The Treasure Map of Boys

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Noel put his head back down. "If I make French pastry, I don't know if even Led Zeppelin would be strong enough to counteract it."

"Will you really do French pastry?" I asked. "What does your mom know how to make? Can you make pain au chocolat?"

Noel groaned.

"It's not sissy baking," said Meghan. "Several guys on the soccer team are already signed up."

"She's right," said Nora. "It's manly manly baking."

Noel lifted his head. "She can make pain au chocolat," he said, with faux resignation. "I'll get her to show me how."

"Yay!" Nora clapped her hands.

Noel stood to bus his tray. "Ruby, I am powerless to deny you, but you may be the death of me."

Hutch laughed. "You can come over and play Guitar Hero this weekend if you need to reclaim your manhood."

"I may need to," said Noel.

When the boys left, Nora's forehead wrinkled. "He's powerless to deny you?" she said to me. I held up my hands in innocence.

***

At my next week's therapy appointment I told Doctor Z about the conversation with Nora, the Hooter Rescue Squad note I wrote to Noel and how I'd gotten him to make pain au chocolat for the bake sale.

Doctor Z listened quietly and then she said: "Explain to me again how your note read?"

"The one I gave Noel?"

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"Yes."

"It said thank you for ... um ... rescuing my boobs. Only I called them hooters because that's the official term used by the Rescue Squad."

"Hm."

"What?"

"You wrote the note after the conversation with Nora, am I understanding correctly?"

"Yes."

"But you don't feel you were flirting with Noel."

"No."

"Some people might say that writing a note about your breasts to a boy is a flirtatious thing to do." Ag.

Ag, ag, ag.

I had written a note about my breasts to Noel.

What kind of girl writes a note about her breasts to the boy her best friend likes?

What kind of girl writes a note about her breasts, period? Was I in total denial, flirting with Noel when I'd promised not to? Was I a horrible person?

How had I let myself do that, after my promise to Nora?

There has got to be a word for the general but inadvertent sex mania I've been having. I mean, this is probably how rabbits feel, and why they're always procreating at unreasonable speed. Like they don't even mean to be thinking about sex, much less doing anything sexy, and then they suddenly find themselves in the throes of horizontal action, or whatever position rabbits do it in. They

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find themselves doing it and having a whole rabbit family without even meaning to, just like I find myself looking at Wallace's chest hair or flirting with Jackson or pressing my thigh against Gideon's or writing notes to Noel about my boobs.

Ag again. I am completely Rabbity. I have Rabbit Fever. That's what's wrong with me.

That and panic attacks. And being a roly-poly, of course. And being a rotten friend.

"Ruby?" Doctor Z was leaning forward.

"Yes?"

"Try to be here, now, okay? You have my attention."

This is something Doctor Z has taken to saying often. "Be here, now." Like when I start thinking of all kinds of stuff that I'm not telling her and tune out that I'm even in therapy and that someone's even there waiting for me to talk. Be here, now.

"Okay," I told her. "I'm here." And I burst into tears.

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15.

I Should Resist, but I Do Not Resist

Dear F-SHAN,

I am sorry I wrote you that note about my hooters. Completely inappropriate.

Suspect I am possessed by strange demon. Am researching quality exorcists. Please, please, forget it ever happened.

--written on a half-sheet of notebook paper and folded in quarters. the day after my therapy appointment, I put the note in Noel's mail cubby. After Chem, he grabbed my arm and

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pulled me down the hall and up the stairs. "I want to show you something," he said, but when we got to the painting studio on the top floor, it was empty. The room had a skylight and cool winter sun shone into the room, which was filled with easels and half-assed student paintings. It smelled like turpentine.

"What?" I said. "I didn't think you were taking painting this term."

"I'm not," said Noel. Then he put his hands on my shoulders and said, "Really, I want to tell you something, and I knew we could be alone here."

"You're not showing me anything?"

"No." He laughed nervously.

"What do you want to tell me?"

"Well." I took his hands off me and walked around the room.

"What?"

"Anything I say is going to come out stupid."

"You brought me here," I told him. "You might as well say it."

"Okay." He kept pacing back and forth. "I--I'm dying to hear about your hooters."

"Excuse me?"

Noel wiped his hand across his forehead. "That came out wrong."

"You think?"

"I mean, you don't have to say sorry about that note you wrote me."

"Thanks," I told him. "But I talked to my shrink about it and she pointed out that if I don't want people to think

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I'm a famous slut, I shouldn't, you know, do slutty-type stuff."

"It wasn't slutty," said Noel, standing still, finally.

"Yeah," I said. "It pretty much was."

He took a step toward me. "It wasn't slutty. It was sexy."

Oh.

He thought I was sexy.

"I want to hear everything about you, all the time," Noel said. "Hooters--or whatever."

"You do?"

"I really do," he said.

I felt so dizzy-happy that he told me this, though I knew I shouldn't even be there with him, though I knew Nora would be mad, though I knew there were so many things wrong about all of it.

Because I wanted to hear everything about him all the time too.

It all rushed over me, the happiness and the guilt and the confusion. I put my hand out to steady myself on the counter, and as I did, Noel leaned into me and put his lips on mine.

He didn't ask if he could kiss me, the way he had last time.

He just did it, so I couldn't say no.

His mouth was so soft, much softer than anyone else I'd ever kissed, and as I put my arm up to touch his neck he seemed frail, underweight, vulnerable. And yet also, a little bossy. I mean, he had just decided to kiss me, when he knew I'd said no for good reasons before, but he was not taking no for an answer this time.

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I pulled away, in what I fully admit was a lame attempt to protest, and Noel pushed his whole body against mine as I leaned back against the art table.

Then there was nothing to do but kiss him some more.

He wrapped his arms around me like he was hugging me, not trying to cop a feel or whatever, and I just surrendered to the dizziness and kissed him, with all the tension draining out of me. Forty weeks of Noboyfriend and all my anger about Ariel and all my guilt about Nora and confusion about Jackson and Gideon, all my Rabbit Fever and everything-just washed out.

I was happy.

Noel pulled back. "That's what I wanted to say, actually," he breathed.

"I didn't quite hear you," I told him. "I think you need to say it again."

So he did, and we were kissing and the world was spinning-and then the door to the art studio opened and Ariel Olivieri was staring at us.

Ariel.

My dizziness left me abruptly and the art room seemed sordid.

I had been kissing Noel.

Whom I had resolved not to kiss.

Whom I had promised not to kiss.

Whom Ariel had kissed.

Ag.

Ariel would be furious, of course. Then she'd tell Kim and Cricket. Kim and Cricket would tell Nora.

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I would lose all my friends.

I deserved to lose all my friends.

He was off-limits; I had said so myself.

Ariel turned and slammed the door behind her, and I hate myself even more for what I did next: I took off my glasses and kissed Noel again. And again, and again. It was like the Rabbit Fever took over and I couldn't help it. I felt bad while I was doing it, but I also felt fantastic. I had been wanting to kiss him for so long, and he wanted to kiss me, and the room spun again and the sordidness disappeared and it was just him and me, together. I jumped up to sit on the table and wrapped my legs around him and blocked out everything else but the feel of his body against mine.

It was even better than retro metal.

***

I spent the rest of the day experiencing delicious jolts of happiness alternating with long periods of self-loathing. Noel was crazy about me! And I was crazy about . Noel.

I was a bad friend.

My love life was sorted out, I had left the state of Noboyfriend, he would call me tonight like he said he would and we'd go to the movies and there would be more kissing and everything would be wonderful.

No. That couldn't happen. I was a crazy leg-wrapping slut who kept on making out with a guy even when I'd told my closest friend I wouldn't steal him.

Noel was crazy about me!

I was afraid of running into Nora, even though we had

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no afternoon classes together, so I hid out in the library. But then I had a panic attack. Full-on. Couldn't breathe.

I went into the bathroom and was kneeling on the tile floor, trying to slow my heart. I found myself wishing with all my soul that Doctor Z would give me a diagnosis of panic disorder so I could get some pills that would straighten me out. Life would be so much easier, so much better, if I could just pop a little green pill each morning that would make me act like a normal person. Normal, like I'd have consideration for the feelings of others, sound judgment and healthy friendships. Normal, like I wouldn't be so selfish and slutty. Then maybe I could also have a purple pill to calm me down when I felt panicky, something that would short-circuit my brain? That way I wouldn't have to sit on the floor of the bathroom holding a damp paper towel and crying because I couldn't breathe.

Maybe I could talk Doctor Z into a prescription. Medication would make all of this go away.

Then I got scared of myself for wishing such a thing. Not that medication is bad if you need it, but wishing for it to solve all your problems? That's the attitude that makes people start drinking at two in the afternoon and then they wind up a sick alcoholic like my uncle Hanson.

I leaned against the cold door of one of the bathroom stalls and tried to get my breathing under control, but tears were running down my face. I wanted Noel. I had always wanted Noel.

Now I wasn't going to get to have him.

Or if I did get to have him, I'd lose Nora and Meghan.

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I was a backstabbing slut and I wanted pills and I'd lost my zoo job and Ariel was going to make everyone hate me and why couldn't I disappear out of the Tate Universe and never see any of these people ever again?

Couldn't I move to Australia and commune with koala bears?

No, I had SATs in a month. And I had History of Europe starting now. There was going to be a quiz on Friday.

I ran the cold water and splashed my face. Blew my nose repeatedly and got myself into some kind of shape to reenter society. Though to be honest, my nose and lips were still completely swollen from the crying, I had no eye make-up on anymore, and I was not at my most attractive.

I left the bathroom and headed to the library doors, my eyes on the floor.

"Whoa, Roo, what's wrong?" someone said.

Jackson, heading in with a book tucked under his arm. I was next to him before I even saw him.

"Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." We were standing in front of the circulation desk.

He squinted at me. "You look upset."

I shook my head.

Jackson reached out and touched my cheek with his spare hand. "Come on. I can tell you've been crying."

I shook my head again, and tears spilled silently across my cheeks.

"What happened?" Jackson set his book on the floor

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and hugged me, his puffy parka soft and comforting, like a pillow.

It felt so familiar and so strange at the same time. I had a rush of déjà vu, because of course I'd hugged Jackson more than I'd hugged anyone else on the planet in the last six years.

"You don't have to tell me what's wrong," Jackson said. "But you're crying. I'm not going to let you tell me you're fine."

I turned my head because I was scared I would get snot on his jacket. It felt good that he cared.

I don't know how long we stood there, but eventually he pulled away from the hug, patted me on the back.

"I'm okay," I said. "Really."

"You sure?"

I nodded.

"You sure sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then." Jackson bent to pick up his book. "Feel better."

Then he headed for the stacks and was gone. I had wished on the magic cookie for all the badness between us to disappear, and now, maybe, it had.

***

When I got home that afternoon I took the cordless into my room and called Noel.

"I can't go to the movies tonight," I told him. "Why not?" he asked.

"Noel, I'm so sorry, but I can't go anywhere with you.

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Today was..." I didn't have the words. "Today was, it was ... I think it was a mistake."

"Why?"

I started babbling on about the thousand reasons not to kiss him, and how I liked him but I couldn't betray my friend Nora and did he realize Nora liked him too? Because it was probably obvious, but I wasn't supposed to tell, and here I was betraying her again by telling but I wanted to be a good friend to her.

I was in no shape to be going out with anyone because I was unbalanced, and he knew I had the panic attacks and they weren't getting better, in fact they were getting worse, and I was really sorry, I should never have kissed him back and had he ever heard of Rabbit Fever?

"Ruby." Noel interrupted me.

"Huh?" I hadn't finished explaining.

"Look. I understand if you can't go out with me. But you could at least tell me the truth about it."

"What?"

"Tell me the real reason. I mean, haven't we been friends long enough that I deserve the truth?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The problem is not the situation with Nora."

"Yes it is," I said. Because it was.

"Ariel saw us. You know she'll tell Katarina and all those guys, and it'll get back to Nora by the end of tomorrow. That's a done deal and nothing we do or don't do is going to change it. Nora is going to know."

It wasn't what I wanted to hear. "Maybe she won't tell," I said.

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"This is Ariel we're talking about," Noel reminded me.

Okay. He was right on that. "But maybe Nora will forgive me if she knows it was just once. If she knows how sorry I am and how I never meant to hurt her."

