Babe in Boyland (21 page)

So what am I saying? That he didn’t call because you’re a moody head case? No, that’s not my point. Sometimes, though, “I’ll call you” is simply the fastest way to escape the withering power of a girl’s disappointed glare and/or the tremendous weight of her misplaced expectations.

2) Why are you so different when your friends are around? Which one is the real you?

Let’s face it: We’ve all got a bit of the chameleon in us. The version of you who hangs with her girlfriends Friday night probably isn’t the exact same you dragging her butt into homeroom Monday morning, right? Just because you behave differently in those scenarios, it doesn’t mean one is the real you and the other is fake. The situations simply highlight different aspects of your personality. Human beings are infinitely adaptable; I hate to break it to you, but guys are only human. They’re different with their friends because they’re multifaceted, complex beings, just like us.

As Nat I saw a distinctly different side of guys than I’d have access to as Natalie, which was the whole point of this elaborate stunt—to get past the smokescreen of guy-girlness and hit the pay dirt of rock-bottom honesty. What I didn’t anticipate was the discovery of an actual Nat Rodgers alive and well inside me. I felt like a guy at times. At first it took all my concentration just to camouflage, but for brief moments here and there, guyness felt almost natural. Am I going to ditch my stilettos and start popping steroids? Hardly. But the guys I came to admire and relate to at Underwood brought out a side of me I didn’t know was there. If that’s not proof of how elastic our true identities are, I don’t know what is.

3) What do you really look for in a girl?

There are as many answers to this question as there are guys, I’m sure. It would be presumptuous and stupid of me to try answering for all boykind, especially since we’ve established that they’re complex and versatile, contrary to popular belief. I will say, though, that most of the stuff we girls think is super-important to guys usually doesn’t factor in all that much. They’re not fixating on your zit or your freshly waxed eyebrows or the new skirt you’re wearing. I’m not going to say they don’t notice your body, because obviously they do. Trust me, though, you’re way more worried about the five pounds you gained than they are.

Here’s my advice: No matter what you think he’s looking for, have the courage to be who you are. Watching my own best friends around guys made me realize that sometimes we hide our best selves and project this other, more contrived girly puppet version of ourselves because we think that’s what boys want. Guys aren’t stupid. They sense when we’re trying too hard.

4) Is it true that guys think about sex every eight seconds, or is that just a myth?

Unfortunately, my week at Underwood didn’t magically grant me access to every male brain I encountered. A little Internet research told me pretty quickly that the whole every-eight-seconds-thing has no scientific evidence to back it up, incidentally. How often guys think about sex, or whether it can even be measured, is still a mystery to both me and the world at large, apparently.

I will say that however often they may or may not think about sex, they don’t talk about it all that much. If my girlfriends are any indication of the norm, we’re way more graphic in describing what we’ve done and what we thought about it. As girls, we deal in secrets. Sharing juicy, confidential details is part of how we bond. Guys get to know each other by hanging out; they’re way more likely to play video games than to confess their secret desires.

5) What’s the surest way to tell the difference between a guy who’s being sincere and one who’s just looking to score?

Let’s talk about a guy I met at Underwood. For our purposes, he’ll be known as Zorro—I know, weird, but humor me. So Zorro expresses interest in one of my friends—let’s call her Zsa-Zsa. She’ll appreciate that. Anyway, Zorro loves Zsa-Zsa, or so it seems. And Zorro, just so you know, is HOT. We’re talking steaming, camera-ready sweetness. He’s charming, funny, talented, athletic. As Natalie, I had to applaud Zsa-Zsa for finding such a prize.

And then I met him as Nat.

I know, I just got through establishing that it’s perfectly okay to tap different sides of ourselves depending on the situation, but Zorro’s an extreme example. In the presence of girls, Zorro’s Mr. Sensitive. When the ladies leave the room, though, he’s kind of a sleaze.

