Ruby on the Outside

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  And about how angry it made me—I mean, Trudy. And how sad it made her. Trudy got to ask all the questions I had never felt like I could ask. And she could say all the things I thought I should never say. Trudy could be bad and lie about things. She could get in trouble. She could get angry and she could cry whenever she felt like it.

  Sometimes I read my story to Margalit over the phone before I go to sleep.

  It was Margalit’s idea that I show it to my mother. Then the more I thought about that, the more I want to do it.

  “But first we need a title,” Margalit says.

  “I don’t need a title.”

  “Every good story needs a title.”

  “What I really need is a cell phone,” I say. “So we can text each other if we aren’t in any of the same classes this year.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Margalit tells me over the phone.

  “But we’re going to be in middle school. Everyone has a cell phone,” I say.

  I am under my covers, with my notebook. I just finished reading my last chapter out loud to Margalit. The one where the bully stabs Trudy with a pencil in the classroom and she gets in trouble for it but she gets to make a big, long speech at the end and everyone cheers. So it’s worth it. Margalit liked that chapter.

  “Title,” Margalit insists.

  “I don’t know. I won’t be able to bring this to my mom anyway. They don’t allow you to bring any books. There’s inside rules and there’s outside rules.”

  “Oh, that’s it,” Margalit says suddenly.

  “That’s what?”

  “The title for your book. Ruby on the Outside.”

  “You mean Trudy.”

  “Yeah, Trudy on the Outside.”

  I like it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At first, Margalit kept wanting to know why I couldn’t just bring the story with me on my visit, and that is the stuff that’s hard to explain. And even as I am saying some things I wonder if it’s too much.

  “Because they don’t want people smuggling things inside.”

  “In a book?”

  “Well, yeah, like under the pages glued together.”

  I could tell Margalit didn’t understand, and to tell the truth, neither do I. But I know people have tried to put drugs in there. I don’t really get it, but some drugs I guess can be put into the glue and licked or eaten.

  It’s too gross to even think about, but that’s one of the reasons you can’t bring books or photo albums, and glitter is a big no-no.

  “It’s better if you just mail things,” I tell her.

  “So mail it,” Margalit says.

  Still, everything will be taken apart, inspected, and dissected, and that takes forever. All you can do is hope they get to it, sooner rather than later. The COs will go through every box. They will read all our letters and they record our phone calls. People mail food all the time, and half the time it goes bad before it reaches the person it was meant for.

  They will read my story, my very private story. But Margalit is right, it’s the only way.

  So Matoo mails my notebook and maybe it will get to my mother before our next visit. Maybe it won’t.

  It is embarrassing to tell Margalit stuff like this. Actually, most everything is hard to talk about, and thankfully, even though she asks about a lot of things, Margalit still hasn’t asked that one question.

  It’s like she just knows not to, like Rebecca or Larissa or Tevin would never ask.

  You just don’t talk about things like that.

  Margalit hasn’t asked what my mother did to get herself locked in prison for twenty to twenty-five years without parole. I’m glad she never asks, because there are some questions that have no answers.

  Life is unfair like that.

  “Did your mom get your package?” Margalit asks me Friday afternoon. She calls me as soon as I get in the door from camp. I have to run into the kitchen to answer it before the machine picks up. She calls me even though we just saw each other a few minutes ago.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I won’t know till tomorrow.”

  I really need my own phone.

  “Good luck,” Margalit says.

  This time when my mom walks into the visitors’ room she doesn’t come over and throw her arms around me like she usually does. This time she waits for me. My mom sits down at the table.

  “I’m going to get some coffee,” Matoo says. She pushes her chair back and stands.

  I can tell from the way she looks at my mother that they’ve discussed this already on the phone. Matoo is going to give us some privacy. There is no privacy in prison, so this is as close as we can get.

  Actually, I’m nervous when Matoo leaves.

  My mother starts. “I got your story, Ruby. You are a wonderful writer. You’re so talented. I loved Trudy. She’s a great character. She’s got a lot of courage, like you, Ruby.”

  I know a mother is supposed to say that, but still, it feels good.

  “So do you want me to talk about it?” my mother asks me.

  I do, of course I do. But I can already feel our time disappearing, being taken from me. There’s big clock above the CO’s tall desk and it’s moving in fast motion. I can hear the ticking of the second hand from here.

