Saving Ruth

by Zoe Fishman

  “Maddie!” She looked up and swung her hips in greeting as her tail swished from side to side. I picked her up. She was as light as a bag of pretzels.

  “Old girl,” I cooed, nuzzling my face into her fur. She licked my nose.

  “I need a shower,” I announced as I put her down.

  “Okay, but make it quick,” said my mom. “We’re going to have lunch in a half-hour or so.” Lunch. The word made me nervous on principle. A meal with carbs and protein and chips and who knew what else, not to mention the three pairs of eyes that would study everything that went into my mouth. I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

  “What the hell did she do to that suitcase, Marjorie?” my dad asked as I dragged it out of the room behind me.

  I made a left into my bedroom and dumped it on the blue carpet. My room. My mom and I had redecorated it a few years ago—the summer David had left for college. It had been her way of coping with the fact that he was gone, and although it had started out under the guise of a bonding project for the two of us, it had quickly evolved into The Marjorie Show. I had wanted an Us Weekly bedroom—a canopy bed with mosquito netting was the height of chic to me at that point—and my mom had wanted Laura Ashley. Laura had won in the end, but I had at least scored mirrored closet doors after hours of begging. The walls were papered in blue stripes with tiny flowers weaving in and out of them, and a vanity table sat in the corner, freshly dusted. A wooden bookcase that had been painted white leaned against the wall, filled with Anne of Green Gables books and trophies from my various soccer, swimming, and softball teams. My twin bed was covered in a mauve, pink, and blue quilt. I collapsed onto it.

  I glanced to my right, smirking at my reflection. How many hours had I spent in front of those mirrors with my door locked, trying to gather my stomach with my hands in an attempt to see it flat—mottling my pale flesh with red welts in the process? The three of us had spent a lot of time alone in our respective rooms the year David had gone to college. Without him around, our family dynamic was strange, forced even.

  “You taking a shower?” David asked from my doorway. “I need to get in there.” Already it was starting.

  “Jesus! Yes, I’m taking a shower. I’ll be quick.”

  I got up and walked across the hall, slamming the door behind me. I turned on the water and peeled myself out of my sweaty, smelly clothes. The mirror revealed someone I only sort of knew. Who was that girl with the protruding rib cage and the tiny breasts? Oh right, me. I turned to the side. To see a back with no back fat was a sight to behold. That was when I first knew that I had lost weight—when I had noticed in my dorm mirror that my back was as smooth as a car’s hood. Meg had walked in once while I was admiring myself fully naked—standing on my desk chair with my hand mirror angled up to get the view from behind.

  “So, this is what you do when I’m not around,” she had mumbled, blushing and making a beeline for her bed. I was mortified. But not as mortified as I might have been had she walked in and seen me trying on her clothes, which was my other activity of choice when I had the room to myself. Meg was a girl who could eat Whoppers and pizza and never gain an ounce. The day that I could fit into her jeans without suffocating was going to be a good day. That day had come and gone around February.

  As I washed my hair, the smell of smoke billowed around me. And Tony. His smell was unmistakable—pungent and rich, lingering as I scrubbed him away. Tony was the real reason I had overslept. I soaped up my legs and dragged the razor carefully around my bony knees. I thought it would be a good way to go out—to blue-ball him into submission and then leave, the way all of the cool girls did in the movies. Instead, because I wasn’t a cool girl in a movie, I had slept with him and fought back tears as he had rolled off of me and returned to the party beyond his bedroom door.

  “Ruth, you minx,” he had said as he stepped back into his jeans and winked at me. “Let’s get back to the party, babe. This is it for me. Graduation is tomorrow, dude, I can’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, dude, me either.”

  He had left me there, twisted in his dirty sheets. The same sheets I had lost my virginity on, a few months prior. I wondered if they had been washed. I wondered if he had slept with anyone else since we had broken up two weeks ago. Instead of asking those questions, I had just gotten up, pulled on my jeans, and slipped out the back door.

  I let the water pour over me one more time before turning it off. I toweled off and opened the door, sending a cloud of steam into the hallway. In my room, I attacked my suitcase with some scissors—puncturing its layers of electrical tape until my clothes spilled out. I thought about the rest of my stuff at Meg’s house in Milwaukee. She was holding on to it for the summer—storing it in her basement with the rest of her college life. I imagined our winter coats sitting in the corner and reading Psych 101 textbooks together. When clothes come alive!