Noel sighed. He and I both knew that probably wasn't true. She had told me outright not to steal him, and back in sophomore year, Nora had been furious at me when I'd kissed the wrong boy. She hadn't forgiven me for months that time. A second infraction would be even worse.

But I was trying to be a good person. It was completely against my nature-but I was trying. Couldn't Noel see? And even if Nora wasn't going to forgive me, at least Meghan might. More important, I had to be able to forgive myself--which I never would be able to do if I became a flat-out boyfriend stealer.

"You're not being straight with me," Noel said.

"What do you mean?"

"Be honest with me about why. That's all I'm asking."

"I'm trying to be honest!" I said. "I have bad mental health!"

"I saw you with Jackson this afternoon at the library," he said. "I was on the mezzanine." Oh. Oh no.

"You were making out by the circulation desk."

"No we weren't."

"I saw you," Noel said.

"We weren't making out."

"Okay, let's call it a clinch. Can we call it a clinch?" His voice was bitter.

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"No, it was a hug."

"Look, if you're back with Jackson now, whatever, that's fine. I just want to know now, so I don't have to hear it through the Tate Universe rumor mill."

"I'm not back with him."

"It's obvious something was going on, Ruby, and it was only like two hours after you'd been with me. I have to say, I felt sick watching you."

Oh no oh no oh no.

Noel was the only guy in the whole school who didn't think I was a slut. The only one who said he knew for sure that I hadn't done all the things people said I'd done.

And now, I knew he was thinking maybe I had done those things. What is more slutty than making out with two different guys on campus in the same day?

"It was a hug," I repeated. "He was hugging me."

"I don't care about the technicalities," said Noel. "I just know there's no way I can compete with Jackson Clarke. Not in cross-country, not in popularity and obviously, not with you."

"Noel, I-"

"I just wish you'd been straight with me. When you called me tonight, I wish you'd said, 'Hey, Noel, I'm back with my ex-boyfriend. Sorry.' I wish you'd been truthful."

"I was!"

"Come on. You made up this excuse about Nora when obviously that situation is already going to be what it's going to be, and then you talked about your panic attacks, and both of those are just a front. Because what it's all about is Jackson Clarke."

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"Noel, please."

"I'm hanging up now, Ruby," he said. And the phone went dead.

It did not escape my notice that he'd said the same thing to me as Doctor Z.

That it wasn't all about Nora. It was all about Jackson. Was that really true?

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16.

I Encounter Horrible Feet

Roo,

I got all your messages on my cell. I got your e-mail and your note. But I don't know what to say. I've liked Noel for so long, and you were my closest friend. I know you have mental health issues, but I still don't see how you could do this.

I really, really don't want to talk about it with you. Please, just leave it be.

Nora

--e-mail, received by me, Thursday morning.

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i had left Nora a note in her mail cubby Wednesday after my panic attack. I had called her four times and when I couldn't reach her, finally, I'd sent a long e-mail explaining that nothing more was happening with Noel and I was desperately sorry.

By way of answer, I got the e-mail above, Thursday before I left for school.

I told Meghan the whole thing while she was driving me to school. The Seattle rain was pouring, like it always does in winter, and we were inching through traffic.

"Wait, back up," said Meghan, slurping vanilla cappuccino. "You like Noel?"

I nodded.

"You've liked him all this time?" I nodded again.

"Am I blind?" she said, pulling onto the freeway. "Because I had no idea. This is a major news flash on the Meghan end."

"I tried to tell Nora," I said. "But she just asked me to stop liking him. So I wasn't exactly advertising it."

"Oh, that's fair of her," said Meghan sarcastically.

"I was trying to be a good friend."

"You can't stop liking someone you like," Meghan reasoned. "Was he a good kisser?"

"That's what you want to know? I've ruined my life."

"Well, was he?"

"Yes, but I'm never kissing him again anyway, so it doesn't matter. Ariel will have told the whole school by now."

"I don't think Nora will stay mad," Meghan said

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thoughtfully. "It's not like Noel was ever going to like her back."

"You think not?"

"Obviously not."

"You were always so encouraging to her about him."

"I didn't want to squash her hopes," Meghan said, "but I could tell by how he acted at Crystal Mountain that he knew she liked him and wasn't interested."

"Really?"

"Don't worry. Nora will realize the truth of the situation and be over the whole thing before lunch. Listen, if I were you, I would have done the exact same thing."

Yeah, but Meghan was a girl who hadn't had a single female friend until last year. And for good reason.

"Look at it this way," she went on. "Noel likes you, you like Noel. Neither of you can help it. It just happened. You can't angst so much about it, you have to follow your feelings."

"It didn't just happen," I said. "I flirted with him. I wrote him notes." I wrote him notes about my boobs. "I'm a bad person."

"You are not." Meghan squeezed my knee. "You just liked a guy and you could tell he liked you back, so you acted on it."

I shook my head. "I did to Nora exactly what Kim did to me last year," I said. "I stole the guy she liked." My cappuccino was going cold in my hand. I was too upset to drink it. "What kind of person would go out and do the exact same thing that ruined her whole life when someone did it to her?"

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"Nuh-uh." Megan honked at a small blue sports car that had cut in front of her. "That is not what you did."

I hunched into my anchor coat. "It pretty much is."

"Roo, you and Jackson were going out. You had been going out for months."

"So?"

"Nora just liked Noel. She barely even talked to him on the phone or anything. If she thinks that's anything like the same as you and Jackson, she is seriously inexperienced."

But the thing was--Nora was seriously inexperienced.

"She's not going to be mad for long," said Meghan confidently. "We're all friends. Give her a couple days, and clear things up with Noel and everything will be fine. Maybe you should send him flowers for V-Day. I'm thinking of sending some to Mike. And maybe Don."

"Noel hates me," I said.

Meghan pulled into the Tate Prep parking lot. "No one hates you, Roo. Noel just got jealous. You worry way too much."

I was ridiculously glad that Meghan didn't hate me, even though I would never understand the way her mind worked in a million years. As soon as we got to school, I went to the Valentine's Day table in the refectory and ordered her two dozen carnations.

***

Nora ate lunch with Kim and Cricket. She didn't meet my eyes in Am Lit. She looked away whenever I passed her in the halls. But ninth period I cornered her in the darkroom.

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She was bent over the enlarger, fiddling with the focus on a photograph of the men's heavy eight posing in their boat. The room glowed a soft red, and there was the sound of running water. There was no one else there.

"Nora?"

She unbent at the sound of my voice. "Roo, I asked you to just leave it."

"I need to apologize," I told her.

"You've apologized six different ways already. What else are you going to say in person?"

She had a point. "I thought maybe we could talk about it, figure things out between us."

Nora put her hands on her hips. "The only thing to talk about is how I don't want to talk about it."

"But-"

"You went behind my back, you took the guy I liked, you did everything the same as you did last year, and no amount of apologizing or saying you're not going to go out with him now-nothing is going to erase it."

"Nora, I'm sorry."

"You should have thought of that before you kissed him. You should have thought of that before you lied and said you wouldn't steal him."

"Can't you just try and understand?" I begged her. "It's not fair for you to just stop speaking to me without even listening to my side. I tried to tell you how I felt when we went to Dick's. I told you about the ginger ale and the hoodie."

"And then you said you wouldn't steal him."

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"I didn't mean to lie about it. I was trying to be the person you wanted me to be."

"Roo. Please just go. I have to get these pictures done."

"Nora, we've been friends since sixth grade. Can't you cut me some slack? Do I have to be perfect all the time, or we're not friends?"

"Please go!" Nora yelled.

I stood there, trying to think if there was anything I could say that would make things better. "It just seems like friends should forgive each other," I said lamely. "Or at least try to understand each other. Not shut down completely."

"If you won't leave, then I will," Nora snarled at me.

She grabbed her bag and walked out of the darkroom, leaving her negatives on the table and the light on in the enlarger.

***

Over the next two days, my life was like a movie entitled Return of the Roly-poly Slut. Meghan and Hutch were the only people to even speak to me. Hutch gave no indication he had any clue what had happened, but he did do a stealth coffee run one afternoon when he was working for my dad and brought me a surprise cappuccino. So maybe he felt sorry for me.

I had two panic attacks.

Trying to get my mind off things, I called Granola Brothers and asked if they had any extra hours for me to work over the weekend.

"Sure, dudette," said Fletcher. "You can work till eight

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on Saturday instead of four--and if you want to come in for Jo-Beth on Sunday at ten, she has a birthing class she wants to go to. You can sub for her until two."

So I went in. It was a good distraction. The only bad part of the job was the feet. When people came in to try on shoes, they had to be fitted barefoot. Birkenstocks have these special footbeds that mold to your feet as you wear them, and you have to make sure the customer's foot is fitting properly in there or else the shoes won't be comfortable. So for a good chunk of a working day I was on my knees buckling sandals onto sweaty winter feet. Feet with chipped toenail polish, feet with hair, feet with black gunk underneath the nails, feet with misshapen toes, all kinds of feet.

Fletcher and Jo-Beth and the other people who worked at Granola Brothers were seriously committed to the health of feet. They wanted everyone to leave the store with shoes that were going to change their whole attitude toward footwear. And I have to admit, my Birks--hand-me-downs from Meghan-were comfortable. So comfortable that I had started noticing the way my Mary Janes pinched around the toes, and the way my Vans didn't have a whole lot of arch support.

While I was working my late Saturday shift that weekend, a tall, long-haired guy about forty-five years old came in. The store was busy, and he stood there looking at a pair of suede Arizona-style and patting them the way people do when they're not quite sure they want to try something on. He was wearing a hand-knit sweater and jeans. He had white skin and hair that used to be red but was

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now graying. Deep grooves on either side of his mouth, like he smiled a lot, and little rimless glasses.

"That's our most popular style," I told him. "Would you like to try them on?"

He looked at me as if he was surprised I worked there, and said, "Yeah, that would be great."

He told me his shoe size and I went in the back and brought out a couple of pairs for him to try on for fit.. He took off his boots and a pair of old, used-to-be white tube socks and happily revealed the strangest, hairiest, smelliest feet I'd ever seen. I mean, I had seen a lot of feet by this point, but these were especially horrible. I tried not to gag as I buckled him in. He must have had some kind of fungus on his toenails, or between his toes. Something was not right.

"My girlfriend thinks I should start wearing these," he said. "The air circulation is supposed to be good for the skin, yeah?"

I stood up to get away. "The air circulation is a benefit, but people also wear them with socks in the cold weather," I said, gesturing at the sock wall. "The footbed molds to your sole and gives you ideal arch support."

He paced the floor with a spring in his step. "These feel good. How do they look?"

Aside from the fact that I could see his disgusting feet, they looked fine. At least, as fine as Birkenstocks can ever look. "I think that's your size," I told him. "As long as they're comfortable."

"My girlfriend is meeting me here soon," he said. "She's across the way buying vegetables. Do you mind if I

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wear them around the store for a few more minutes until she arrives? I'd like to have her opinion."

"Knock yourself out," I told him. "And investigate our sock wall. If you're looking for air circulation, you're going to want only a hundred percent cotton."

"Hey, thanks!" He smiled and went over to the socks and started looking at them with impressive earnestness.

I headed for the door of the store and opened it for a moment to get some fresh air after the strange and funky smell of his feet. As I stood there, I saw a familiar sparkly orange poncho heading across the cobblestone street of the Market, past the Hmong tapestry place, along the aisle of batik blankets-Doctor Z.

I had never seen her out in public before. I had never even seen her in the waiting room of her office or the halls of her building.

What are you supposed to say to your shrink when she's shopping?

How nice to see you, what a cute poncho?

Ooh, what did you buy?

How's your weekend going?

No! You can't ask her anything, because you're not supposed to ask about her personal life. She only asks you stuff. And you can't update her on your mental health either:

Oh, about my insanity, I can kind of turn it off and function while I'm at work, isn't that interesting?

Or, Hey, I was going to tell you on Tuesday, but since you're here, I made out with Noel, got caught by Ariel,

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then hugged Jackson and got caught by Noel. Nora hates me and my life is falling apart. Ag-

Doctor Z hadn't spotted me yet, but she was heading toward the shop. I shut the door of Granola Brothers and dove as quickly as I could behind the counter.

The bell jingled as someone opened the door. "Schmoopie!" cried the man with the horrible feet. "What do you think?"

I froze.