  “Sure,” I say.

  I hear my mother taking a deep breath, but I still haven’t lifted my eyes to see hers.

  “You want to know what really happened? That night?”

  I am silent. I can’t say either way, if I want to know more or I don’t. I really just want to be a kid. I don’t want to have to hear this, but I don’t want not to. I bury my face in my arms, crossed on the table, and all I have now is her voice.

  Like all she had was my voice, when I wrote that story, and then she read it.

  “Have I ever really said I’m sorry, Ruby?” my mother starts. “Have I?”

  I keep my head hidden and she goes on, “I’m so sorry, Ruby. I’m sorry that my mistakes have affected your whole life and and every aspect of it. That is something I have to live with. And for as long as you need to talk about it, or cry, or be angry, or write about it, I will listen to you.”

  In my story, Trudy was so angry in ways I didn’t even know I felt until I wrote them down. Now my mother knows too. But she keeps talking, softly. She is stroking my hair.

  “I didn’t pull the trigger and hurt that boy, Josh, but I allowed it to happen. And even if I couldn’t have stopped it, I am responsible.”

  She says, “We are all responsible for one another. Even people we don’t yet know. It’s like watching someone get bullied in school and not doing anything about it, just because you’re scared. Or just because you don’t want to get involved.”

  I can see from under my folded arms, all the way across the room, where Matoo standing by the vending machine. She’s been there so long, pretending that she’s trying to decide what she wants to eat. They don’t let you just walk around in here, so she’s got to look busy. I see her pulling one of those Cup-a-Soup out of the little door and going over to the microwave to warm it up.

  My mother goes on, “You want to go along on your way, because that’s the easier thing to do. And some people live their whole lives that way. And it works for them. But one day we’ll all need someone, a stranger maybe. And you want to believe they will do the right thing.”

  I lift my head. “But you didn’t?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she says. “And an innocent boy lost his life.”

  “Josh Tipps?”

  My mother nods her head. “And you. And I will never forgive myself for what I did to you either.”

  “But then you did do something? You stayed in the store with him. Why did you do that?”

  “Why didn’t I run? Like . . . like Nick did?”

  She
doesn’t want to say his name out loud, I can tell.

  “Yeah.”

  “I hardly remember that night, Ruby. But when I realized what was happening, what was about to happen, it was like my eyes were forced open. The danger of the whole life I had been living, that we had been living, was so clear. And I hated myself in that moment. I would do anything, Ruby, to do it over again.”

  I see that she is trying hard not to cry, not to look weak, but to be strong, for me.

  “But you didn’t deserve that,” she is saying. Her jaw is so tight. I want to reach out and touch her face. I want to make everything okay.

  “You’ve had to pay the price for my mistake. And that will never be all right. And to think you even thought it was your new friend’s brother. Aunt Barbara told me. That must have been awful. That must have been so awful. Ruby, I am so sorry.”

  Finally, Matoo comes back with two bottles of water and an apple juice for me. And three cheeseburgers and her Cup-a-Soup, all piping hot.

  “I wish you could meet Margalit,” I say.

  “I know, sweetie. I feel like I have in a way. From your story. What did you name her in the story?”

  “Moochie.”

  “Oh, right. Moochie. That’s such a terrific name.”

  Maybe one day in the future, my mom will come home and meet Margalit in person. She could meet Margalit’s mom. And Margalit’s mom could bake those cookies. And my mom would see Loulou. And we’ll be together. But it won’t be soon. I know that now more than ever.

  When my mother is released from prison I will be thirty-one years old.

  That is way too far outside my brain for me to handle right now.

  Right now we are having this delicious feast—I love these cheeseburgers—just the three of us. And for now, it is as right as we can make it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s not exactly like I am going to start my first day of sixth grade with a Facebook post about my mother being in prison or anything like that. But just knowing that Margalit is my best friend and that no one can take that away from me makes me feel a little less of a liar already.

  Margalit confided to me that she was pretty nervous about starting a new school, and a middle school at that. But I assured her I was there to help. She has a Ruby Danes.

  So we are all waiting at the bus stop. I haven’t seen Kristin all summer and here she is.

  “Hi, Ruby,” she says. She can tell just by looking at me and Margalit that we are friends now. I am actually worried that it might hurt her feelings. That she might feel left out.