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Ruthie, lunch is in five minutes,” my dad bellowed through the wood.

  My face grew hot as I began to formulate a game plan in my mind. I’ll eat a few bites of whatever vegetables are available, push the rest around on my plate, and then go for a long walk later. I pulled my cutoffs up my freshly shaved legs and a clean tank top over my head. Wash it down with a couple of glasses of Diet Coke to fill up the empty space in my stomach. I dragged a comb through my hair, scooped a glob of gel from its container, and slicked the whole mess back into a wet bun. Keep talking throughout the meal to distract everyone from my plate.

  “Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuth!” my mom yelled from the kitchen. “Let’s go!”

  I can do this.

  “Cominggggggg!” I yelled back. God, how I hated being bellowed at. A lot of that went on in my house. What was so hard about walking your lazy ass down the hall to someone’s door? Sometimes I wondered if my parents ever had conversations at close range. They were constantly summoning each other from remote parts of the house:

  Marjorieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

  Sammmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

  “Could we make a rule this summer not to yell for each other?” I asked as I slid into my place at the table. David and my parents looked up from passing bowls of potato and chicken salad. Great, a mayonnaise fantasia.

  “No,” answered my dad.

  “But it’s so annoying.”

  “Tough.”

  “Who wants to be yelled at before they’ve even engaged in conversation? It sets a tone, can’t you see that?”

  “Ruth, you’re wasting your breath,” said my mom.

  I sighed and surveyed the table. Calorie counts hovered over each dish in my mind like Pac Man bubbles. Mayonnaise fantasia, no way. Baked beans I could do. And corn on the cob. Tomatoes. Pickles. Okay, I could work with this. I began to assemble my lunch.

  “Ruth, have some chicken salad,” my mom said.

  “I can’t, I’m a vegetarian.”

  “Since when?” asked my dad.

  “Since vegetarian became code for anorexic,” mumbled David. I shot him a dirty look.

  “Since this year,” I answered.

  “Then you’ll eat the potato salad.”

  I locked eyes with my dad, who was giving me his best I mean it, Ruth face.

  “Mayonnaise makes me want to puke,” I retorted. “I’m not eating it.” I looked away and reached for the jar of pickles. What was he going to do, shove a forkful down my throat?

  “Do you have a workout plan for the summer, David?” asked my dad. David played soccer for Mercer University. The star player on our high school team, he had been recruited aggressively and was there on scholarship. This was a huge source of pride for my dad, who still hadn’t given up on my own potential for some sort of sports stardom, despite the fact that I had been an award-winning bench rider all of my sporting life. Well, except for swimming. I had been decent until my breasts arrived. Unfortunately, that had bee
n around age nine.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this is an enlightening conversation.”

  “Sorry, Dad, I just don’t want to talk about the work I have to do right now,” explained David in a measured tone. “I just got home yesterday, okay? Can I have a little bit of summer?”

  “You’re right, David,” said my mom, glancing sharply at my dad.

  He looked at me. Great, my turn. I cut my tomato in half and speared it with my fork, pulling it toward my mouth in the hopes that chewing would delay the inevitable.

  “And what about you? Do you have a lot of reading to do this summer?”

  “Dad, it’s called summer for a reason.”

  “Really, no assignments?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. I just have a hard time thinking that an English major doesn’t have any reading—”

  “Sam, please?” pleaded my mom. “They just got home. Can we eat lunch?”

  He put his fork down and held up his hands in defeat.

  “Mom, everything is really good,” said David as he spooned another gelatinous glob of chicken salad onto his plate.

  “Thanks, Davey. I never cook anymore, with you two gone. This morning may have been the first time I’ve stepped into the kitchen since December.”

  My dad nodded. “It’s true.” I wondered what he had been eating all of this time if that was the case. The man didn’t even know how to boil water. My mom’s jaw clenched. A sore subject apparently.

  “Want me to do the dishes?” I asked as I pushed my chair back.

  “Did you eat anything?” David asked.

  “Yeah, your face.”

  “Very mature, Ruth. Wow.”

  “Wow,” I replied, switching my voice to a lower decibel to mock him. I walked into the kitchen and surveyed the damage. My mom was an excellent cook, but she made messes of tornado-like proportions. Crumbs on the floor, sauces splattered across the stove, and dishes teetering in gloppy, precarious piles were always left in her wake.