There was the sound of kissing. Schmoopie and the man.

Then, Doctor Z's voice: "They look good on you. How do they feel?"

"Nice!" he said. "Strange, though. I'm not used to this much arch support."

"You'll grow to love them," said Doctor Z. "Everyone does."

More sounds of kissing.

Ag.

I was so spazzed out I hit my head on the edge of the counter, knocking down a display of tie-dyed socks and letting out an involuntary squeal.

"Are you okay?" The man with the horrible feet came around to the side of the counter so he could see me.

"Fine, fine." I stayed seated on the carpet, hidden from Doctor Z, collecting socks and sorting them into purple and orange. "Thanks for asking. Do you want to take those shoes?"

Maybe I could ring him up from down here, if he was

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paying with a credit card. Maybe I'd never have to stand at all.

"I'm wondering if I should try them in suede," he said. "My girlfriend told me the suede is really comfy."

I had no choice. "I can get those for you," I said, and hauled myself to standing. "Hello, Doctor Z."

"Ruby." She smiled at me. "I had no idea you worked here."¹

"Yes," I said, forcing my voice to be cheerful. "Well."

"Good to see you."

"Yes. Um."

The man with the horrible feet said, "Lorraine, do you know each other? What a wild coincidence!"

"Just from around town," said Doctor Z.²

"How great!" said her boyfriend. "Ruby, I'm Jonah." He held out his hand.

"Nice to meet you," I said, though I felt like passing out.

Did Jonah know all about me?

Did Doctor Z put her Birkenstocked feet up on the coffee table after a hard day and tell him all about her roly-poly client who couldn't keep any of her friends and blew off her therapy homework and kept having panic attacks and suffered from Rabbit Fever?

***

¹ Translation: "I see you every week for therapy and you never told me you got a new job. What do you think we're doing in those sessions your parents are paying for? Because you are obviously failing to tell me the most basic and everyday facts about your life."

² Translation: "She's a mental patient, but of course, since we're in public, I respect her confidentiality and won't reveal how I know her."

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Ag and more ag.

It was so weird to see her out in the real world, holding a mesh bag full of winter squash and something wrapped in brown paper that was probably fish.

Honestly, I had never thought about Doctor Z eating. I mean, of course she ate. She had to eat. Everybody eats. But I never thought about what she ate, and now I knew what she was having for dinner, and that she was going to cook, and that she must really really like winter squash because there were several big gourdlike items in that bag of hers.

Who on earth likes winter squash that much? I mean, it's okay, but it's not exactly a pinnacle of deliciousness.

"Ruby helped me put the shoes on," said Jonah, pulling gently on his ponytail. "She thinks they're the right size."

"I'll get the suede for you to try. Be right back," I said, and ducked into the storeroom as quickly as I could.

I had also never thought of Doctor Z as having friends, much less a lover. And not just a lover in the abstract, but Jonah, an actual flesh-and-blood aging white hippie lover who called her Schmoopie and kissed her in the middle of shoe shopping. Which would actually have been cute and romantic-

1. If she hadn't been my shrink. Because it is almost more disturbing to think about your shrink having sex than to think about your parents having sex--which is already plenty disturbing, thank you very much. And--

2. If he hadn't had those horrible feet. Because not only was my shrink friendly with those horrible feet, my shrink actually lay down naked with her perfectly

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normal feet (I had seen them in her Birks) next to his disgusting ones, which were no doubt smelling and fungus-ing up the bed every night, and--

Ag.

This whole train of thought was not good for my mental health.

Just treat them like customers, Roo, I said to myself. Pretend she's a colleague of Mom's or a friend's parent and put on your fake please-the-grown-ups smile and get it over with.

So that is what I did. Jonah liked the suede ones. He paid with cash. Doctor Z said, "Have a nice day, Ruby," and I nodded, but no words would come out of my mouth.

After they left, I sprayed the shoes he didn't buy with an antifungal mist we kept in the back for cases of possible contamination.

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17.

I Choke on Ninja Deliciousness

Dear Oliver,

Since you've never run a CHuBS before, and your big day is coming up in a couple of weeks, I want to offer you some tips and reminders. I should have done this before--sorry! I've been so busy getting Spring Fling organized, and we're even starting to think about prom (!!) so I haven't had a minute.

Anyway, I wanted to remind you how many old-girl CHuBS will be at Parents' Day. For example, Spencer Hanson's mom, Mason Silvey's mom, etc. They have baked every year for the big December sale. You might remember Ms. Hanson's reindeer cookies? Yum! The legacy of CHuBS is important to these ladies, I just want you to know.

Also, it's great you've got boys contributing, and I'm excited about your deliciousness idea! But let's not forget that we know what sells,

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and we know how much the Tate community depends on the CHuBS tradition, and with Easter around the corner, we can take advantage of that. I heard you've been going through some ups and downs in your personal life, so give me a holler if I can bake anything extra or offer guidance about the sale. --Gwen Archer

--written on a sheet of notebook paper in Gwen's round handwriting; folded in thirds and slid covertly across the table during French V.

translation: "I hear you're a big slut and everyone hates you, plus I'm worried you'll make an enormous debacle of Baby CHuBS because you're not doing it the way I would do it and I'm worried people will blame the failure on me. In fact, I'd like to fire you and run it myself at this point, but I don't have the guts, so I'm going to make you feel like crap and then pretend to offer help in the hopes that you'll step down."

I didn't reply to the note, and I ran away after French V so I wouldn't have to talk to Archer. I was too miserable to deal with her and her CHuBS agenda, so I avoided her in class and in the hallways and acted like I didn't see her waving me over in the refectory.

You might think The Return of the Roly-poly slut-aka my life-would be an interesting movie. It might have nudity or some stylized violence, even if the acting was hokey. It might have wild costumes and play at midnight to a cult following.

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But no. It was not an interesting movie. Just dull footage of a girl dressed in jeans and an old bowling shirt, reduced to a single friend.

Everyone at school knows Nora hates her now-- though they may not know exactly why.

Everyone knows Ariel hates her too-and they do know exactly why. They know the girl made out with Noel in the art studio. And since everyone loves Ariel, they hate the Roly-poly Slut to keep Ariel company.

Heidi, usually polite enough in History of Europe, moves to the other side of the room to sit with tennis players, saying something smells like a rat. Katarina mutters "bitch" under her breath in the lunch line.

No one knows that Noel thinks the girl was in a clinch with Jackson, but they do know Jackson keeps sitting at the CHuBS table, and rumors are flying. The girl tries to speak to Kim one day after Am Lit, thinking maybe she can explain, but Kim says, "It's strangely quiet in here. Cricket, I don't think I heard anything. Did you hear something?" Cricket says "No, it's silent as a tomb." They walk away.

The girl changes Chem lab partners at the request of Noel.

She tries to avoid crying in Art History and Am Lit.

She helps people with hippie sandals.

She drinks carrot juice for breakfast. She does homework. And she walks a harlequin Great Dane through the Seattle drizzle.

***

Tate Prep has this Valentine's Day delivery service, run by the seniors. Everyone walks around all day with

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armfuls of flowers. Flowers in mail cubbies, flowers on desks, flowers delivered during class by cute senior boys. Lectures are constantly being interrupted by the entrance of someone or other with an armful of roses.

On February 14, a day on which I had no expectations of getting flowers from anyone but Meghan, I was sitting in Am Lit when Jackson walked into the room with a bouquet of twelve white carnations.

Everyone looked up when he walked in. Everyone meaning not just me but Kim, Cricket and Nora, too.

He caught my eye and headed over.

My stupid heart leaped, seeing Jackson with twelve white carnations, extending them to me.

I took them and read the card--"Hugs and Happiness! Nora"-and my eyes filled. Partly because no, of course they weren't from Jackson, and partly because I knew Nora wished she could take them back. Wished she'd never bought them. Just like the flowers I'd sent her, they'd been ordered when we were friends. Now they didn't mean anything at all.

"Thank you," I mouthed-but she turned her gaze away.

Even though Jackson was delivering flowers to people all across school-all the seniors were-Kim stared as he left the room with a look of shock and hurt in her eyes. I saw Nora whisper in her ear, probably explaining that those weren't from Jackson, they were the carnations she had sent me, though of course I hadn't deserved them after all.

***

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My sessions with Doctor Z came to a standstill. I couldn't finish the treasure map. I couldn't talk to her. I couldn't listen to anything she asked me.

A typical session went like this:

Doctor Z: How are you feeling today?

Me: Okay.¹

Doctor Z: Do you want to elaborate on that?

Me. Um. Not really.²

Doctor Z: All right. Well, I'm here and ready to listen.

Me: Okay.³

Doctor Z: (silence)

Me: I don't have much to say, that's all. I'm fine.⁴

Doctor Z: (silence)

Me: (silence)⁵

And that would be it.

So I wasn't getting anywhere in therapy, and the fact that I couldn't talk to my shrink was obviously taking its toll on my mental health. The panic attacks increased to

***

¹ Inside my brain: I Can't believe your boyfriend calls you Schmoopie. Schmoopie Schmoopie Schmoopie Schmoopie!

² His feet are so disgusting. How can I tell my problems to someone who hangs around all day with a terrible foot smell.

³ I mean, that was some really weird fungus Jonah had going on there. It's enough to make me doubt your judgment.

⁴ Because if you feel like those are normal feet, Doctor Z, I can't possibly trust your evaluation of whether my brain is normal.

⁵ I can't tell you anything I'm thinking because I know you'll be offended that I thought your boyfriend had freakishly repellent feet; it's not the kind of thing you can actually say to anyone, much less your shrink, whose personal life you're not supposed to know anything about.

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the point where they made my life hell at least four times a week.

Only now, no Nora came to put her arm around me.

***

In early March, Spring Fling was announced at assembly. It was scheduled for April 6. Every year the dance takes place on a mini-yacht; there's a band and some punch and cake, and it's supposed to be a really romantic evening-much more so than prom, which is all about graduation and never has an amazing view or anything.

This year, I had no plans for going. I mean, what were the possibilities?

* Finn. Yes, he'd brought sample ninja brownies and lemon bars to us at the CHuBS table, and blushed, and convinced half the boys' soccer team to bake things, but it would have been social suicide for him to take me to a dance, given that he was Kim's ex.

*Jackson. We were on friendly terms; in fact, he had been sweet to me lately-but with all our bad history and the waves of hatred coming from Kim and her friends, no way.

* Gideon. Nora had no doubt told him I was evil.

Besides, college boys never want to go to high school dances.

* Noel. Couldn't stand me.

Everyone else single was either Jackson's friend, Ariel's friend, a complete Neanderthal or unlikely to risk the horrible gossip that would circulate if they asked me to

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the dance-even if they imagined that by taking the school slut they'd probably get lucky.

The first mentally deranged thing about the whole situation was that I even wanted to go to Spring Fling. One formal dance I'd been to had been really awkward. The other had been a complete nightmare. There was no reason to think I'd actually have a good time, and if I'd been sane I just would've forgotten the whole dance was happening and gone about my roly-poly business. Except-

I heard Katarina, Ariel and Heidi in line for lunch, talking about dress shopping together over the weekend and how they thought wearing black was over and this year they wanted pastels. Heidi and Katarina were going with senior basketball muffins. Ariel didn't have a date yet, but she was thinking of asking Noel. "Or I bet I could get Sam Williams to ask me, don't you think?" she said, thereby illustrating the fundamental difference between me and her, as I was completely unable to conceive how on earth a girl would "get" a guy to ask her to a dance if he didn't want to take her already.

Kim was going with a guy she knew from crew team; Cricket had asked a senior she'd befriended in Drama Elective. Nora didn't have a date yet.

And neither did Noel. But then, last year he'd gone solo, so maybe he wouldn't ask anyone.

Anyway, I wanted to laugh with Meghan (who was no doubt going to end up going with some candidate for Operation Sophomore Love, though she hadn't decided which one yet). I wanted to worry about shoes and whether

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I'd kiss my date. I wanted to order a boutonniere and buy a dress with my Birkenstock money. I wanted to try on makeup in department stores and slow dance at the end of the night.

The second mentally deranged thing about the situation was that I was waiting for someone to ask me. Obviously, this is the twenty-first century, and as I'd told Nora, girls can ask guys out. We should ask them out. There is no reason to sit around being passive and hoping that someone will ask you to a dance when you can easily invite the person you want to go with. How are women going to become president and win Oscars for directing if we sit on our butts waiting for things to happen?

