Letting Go of Gravity

by Meg Leder

  I turn my attention toward the tiny woman sitting next to me. “How are you doing, Alice?” I ask.

  Everything about her is fragile and thin, like a bird. She doesn’t respond, just hums softly to herself, smiling at her hands, still folded neatly in her lap.

  I pick up a paintbrush, watching to see if she responds, and then reach over and grab the sky-blue paint.

  “This color reminds me of your sweater,” I say softly to her, holding it up against her vintage cardigan, decorated with tiny pearly seed beads. “And this one”—I pick up a mossy green—“is the same color as your eyes.”

  I dab the brush in a little bit of the blue. “Is it okay if I paint for you?”

  She keeps humming, so I lean over, lightly feathering the rim of the bowl with the brush and the blue paint. “Maybe you can keep this bowl on your dresser for earrings. I like the ones you have on—they remind me of dragonfly wings. Have you seen a dragonfly before? They always seem like characters from a fairy tale, I think.”

  I continue painting the bowl, careful, slow, light strokes, talking to Alice the entire time, until the edges of it are as bright as a cloudless sky.

  “This looks nice, doesn’t it?”

  I rinse the brush in water and then move to the moss green, creating a solid border around the base. “This color reminds me of the ponds my brother, Charlie, and I used to explore when our family was on vacation in Ludington, Michigan. We’d take the trail with our parents and we’d run ahead, and when we rounded the corner, we’d find these green ponds, filled with lily pads with bright-yellow flowers in the middle. Usually there were turtles sunning themselves on the rocks. Did you ever wander when you were a kid? The world just felt a little more magical back then.”

  I lean back to assess the colors together, and that’s when I register the stillness in the room. None of the other ladies are talking, but next to me Alice is silent as well, no longer humming. Miss Peggy’s and Lorna’s gazes are directed curiously toward Alice, and even Harriet’s expression has softened.

  Alice is looking directly at the bowl in my hands, her fingers fluttering excitedly in the air, like bird wings.

  I hand her the bowl, and she holds it carefully from the bottom, an expression of deep contentment on her face as she lets the paint dry.

  Twenty-Eight

  “SO, DID YOU TAKE your PSATs in sophomore year?” Ruby asks as she dumps half a bottle of ketchup on top of her already mustard-and-mayo-drenched fries, then sips her Cherry Coke.

  “Yeah, and then again in junior year.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do. I hope I can get a National Merit scholarship like you.”

  I nod as Ruby begins to outline her SAT strategy as well, and bite into my hot dog.

  I have approximately twenty-four minutes left on my lunch break. Much to my relief, there’s no sign of Finn yet, the grill at the Float being helmed today by an extremely crabby old man who told Ruby she had to pay for my hot dog. When I offered to pay her back, she flapped her hand at me. “Fred’ll get over it. He’s all bark and no bite.”

  It’s been almost a week since I started working at Carla’s, and this is the first day I’ve actually had time to eat a real lunch, instead of slapping together a peanut butter sandwich from Carla’s mini kitchen in the back room. Lucky for me, when I texted her, Ruby was able to meet last-minute for lunch.

  The job has been surprisingly busy. Along with watching over Harriet, Miss Peggy, Lorna, and Alice every other day, I’ve also gotten to help out with a few mommy/kid painting parties, as well as a raucous group of middle-aged women who were fooling no one when they insisted their plastic bottles were filled with pink lemonade, not rosé.

  So far, no one in my family seems to have caught on. But ever since my night on the deck with Charlie, I’ve been paying more attention to how we talk to one another: Charlie gives one-word answers about tutoring and support group while Mom watches him and chews on her nails until she catches herself. Meanwhile, Dad complains about work, unless he’s asking about my internship or drilling Charlie on what he’s thinking about baseball next year.

  I’m not sure any of us are being our real selves right now.

  But when I’m at Carla’s, I can breathe. It seems simple, but I like how it feels to help people. I love encouraging the Wild Meadows ladies to paint new things, to go outside of their comfort zones. I love watching how excited the little kids are when they come back to pick up their freshly glazed creations, how they hold their new pieces reverently.