Can anyone blame Zsa-Zsa for crushing on him big-time? Can we scold her for not wanting to listen when I warned her about his slimy side? Can we even be sure which one is the “real” Zorro? No, no, and no. That said, even Zsa-Zsa would agree she’s occasionally willing to fool herself when it comes to love. Like most of us. When we look into the eyes of the Zorros we meet, a tiny red flag usually pops up, and we know we’re being fed a line. If the line is so delicious we can’t resist nibbling, so be it, but the red flag is there. Who can we blame but ourselves if we ignore it?

6 ) What can make you lose interest in a girl overnight?

Look, girls aren’t the only ones who experience mood swings, okay? We’re also not the only ones capable of changing our minds. Any number of variables can factor in between last night’s good-night kiss and this morning’s cold shoulder. Are those factors directly related to you? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, feelings can change—and often do—abruptly. It’s one of the riskiest aspects of falling for someone, especially during these tumultuous years when we’re young and restless.

Yeah, it sucks. No, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. Here’s the key, though: Don’t let it destroy your confidence. If he’s gone off you temporarily, nothing will make it permanent faster than rabid clinginess. You’re the same person you were when he worshipped you, right? Keep that in mind, and if he’s just not into you anymore, then buy yourself a cute pair of shoes and strut your fabulousness elsewhere.

7) If you won’t talk about your feelings, how are we supposed to know what they are?

We’ve heard about Jennifer, Zorro, and Zsa-Zsa. Now it’s time to introduce someone I’m going to call E. God, this part is scary. It makes my heart pound just writing that single initial.

I met E. at Underwood, and though I was dressed as a guy, the girl in me fell hard and fast the very first moment I saw him. He wasn’t slick like Zorro, but I found him immediately fascinating.

If I’d gotten to know him as Natalie, I probably would have done the whole hyper-girly thing, jerking myself around like a marionette, trying hard to be everything and anything I imagined he might want. Instead I spent time with him as Nat, and so was forced to learn his language.

Guys do have a language, and it does express emotion with startling clarity and nuance. The idea that they don’t express their feelings is as absurd as traveling to a foreign country and claiming the natives can’t speak simply because you don’t understand what they’re saying. Guys may not use a lot of “I” statements; they may not cry or gasp or scream “Oh my God!” when something moves them. All the same, there’s plenty going on in there; if you want to understand them, you have to be still for a moment and pay attention to the whole picture.

E., for example, shoves his hands in his pockets when he’s frustrated. He blinks sleepily, like a lizard in the sun, when he’s trying to figure you out. There’s a tiny muscle in his jaw that pulses when he’s tense. I could go on, but why should I hand over all the answers to his riddle? He’s an intricate, mesmerizing puzzle; I only succeeded at putting the pieces together because for once in my life I observed. I stopped talking long enough to listen—really listen—not just to what’s said, but also to everything that goes unspoken. Normally I’d be so caught up doing my girly dance that I’d never pick up on the subtle quirks that make E. so E.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to want your boyfriend—or dad, brother, friend—to say things out loud. Sometimes we need complicated, oblique emotions distilled into words, because otherwise it’s hard for us to believe they’re real. There is a divide, though, between male and female worlds, and those worlds have different rules, different customs, different cultures. To ignore all that and expect him to be fluent in your language without ever really bothering to learn his is pompous and pigheaded. It’s like the ugly American who barges into someone else’s country and barks, “Why can’t you people speak English?”

Before I went to Underwood, I was arrogant. I lived in my own world and didn’t have the sensitivity or experience to understand that not everyone lived there with me. I measured guys’ worth using superficial, unrealistic standards, and that blinded me to a lot of remarkable underdogs hiding in plain sight. It’s crazy that it took a sock in my underwear to help me see all this, but I’m grateful for the insight anyway. If I hurt people along the way, I’m sorry. Really, truly, deeply sorry. My intent was never to manipulate or lie to anyone, though I suppose I accomplished both along the way.