I know this. I believe it. But I still wanted someone to ask me to the dance. Yes, like it was 1952. Yes, like Gloria Steinem never existed. Yes, idiotically, yes.

I don't know where all the dance fantasies came from. But there they were, these stupid retro dreams, and here I was, without them coming true.

A week and a half after Spring Fling was announced, Meghan met me by her Jeep in the parking lot holding a foil tray of brownies.

"Those look like ninja brownies," I said to her. "Are those ninja brownies? Because if they are, I need to have one now."

She didn't seem to be listening to me. "Roo, I have something I want to ask you."

"Actually," I said, "I don't care if those are ninja brownies. I'll take any brownie I can get, if the truth be

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known. My mother is making carrot-pecan burgers for dinner."

Meghan handed me the tray of brownies and got into the Jeep, unlocking my side. "Take whatever you want."

"But don't we need to save them for Parents' Day on Friday? Why is Finn giving them to us now, anyway? They're going to get stale."

Meghan started the Jeep and pulled out of the Tate parking lot. "They're not for Baby CHuBS, Roo. They're for me."

I choked on my mouthful of ninja deliciousness. "Finn made these for you?"

Meghan nodded. "That's what I wanted to ask you. Finn invited me to Spring Fling and I said yes. So I was wondering if you wanted me to see whether he has a soccer stud-muffin manly baking friend who could take you."

Oh.

All that blushing Finn did in the B&O Espresso. And the baking.

And the recruiting of soccer players. It wasn't for me. It was for Meghan.

And I must be an egotistical wench, because even though I should have been happy for Meghan that she was going to the dance with a great muffin who obviously liked her if he made her ninja brownies, some part of me still thought, Wait, he's liked me since second grade! He's mine! You're not allowed to steal him even if I do think he's a muffin, and another part thought, It's so unfair that

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Meghan has a real romantic date when she's been flitting around planning Operation Sophomore Love, and I have nothing and nobody and all I'm trying to do is be a good person.

However, I am at least sane enough that I didn't say any of that out loud. Instead I asked, "What about Dan and Dave and Don and Mike and Mark?"

Meghan shrugged. "They'll survive. They're way too young for me, anyway, even if they are tall. I mean, I don't think I can fall in love with someone who hasn't even taken the PSAT."

"It must be love if Finn is making you brownies."

That made her smile. "Nora and I went to the B&O two days ago to do homework, but she could only stay for an hour, and I stayed until six, which is when Finn got off work. Then he asked me if I wanted to go walk down Broadway with him and look in Marco Polo, you know, the travel store? So I did, but then I had to go into Rite Aid, so he came with me."

"And?"

"He asked me to Spring Fling and I said yes and then I kissed him in the middle of the drugstore!"

"You were still in the drugstore?"

"Yeah. I was just buying Noxzema. Not anything personal," Meghan said.

Ag. I would never wander the aisles of a drugstore with a potential boyfriend. It's like a minefield in there. Tampons! Zit medicine! Dandruff shampoo! Condoms! I don't know how we'd look each other in the eye after

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parading past all that stuff, much less start making out in an aisle full of diapers.

"That's great," I told Meghan.

"So do you want Finn to find you a date? I'm sure he would."

Suddenly, I didn't want to go to Spring Fling. Not with someone who was only escorting me as a favor to his buddy from the soccer team. Not with some bland muffin I didn't even want to talk to, much less slow dance with.

"Nah, that's okay," I said.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You know you have to go dress shopping with me anyway."

"Of course I will."

"Thanks. Oh, and I have news of Noel," Meghan said, almost like it was an afterthought.

"What?" My heart jumped. Maybe he wasn't mad at me anymore. Maybe he was sorry he'd assumed I was a giant slut instead of believing what I told him about Jackson. Maybe he'd decided he loved me even if I was a giant slut. Or maybe, at the very least, he'd been asking about me.

"Nora asked him to Spring Fling," Meghan said, crinkling her nose. "And he said yes."

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18.

I Fight the Tyranny of Cute

Parents' Day, Meghan and I got to the Baby CHuBS table by seven-thirty a.m., when the baked goods were scheduled to start arriving. Later on in the day, Archer and some other senior girls from CHuBS would take over sales; then Finn and some soccer muffins were doing the late-afternoon shift; then we closed for the teacher presentations in the auditorium. Meghan and I were returning for the hour after the presentations, when people would be milling around shaking hands in the main lobby. That was also when Jackson would be paying out to the people who'd bet on the winner of the Parents' Day Handicap.

We'd painted fresh Happy Paws signs, plus one that said DELICIOUSNESS! and one that said TATE BOYS BAKE. I

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had made little stickers to put on wrappers of things brought in by the guys: "100% Boy Baked."

The more breakfasty items were for early morning: ginger scones, chocolate chip muffins, oatmeal-raspberry bars, sour-cherry squares, cream cheese coffee cake. The serious dessert items we had scheduled for later delivery. Meghan was in her element, flirting with the soccer boys and any other male who was bringing in supplies, asking their advice on pricing, licking her lips provocatively whenever anything good came across the table.

Me, I was keeping track of how much attrition my roly-poly slut reputation had caused us. Nora, who hadn't shown up for anything Baby CHuBS-related since I'd gotten caught kissing Noel, did deliver her promised molten chocolate cakes and a tray of coconut-chocolate squares, because she's never been the sort to back out on a charitable commitment. Besides, she was still friends with Meghan. Varsha Lakshman and the girls I knew from swim team brought their stuff, as did Finn and the soccer muffins. But Ariel, Heidi, Kim and Katarina-all of whom had signed up to bring things because it was Nora's project-not one of them delivered what they'd promised. Neither did several girls who knew Nora from basketball. Neither did Ariel's crew-team cronies.

And neither did Noel. He was supposed to bring his pain au chocolat first thing in the morning, but he never showed up.

Not really a surprise.

Still, I did feel proud looking at the long table all spread with deliciousness, knowing I had been a big part

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of making it happen and that we'd raise a lot of money for Happy Paws. Parents started trickling into the main hallway about ten minutes before first period would normally begin. More moms than dads. Dads in suits or khakis and cheerful sweaters; side-parted hair; checking cell phones. Moms with blond streaks or well-cut bobs, expensive jewelry and deceptively casual jeans. The lawyers, doctors and stay-at-home parents of Seattle.

My mother arrived, dragging my dad by the hand, wearing a black cotton dress over black leggings with her hair frizzing out in wild curls. She was holding a tote bag that read: "If it's not a Great Dane, it's just a dog."

My dad, with gardening dirt still under his nails, wore a T-shirt that said simply: "The DogFather," with a logo like the movie poster for The Godfather.

"'That is what you wear to Parents' Day?" I asked him, pointing at the shirt.

"We mail-ordered the both of them," my mother said, indicating her bag. "They came this morning after Meghan picked you up."

"Oh, Ruby, of course I'm your father too." My dad put his hand on my shoulder and gazed sincerely into my eyes. "I'll always be your daddy."

"My father too? You mean to say that you think of yourself as Polka-dot's dad now?"

Kevin Oliver looked at me with complete noncomprehension of the insanity of his statement. "He's a member of our family group, Ruby. You know that."

Mom said, "You shouldn't be jealous because we're celebrating Polka-dot. Polka-dot needs to be celebrated.

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Goodness knows, he never got any personal attention while he was living at Juana's with twelve other dogs."

"Do you think he understands that you're celebrating him with T-shirts and tote bags?" I asked them. "How can he even tell?"

"Oh, he can tell," Dad said. "He came over and sniffed the tote as soon as it came out of the package. He was looking at the picture and saying 'Rock on, that looks like my brother!' "

"He did not say 'Rock on,' " I told them, putting a sticker on one of Finn's prewrapped lemon squares.

"He barked when Dad put on the T-shirt," added Mom. "And you know he never barks. He was telling us how much he liked it."

"Fine."

"Ooh, what have we here?" It was Mr. Fleischman, waddling up to the counter.

"Emulsions!" I yelled, because I knew it would make him happy. "Lemon emulsion, sour-cherry emulsion, cream-cheese-frosting emulsion. Take your pick. They're all made with science!"

He chuckled and rubbed his hands together.

"Mr. Fleischman," I went on, "these are my parents, Kevin and Elaine Oliver."

They all shook hands and Mr. Fleischman bought a sour-cherry square and a slice of carrot cake with three layers of cream cheese frosting. "Do you want anything from the bake sale?" I asked my parents.

My dad looked to my mom as if for permission. She gave a slight nod and he said, "Yes, I'll take a coffee cake."

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"Two dollars. Mom, you want anything?"

"Nothing for me, thanks," she said, patting her tote. "I have a dehydrated banana-barley cookie in here if I get hungry before lunch."

Then, hand in hand, they wandered off in the direction of the art studio, where there was a display of student work.

"They seem like delightful people," Mr. Fleischman said. "I always get along with dog lovers."

Meghan sighed. "Your parents still hold hands. That's adorable."

"I'll sell 'em to either one of you for a dollar fifty," I said.

Meghan and I worked the bake sale table from eight to eleven and sold a ton. Finn's lemon squares were seriously, seriously delicious, though he put me off my feed by French-kissing Meghan behind the Baby CHuBS table. The coffee cake sold out, and by ten-thirty we had nearly run out of other breakfasty stuff. We were expecting a new influx of more desserty things around eleven, and sure enough, on the dot Archer showed up to take her shift behind the counter.

Only, she was not holding a tray of deliciousness. She was holding a tray of marshmallow Easter bunnies and-I kid you not-Jesuses.

The Jesuses were built like snowmen, standing three mallows high and crucified on crosses made of sugar cookies with chocolate frosting. "I meant to bring these earlier," Archer said, displaying them proudly, "but I had trouble getting the crosses to stand up properly. I stabilized

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them with clear gumdrops. I don't think anyone will mind, do you? You can barely see them."

Meghan and I looked at the bunnies and Jesuses. Archer had clearly spent hours on them. The bunnies had floppy ears made from strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, tiny licorice-drop eyes, and tails made of white dinner mints. The Jesuses had hair and beards of chocolate, and each was dressed in a loincloth made from green Fruit Roll-Up. Yes, a loincloth, even though they each only had a single marshmallow at the bottom instead of legs.

"I see you're sparse here," said Archer, surveying the table.

We were sparse, because of the people who didn't bring their stuff, but I threw back my shoulders and told her, "People have been buying everything, that's why. We have more coming in to put out for the after-lunch crowd. This is just the end of breakfast."

Gwen shook her head. "I'm worried these items you've got here are not going to move, Ruby. Frankly, I'm surprised you let people bring in"--she gestured at the sour-cherry squares-"blobs of red stuff on pastry when the evidence of previous sales, and in fact the entire tradition of CHuBS for years back, is that cute sells."

"I told you we were going for deliciousness," I said. "I told you we were doing Tate Boys Bake."

"Yeah," she answered, "but you didn't say you were abandoning cute. It's hardly CHuBS if you abandon cute like this!"

"The lemon bars are amazing," piped up Meghan. "Two people came back and bought seconds. And the

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coffee cake sold out within a half hour 'cause we had such good word of mouth."

Archer ignored her. "At least I have my bunnies and Saviors," she said. "We can price them high and maybe that'll save your bottom line."

I was furious. How dare she come in after all my weeks of hard work and disparage my bottom line without even looking in the cash box? How dare she hand this whole project over to me and then criticize the way I did it? She wasn't even listening! She hadn't even tasted anything!

She wasn't considering how we'd gotten all these boys to become involved in the sale, how we'd gotten the word out about Happy Paws; she wasn't considering anything we'd done except how she wouldn't have done it that way.

And now she wanted me to sell Jesus marshmallows.

"Gwen," I said. "I don't think we can sell what you brought."

Archer's eyes widened. "What? Of course we can. Three fifty each, I think."

"I know Easter is in a few weeks," I said, "and Tate is certainly Christian-centric enough to have a Christmas dance for the middle school, even though people here are Jewish and atheist and Muslim and Buddhist. But I'm not going to have Saviors and bunnies at my bake sale unless we're representing other religions too."

"No one's going to mind," said Archer.

"There are parents here," I said. "Non-Christian parents of non-Christian kids. I don't think we should get religious

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about our baked goods at a school function unless we show some diversity."

