by Kaela Coble
“Whatever, Murphy. All I’m saying is: don’t yell at me for not being able to stop Ruby from leaving with him. I tried. But you know Ruby, once she gets something in her head, she’s going to do it no matter what anyone says. If you had been here, maybe you could have stopped her. God knows, you’re the only one she listens to.”
Murphy just looks at me. We’re both pissed; at each other, at ourselves, at Hardy, but really at Ruby. And I think we both realize it, because we stop yelling. “I’m gonna go check on her,” he says. I follow him, thinking I could probably comfort her better than “let’s have a farting contest” Leblanc, but he closes the door on me before I can set foot in the room. As the door is shutting, I see Ruby sitting on the bed with her head in her hands, and something is strange. I realize, after the door shuts, what’s bugging me—the bed was made and the curtains were wide open on the window that faces the street. I don’t know what Murphy was doing in there all night, but he wasn’t sleeping.
I rest my ear against the door. I mean, it’s only right to listen and make sure she’s okay. I guess I was kinda harsh, but that’s tough love. What was I supposed to do? Congratulate her on her first time being with a lowlife like Hardy? Pat her on the back for throwing out her virginity with the bathwater? She didn’t confirm it, but I know what happened, because I know Hardy. And I thought I knew Ruby, but I guess not. She’s supposed to be the smart one. Even if she didn’t already know what Hardy did at Dunphy’s field, she’s still lived in this town all her life. She’s pulled older versions of Hardy off her mother long enough, she can smell a bullshitter coming from a mile away.
All I hear for a few minutes is muffled sobs, and every once in a while Murphy shushing her and saying it’s okay. I do not understand their relationship. They used to bicker like cats and frogs, and suddenly in eighth grade they were, like, inseparable. I heard Nancy complain once that the phone bill was out of control from Ruby and Murphy talking on the phone all night. I thought she was simply exaggerating at the time, but now I believe it.
The sobbing seems to be slowing down now, a good sign. I hear a sniffle and then “Oh God, I didn’t know, Murph.”
“I know,” I hear him say.
“How could I be so stupid?”
“You’re not stupid, Tuesday, you just made a mistake.”
“Yeah, a really fucking stupid mistake.” Amen, sister, I think. “I already catch shit for Nancy being a slut. I can only imagine what’s going to happen when people find out I—”
“Ruby, stop it. You are not a slut.”
“I am! What else do you call losing it to someone else’s boyfriend in the back of a truck on the side of the road? I’m a slut and a terrible person. Oh my God, I think I’m going to throw up, I’m so disgusted with myself.”
“You are not a terrible person. You’re one of the best people I know. And I bet the puking thing has more to do with the vodka.”
I hear a small laugh, a sniffle, and then silence. Then Ruby says, so quietly I have to really press my ear against the door to hear, “School starts next week. Everyone’s going to be talking about it. Nice way to kick off junior year.”
“No one’s going to find out.”
“Murph, she knows. There’s no way it’s going to keep quiet.”
“I’ll talk to her, she won’t say anything.”
Who the hell are they talking about? Brandy? How would Brandy know? Hardy certainly isn’t going to tell her. And if she does figure it out, how is Murphy going to stop her from spreading it all over school? Hell is not as furious as a woman . . . who’s furious, or whatever.
“Yeah, but she’s definitely going to tell Aaron. And Tara. And Tara will tell Emmett, and then all of a sudden the whole hockey team knows—”
Bitch! She’s talking about me? After all I’ve done for Ruby, here she is acting like I’m some enemy? I would never ever tell anyone this. I mean, Aaron was there, he already knows. And of course I would talk to Tara about it, but only because we need to figure out how to help Ruby through this situation. It’s not some big betrayal. We’re friends. Am I the only one who remembers the night before we started ninth grade? Everything was changing so fast—my dad leaving; my brother already away at college; starting high school, with kids from all over the county upsetting our place on the social ladder. I just wanted to pump the brakes before everything was gone. What did we say to each other? “I promise to be loyal to the crew above all else, always to be honest and true, through good times and bad.” And it worked, I thought! If it weren’t for those promises we made—the promise to stay close, to trust each other—would we even still be friends? How are we supposed to take care of each other if we have secrets from each other?
