The Boy Recession

  He never came back. After we put the kids on the bus, I went backstage, where Diva and Hunter were rehearsing. As I saw them together, I was thinking one thing on repeat: I’m losing him. I’m losing him. I’m losing him.

  But now, as Aviva comes to the table with her lunch—a large Diet Coke and three chocolate-chip cookies, which is not one of the meals recommended by the SAD diet—I try to push Hunter out of my mind.

  “What’s going on?” Aviva asks us.

  “Kelly has seasonal depression,” Darcy says.

  “Well, I know what will cheer you up,” Aviva tells me. “Let’s have a girls’ night out!”

  As soon as she says it, Darcy and I groan.

  “Girls’ night out?” Darcy says. “Every night we go out is a girls’ night out.”

  It’s true. We spend most of our Friday and Saturday nights at Aviva’s house, at the movies, or at Starbucks. Somehow we got the idea that Starbucks was the place to meet cute boys with glasses who would take us to concerts of bands we’d never heard of. But every time we go there, it’s all crazy bearded men with newspapers and middle-aged divorcées on Match.com dates.

  “Okay,” Aviva sighs, breaking off a piece of her cookie and handing it to me. “It’s actually for my column. I’m writing a column about girls’ nights out.”

  Aviva’s column, “The Boy Recession,” has been a big success. Actually, it’s titled “The Boy Recession” with a copyright symbol after it, because Eugene threatened to sue her. Her article “Skankology,” documenting the increase in skanky behavior at our school, was really popular. She also wrote a great article about Pam’s prom contract. Occasionally she covers some pretty serious stuff, like skewed gender ratios in China and the Middle East, or boy recessions on college campuses, but mostly she writes about Julius, and her articles get Tweeted and linked on Facebook all over the place.

  “No way,” Darcy says, shutting her notebook. “Please don’t publish our pathetic lives so people can spread them all over the Internet. No one wants to read about us getting picked up from the movies by Kelly’s dad in the station wagon. No offense, Kell.”

  “No, I completely agree.”

  “Well, then, give me some gossip to write about!” Aviva says.

  “Wow,” I say. “Look at Bobbi.”

  A few weeks back, Eugene unexpectedly broke up with Bobbi. His actions made a lot of girls really mad, and it proved that Eugene was the King of the Slimeball Kings. Everyone’s been talking a lot of crap about him, except Bobbi, who would have a right to trash Eugene, who hasn’t said one word against him. She keeps crying in the bathroom, but afterward she bravely reapplies her fake lashes and mascara before facing the world of Julius again.

  Of course, you can still sense she isn’t her usual carbonated self.

  “Hi, girls,” Bobbi says as she walks over to our table. “Hey, Darcy. I wrote up a report for the Healthy Lunch Initiative. I talked to Pam about sourcing some local organic products and projected some costs. I hope it’s helpful.”

  When Darcy takes the report, she stares at it like she’s amazed it wasn’t written in pink glitter glue.

  “So how are you girls doing?” Bobbi asks Aviva and me, sitting down at our table.

  “We’re okay,” I say cautiously. “How are you, Bobbi?”

  Bobbi’s eyes fill with tears, and I’m frightened for her makeup. Apparently Aviva is, too, because she panics and bursts out: “We’re planning a girls’ night out!”

  Bobbi’s face lights up. The eye makeup is saved.

  “That sounds like so much fun!” Bobbi says. “We should totally do that!”

  Darcy tears herself away from the Excel chart long enough to shoot Aviva a death stare.

  “We’re actually really boring,” Darcy tells Bobbi. “We just go to Starbucks every weekend.”

  “I love Starbucks!” Bobbi chirps, meeting Darcy’s eyes in wonder, like it’s an unbelievably miraculous coincidence that four teenage girls would all like overpriced coffee with whipped cream on top.

  “We should all go sometime,” I say, trying to be tactful. “Maybe after winter break? Or after midterms?”

  “What about this Friday?” Bobbi suggests. “Are you girls doing anything then?”

  I look at Darcy, Darcy looks at Aviva, and Aviva shrugs and says honestly, “No. We’re not doing anything.”

  “Look at this place,” Aviva says in disbelief, as the Starbucks door chimes closed behind us on Friday night.