In the end, Underwood taught me less about the secret lives of guys and more about my own secrets—the aspects of myself I couldn’t see because I’d never stepped outside myself long enough to observe them. I hope I’m a better person because of it. I hope the people I hurt can see past the prank to the very real respect and affection I feel for them. If not, I may have to take my own advice, buy myself some cute shoes and march on. I hope that’s not how it ends, though. I hope this boy-meets-girl-pretending-to-be-boy story has a happy ending, one with less bitter and more sweet.

Chapter Twenty-three

“
P
ass me that apricot body glitter, will you?” I say to Darcy. “Oh, and the tweezers—see, by your elbow?”

“Got it. Is this green face paint working?” she asks.

“Oh, totally. Very, very wicked.”

“Damn it, where’s my flatiron?” Chloe digs through the closet, careful not to mess up her freshly polished nails.

It’s Halloween and the three of us are in Chloe’s bathroom getting ready for her annual costume bash. Every year we dress up as a trio: Charlie’s Angels; the Three Stooges; Powerpuff Girls; Snap, Crackle, and Pop. This year we’ve decided to go back to our roots and do the
Wizard of Oz
thing. Ever since we got cast in that play in the second grade, the characters have haunted us. This time, though, we’re mixing it up and playing different roles. Darcy is going as the Wicked Witch, Chloe’s Dorothy, and I’m Glinda. It’s no good getting stuck in a rut, after all.

To be honest, Glinda never really did much for me in the past, but right now she’s exactly what I need. Ever since my adventure as Nat, I’ve been obsessed with the color pink. Actually, I’m a sucker for just about anything über-femme these days: butterflies, ruffles, sparkly nail polish, vintage Madonna. If a guy wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near it, I can’t get enough. The time I spent as Nat made me appreciate with renewed verve all the pleasures and privileges of girldome. I guess you don’t really know what you have until you try beating it out of yourself for a week.

Six weeks have passed since Josh’s party, and I’ve had some time to reflect on my adventures at Underwood. Though I might be making up for lost time indulging in the trappings of girlyness, I still have a bit of Nat inside me. It’s weird; in some ways, the stuff I learned there makes me appreciate being a girl more than ever, but it also makes me pause before I do something hyper-girly out of instinct. When I catch myself feeling insecure about how I look, I think of Erica fixing her clip that night in the café—how she seemed to think everything about her had to be perfectly arranged before someone could possibly like her. When I find myself smiling out of nervous habit, I think of the guys at Underwood, and how they never put on fake grins just to please people. Sometimes I catch myself blabbering on about something giddily, and then I stop, remembering how relaxing it was sometimes at Underwood just to be terse and straightforward—to say something in two words instead of monologue-ing endlessly to fill the silence.

I’m not saying my week as Nat completely transformed me as a person. It’s given me a lot to think about, though. Also, since I was grounded for three of the past six weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate these issues in my room all alone—when I wasn’t slaving away on a week’s worth of missed homework, that is.

Maybe I should back up.

First, let me just say, my article didn’t win Story of the Year. It didn’t even place. Some homeschooled fifteen-year-old girl wrote about a support group for Marin County war vets, and I have to admit the piece was pretty good. They ran it in the
Mill Valley Herald
. I wasn’t crushed or anything—really. Sure, I was glad neither Chas nor Rachel won, but at that point I was so over the whole idea of proving something to them. The main thing I cared about was writing something honest about my experience, and I’m pretty sure I accomplished that. Well, I also cared about what the friends I made at Underwood thought about what I’d done. I’ve been in touch with Max, Tyler, and Earl via e-mail in the past few weeks, and I count them among my friends now. They totally took my gender-reversal in stride. That’s one of the great things about fringe types: They aren’t so attached to everything being normal all the time. Of course, there’s one Underwoodie I’m particularly concerned about, one I think about almost constantly, but the jury’s still out on his opinion.