And now Ruby is talking like I’m some monster who just wants to ruin her reputation. Well, I’m washing my hands of this whole mess. If Ruby thinks staying out of each other’s business is what friendship is, then I will. And I will keep her out of mine. From now on, we’re merely roommates. She can have all the time she wants to talk on the phone with Murphy. She’s his problem now.
CHAPTER SIX
RUBY
Now
The smell of the linens tells me I’m home before I even open my eyes. They smell like the cedar chest at the end of my bed, where they’re stored between uses. I slept on these pale blue sheets (alternating with their fraternal twin set of pale green) for over fifteen years, ever since I graduated from a crib to a big-girl bed. Coral used to tease our mother—back when she still spoke to her, that is—about never updating or replacing any of the furniture or decor, but Nancy would always reply, “They’re perfectly good sheets! There’s no use spending the money on something we don’t need!”, which is where Murphy’s impression of her comes from. Swap out the word “sheets” with “dresser,” “couch,” “throw pillows,” “shoes,” “car,” or anything with the potential, but not the necessity, for updating, and you could pretty much script any conversation from my childhood that included a request for material goods.
Nancy was raised by a poor single mother in North Carolina, back when they were called “unwed mothers” (a.k.a. “whores”), and therefore balks at the idea of buying something just because you want it. They moved up here when Nancy was in high school because my grandmother wanted her to have a better education than she could in the South, thus providing her with the opportunity for a better life. But Nancy’s bipolar made school a struggle, and holding down a job even more so. Her last job was as my father’s secretary at his office in Drummond, when he was starting out as an investment advisor. Instead of firing her, he married her (he jokes that he proposed in order to avoid having to pay severance). After that, Nancy devoted her time to being the perfect wife and mother, and caretaker for my aging, ailing grandmother. She drove us all insane.
When I was entering high school and Coral had already left for college, Dad started splitting his time between the Drummond office and headquarters in New York City. But even though this upped our income considerably, and my grandmother had passed away, Nancy didn’t want to leave Chatwick. She says she didn’t want to uproot us, but I think she couldn’t handle the lifestyle change of moving to a community where she didn’t feel she belonged. She never settled into the idea that she no longer had to struggle for every little thing; being too comfortable made her nervous, because she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It used to drive Coral up the wall, having old things and used clothes when we could have afforded the latest and greatest. But then again, what didn’t drive Coral up the wall about our mother? It’s lucky for Nancy it was me who was home when my dad was gone, and not Coral; Nancy would have ended up wrapped around a tree or in a ditch somewhere.
This morning, I’m grateful for Nancy’s frugality. Despite my best efforts to deny my homesickness, I can’t help but smile as I run my palms over the worn-out cotton that is somehow always cool to the touch, even after eight hours of sleeping on it. Perhaps my childhood was less than ideal (whose
wasn’t?), but in this bed, in this room, I was always safe. Just like last night, surveying my unchanged room makes me feel like Kathleen Turner in that movie where she is suddenly transported from middle age back to her high-school years. As I sit up in bed, I half expect the mirror above my dresser to reflect a girl in a poodle skirt and letter sweater.
Along with the yellowing-white desk where I used to write atrocious poetry and maudlin short stories, the closet and dressers still stuffed with clothes that haven’t fit me since high school, and the Eminem poster on my wall (which makes me cringe), my bed is exactly where I left it, flush against the wall with the double windows that face the street. This was the only true surprise about the state of my room, as Nancy always used to threaten to move it away from the radiator the second I left the house. She claimed to worry about it being a fire hazard, but really she just has a thing about everything in the room being perfectly centered. I’ve always had a thing about looking out of the window from my nice, toasty bed. It was a never-ending battle that I seem to have won.