"Besides," added Meghan. "I'm not sure about marshmallow Saviors, anyway. No offense, Gwen, but the Jesuses are a little much."

"They are not!" cried Archer. "They're cute and inspirational!"

"I think they're borderline offensive." It was Jackson, sliding into his usual seat on the far right of the table and opening the ledger in which he kept his Handicap bets.

"Exactly," said Meghan. "Even the Christians aren't going to like them."

"Clarke, why are you always ragging on me?" Archer barked.

Jackson shrugged. "It's fun?" He went back to his notebook, but poked my leg under the table in sympathy.

"Fine, don't sell the Saviors. I'll bring them to my church group this weekend," said Archer. "They'll appreciate them."

"We're not selling the bunnies, either," I told her. "Why not?"

"Because that's not what you signed up to bring." I flipped through my notebook. "You signed up for dulce de leche brownies and white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling."

"I changed my plans," she said. "I'm sure lots of people didn't deliver exactly what they signed up for."

"That's not the point," I told her. "The point is, you knew what deliciousness meant."

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"So?"

"You made marshmallow bunnies not to save my bottom line but to try and prove to me that you knew better. You're not trying to help me, you're trying to take control of my sale and prove I don't know what I'm doing."

"Go, Ruby," Jackson muttered.

Just then, three of Archer's senior CHuBS compatriots showed with trays of cutesy cupcakes: green ones with shamrocks that said "Kiss Me, I'm Irish"; vanilla ones with yellow lollipop flowers; pink ones with ice cream cone hats and smiley faces.

"See?" I said. "Those were not on the sign-up sheet. You're trying to take over!"

"Look, Oliver," said Archer as her minions began moving my deliciousness to make room for cuteness. "I've been on CHuBS since I was a freshman, and the sale I ran in December was the most successful ever. I only let you do Baby CHuBS because you seemed like a team player and last year you had good ideas for cupcakes. We have a legacy to protect. I told you, there are lots of moms here today who were CHuBS twenty-five years ago. They're not going to be happy seeing the whole thing looking ordinary, with lemon bars and brownies. Here you are, going against tradition with your whole deliciousness boy-crazy thing, and meanwhile, rumors are going all around school about you-and now CHuBS is going downhill."

"Don't bring my reputation into this!" I yelled. "Whatever rumors are going around have nothing to do with the bake sale, nothing to do with how much money we're raising

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for charity, nothing to do with anything. I staffed the thing well enough, didn't I? People are buying the food, aren't they? And maybe those CHuBS moms will love it that boys are getting involved. Maybe they'll be thrilled to eat actual food rather than marshmallow art projects."

"I hardly think so," said Archer. "Cute is a tried-and-true approach, Oliver. It's what people like. It's what brings in the money. And it's what CHuBS is all about. I'm sorry I ever gave you this job."

"I'm sorry too," I told her. "But you did. And I worked really hard on it, and so did Meghan, and I'm not letting you and your friends waltz in here and take over."

Just then, Finn came back to the table with four soccer muffins, all bearing trays of amateur baked goods that at the very least aimed for deliciousness. "We have plenty of supplies, thanks," I told Archer. "You can take yourselves and your cuteness elsewhere."

"Fine." She grabbed her tray of marshmallows and turned on her heel, her friends in pursuit.

As I looked at her retreating back, all the fury of the past couple weeks surged inside me. Not just at Archer, but at everything. I picked up a piece of carrot cake and lobbed it at her retreating back. It hit her head, stuck in her hair and then slid down her back in slow motion, leaving a thick white trail of cream cheese frosting.

***

The Parents' Day Handicap was won by Mr. Fleischman, though he himself knew nothing about it. Instead of the allotted four minutes about the activities of

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the science department, he spoke for a record fourteen, waxing enthusiastic about his new kitchen science unit and how the eleventh grade now had a vital appreciation of the ways chemistry affected our daily lives. He was hoping his new way of connecting the sciences to the world in which we live would serve as a model for the courses taught in the other grades. He even got out ajar of mayonnaise "made by our own Katarina Dolgen during a lesson on emulsification and the stability of mixtures" and spread it on a piece of whole-grain bread he had stored in his pocket, then took three bites of it in front of everybody.

Some parents grumbled that this cooking in the classroom sounded like elementary-school work, while others complained that mayo alone on bread was disgusting, and a third group pointed out that as head of the science department, Fleischman was supposed to be lecturing not just on Chem but on Biology, Sex Ed, Physics and various electives.

Still, in terms of the Handicap, Fleischman was a clear winner, even before the head of the English department spoke, so I snuck out of the auditorium and went back to the Baby CHuBS table to set up for the final hour of the day. Meghan was still inside, sitting with her mom, and the hallway seemed eerie and empty.

There was a white sheet over the bake sale table to indicate it was temporarily closed. I pulled it off and began clearing crumbs, consolidating pastries, and setting out napkins. I got the cash box out of the locker we stored it in and began to count.

Four hundred and sixty-six dollars. In one day.

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We had raised four hundred and sixty-six dollars! I had banked on three hundred, maybe three fifty.

I sat there, glowing. By the time the day was over we'd probably have five hundred dollars to give to Happy Paws. With no cuteness, a roly-poly leader and a campaign against antiquated notions of masculinity.

"We have a winner, eh?" It was Jackson, likewise cutting out of the auditorium early after Fleischman's victory. "Good for me, too, as he was no long shot."

"What were his odds?"

"Four to one, but Kline was the favorite, and way more people bet on her than on Fleischman. I think mainly juniors bet on him, 'cause you guys have had him for all the kitchen science stuff." Jackson came and sat next to me, pulling a large wad of cash from his pocket and shuffling through it under the table, putting twenties on the bottom and singles on top. "I shouldn't have to pay out too much. Kyle's gonna be mad. He bet a pile on Harada at twenty to one."

He touched my leg and a jolt went through my body.

"Hey there, you," he said, as if he'd just noticed we were alone.

"Hey."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah. But you're not getting a free molten chocolate cake. Those are selling for four dollars each."

"It's not about baked goods." Jackson's thumb rubbed a small circle on my thigh.

"Oh," I said. "What's it about?"

"You." Jackson looked into my face with his beautiful

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clear eyes. I knew each freckle on his nose, the square angle of his jaw, the way one bottom tooth overlapped another. "You and me."

"Isn't that ancient history?" I asked, but I didn't move my leg out from under his hand. "Or maybe Greek tragedy?"

"Does it have to be?"

He was so close. The center of my treasure map. "What are you saying?" I asked.

"I'm saying, will you go to Spring Fling with me?" He looked down shyly. "Do you want to give me another chance?"

I was so shocked I didn't speak.

This was Jackson Clarke, my first boyfriend.

This was Jackson Clarke, who looked so good without his shirt on.

This was Jackson Clarke, who had met my parents and made me laugh and picked me up every day after swim practice.

This was Jackson Clarke, who had stomped on my heart, jerked me around, run off with my best friend and then turned into a pod-robot.

This was Jackson Clarke, looking vulnerable and nervous. This was Jackson Clarke, who was such a good kisser.

This was Jackson Clarke, who wanted me back. "I mean, I know the dance was a disaster last year," he said. "But I was hoping I could make it up to you." I still couldn't talk.

"Maybe I can make a lot of things up to you," Jackson

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continued. "Will you let me try, Roo? Because I'd really like to. I've been thinking about it since that day I ran into you with Dempsey at Nordstrom. And then I heard something about you and Noel DuBoise, probably just a rumor, but-I don't know. I couldn't stand that it wasn't me."

Here was the moment I'd been fantasizing about in my less mentally stable moments for almost a year: I could have him again. We could be in love. I could go to Spring Fling and wear a corsage and slow dance and look at the moonlight on the water.

Everything bad that had happened since Jackson dumped me could be erased, and I would finally be happy again.

Except.

Ag-Hello?

I am insane, but I am not that insane. I had had nearly a year of therapy by now, and even though Doctor Z was the lover of an aging hippie with horrible foot fungus, I couldn't help seeing her patient brown face looking at me as those thoughts ran through my mind. She'd see the holes in my fantasy as fast as I could verbalize it.

Even as I felt the warmth of Jackson's hand on my leg, even as part of me wanted to kiss him and give him a free molten chocolate cake just for wanting me, I had to admit the following:

1. I would not "finally be happy again." I don't have a predilection for happiness. I have a predilection for anxiety. Maybe it was easy for me to be happy once, a long time ago, but something shifted in my brain. Now

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it's hard. And there is no simple solution to getting happy if you're not wired for it. As Doctor Z has told me again and again: no happiness fairy is going to fly down and make everything fine; and just because the happiness fairy seems to be six feet tall and desperately cute and touches your leg, that's no reason to believe he really exists. 2. If I went to Spring Fling with Jackson, all the badness that had happened in the past year would not be erased. The words about me on the bathroom wall would still be there. I'd still be without my zoo job. I'd still have panic attacks and have to go to the shrink and eat almond-pumpkin pate for dinner. Same me, same life.

3.I also wouldn't magically become friends again with Kim and Nora. Both of them would actually hate me even more than they already did, and Cricket, Katarina, Ariel and Heidi would do the same, just to keep the others company.

4. Jackson asked me to Spring Fling because he felt jealous of me kissing Noel in the art studio. He and Noel had never liked each other. They were competitive on the cross-country team. Part of this sounded like a territory battle between the two of them, not anything really about me.

5. Fact: Jackson was the guy who idealized what he didn't have. The fish that got away. The road not taken. The grass on the other side of the fence.

6. Fact: Jackson cheated on Kim when she was in Tokyo.

7. Probability: Jackson cheated on me with Kim.

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8. Fact: It is a bad idea to date a known cheater, because even if he doesn't cheat on you, you will always know he's capable of it and will never fully trust him. Then you will become even more insecure and neurotic than you already are.

9. Fact: If I went to Spring Fling with Jackson, Noel would write me off forever.

If he hadn't already.

But if I wanted Jackson, I argued with myself, if he was at the center of my treasure map, shouldn't I just take him, now that I could suddenly have him?

Sure, it wouldn't solve everything.

Sure, it would cause more angst in some ways. But wouldn't I have love? For a little while, at least?

And wasn't that something?

These ideas sped through my mind in a tremendous rush, but as Jackson took his hand off my leg and reached to touch my hair, I told him, "No. I'm sorry. I can't."

Oh.

That wasn't what I thought I was going to say.

Most of me was leaning toward saying yes and going to the dance and having love.

But out it came: "No. I'm sorry. I can't."

Jackson pulled back. Surprised. "Oh. Okay."

"I just-I don't want to get involved with you, Jackson," I said, the words tumbling out. "You're a nice guy, but then, when it comes down to it--you're not, really."

"Not what?"

"Not nice."

"That's not true."

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"I think it might be," I said.

"Look." Jackson leaned back in his chair. "I know I've done some stupid things in the past. I know I wasn't the best boyfriend to you--or to anyone. But I was confused. I was confused for a long time. And I think I've finally figured out what I need."

"What you need?"

"You." He set his chair legs on the floor and leaned toward me again. "That's why I've logged all this time at your bake sale table."

I shook my head. "You needed somewhere to operate the Handicap."

"Please," he laughed. "I could operate it in the refectory easier than anyplace else. I was trying to get near you again and I needed an excuse."

Oh. "But why?"

"You're not like Kim," he answered after a beat. "She's so controlling and insecure. Most girls are. But you, you don't care what people think. You have so much self-confidence. Plus, you're beautiful, and we were good together, Roo. You know we were."

Everything he said sounded wonderful, but it wasn't true. I was desperately insecure and I did care what people thought. Jackson wasn't really talking about me. He was talking about an idea of me he'd concocted in his head. As soon as he remembered me and my true weaknesses in the clear light of day, he'd be as cruel this time as he had been the last.

"So will you think about it?" Jackson asked, stroking my hair.

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I stood and shook his hand off. "I don't need to think about it," I said-although part of me was still screaming Think about it! Think about it! "You turned into a pod-robot. Not even Cricket turned into a pod-robot. At least she was mean to me. At least she had feelings. You were just completely cold, as if we'd never even known each other. As if nothing had ever happened between us. I don't want to be with anyone who could act like that."