  The only not-great part of the new job has been the Casper brothers.

  Each afternoon I leave Carla’s, I see Johnny leaning against a beat-up old blue Datsun at the edge of the lot, smoking a cigarette or furtively shaking hands with different people, clearly passing things back and forth. He’s taken to giving me a two-finger salute when he sees me, nodding his head and grinning.

  Two days ago, though, I saw Finn standing across from him. Finn had his apron on, his hair knotted up, and I could see him pointing at Johnny, who was slouched back against the car. It didn’t seem like a friendly conversation.

  But Finn doesn’t seem to be into those much at all. He’s been doing his best to avoid me, and when I do see him, he ignores me so hard, so fiercely, it’s obvious to everyone within a five-mile radius. Yesterday I overheard Carla, after witnessing one of our exchanges, say to Finn, “I thought you guys were friends?”

  I left before I could hear the answer.

  Ruby leans forward, interrupting my thoughts.

  “So, how long have you wanted to be a doctor?” she asks.

  “Since fourth grade,” I say, choosing not to explain that the revelation came about after wishing out loud that my sick brother would die. A trickle of sweat makes its way down my back, my legs sticky against the picnic table. “How about you?”

  She sits up, her whole face getting smilier—a reality I didn’t think was possible. “So, last summer, my church group went down South to volunteer to help the communities hardest hit by the hurricane, and it was totally life-changing. The fact that I could actually help people? I knew then that I wanted to be a doctor more than anything else in the world. I mean, I always knew I was interested in being a doctor, but that solidified it. I never felt so sure about anything in my life.”

  She’s so excited and so passionate, the sun so bright behind her, that it’s hard to look at her. I pick at a splinter on the table.

  “And then I read this whole profile about the people who started Doctors Without Borders, and it just blew my mind,” Ruby continues. “That’s what I ultimately want to do. And I feel like if I can get into the best programs, I can make the most difference, you know?”

  I give a halfhearted nod.

  “Like, don’t you get excited thinking about it? How you can work with people and save their lives? It’s like being a real-life superhero, but you don’t need powers, and . . .”

  As she continues to talk about all the amazing things we’ll get to do as doctors, for the first time since I wrote that e-mail to Dr. Gambier, I realize that even though I got out of the internship, there’s still Harvard, and after that, med school, and after that, the rest of my life.

  This summer is only a reprieve.

  “I was thinking about trying for a summer internship at one of the hospitals. Didn’t I hear you were doing something like that?” Ruby leans forward eagerly.

  I look at her open smile and think about Em and how she was right; keeping this secret is lonely. I don’t want to lie to Ruby.

  I shake my head. “I had one, but it didn’t work out. I’m working at a pottery studio instead. But that’s a secret.”

  Ruby looks surprised, and I immediately wonder if I should have told her the truth, because the more people that know, the more chance there is of my secret being blown. But what do I think will happen at the end of the summer? Do I really think I can get away with this for the rest of my life?

  “Is this part of . . . ?” She st
ops, then starts again. “Is that why things were hard at the beginning of the summer, when we met?”

  I nod, picking more intently at the picnic table.

  “Your parents don’t know?”

  I shake my head.

  “Are you going to tell them?” she asks. She sounds like Em, and I feel myself bristle at the reminder.

  “I will. Soon.” My voice is sharp. It’s a lie, but it’s easier than the truth.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried,” she says, clearly embarrassed.

  “No, it’s not you. I just . . . It’s really not a big deal, I promise.” I wave my hand, like I can brush the whole thing off.

  But I can tell by her uneasy “Okay” that Ruby isn’t at all convinced.

  “So, tell me more about what you want to focus on in med school,” I say, hoping to change the subject.

  “Um, I was thinking of focusing on emergency medicine, but then I wonder if I might do more good in something more research based.”