Though I didn’t win Story of the Year, my exploits did eventually reach a wider audience. Word of my undercover escapade spread after my public outing at Josh’s party. A
San Francisco Chronicle
reporter even interviewed me about my experience, expressing my story much better than I did in my own article, to be honest. Well, it’s early days; at least I know there’s room for improvement in my work. How sad would it be if I peaked as Dr. Aphrodite and spent the rest of my life looking back on high school as my moment in the sun? The answer to that question is “very sad.” Artists who get discovered in their youth inevitably end up in rehab.

Though overall I have no regrets about Underwood, I did pay a price for my crazy stunt. At times it seemed like a hefty one. My mom wasn’t too happy about the deception, for starters. She grounded me for three weeks, which is pretty harsh for her; the last time I got grounded I was thirteen and had shoplifted lip gloss at Macy’s, so that gives you a sense of just how strict she is. For a little while it looked like Underwood was actually going to press charges, which freaked Mom out even more. Once the story in the
Chronicle
came out and the community started holding me up as some sort of innovative gender-bending young journalist, though, they backed off. Underwood’s lawyer sent one threatening letter, but after that we never heard from them again.

As for
The Importance of Being Earnest
, Summer played Cecily for the rest of the run, though Chloe, Darcy, and Tyler all assured me she never came close to topping my performance on opening night. I’ve decided I am going to audition for
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in the spring. Summer was right, after all: I would make an amazing Titania. If she gets it, so what? I might make a better Puck, and that could be more fun anyway. I look Puckishly androgynous now, with my hair short. I’d probably be a kick-ass Puck, actually, now that I think of it. Who says I have to be the Fairy Queen?

I used to go on about how important it is to totally transform yourself from time to time. I still believe that, but now I’ve added a caveat: Play as many roles as you possibly can, but know who you are deep down. I’m a girl in my heart, but playing a guy helped me expand on and refine my understanding of what that means. I’m Dr. Aphrodite, a serious journalist, a budding actress, a giddy teenager—I’m all of these people, and I’m sure I’ll be many more before I die. There is a core me-ness at the center of it all, though, a still, small voice that tells me what’s true. That’s what I concentrate on now. That’s what I listen to when life gets crazy.

That brings us up to now: Halloween. I’ve served my sentence at home, caught up at school, and I’m ready to paaar-tay. I survey my freshly applied pale pink false eyelashes in the mirror. Not bad. I watch as Darcy and Chloe put the final touches on their own makeup.
God, I love being a girl
, I think. I love dressing up. I love debating the pros and cons of kitten heels. I love scarves and potpourri and ordering drinks at Starbucks that are so complicated they require the baristas to use crib notes. Being a girl, I decide, is the bomb ticking.

“Oh, no,” Chloe says, looking at me in alarm. “Are you getting all teary again?”

“I’m fine,” I sniff.

She studies me, her flatiron suspended near her face. “What’s up with you? Ever since Underwood, you’ve been such a sappy freak! Every time we get dressed up you get all weepy.”

I fan my face, trying to hold back the tears. “It’s just so beautiful.”

“What is, exactly?” Darcy removes a strand of wig hair that’s sticking to my glossed lips.

“Being girls! Don’t you think? Isn’t it the best?”

They exchange a private look.

“Whatever,” I say impatiently. “You don’t get it. I realize that. Believe me, though, if you spent a week with your boobs smashed flat waking up every morning to ten guys peeing at urinals, you would appreciate this moment.”

“Uh-huh.” Chloe looks doubtful.

“I’m serious!” I wail. “You would!”

Suddenly the doorbell rings. Chloe’s eyes go wide and she slams the flatiron down. “First guests. I wonder who it is?”

Darcy stands up. “You ready, Freaks of Oz?”

I grin. “Let’s do this!”