"I'm sorry," he said sarcastically. 'Just because I don't show my feelings to the whole Tate Universe, all the time every day, doesn't mean I don't have them."

"I'm sure you have feelings, Jackson," I told him. "I just don't think they're very deep."

"Fuck you."

"See?" I said. "That's exactly the person I don't want to be with. And he's always there, underneath all your charm."

"If that's what you think," he said, "I don't need to be here." He shoved his notebook into his backpack, slung the bag over his shoulder, grabbed a molten chocolate cake without paying for it--and walked off without a word.

I did not have a panic attack.

I didn't even have trouble breathing.

I sat at the Baby CHuBS table until people came streaming out of the auditorium, and then I sold deliciousness until we had five hundred and seventeen dollars to donate to Happy Paws.

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19.

I Reveal the Treasure Map

Dear Robespierre,

How have you been?

I have been completely rotten and I miss scratching you behind your ears.

We have a dog now: a Great Dane called Polka-dot. He is an idiot, but his heart is in the right place and his ears want scratching. I think the two of you would get on together well. You're both inclined to eat things you aren't supposed to eat. (Do you long for the sleeve of my green hoodie?)

Anyway: I was wondering, Robespierre, do you ever get in fights with Kaczynski over the lady goats? Like, if you want to be with Mata Hari, and so does he, do you butt your heads in fury? Or does one of you back down and let the other one win?

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How do you work it out? Because I know you all have to live together in the indoor pen at night when the zoo is closed. Do you and Kaczynski forget your differences? Does one of you say sorry?

Please write back as soon as you can. Which I do understand is probably never.

--Ruby Oliver

--written by me and mailed to the Woodland Park Zoo, with a note on the envelope reading: "For the 'Write to Our Farm Animals!' box." the next day was Saturday and I felt like crying all morning. I wasn't sure why, except that things had ended.

Baby CHuBS.

The Parents' Day Handicap.

Whatever had been going on with Jackson.

I didn't have to be at Granola Brothers until two pm, so I walked Polka-dot down to this place in our neighborhood that has coffee drinks and got a banana muffin and a vanilla cappuccino. Polka-dot licked my muffin halfway through, so I let him have it.

I looked into his joyful, doggy face, dripping with slobber and good humor, and I had to admit I loved him, even though the way my parents dealt with him was certifiably neurotic. I massaged his soft ears and let him eat my paper napkin.

Animals. I missed Robespierre. And the llamas Laverne and Shirley. Imelda, Mata Hari, Kaczynski and Anne Boleyn. The pig Lizzie Borden.

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I even missed the penguins, though they never paid me any attention.

It was just a sad morning.

When I got home I dragged the treasure map out of my closet and stared at it.

Jackson, there in the center with a lollipop in his mouth, grinning.

Finn, who hadn't been crushing on me after all.

Noel, who wasn't speaking to me.

Gideon, who was Nora's brother and therefore hated me now.

I had written: "Someone who doesn't care if my hair looks stupid."

"Something uncomplicated."

"Something real."

"Wanting guys you can't have is a recipe for unhappiness. Do not fall for people who hardly know you exist."

"Liking a guy just because he likes you: Is that immature and pitiful, or is that a smart interpersonal relationship strategy likely to result in true happiness?"

"Do not think about guys who have broken your heart six ways. It is mentally deranged to chase after heartbreak."

And: "Say you'll be my partner true/In Chemistry, it's me and you."

What a stupid set of contradictory statements. And what a stupid set of guys to be spending my time thinking about. The whole thing was idiotic.

None of them gave a crap about me anyway. Jackson was a cheater/pod-robot and I couldn't believe I'd been

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thinking about him so much when I was supposed to have gotten over him ages ago. I ripped his photograph off the treasure map and tore it in half.

Noel. He'd made out with Ariel and let me down for the bake sale and didn't listen when I tried to explain about Jackson. He'd also abandoned me during the storm of gossip after Ariel found us kissing in the art studio-so whatever he'd felt couldn't be much, now could it?

No.

Do not think about guys who have broken your heart six ways. It is mentally deranged to chase after heartbreak.

I was crying, my eyes leaking and my nose running, and was digging through my desk for my scissors so I could cut up the map, when my dad tapped on the door.

"I'll come out in a minute," I called, but he knocked again.

"Hold on!" I set the scissors on the desk and rummaged under my bed for a box of tissues. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes and put some powder on my face. If I had any luck Dad would just be asking some inane question like did I do my French homework, when it was only Saturday morning. He wouldn't notice I'd been crying.

"Okay, come in!" I told him-but it wasn't Dad. It was Hutch. He'd been helping out in the greenhouse when I got home with Polka-dot.

"Hey," he said, standing in the doorway. "Sorry to bother you." In practically a whole year working at our house, he'd never entered my room.

I sniffed. "No problem. What do you want?"

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"I, um." He picked at his fingernails. "I could, uh, tell you were upset when you got home, so I wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm not upset," I said. "How could you tell I was upset?"

Hutch shrugged. "Usually you come say hi to us in the greenhouse, or at least you yell a derogatory comment about plant life."

I smiled. That was true.

But who knew Hutch even noticed anything I usually did?

"This time," he went on, "you moped into the house like you had something weighing on you, and I heard your door slam. Your dad called for you to come out and look at the new planters we bought at the nursery, but you didn't even seem to hear him."

"Oh." It was strange having Hutch in my room. He wasn't wearing the Iron Maiden leather jacket he wore to school no matter what the weather-just a gray Skid Row T-shirt and jeans with planting soil on them. "You can sit if you want." I gestured at the chair by my desk.

"When you didn't come back out," Hutch said, sitting down, "after a while I thought I'd knock."

"That was nice of you, but I'm okay," I told him. "I'm just having, you know, a sucky life right now."

Hutch looked at the treasure map next to him. "What's this?" he asked.

I wanted to lie and say it was an art project for school, but he was looking at it carefully. I stared at him, sitting at my desk with his pimply, pockmarked skin and greasy

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hair and his general awkward Hutch-ness, and I couldn't make the lie come out. "It's a treasure map of boys," I said. "You're not allowed to laugh."

His eyes crinkled. "Okay."

"I mean it, no laughing."

"No laughing," he said. "But admit: it does sound a little bit funny."

"It sounds insane is what it sounds," I told him, "but it's this thing my shrink made me do. You know I see a shrink, right?"

"Your dad might have mentioned it." This was Hutch being polite, as Dad was all too inclined to say things like 'John, Ruby's therapist is working with her on anxiety management, but she still covers her emotions with obnoxious statements about the dullness of container gardening, so you can take what she says with a few grains of salt, 'kay?" If you hung around with my folks for more than half an hour, you were sure to know their kid was in therapy. They believed in being open about these things even with people they barely knew.

"Yeah," I said. "So the shrink gave me this treasure map assignment and I'm supposed to be sorting out all my crap personal relationships and visualizing how they might be better, only I did it all wrong."

"Wrong, how?"

"It was supposed to be about my peer group and friends and stuff, and instead I did it just about boys, because I'm obsessed or something, possibly certifiable. Again, don't laugh."

Hutch didn't laugh.

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I babbled on: "Then everything went wrong with my shrink because she has this boyfriend with gross feet and I met him and now I can't even talk to her about anything anymore. So I never showed the map to her or redid it the right way. Now I realize none of it makes any sense and none of the people on it would ever want me anyway--or the only one who does is an egotistical pod-robot and just wants me because he doesn't have me."

Hutch nodded. But he looked confused.

"I sound like a madman, don't I?" I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

"I'm a boy," Hutch finally said, looking at the treasure map. "But I'm not on here."

"God," I said, sniffling. "Why would you even want to be on there?"

He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Obviously there's nothing romantic between you and me, but we are French partners, Ruby. We do eat lunch sometimes, and we do hang out in the greenhouse like a couple times a week."

"Yeah?"

"So. I feel dumb saying this, but I don't have a very long list of friends, and you're on it. That short list that I have. So I thought I might be on your map."

Oh.

That was true.

And it must have been really hard to say. I had spent weeks feeling like I had only one friend in the Tate Universe and that was Meghan. But here was

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another one, standing right in my house. Right in my bedroom.

He just didn't look how I thought my friends looked. How my friends used to look.

This was what Doctor Z meant about a treasure map. I was supposed to find the treasure in my own life, and map out how I might dig deeper and get more of it.

Hutch had brought me a surprise cappuccino that time.

And now I had hurt his feelings.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Sometimes I'm not a very good friend."

He shrugged.

I took a Sharpie and sketched in a small free space on the map. "That's you, see, with the Skid Row T-shirt-- here's your arm, here's your other arm. You're holding a plant. Okay, not a very good-looking plant, but a plant."

Hutch laughed.

"Now here are legs, and feet, and I'm drawing a box around you to make it clear you're not part of all the insanity going on with all the rest of these guys. Good?"

"I look bald," said Hutch.

"Okay, I'll give you a little more hair." I scribbled it in. "Do you like it?"

"Now my hair is enormous."

"You see? Being on my treasure map is not all you imagined it would be," I said. "In fact, it kind of sucks. But now you're on it and there's no taking you off."

"I guess I asked for it," he said, smiling.

"Do you want to go to Spring Fling with me?" I

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blurted. "You know, as friends. We could dress up and eat somewhere fancy. It'd be fun. And even though we wouldn't have date dates, we wouldn't miss the dance?"

Hutch coughed. "I. Ah ..."

"What?"

"Honestly, I want to miss the dance."

"You do?"

"Those things always make me feel like a loser." Oh.

"Like my clothes aren't right and I can't dance."

"You wear a suit, the clothes won't be a problem," I said.

Hutch shook his head. "What I mean is, I don't like most of the people at Tate, anyway, so fuck it. Why go somewhere that makes you feel bad if you don't have to go there to get your education? The last dance I even tried going to was in seventh grade."

Oh.

He was being truthful with me.

"All right, let's not go, then," I told him. "It sounds like you'd really hate it."

"I do have an extra ticket to see Van Halen at KeyArena that night," Hutch said. "Noel was going to go with me, but then he realized Spring Fling was the same time. So, ah. We could do that if you want. My parents bought the tickets. It wouldn't cost you anything."

"Yeah," I said. "That would be excellent. I could use a little retro-metal therapy."

"A little what?"

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"Never mind. Do you think David Lee Roth will wear spandex and take his shirt off?"

"He might," said Hutch. "But now you have to promise not to laugh."

"Okay," I said. "But admit: David Lee Roth is a little bit funny."

"I admit nothing," said Hutch. "He's a rock legend."

We got Popsicles out of the back of the freezer and ate them in the greenhouse with my dad, listening to Van Halen sing 'Jump." And I thought: This is my treasure. My ridiculous dad and my oddball friend Hutch, rocking out with purple mouths from the grape Popsicles, in this room full of flowering plants.

Not everybody has this.

***

Polka-dot misbehaved in the Honda on the way to the Woodland Park Zoo. He liked to stick his giant head out the window and bark like a lunatic at all the other cars. I wonder if he thought they were other Great Danes. They weren't that much bigger than him.

Dogs aren't allowed inside the zoo, but I was only going to be a few minutes, so I tied him outside the entrance. No one would ever try to steal Polka-dot. He's too enormous to even chance it. I mean, he is a superfriendly guy, but he looks as if he could bite your head off. And he might-if he thought there was a good chance you'd taste like a homemade doughnut.

I found Anya, my old boss, sitting in her office shuffling papers and wearing a pinched expression. "Ruby,"

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she said crisply when I poked my head in the door. "How can I help you?"

"May I come in?"

"Certainly."

It was impossible to make small talk with Anya-she was an all-business person-so I told her why I'd come: "I want my job back."

"We don't just give jobs back because people ask," Anya said. "You lost your internship for a good reason."

"I know."

"There are other people working your stations now," she said.

"I realize that."

"Then I'm not sure what you expect me to do, Ruby." Anya tapped her pen on the desk as if to show me I was wasting her time.

I didn't think she wanted to hear anything I had to say, but I was going to say it anyway.

"I miss the job a huge amount," I explained. "I miss the animals. I miss their smells. I miss feeling connected to something outside the universe of my school. I miss being cranked to go to work and caring whether I've done well."

"That's all very nice, but you were negligent in surveying the area for which you were responsible, and you were unforgivably rude to one of our patrons," Anya replied.