  “Aww!” Bobbi says, coming in behind Darcy and stomping the snow off her boots. “It’s all Christmassy in here!”

  But Aviva isn’t talking about the Christmas decorations; she’s talking about the boys. Right when we walk in, there’s a whole table of college guys in baseball caps and fleeces holding Venti-size drinks. There’s a nerdy cute guy at the corner table, working on his laptop with his headphones on, and two preppy guys are working on a school project by the window.

  When we go up to order our drinks, even the guys behind the counter are cute. The one making the drinks, who has a lip ring, gives Bobbi a free extra shot in her caramel latte.

  “Okay, I’m kidnapping her and making her my AP physics experiment,” Darcy tells me, dunking her green-tea bag like she’s trying to drown a sixteenth-century witch. We’re waiting for my Frappuccino while Aviva and Bobbi snag a table.

  “I mean, this is incredible. All the variables are the same. This is the same Starbucks we always come to. This is the same time we’re always here. The only thing that’s different is that we brought Bobbi. Does she literally attract boys?”

  It looks like it. By the time Darcy and I bring our drinks to the table, one of the college guys has already approached Bobbi, asking her if he should get a latte or a macchiato. Then the nerdy cute guy takes off his headphones to ask Bobbi if she can unplug his computer for him. He obviously wants to try to talk to her but is too shy. Bobbi just unplugs the computer with a smile, says, “Here you go,” and turns back to us.

  “Hey, Bobbi,” Aviva says as she lounges in a big, comfy armchair. “That guy in the hat was kinda cute. I think you two would look good together.”

  Uh-oh. Here comes sad Barbie face again. I reach out and touch Bobbi’s arm.

  “Aw! What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I can’t even look at another guy,” Bobbi says, dabbing at her eyeliner with her fake nail. “I’m still so in love with Eugene.”

  “Really?” Darcy asks. I kick her under the table.

  “What actually happened between you and Eugene?” Aviva asks.

  “I have no idea!” Bobbi says. “Everything was going great! We had so much fun together.”

  “Did you fight a lot?” Aviva asks, in her sensitive Oprah voice, nodding encouragingly to prove she’s listening.

  “Never!” Bobbi shakes her head.

  “Did you sense him pulling away?”

  “Not at all,” Bobbi says. “Eugene was the best boyfriend. He came to all my tennis games, brought me Dunkachinos to my fourth-period study hall, and learned how to make sushi because he knows how much I love California rolls. He took my dad golfing and gave him stock tips. He called me every night before I went to sleep to tell me he loved me….”

  Really? Pervy Eugene did all this? Darcy and I raise our eyebrows at each other.

  “But, Bobbi,” Darcy says, “don’t you think it’s for the best? Honestly, no one thought Eugene was good enough for you. I mean, look at the guys you’ve dated before. Justin Messina was smart and tall and really hot. Plus, he didn’t have to clean out his locker before the cops brought the drug-sniffing dog around school.”

  Aviva and I aren’t sure how Bobbi will take this, so we pretend to be very interested in our drinks. But Bobbi isn’t offended.

  “Those things don’t matter to me,” she says. “I’ve dated tall guys and good-looking guys and college athletes and male models and…”

  “Obviously the boy recession hits some of us harder than others,” I tell Aviva behind my
cup as Bobbi goes on with her list.

  “But there’s nothing,” Bobbi tells Darcy, “like a boyfriend who really loves you for who you are.”

  This is exactly the kind of cheesy sentiment Darcy hates, like that quote girls have on their Facebook pages about special girls who “don’t get picked” because they’re “like apples at the top of a tree” or some crap like that. So when Bobbi goes to get the cinnamon shaker, I wait for the patented Darcy Ryan eye roll. But it doesn’t happen. Darcy is just sitting there, holding her tea and looking thoughtful.

  When Bobbi comes back, she seems a little happier. Maybe it was that cinnamon.

  “I do love Eugene,” she tells us. “But I guess if he doesn’t want to be in a relationship, I should forget about him for now. Maybe it would actually be good to talk to another guy and get my mind off him. Do you think I should spill my drink on my iPhone and ask the guy with the headphones to reprogram it for me?”