  She grows more confident when she talks about being a doctor, but as she continues, I feel that familiar hitch in my heart—a feeling I haven’t had in the days since I quit that internship, a feeling I was pretty sure I was done with.

  This isn’t good.

  In my head, I start singing a Taylor Swift song, hoping that will calm me down. My hands are hard at work at the splinter on the table as Ruby continues to muse over all the different types of medicine she likes.

  “Oh crap, I’ve done it, haven’t I?”

  I look up at Ruby, surprised. The expression on her face is stricken.

  “Wha—”

  She drops her head to her hands, digging her hands in her curls, and lets out a strangled moan. “This is exactly what my mom told me not to do.”

  “Ruby—”

  She lifts her glasses, rubs the bridge of her nose. “I just get so excited about all this stuff and then I talk too much, and I know it’s weird and I’m too intense, and my mom keeps reminding me that I need to listen, too.”

  “No, it’s fine—”

  “I’m just not good at talking to people sometimes? I totally think it’s because I’m the youngest in my class, and even though my parents thought it was fine, I feel like I missed out on something important, like there was some how-to-make-friends phase I skipped over.”

  She frowns, shaking the ketchup bottle furiously on top of her fries again.

  “But—”

  “I tried to be friends with this group of girls in my honors classes, but they never invite me to anything. One time I invited them to a study group at my house and I even made cupcakes. But no one came, and then I saw all these Instagram pictures of them hanging out together at the mall. Can you believe it?”

  I shake my head, trying to get a word in, but she’s on a tear, not paying any attention to the huge glops of ketchup now soaking her paper plate.

  “It’s not like I wanted to go to the mall anyway. I mean, I don’t think I’d want to go to the mall, but it would have been nice to be invited, you know? And this summer I invited Annalise and Mallory to go swimming, but they never even replied, and—”

  “Ruby—”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with me, like maybe I’ll never have friends. Maybe—”

  “Ruby! Hey!” I gently grab her. “It’s okay.”

  She freezes, her golden-brown eyes meeting mine across the picnic table. “Oh, crap on a Ritz cracker,” she whispers.

  And then I can’t help it—maybe it’s the frayed nerves from my own impending freak-out, or that Ruby’s finally rendered herself speechless, or maybe it’s because it’s so hot my float is now just a soupy mix of root beer and congealed ice cream, or maybe it’s just the simple reality that this girl across from me cusses more creatively than anyone I’ve ever met before—I feel a laugh building in me.

  I cover my mouth.

  Ruby’s eyes are wide, and I shake my head. It’s like the time Charlie farted in the middle of our great-aunt’s funeral and he and I got totally inappropriate giggles—the laughter is a force of its own, rising up, unstoppable and enormous and invincible.

  “Crap on a Ritz cracker?” I ask, giggling.

  She nods.

  “That is amazing,” I manage to eke out.

  “Really?” Ruby asks, her grin starting to grow.

  “I liked it,” I say, gasping for breath, “when you called Finn a crap bird too.”’

  She giggles. “It’s pretty good, right?”

  Tears stream out of my eyes, and I clutch my chest.

  “I’ve also called him a turd burglar,” she says, half shy, half proud.

  This elicits a whole new round of laughter from me, and then Ruby joins in.

  “And a fartmeister,” she says, giggling.

  “Stop,” I say. “I can’t.”

  “And His Royal Pain in the Ass, High Prince of Finn-land.”

  “Oh my God,” I gasp. “That doesn’t even make any sense!” I drop my head on the table, burying my head in my hands, my shoulders shaking. I haven’t laughed so hard since Em left, maybe even longer, and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until right this second.

  When I finally lift my head, Ruby’s wiping tears off her face too, and I’m pretty sure they’re happy.

  Before I can think twice about it, I reach my hand across the table and give hers a quick squeeze. “Those girls are garbage people.”

  “You think?” she asks, and her face is so vulnerable that I make a decision right then and there.

  “Listen, my friend Emerson told me once that she wished I could like myself as much as she likes me.”

  Ruby sighs. “She sounds like a good friend.”