"If you want to take me out of Family Farm customer interaction, that's fine," I said. "I don't have to do the penguin talk anymore either. You can put me back on planting duty and mucking out farm stalls so I don't have any

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contact with people who come to the zoo. Or you can have me go through training again." Anya's pen stopped tapping.

"Any way you want to work it," I continued. "But I'm really hoping you'll give me another chance."

She looked at me with her tiny brown eyes and ran her tongue over her braces.

"Please?" I said. "

"Lewis does need assistance with the spring plantings," she said finally.

"Great."

"And I have another intern who wants to move out of mucking the farm stalls into an activity that's more patron-oriented."

"I'll do it," I said. "I don't mind."

"We want someone to work Sundays, too," she told me. "None of my interns wants to work Sundays."

"Sundays are fine."

"You'd be on probation for a month," said Anya. "You mean I have the job?"

She didn't smile, but she held out her hand for me to shake. "Wednesdays four to seven, Saturdays twelve to five and Sundays nine to one. You start next week."

When I left the office, I went straight to the Family Farm to see Robespierre and the llamas. Laverne and Shirley snubbed me, acting as if they'd never seen me before in their lives and looking at me snootily through lidded eyes, but Robespierre remembered me. He rubbed his ears up against my hand and snarfled my

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palm. I bought him a handful of farm food and he ate it greedily. Then I wrote him another letter on park stationery.

Dear Robespierre,

I'm back! Did you miss me? I'll be mucking out your pen Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, and scratching your head on a regular basis.

I promise to wear the hoodie you like.

Ruby Oliver

When Polka-dot saw me coming through the front gates, he stood on his hind legs and barked with joy, wagging his tail and slobbering and terrifying a group of small children, one of whom cried, "Mean pony, mean pony!" and burst into tears.

I stroked Polka-dot's neck and told him what a handsome guy he was. Then the two of us squeezed into the Honda and drove away.

***

Tuesday I brought my treasure map to Doctor Z's office. She raised her eyebrows when I walked in with the big sheet of watercolor paper, but she didn't say anything except "Hello, Ruby. Have a seat."

"I'm really freaked out that I met your boyfriend," I blurted.

"Oh?" She reached for the Nicorette and popped a piece of gum out of the packaging.

"Jonah was nice," I said-because he was--"but it was way too much information. Now I'm all spazzed out in

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therapy and I haven't been able to tell you anything that's been going on, like how I kissed Noel and everyone hates me again, and I'm shattered about Nora and Noel maybe going out together, and Jackson asked me to Spring Fling and I said no, and-I haven't said anything about any of it, because whenever I want to start talking, I keep thinking about how you have this whole life outside the office and then nothing comes out of my mouth."

"It's true," said Doctor Z. "I do have a life outside the office."

"I know. Ag."

"Usually my clients don't come across me in my other life, but now and then, we run into one another. Feeling unsettled by an encounter like that is a natural part of the therapeutic situation."

"Were you spazzed out too, then?"

She looked at me but didn't answer.

"Were you?"

"Yes," she admitted. "On principle I don't reveal my private relationships to clients. But Jonah is--he's gregarious. And he'd been talking to you quite a while before I got there."

"Yeah, he's chatty," I said.

"He likes the sandals very much."

I bit my fingernail. "I didn't think you were going to answer me about being spazzed out, actually."

"Why not?"

"You don't admit to emotions. You just get me to admit to emotions. That's your job, isn't it?"

Doctor Z laughed. "I'm not a pod-robot, Ruby."

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"Ha!" I said. "You got that word from me. That's not a shrink term, pod-robot. That's a Ruby Oliver term."

"I listen to you carefully," said Doctor Z. "It's my job to be paying attention."

And that was true. She did listen carefully.

"I feel like this whole thing we do each week, I feel like it's one-sided," I said. "You know nearly everything about me and I know nothing about you. Isn't that sick and unbalanced?"

"It's therapy," said Doctor Z. "It's a methodology."

"I wanted to know all these things about you. I had so many questions. And then when I actually knew something--I really, really didn't want to know," I told her.

"That's probably healthy."

"You mean I have actual evidence of mental health?"

"Sure. We've been over this before, Ruby. You're far from crazy."

"But I am having all these panic attacks," I said. "I keep having them. And I have no one to talk to, because my parents are supremely annoying and Meghan has a new boyfriend. So everything is smashed up inside me and it's making me feel crazy." I sniffed. "The attacks are really scary. And the retro-metal cure isn't working."

"So let's work on that," Doctor Z replied. "I'm here to help."

I showed her my half-finished, half-destroyed treasure map, and told her everything that had happened. Everything.

She took the map and looked at it closely. "I know I did it wrong," I told her.

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"Actually," she replied, "I don't think you did it wrong at all. This is a sincere and complicated expression of what you've been thinking and going through."

Yeah. That was true.

"But wasn't I supposed to have girls on it?" I said. "I should be valuing my peer group and relationships beyond the romantic, right? I shouldn't be so obsessed with boys."

Doctor Z chuckled. "We don't need to put that label 'shouldn't' on it," she told me. "You are sixteen years old and heterosexual, after all."

"So?"

"So a little obsession with boys is natural."

Then I told her what I'd realized about the treasure in the grape Popsicles with Hutch and Dad in the greenhouse, and she said, "We're seeing some alteration in the way you're framing things, don't you think?"

And I thought, Yeah, maybe we are.

And maybe I figured something out on my own.

And maybe I'm not such a bad friend after all.

But what I said was: "That has got to be the shrinkiest thing you've ever said to me in a whole year of head shrinking."

Doctor Z laughed.

When our time was up, I didn't feel better, exactly. But I felt lighter.

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20.

I Want to Be Treated Like a Dog, Strange As That Sounds

They came out kinda flat, and

They came out kinda greasy.

I made them really, really late,

And honestly-they're not that great.

But:

They took me several hours,

There's a burn across my thumb,

Then I had to clean the kitchen,

Now I want to give you some.

--written on an index card taped to a shoe box delivered to doorstep, early June of junior year.

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Spring Fling came and went without me. I was at Van Halen with Hutch. David Lee Roth took his shirt off and wore spandex. It was gross and thrilling at the same time. Hutch banged his head around and jumped up and down like a heavy-metal lunatic. It would have been embarrassing to be next to him, except everyone in KeyArena was doing the same thing, so finally I went with it and banged my head around too, even though there were lots of songs I didn't know.

Driving home, all of Seattle seemed quiet. It was late at night, and there was a slight drizzle. The streets were shining. The world seemed cinematic.

Hutch and I got pizza and argued about the guitar skills of Eddie Van Halen versus Kirk Hammett, then Angus Young versus Slash.¹I had no idea what I was talking about, but it was fun to take the opposite position to Hutch and watch him get worked up. He defended Slash to the end.

Meghan called me around noon the next day and told me all about Spring Fling. She and Finn had kissed under the stars as the mini-yacht cruised across the lake. She thought she might be in love. Before the dance, they had dinner at Waterfront Seafood Grill with Noel and Nora, two soccer muffins and their dates: Varsha and Spencer. Nora looked beautiful. Noel wore a vintage suit. Meghan ate salmon with cilantro sauce and chocolate cake. The boys tried to order wine but the waiter wouldn't serve them.

***

¹ Do you really want to know the difference between these guitarists? Nah.

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I felt a surge of jealousy, thinking about Nora and Noel going to the dance. Yes, Meghan said, in answer to my question, they talked and laughed and seemed to be having a good time.

A really good time? I asked.

Yes. Noel was being so funny at dinner.

Did they hold hands or anything?

They danced. She's taller than him, but she wore flats, so it wasn't too bad.

Did it get romantic? I wanted to know.

"I can't get in the middle here between you and Nora," Meghan said. "But she didn't call in the morning and say she'd kissed him. I still don't think he likes her back the same way, but it was hard to tell at Spring Fling, you know? With the starlight and the music and everyone looking so gorgeous."

Did-

But Meghan didn't want to talk about Nora and Noel. She wanted to talk about her and Finn. Most people went to an after-party at the Yamamotos' after the dance, but Meghan had driven Finn home instead and there had been some serious upper-regioning. She wondered if Finn was inexperienced, though. She herself was well acquainted with the nether regions, but Finn seemed shy, she said, and wasn't that sweet?

I tried to listen and even ask questions that had nothing to do with Noel and Nora, because I was happy for Meghan, I really was, and I wanted to be a good friend. But my mind was running.

If my life was a movie, I figured, Noel would be the

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hero. I used to think it would be Jackson, because there I had a classic plot: Girl meets boy, they fall in love; girl loses boy, misery; girl gets boy back again, happy ending. But even though Jackson had once been exactly what I wanted-even though we had once been happy-I knew now that I didn't want him anymore.

Noel was the one whose kisses were better than retro metal. He was the one who made me laugh all through Chem class and wrote me that note I copied onto my treasure map. He was the one who had misunderstood something and thought I didn't care about him (girl loses boy)-and he was the one who seemed to have gone off with someone else (misery). So if my life was a movie, it was now time for "girl gets boy back again" and "happy ending"-which meant one of these three things would happen:

1. Nora would turn out to be evil. I would uncover some sinister plot she was hatching and foil it using emulsions. Noel would realize Nora was evil, admire me for my heroic deeds and show up at my house saying: "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."² Then the two of us would stroll into the sunset, and for once, his hair would look cool.

2. Nora would fall wildly in love with a basketball muffin who appreciated her sporty nature and her photography skills. She would see that she was wrong

***

² What Billy Crystal says to Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.

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to be mad at me for kissing Noel and beg my forgiveness. She would tell Noel he was wrong to be mad at me for hugging Jackson, and Noel would show up at my house saying: "I am just a boy standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him."3 He'd also beg my forgiveness by sending me flowers and serenading me outside my window, singing a medley of songs by Joe Cocker and Elton John.* Then he and I would stroll into the sunset wearing excellent vintage outfits. 3. Nora would realize she is a lesbian and confess she had been hiding her true nature from herself by imagining her crush on Noel when really he was just a nearby male for whom she had no true romantic feelings. Jackson would turn out to be evil, revealing that he'd been telling Noel lies about me-which would mean that Noel didn't think I was a complete slut after all. Noel would realize he'd wronged me terribly, and he'd show up at my house saying, "You complete me."5 Then we'd drive into the sunset on Noel's Vespa, our hair blowing in the wind because in movies you never have to wear an ugly helmet.

Of course, life doesn't happen like that. In life, even if someone says "You complete me," his hair still looks funny. Or he has a bad cold. Or even though you complete

***

³ What Julia Roberts says to Hugh Grant in Notting Hill--only with the sexes reversed.

⁴ The way Ewan McGregor does for Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge.

⁵ What Tom Cruise says to Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire.

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him, he still blows you off the next day to watch a basketball game with the guys.

And in life, you do have to choose between your friend and the boy you like. She doesn't magically fall in love with someone else, realize she's gay or turn out evil. No one turns out to be evil. People are complicated and make mistakes. They're thoughtless, selfish womanizers who can turn into pod-robots at a moment's notice-but they're also funny and kind sometimes when you've been crying (Jackson). Or they're stubborn and self-righteous and unforgiving, but also generous and honest and they take care of you when you're having a panic attack (Nora).

They're not ideal and romantic, either. They're handsome and good kissers and above all interesting, but they're insensitive about things like asking you to be a bodyguard, and they don't believe you when you try to explain why you were hugging someone else (Noel).

Or they're hyperverbal and reasonably good-looking, and they mean well and they're good with animals, and they can put on a damn good bake sale, but they get confused about what and whom they want, and all too often can't resist temptation (me).

In life, maybe you do eventually find love, but it's not with your high school boyfriend. It's with a completely different person whom you never even met before--someone who didn't figure into the first part of the story at all. In life, there's no happily-ever-after-into-the-sunset. There's a marriage, complete with arguments, bad hair, lost hair, mentally unstable children, weird diets, dogs that fur up the couch, not enough money. Like my parents. That's

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their life I just described-but then, there they were, talking on the phone about my dad massaging my mom's groin area after yoga; cuddling on the couch; holding hands and wearing stupid Great Dane paraphernalia.

That's all we can realistically hope for. In fact, I think it's as close to happily-ever-after as things get. Though I am not yet sure if I find that fact depressing or encouraging.

The next Tuesday, when I told Doctor Z all these thoughts I'd been having, she asked me if I wanted to be friends with Nora.