It’s a beautiful sunny morning, and when I peel back the lacy white curtain, the view is exactly the same as I remember, except perhaps everything is a little smaller. The Menkins’ weeping willow tree is overgrown, and the yellow paint of the Flemings’ house is peeling off in large chunks. These are facts Nancy no doubt laments every day on the phone to her sponsor, who reminds her that she must “accept the things she cannot change.” I have to crane my head to look down at our front porch, where the half-sized whiskey barrels spill over with the impatiens that Nancy plants every spring. It’s fall now, and soon they will be dead.
Dead. Like Danny.
The thought sucks all the nostalgic air right out of the room. Suddenly the charming view outside my window changes. Now it’s nighttime. Little eight-year-old Danny is bathed in the light from the streetlamp, his fist full of rocks, minus the few he’s expertly aimed at my window to wake me up. He holds his finger up to his mouth and points to the back of the house. This image has haunted my dreams for years, but especially frequently in the last couple of months. It was a sign that I ignored. Danny needed me, but I didn’t answer the taps at my window.
I would give anything to rewind a few months. To pick up the phone and reach out to him. Maybe it would have made a difference to hear from me, to know that I had never stopped caring about him. Probably not. The time I really could have made a difference is when we were young. Thinking about it now, what I can’t believe is how little we were. I shouldn’t have known yet how to take care of someone’s wounds. How to keep secrets that big. But I did, because I had already kept my mother’s illness hidden for years.
“Hi, sweetheart,” my mom’s voice jars me away from the window now, where Danny’s wounded face still stares up at me. I feel wetness on my cheeks and realize I’m crying. I try to wipe away the evidence, but Nancy doesn’t miss a thing when she’s sober, which she’s been for eleven years next May, as far as I know. “Oh,” she says. The sound seems to escape her mouth by accident. Her tall, slim figure makes a few jerky movements back and forth, as if she is arguing with herself whether to bolt or to comfort a daughter who has called her by her first name since she was sixteen years old. In the end I think she realizes she has no choice but to try. She sits on my bed and rests her hand on mine. My knees are tucked into my chest with my arms clutched tightly around me, my default position when I’m upset. She squeezes, hoping it will trigger me to unwrap and fall into her, like I did when I was a child. It won’t work this time.
“How are you doin’?” she asks. Despite living in Vermont since she was fifteen, Nancy retains a hint of her southern drawl. I used to get embarrassed when she would ask my friends, “How are y’all?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Sweetheart, you are not fine. How could you be fine?”
“Where were you last night?” I ask, my tone coming off more accusatory than I intended in my haste to change the subject. In truth, I was mostly relieved when she wasn’t home when I returned from the nightmare at Danny’s house; it gave me a chance to wander through the rooms on my own, examining old photographs and trying to determine from the poses who had just fought with whom before the flash went off. But I had also felt the familiar surge of panic at Nancy being out at night, which I tried to suppress by reassuring myself she’s not my problem anymore.
She sighs, withdrawing her hand. “I wasn’t at Margie’s, if that’s what you’re askin’ me.”
“I know. I was there.”
Her face falls. “Oh, Ruby, did you go lookin’ for me? I think, after more than ten years of sobriety, I at least deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
“I wasn’t looking for you. I was with the crew.”
She nods at this, but I see the slightest hint of a furrowed brow. Does she think I’m dumb enough to follow in her footsteps? “I was at Charlene’s,” she explains. “She called me after y’all got your letters. We crossed paths and I waved, but you didn’t see me.”
“No, I was a little out of it. In shock, I guess. It’s . . . a lot.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I shake my head. And what I mean by that head-shake is, I don’t want to talk about it with you. You couldn’t handle it. I can’t even handle it. But she presses on. “What did yours say? Your letter, I mean.”