  “Definitely,” Aviva says. “If nothing else, another guy will make Eugene jealous.”

  As Aviva helps Bobbi destroy her very expensive phone in the name of new love, I think about Hunter and Diva. If Hunter is forgetting about me, then I should forget about him. The only problem with that is, unlike Bobbi, I don’t have a coffeehouse full of willing guys at my disposal. It took me long enough to find one guy I like. Where am I going to find another one?

  CHAPTER 18: HUNTER

  “Slimeball Kings: How Julius Slackers Rose to the Top of the Heap”

  “The Boy Recession©” by Aviva Roth, The Julius Journal, January

  When I wake up on New Year’s Day, I have the worst headache ever, and I’m in a purple sleeping bag. I don’t remember whose sleeping bag it is, but it’s definitely not mine.

  It takes me an excruciating second to remember I’m at the Chicago cast sleepover at this sophomore girl Kerry’s house. Last night all thirty of us were hanging out together, but now all the sleeping bags around me are empty. There’s a rolled-up Twister mat and a bunch of plastic wineglasses scattered around the room, but no people. I guess everyone is upstairs.

  I’d never heard of a coed sleepover before, and I’m pretty sure most people’s parents wouldn’t be too happy about it, but I told my parents I was sleeping at Eugene’s, so they didn’t know, and Kerry’s parents don’t know anything because they’re away at their cabin for the weekend. I guess this sleepover thing is a tradition, and this year, I got invited.

  Actually, I’ve been invited to a lot of stuff lately. It started when Bobbi would invite Eugene places, and Eugene would bring me and the D-Bags along. Bobbi always knew someone who was having people over to drink or watch a movie or go in somebody’s hot tub. Before Eugene asked Bobbi out, I had no clue anyone in Whitefish Bay had a hot tub.

  And once rehearsals for Chicago got going, the chorus girls from the show started inviting me places, too. I get the girls in the chorus mixed up—maybe because a lot of them have K names: Kerry, Kaitlyn, Kara. In the show, we do this big dance number called “All I Care About Is Love,” during which all the girls sing “We want Billy…. We need Billy….” before I burst through the doors and onto the stage.

  That song kind of explains my life right now. I mean, people aren’t singing songs about me in the school hallways, but last night, when I walked into the sleepover with Eugene and a case of champagne, the girls went berserk.

  Squinting my eyes and looking around the room, I spot Eugene stretched out on a really nice couch. Eugene would get a couch all to himself and leave me stranded on the floor in some random sleeping bag. Too bad I’m not allowed to bitch at Eugene today.

  “Hey, gingerbread boy,” I say, but my voice is so shot that it barely registers.

  So I throw a pillow at Eugene’s head.

  “What’s up?” he croaks.

  “Happy birthday,” I tell him, unzipping the purple sleeping bag to get my legs free.

  “Happy New Year,” Eugene tells me, sitting up and right away feeling between the couch cushions for his BlackBerry.

  “I feel like shit,” I tell him. “My head hurts so bad.”

  “It’s the sugary drinks,” Eugene says. “They give you the worst hangovers. Your body can’t metabolize sugar and alcohol at the same time. You’re probably dehydrated.”

  I would kill for a Pepsi right now. A huge glass of really fizzy Pepsi with lots of ice cubes.

  “Oh, man, what a night,” Eugene says, tossing his BlackBerry to the other side of the couch and stretching his arms over his head.

  Eugene’s not in Chicago, but I brought him to the sleepover anyway, because it’s his birthday and he didn’t have any plans. He broke up with Bobbi about two weeks ago. I think their problems started when she showed him her promise ring. At first, Eugene thought she was only wearing it to be like all those girls on the Disney Channel, but it turned out Bobbi is actually pretty religious. She’s so into the whole purity thing she wouldn’t even let him touch her boobs. After a while it drove him crazy, being around that amazing rack and not being able to do anything about it. Then he started spending time with all these freshman girls and the temptation got to him. Yeah, I know—he’s a horny, douchey bastard. I agree. Apparently he gave Bobbi a big breakup speech that was a big load of bullshit, about how he was like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz and she was the Wizard, who gave him a heart, but their journey on the Yellow Brick Road had come to an end, and blah, blah, blah. Eugene said Bobbi burst out crying.