I hadn't put it to myself that way, as a question.

Did I?

I was mad that she was only friends with me so long as I kept my hands off Noel. Even though it took like four months for her to ask him out. Even though, aside from agreeing to go to Spring Fling, he'd never given her any evidence of liking her back, and in fact had been

1. writing me sexy notes about Chemistry

2. giving me candy rings and

3. full-out kissing me.

I loved Nora. I had loved her for a long time, and there was still so much to love about her. But she didn't really love me back, did she? She had dropped me twice (once now, once sophomore year) rather than trying to understand why I'd acted the way I did. She had been furious about me and Noel without even listening to my side of it-because even though we were friends, she still basically thought of me as a boyfriend stealer.

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She didn't allow me any room to behave any way but the way she wanted me to.

My family didn't get rid of Polka-dot when he ate our doughnuts. We didn't get rid of him when his tail knocked Great-grandpa's antique clock off the credenza. We didn't get rid of him because he furred up the couch or had indigestion or slobbered on our baked goods so we couldn't eat them. No, we took him on car rides even when he misbehaved and we bought stupid shirts and tote bags saying how much we loved him.

Of course we scolded him. We said "No, Polka-dot!" and tied him on the dock if he was farting. Maybe we even slapped his nose once in a while. But we told him we were mad and then we forgave him. Because our attitude was generally: Polka-dot is good. Polka-dot is loved. If Polka-dot is a huge pain to live with once in a while, we'll deal with it, because the good outweighs the bad.

I wanted a friend who felt about me the way my family felt about Polka-dot. That's what I told Doctor Z. I used to think Kim was that friend, but now there was no way we'd ever be anything to each other again.

Were we ever true friends, then, since it had ended so badly?

Yes, actually. We were. Before boys and Mocha Latte came between us. Before we both wanted the same thing. Before, before.

Now Meghan might be that kind of solid friend. Sometimes I didn't understand her, and a lot of times she didn't understand me, but she cut me slack. And I cut her some.

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Nora wasn't a true friend in that way. Or she hadn't been in a long time, and I didn't know if she'd ever come back around to loving me like I loved Polka-dot. Maybe she would if I just gave it time. If circumstances changed again.

Maybe.

***

May was uneventful. It rained and Seattle turned emerald green. I watched the girls' lacrosse team play a few times. I took the SATs.

During carpool and on weekday afternoons when Finn worked or played soccer, I hung out with Meghan, but most of the time at school she had become half of Finn&Meghan, just as sophomore year she'd been half of Meghan&Bick. She kissed Finn in the refectory, sat on his lap and made a spectacle of herself.

She ate with the boy soccer muffins at lunch most days, leaving me to either join them (awkward) or sit alone (more awkward), since Hutch was usually with Noel. On weekends she had taken over my job at Granola Brothers, since now I worked at the zoo, and at night she was always with Finn and sometimes with Nora-so really, I hardly saw her.

It's not that she was ditching me. It's that Meghan was the kind of girl whose world centered around her boyfriend. She always had been, and she probably always would be. She was the girl who ate lunch all sophomore year at a table full of seniors who didn't like her, oblivious because Bick's shining smile was the only thing she could see. So I wasn't surprised, or even mad, that she became half of Finn&Meghan. That was who she was.

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I was grateful, though, for my schedule at the zoo. It kept me from noticing how alone I usually was on weekends.

One day in late May, when Hutch was working for my dad, he brought over this documentary, Dream Deceivers. It's about how these two teenagers shot themselves after a Judas Priest concert-Judas Priest being a retro-metal band that was one of Hutch's favorites. The boys' families and the legal team they hired tried to put the blame on the band, claiming subliminal messages in their lyrics had mesmerized the kids into a suicide pact.

These people obviously had no understanding of the secret mental health of hair bands. Anyway, the movie was superinteresting, and after watching it we decided to have a documentary film festival in my living room, to be curated by yours truly.⁶

Hutch's parents are never home, so my dad began asking him to stay for dinner. At first, when Hutch tasted my mom's zucchini-cashew loaf, I was pretty sure he was never going to eat dinner with us again-I could see the sick look on his face. So I said something I'd been meaning to say for a long time: "Mom, if we have to eat raw, couldn't we just have salad and fruit a couple nights a week? Just salad and fruit-no recipes you've found on

***

⁶ We watched March of the Penguins, Super Size Me, Spellbound, American Movie, Mad Hot Ballroom, Grizzly Man, Hoop Dreams, Shut Up & Sing--and for Hutch, Metollica: Some Kind of Monster. Which is about a retro-metal band in group therapy, if you can believe it.

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the Internet? No soaked raw peanuts, no banana-avocado pudding?"

Surprisingly, she said okay. Salad was acceptable, so long as the dressing was entirely raw. So Hutch stayed for dinner now and then, and after eating salad we'd watch documentaries and do our French homework at the same time.

One day I went for ice cream during a free period with Varsha from swim team. I was surprised she invited me. She's a sporty girl, plays soccer in the spring, while until this year I always did lacrosse. I've never been in her circle even though we did November Week together. She and Spencer were getting into Varsha's BMW. I was heading through the parking lot to get my sweater out of Meghan's Jeep and they waved me over.

"Ruby!" Varsha said when I stuck my head in her window. "Do you like ice cream?"

"Do pigs fly?"

It was a joke, but they didn't get it. "They have sorbet if you don't eat dairy," Spencer said.

"We're going to Mix in the U District," Varsha explained. "You in?"

"Sure," I said, opening the rear door and folding myself into the seat. I was trying to hide my surprise, so I added: "With Baby CHuBS over, now I'm having trouble keeping my sugar intake up, so I appreciate the help."

I got espresso ice cream with graham crackers mixed in. Varsha got cheesecake with strawberries, and Spencer chocolate with smashed peanut-butter cups. We had to eat

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in the car on the way back to school so we wouldn't miss class, but it was some serious deliciousness anyway.

As the lowest-status person, I was in the backseat as Varsha sped down the highway licking her ice cream cone and blasting what I think was Hillary Duff. I stared out the back window of the car at Mount Rainier looming above the city and wondered: If I wasn't going to try to reconcile with Nora or Noel, why didn't I make new friends? True, a ridiculous number of people at Tate Prep were Future Doctors of America who didn't much interest me, but had I put any effort into hanging out with them?

Take Varsha. She'd stood up for me once earlier in the year. She'd delivered her baked goods to Baby CHuBS. She swam a wicked butterfly and had no shame about singing Hillary Duff lyrics at the top of her lungs. Maybe she wasn't the wittiest, most ironic person. Maybe she didn't always laugh at my jokes. She wanted to be a pediatrician and thought vintage clothes were dirty. Still, she was smart and nice, she didn't seem to view me as a roly-poly slut, and if I didn't like having my school social life limited to Finn&Meghan, couldn't I do something about it?

"You guys!" I yelled, over the sound of the CD.

"Yah?"

"You want to go to the B&O tomorrow after school?"

"What's the B&O?" asked Varsha.

It seemed incredible to me that she'd never been to the B&O. I'd been there every week for years. "I'll say one thing to you," I shouted. "Free white chocolate cake. At least on the days Finn Murphy works there."

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"I'm in," said Varsha. "Double in," said Spencer.

So we went. Finn was there behind the counter and he gave us free day-old cake. (Meghan was at her shrink.) Sitting with Varsha and Spencer was a little awkward, and it made me remember how fun it had been sitting with Kim and Cricket and Nora in the B&O so many days freshman and sophomore year--but we sugared ourselves up and did our homework and talked about swim-team stuff and the hotness of Mr. Wallace.

It wasn't great.

But I was glad I'd asked them.

***

One Saturday morning in early June, I stepped outside with Polka-dot and there was a shoe box on our deck. A Converse shoe box. Taped to the top was an index card with my name on it. I pulled the card off and flipped it over. There was the note:

They came out kinda flat, and

They came out kinda greasy.

I made them really, really late,

And honestly-they 're not that great.

But:

They took me several hours,

There's a burn across my thumb,

Then I had to clean the kitchen,

Now I want to give you some.

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The handwriting was Noel's.

Polka-dot was going crazy with the box, nosing it and pawing it, and finally trying to eat it, cardboard and all. I took it away from him and peeked inside. Eight kinda flat, kinda greasy, pains au chocolat.

Like he had promised to make for the bake sale but never did.

Shoved inside and stained with butter was a sheet of yellow legal paper folded in quarters. I took it out and gave Polka-dot a pastry to stop his whining. Then I tucked the box inside the front door and walked the path along the lake with the dog while I read.

Roo:

You said to me once that you were not always a good friend, lam not always a good friend either.

I couldn't really deal with Ariel Olivieri and how I made out with her when I didn't want to. So that meant I couldn't deal with you.

I couldn't really deal with the questions people were asking me about what happened in the art studio, bringing up that stupid boyfriend list from sophomore year. And that meant I couldn't deal with you.

I have never been able to deal with Jackson Clarke and how he's always been taller and better-looking and cooler than me. So that meant I couldn't deal with you.

And I couldn't really deal with Nora and how she wanted me to be her boyfriend when I wasn't interested. And that meant I couldn't deal with you.

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So I acted like everything was your fault. And I didn't deal with you.

Only the thing is: I want to deal with you. I meant what I said in the art studio.

I still mean it. I told Nora how I feel, too, which was hellishly awkward.

Anyway, I don't expect you to understand, since it took me so long to tell you. Way longer than it should have.

But I hope you will understand anyway. Here are the pastries I promised. Noel

I walked along the lake, holding the note in my hand and crying. Crying because someone had come to me rather than me going to him.

Crying because the someone was Noel. Crying because I didn't have Rabbit Fever anymore, I just wanted Noel and nobody else.

Crying because even with Hutch and Varsha and Spencer and Finn&Meghan, even with Robespierre and Polka-dot, even with Doctor Z, even with reminding myself that I did have treasure, and the treasure was all around me-I had felt alone for a long time.

Crying, even, because I knew Noel and I wouldn't ride off into the sunset. I could pretend this was a happy ending-but it wasn't the end and things wouldn't be easy. Noel and I would misunderstand each other. People would talk about us. And Nora might not ever stop being

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angry. Life isn't like the movies, and it can never be real and uncomplicated at the same time.

Polka-dot, who was off his leash, came running back to me and looked into my wet face with his huge eyes. He licked my hand, then trotted away for a moment and returned with a slimy stick. I threw it for him for half an hour, just absorbing the fact that Noel had made me pastries and written that note.

Absorbing the fact that sometimes, people do cut you slack and forgive you and want you anyway. Sometimes they do.

And when they do, even if it's not a happy ending-it is delicious.

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acknowledgments

I am greatly in debt to my editor, Beverly Horowitz, and my agent, Elizabeth Kaplan, as well as the people around them who support my books so wonderfully, including Adrienne Waintraub, Tracy Lerner, Chip Gibson, Lisa Nadel, Lisa McClatchy, Rebecca Gudelis, Melissa Sarver and Kathleen Dunn.

At a crucial moment early in the writing of this book, John Green said: "Couldn't she just want a boy?"--and that was very helpful. Jamin Melissa Clark helped me get my Seattle details right, though I invented stuff about the Woodland Park Zoo and the B&O Espresso to suit my narrative purposes. My mom suggested the treasure map and ideas for Doctor Z's therapeutic practices.

Ayun Halliday kept me on track in the Starbucks dungeon. Bob kept me writing at top speed and rubbed ointment on all my bruises. Libba Bray was on the mommy schedule with me. Maureen Johnson talked to me about my plot when all was dark.

Sarah Mlynowski read an early draft and said "Boring!" in all the boring bits--thereby making the book immeasurably better. Lauren Myracle read a later draft and gave me lots of smiley faces and tough love.

I got my marshmallow sculpture ideas from a number of cookbooks and Web sites, including all kinds of materials by Martha Stewart and a book called Betty Crocker Decorating Cakes and Cupcakes. Rawfoods .com was very helpful for Elaine Oliver's recipes, and I had help with

Roo's movie lists from Cecil Castelluci, Debbie Garfinkle, Lauren Barnholdt, Sarah Mlynowski, Siobhan Vivian, Daniel Waters, Farrin Jacobs and a number of readers unknown to me who posted ideas to my blog.

My love and gratitude to my family for their support and patience.