I work hard to make my face weary instead of angry, my default reaction to Nancy’s pushing. “Nancy, I really don’t want to—”
She raises her hands. “Fine. Fine. Sorry, you don’t want to talk about it.” She sighs, staring out the window. “It just so hard to believe he’s gone. That someone could be here one day and gone the next.”
“It’s not too hard to believe, considering he spent his time shooting up in his basement and writing hate mail.” Whoa! I don’t know where that came from. A minute ago I was feeling guilty, making excuses for Danny, and now I feel like screaming. It might be that old default reaction wriggling its way back in. At least I hold back my comment on being familiar with the concept of here one day and gone the next, due in no small part to her and my father.
Nancy’s sympathetic face falls into a frown. She is disappointed that I am reacting in anger rather than sadness. Sadness she can hug. Anger she must be cautious of, because she knows what it’s really aimed at. Or rather, who. “Ruby St. James, I am disappointed in you. I raised you better than to judge people on their weaknesses.”
This is true, although it was less a conscious instillation of values than a by-product of growing up constantly navigating the tumultuous waters of her weaknesses. “I guess I’m just a little tapped out on empathy. I know you’ve told me a million times that addiction is a disease, like bipolar or heart disease.” Suddenly I feel nauseated, thinking that I now know people who have all of these conditions. “But people can make a choice to get better. Look at you! You’ve managed to control yourself.”
“Well, I couldn’t for many years, baby girl, and you know that more than anyone.”
I cringe at the term “baby girl,” which Nancy calls me only when she wants to put me in my place. What right does she have to remind me of those years? Of course I know better than anyone. Dad gave up trying to save her from herself when I was too young to realize I couldn’t. And when he got really fed up, he left for a year while Nancy proved to him she could maintain sobriety after treatment. After the three months she was in rehab and I was boarding at Ally’s, that left nine months of sheer terror that she would go back to her old ways. Nine months of lying awake at night with my bedroom door cracked, so I could better discern if the clinking of a hidden vodka bottle was real or imagined. Was that the cap of a pill bottle I just heard, or was it simply a tube of chapstick? The answer was consistently benign, hence my father’s eventual return, but I didn’t relax until the very morning he pulled his Beamer into the driveway and casually lifted his small leather Samsonite out of the back seat, as if he had only been gone for one of his business trips. Welcome home, Daddy, here�
�s your perfect family. All fixed, without any help from you.
“So when is Dad back from New York?” I ask.
Nancy sighs. “I think on Friday.”
“Hmm, well, I’ll see him back in the city then,” I say.
Her lips tense, but she doesn’t say anything. I know she’s annoyed that my father sees more of me than she does, although not by much. Twice a year she comes to the city with him. While he works, she goes to museums and wanders around window-shopping (never buying anything, because she has perfectly good clothes at home). She and I have lunch together in the same restaurant every time, and she always orders the exact same thing. Routine keeps her sane, Nancy says, when I encourage her to try some other delicious-sounding item on the menu. Time has provided just enough healing for hour-long chunks of civil, if not personal, conversations over tea and sandwiches, but being back in my childhood home makes it much harder to ignore the ghosts of the past.
“Have you heard from Jamie lately?” Nancy asks, soft as an underhand pitch. I sigh. Jamie was my boyfriend when I lived in London. My mother is a treasure trove of topics I do not wish to discuss this morning. “Ruby, I’m just asking a question,” she continues. “I’m trying to have a conversation with my daughter, is that such a crime?”
I guess not. “I got an email from him last week, actually. His first book is selling really well, and he’s working on the final draft of his second one, so that will come out next year. And,” I say, pretending to inspect and flick a speck of lint off my knee, “he sent flowers when he heard about Danny.” When I had called him about Danny is more like it, even though Jamie didn’t even know who Danny was. Despite my waking him up with my call, not an hour later a dozen pink roses were delivered to my desk with a note: Love Always. J.
“Is he seeing anyone?” She leans in closer as she says this in a conspiratorial tone, as if we are girlfriends, out getting pedicures or something.