  But now Eugene is free to flirt with any chorus girl who’s dumb enough to humor him. And he did plenty of flirting last night. He was loving all the drunken chorus girls. Kerry made us play all these games—Twister, Catch Phrase, charades—but the chorus girls turned them into drinking games. Lemme tell you, these girls can drink.

  “We’ve got mimosas!” Kerry announces loudly, coming down the basement stairs holding a tray of drinks.

  Oh, crap. Here we go again.

  Eugene takes one off the tray, but I don’t. Even the thought of alcohol makes my stomach hurt. Then I see Diva come downstairs, and my stomach hurts for a whole different reason. I suddenly remember who owns the purple sleeping bag and why I was in it. Oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap.

  Last night at midnight we did the whole New Year’s countdown thing, and everyone started grabbing one another and making out. Kerry was kissing George, Eugene was doing some creepy three-way kiss with two sophomore chorus girls, and Diva jumped on me. She’d been trying to hang out with me all night, saying we should be on teams together for charades and Catch Phrase, because we’re both leads in the play and whatever. Then after midnight we made out on the couch for a while, until Eugene kicked us off so that he could go to sleep. I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, so Diva made me share her purple sleeping bag. When I see Diva, I get the urge to jet out of the room as fast as possible. But apparently she doesn’t feel the same way, because she comes right over to the couch and sits next to me and kind of snuggles.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asks me, reaching up to touch my hair.

  “Uh… okay,” I say, avoiding her eyes.

  “I told you my sleeping bag was really comfy!” Diva says. “It was comfy, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You didn’t get a mimosa?” she asks. “I’ll get you one.”

  “No, I’m good,” I say quickly. “I’m in more of a Pepsi place right now.”

  “I’ll get you a Pepsi!” Diva says, popping up from the couch.

  Man, I gotta get out of here. I try to give Eugene the escape signal, but he’s too busy flirting. He’s asking Kerry and her friends about their New Year’s resolutions, and they’re telling him about how they want to go to the gym and try that exercise class where you use a stripper pole, and Eugene’s telling them that he knows a guy who could install stripper poles for them in their rooms.

  “You know what your New Year’s resolution should be?” Kerry says to Eugene, putting down her tray of mimosas. “You should be in the musical next year!
”

  “Yeah! Yeah!” All the girls are agreeing. “Eugene, you have to be in the musical next year!”

  Diva comes downstairs holding my dream Pepsi—the glass is huge and filled with ice cubes. It’s ridiculously fizzy, too. After a few sips, my mouth doesn’t feel so dry anymore, and the throbbing in my head chills out a little bit. And I realize I’m actually pretty hungry.

  “I think me and Eugene are gonna go,” I tell Diva, getting up off the couch, where she was smashed up against me.

  “You should stay!” Diva says. “We’re making bacon and eggs upstairs.”

  Man, bacon and eggs sounds good. Maybe this girl isn’t so bad—purple sleeping bag, Pepsi, bacon…. But if I don’t tear Eugene away from these chorus girls, we’re gonna be here forever. So I tell him I’ve got a birthday surprise waiting for him and drag him away.

  Diva calls out to me, “I’ll text you later,” which throws me off, because I had no clue she had my phone number. When did that happen? But I just say, “Cool,” and head out the door.

  I don’t actually have a birthday surprise for Eugene, but I have my wallet, so I take him to IHOP for breakfast. Eugene gets steak tips and eggs, and I get a Smokehouse Combo with sausage links and hash browns and extra bacon. When I look up from my food, I notice that Eugene’s on his BlackBerry.

  “Hey,” I say, spitting out little bits of sausage. “Stop texting.”

  “I’m on Facebook,” he says. “I love being on Facebook on my birthday. Everyone’s sending me messages and writing on my wall. And I already got a bunch of friend requests from your chorus girls. And pokes.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Do you think Kerry and Katie would ever be interested in a kind of… PG-thirteen threesome?”

  “Weird,” I say. “Which Katie?”

  “Katie R.”

  “No way in hell. Don’t even try it.”

  “Hey, look at this,” Eugene says.

  “What?”

  “Is this true?”