  “She is,” I say, thinking again of how much I miss her and trying to ignore the twinge of guilt that comes from the fact that I haven’t written her back since the day she told me to tell my parents about the internship, that I haven’t really wanted to. “That’s what friends do—they remind you of who you are underneath all the stuff people believe about you, all that stuff you believe about yourself.”

  “I need friends like that,” Ruby half whispers, and then she flinches. “Oh gosh, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

  I remember when I first met Em. It was the summer before second grade, and even though Finn had been gone for months and I had some friends, I still missed him. But then in July, Matty’s aunt Marly and his cousin Emerson moved to town, so Matty started bringing Em when he came to hang out with Charlie. Em was mouthy and wild and had a laugh that made me nervous, but she also wanted to see my dollhouse. She made me a beaded friendship bracelet with my name misspelled (Parer) because she couldn’t find a K. She invited me to a real sleepover. And on the first day of school, she sat with me at lunch. There wasn’t even a question—Em had picked me.

  I realize now that Ruby needs what I needed back then.

  She needs someone to pick her back.

  “I’m glad we met,” I say.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Cross my heart.”

  She straightens, using a napkin to dry her face, and then stretches her drink out to me. “To being friends!”

  “We’re toasting?”

  “I don’t know if you know, but ancient legend has it that a toast on a Cherry Coke and a root-beer float means your friendship will weather every storm.”

  I laugh. “Really?”

  “Yes. And also, Cherry Coke makes everything better.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever toasted with a root-beer float before, but then again, I don’t think I’ve ever been friends with someone as openhearted as Ruby before. And I’m starting to realize I need her as much as she needs me.

  “Friends,” I say.

  Her big eyes dart to something over my shoulder, and she scowls.

  “Ugh. He’s back.”

  I look over my shoulder to see Johnny’s rusty blue Datsun pulling into a spot at the far edge of the parking lot. My stomach tightens. Ruby looks over
her shoulder and nods to Fred, who’s also glaring at Johnny’s car from behind the counter.

  “You going to call?” she hollers.

  He nods, shuffles back into the kitchen.

  “Call?” I ask.

  “The cops. We don’t want Johnny dealing in our lot. Fred’s niece is on the force, and anytime we see Johnny here and Finn isn’t working, Fred calls his niece, who’s always happy to stop by for a free root-beer float.”

  I must look confused.

  “Finn made us swear not to call the cops on his brother, but Fred and I figure offering his niece food isn’t exactly calling the cops on his brother. It just gets them here, and Johnny always leaves as soon as he sees the police car.”

  I’m afraid of the answer, but I ask anyway. “Why doesn’t Finn want you to call the cops on his brother? Is he involved in all that drug stuff too?”

  Ruby’s quick to shake her head. “Oh God, no. Finn hates it. But Johnny’s gotten two strikes already, and a third strike means major jail time. Finn doesn’t want that for him. I guess at the end of the day, they’re still brothers.”

  Right then, a police car pulls into the lot.

  “Wow, that was fast.”

  “The station’s right around the corner. They could walk, but Fred and I think the car looks more intimidating.”

  At this point, Johnny’s already pulling out of his spot, but as he drives by Ruby and me, he slows his car and leans out the window.

  “Hey there, Parker,” he says, smacking his lips and making a kissing noise. “Here to see your boyfriend Finn? Can’t get enough of the Casper brothers, huh?”

  I shudder, but Ruby doesn’t hesitate, immediately flipping up both her middle fingers.

  Johnny laughs as he drives away.

  Ruby turns to me. “What was that all about?”

  “It’s no big deal,” I lie, trying to ignore the way my heart is scrambling for safety inside me.

  “Parker, that wasn’t nothing. It was super creepy.”

  “I knew him when we were kids. It’s really nothing. I’m sure if I ignore him, he’ll just go away.” I realize as I say it that I’m trying to convince myself as much as I am her.

  Ruby looks unsatisfied with my answer, but I lean forward. “Can we have lunch again, maybe tomorrow?”