn’t even care about.
Just to get rid of her virginity.
Like it was dandruff, for chrissake,
and sex was Head " Shoulders.
I know this sounds incredibly lame,
but I don’t want losing my virginity
to feel like I’m losing something.
I want it to feel like I’m finding something.
I want sex to be amazing.
I want it to be life-alteringly wonderful.
And I want it to happen with someone I love.
I love Ray.
I really do.
Only I don’t know if I love him enough.
Oh, maybe I should just quit fighting it
and do it with him when he comes out at Thanksgiving.
But what if we do it and I don’t like it?
What if we do it and I love it?
Won’t that make it even harder
to be living so far away from him?
What if we do it and then he just dumps me?