This year our annual Halloween bash is bigger and better than ever. By eleven, the place is packed with creatures of every ilk: werewolves and fairies, zombies and movie stars. As usual, a fair number of the guys have opted for minimal (think football jersey and blackened eyes), while lots of girls have gone with your usual “just add hoochie” philosophy (oh, look, it’s the slutty nurse! And there’s her friend, the slutty cowgirl). I look around the living room as Darcy leads a disorderly mob in a nutty dance routine she’s worked out to her theme song, “Super Freak.” Nobody’s really keeping up, but they all seem to be having fun. When the song ends, I see a triumphant Darcy, glazed with sweat and laughing, fall into the arms of Tyler, who’s dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog. Somehow, in the last few weeks, they’ve started seeing each other. He looks super-cute and deliriously happy. I watch with satisfaction as Darcy kisses him. She isn’t quite ready to admit they’re an actual couple (he is, after all, still a POKSI) but it’s pretty obvious they’re headed in that direction.

I wander into the kitchen, feeling a little forlorn. I sent Emilio a letter a week ago, but he hasn’t responded. I almost e-mailed several times before that, but always ended up deleting my efforts. The screen seemed too cold, too clinical to convey everything I needed to tell him. Of course, paper didn’t make it much easier. I went through ten drafts before I finally settled on one I could send. The final version ended up being one sentence:
I miss you
, followed by the necessary information about Chloe’s party. Considering it’s almost midnight and there’s still no sign of him, I’m beginning to give up hope.

“Hello, Natalie.” My heart skips a beat at the sound of a deep baritone voice saying my name. When I turn, though, it’s just Chas Marshal standing there, eyeing me appreciatively. “You look great.”

“Oh, hi Chas. Where’s your costume?”

He purses his lips. “I don’t really get into Halloween. You know me.”

Yeah, I do know you:
boring!

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, your column is better than ever these days,” he says. “Your little stint at Underwood added some real depth to your writing.”

“Thanks.” I’m so floored by this uncharacteristic praise, it’s all I can think of to say.

“Of course, you still need to work on your semicolons. They’re superfluous eighty percent of the time.”

There we go. That’s more like the Chas I know and despise.

Rachel Webb appears at his side in a cream twinset, a tweed skirt, and pearls. She dabs at her nose with a Kleenex, ignoring me. “Chas, honey, I need to go. I don’t feel well.”

“Okay, sweetums. I’ll get your coat.”

Sweetums? Ick!
Yes, my editors from Planet Suck have decided to combine their suckyness for an unholy union.

Watching them walk away, I can feel my mood sinking a couple inches lower. Apparently, even neurotic, punctuation-obsessed tyrants have more luck finding love than I do.

“Hey, Glinda! What you got up your wand?” Tyler punches me in the arm playfully. Beside him, Max surveys the room imperiously in a detailed Louis XIV costume.

“Necessary Good Witch supplies. You need some fairy dust?”

Earl comes running up to us in a furry black suit with a plastic feline mask. He makes a growling sound and flashes his claws at me.

“Nice work,” I say. “You’re a panther, right?”

He pushes his mask up onto his forehead. “The Black Panther, to be precise, also known as T’Challa. He made his debut in
Fantastic Four
issue number fifty-two, published in—”

“Okay,” Tyler interrupts. “We get the picture. No need for the dissertation.”

“Don’t look now.” Max adjusts his wig and purses his lips primly. “But Marilyn Monroe just walked in. Puhleaze! As if she’s got the hips to pull
that
off.”

We watch Summer stride across the room wearing a white Marilyn Monroe dress, strappy sandals, and a platinum blond wig. She’s arm in arm with Robbie, her boyfriend, who’s settled for streaking his face in blood—how original. I wait for the familiar jealousy to tug at my guts, but it doesn’t happen. Somehow, playing Cecily seems to have exorcised that particular demon from my psyche. I’m just not threatened by her anymore. I feel blissfully detached as I watch her work the room.