  I mean, it’s not like she wanted me for a best friend, but somehow I feel a bit like I should have told her before. Sometimes, people you think have it all, really don’t. And you just never know, do you?

  “Hi, Kristin,” I say back. Margalit is waiting. “This is Margalit.”

  “I know that, silly,” Kristin says. “I’m the one who told you who she was, remember?”

  That didn’t sound good. I think I am in one of those movies where the best friend finds out someone was paid to be her friend and when she finds out she runs off crying and it takes the whole rest of the movie to straighten things out.

  But I forgot, this is Margalit.

  “Oh, hi. Did you?” she says to Kristin. “I’m glad you did, or me and Ruby wouldn’t have met. Do you live here too? I like your skirt.”

  And just like that, it’s all okay.

  The bus stops right to the beginning of the condo complex. So all the kids end up here at one time or another. Yvette and Beatrice would be long gone. High school starts at seven twenty-five. The real little kids, like we were last year, don’t have to catch the bus for another hour and all their moms will wait with them. But there is an unspoken rule for the middle school: no parents. They have to wait at least fifty yards back or watch from their window if they live facing the street.

  Matoo was a nervous wreck.

  “But how will I know if you got on the bus safely?” she said while she was putting on her makeup, getting ready for work. She leaned her face toward the mirror and drew an outline of her lips.

  “Where else would I be?”

  She gave me that look. Matoo can come up with all kinds of worry. Better not to ask.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “It’s a block away. And besides, I have Margalit.”

  I know Matoo wanted to sit in her car and wait for the bus, but she finally gave in.

  “Oh hey, look at this,” Kristin is saying. She takes something out of her backpack and holds it up. “My mother got me a smartphone.”

  It’s so pretty. It’s got a purplish cover with swirling pink flowers. And it surprises me but I’m not that jealous. A little, but not horribly.

  I want Kristin to know that I have something new too. I have a best friend. A best friend who likes me no matter what. I have a Margalit. But what flies out of my mouth surprises us all. Most of all, me.

  “The reason you never see my mother isn’t because she’s at work all the time, or traveling in Canada like I told you last year, Kristin.”

  Both Margalit and Kristin are paused in time. Neither of them moves or says anything.

  “It’s because my mother is serving time in Bedford Hills. She didn’t do anything but she was with someone who did. And so if you want to judge me, Kristin, you can.”

  Margalit raises her eyebrows. And I’ve seen Loulou do that too. And then Kristin says, “Yeah, so what? I knew that.”

  I guess I’ll never know if she did or she didn’t, but it’s done. But she doesn’t really seem to be that interested.

  But, of course, I could be wrong and Kristin will go to school and blab it all over, but either way it’s out there in the universe and it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as when it was threatening me from the inside. I have to face it sometime.

  Why not now?

  It might even make a good story for me to write one day.

  Margalit, however, doesn’t miss a beat. She just turns to Kristin and says, “Can I see your new phone?”

  “Sure. Look, see you just wave your hand over it. And check out this app.” Kristin is busy showing us this cartoon cat face named Tom that comes up on the screen and when you record something into the phone the cat face says it back to you in this funny kitty voice.

  Kristin holds the phone to her mouth to show us again. “Hello there. I am going to school today. What are you doing?”

  Sure enough, Tom the cat repeats everything word for word.

  “Can I try?” Margalit says.

  To my surprise Kristin hands over her phone. “Just be careful. It’s brand-new.”

  “I got my ticket for the long way,” she starts singing.

  I join in, “The one with the prettiest of views. It’s got mountains—”

  And then Kristin does too. “It’s got rivers. It’s got sights to give you shivers!”

  She must have learned the same song. Tom the cat blinks his eyes several times and then sings back our song in three voices. When the bus pulls up to the condo we are all still laughing, trying different songs, the Pledge of Allegiance, our names, what we had for breakfast.

  All in all, it’s pretty normal.

  About the Author

  Nora Raleigh Baskin is the ALA Schneider Family Book Award–winning author of Anything But Typical. She was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for her novel What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows, and has since written a number of novels for middle graders and teens, including The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah, The Summer Before Boys, and Runt. Nora lives with her family in Connecticut. Visit her at NoraBaskin.com.

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  Also by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  The Truth Abou
t My Bat Mitzvah

  Anything But Typical

  The Summer Before Boys

  Runt

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Nora Raleigh Baskin

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