  It had been my job to clean the kitchen post-meal since before I could remember. Ten bucks a week to do so, when David received the same to feed the dog. The blatant inequality of our tasks had always annoyed me, but the actual act of cleaning was soothing for me. I liked erasing messes.

  “What’s on tap for the afternoon?” asked my mom as she brought more lunch dishes in.

  “I’m going to call M.K. and see if she wants to go for a walk.” And smoke a damn cigarette before my head explodes. Her silence forced me to look up from my suds castle.

  “Mom?” I turned off the water. “I’m here all summer.” I put my wet hand on hers. “We’ll do a lot of stuff together, I promise.”

  “Okay.” Her smile made me sad. I wasn’t sure if it was her own loneliness or her worries about me that made her look so lost. Both possibilities overwhelmed me. I turned the faucet back on.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said. “I think I’ll take a nap.” She walked away, and I continued to scrub.

  3

  “Hey, girl!” yelled M.K. She was a block away—all smile and blond hair, wearing her standard summer uniform of athletic shorts and tank top. Her legs were already tan from a spring in Tuscaloosa and possibly a few trips to the tanning bed. I waved back with broad sweeping motions and turned myself around in an impromptu jig of happiness.

  M.K. (short for Mary Kate, which was a name that fit her as much as “Tiffany” or “Jessica” would have fit me) and I had been friends since the third grade. Sometimes best, and sometimes not, depending on the extenuating circumstances of middle and high school. We had been through it all—Barbies, periods, boys, drugs, booze, sex—the whole gamut of the girl experience thus far. We met finally, and I hugged her fiercely.

  “Reeeeeeed!” I squealed, inhaling a giant whiff of her signature raspberry lotion.

  “Wassss!” she yelled back. “Watch out for my tea.” We had been calling each other by our last names since our peewee softball days.

  “Are you seriously carrying around a glass of sweet tea?” I asked, laughing. This was a southern phenomenon that fascinated me. At dusk, women would emerge from their homes clutching open tumblers of sweet tea, their ice tinkling in time with their pace. They paired off one by one, not to power-walk or jog, but to gossip and stroll.

  “Yeah, what about it? I’m thirsty.” She took a long swig and looked me up and down. “Damn, do you eat?”

  “Reed, shuddup. You saw me over Christmas break.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t look quite so Skeletorish then. Maybe it’s because you were wearing more clothes or something.” She paused. “You’re not into those horse diet pills from Tijuana or anything, are you?” We started walking.

  “Horse diet pills? What are you talking about?”

  “This sorority sister of mine got into them and lost like, a thousand pounds. Sorry. I just—I mean, I just don’t want you to be doin’ anything dumb, is all. You know I love you,” she cooed with a drawl. “But I guess you look good, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “I love how you’re givin’ me the third degree, when you’re skinny your own self.” My southern accent was returning. It had disappeared in Michigan about two months in. Now, breathing in the humid air of my hometown and absorbing the rhythm of M.K.’s voice, it was swimming back to the surface.

  “You’re smoking crack! I have ten pounds of Busch Light around my middle, and you know it. I swear, I drank more this year than the entire starting line. This summer is Operation Fat-Ass. I’m gonna run every day.”

  “You’re nuts. You look exactly the same. Where’s Jill today?” We picked up our pace. Jill was the third member of our squadron.

  “Oh, she’s at work. But she’s coming out tomorrow night for Bootsie Compton’s party.”

  “We’re going to Bootsie Compton’s party?” I sighed.

  “Oh God, don’t be such a snot, Wass. It’ll be fun. Besides, you have to debut your new bod.”

  “Bod? Really?”

  “Really. So, any boys to tell me about?”

  I laughed. “They’re all a bunch of pussies.”

  “Wass! You know I hate that word. It’s ugly.”

  “Oh, okay, this from the girl who pees her pants every time she gets drunk.”

  She punched me in the bicep. “I’ll have you know that I don’t do that anymore. I went to a hypnotist.”

  “For real? In Tuscaloosa?”

  “Yep. All better. And let me tell you, that cure did not come a moment too soon. My bladder was not doin’ me any favors in the bedroom.”

  “How’s Dwight?” I asked. Dwight was M.K.’s high school sweetheart. They had gone to college as a couple, but had since broken up and gotten back together more times than I could count.

  “He’s sweet. For the moment, anyway.”

  “You’re together?”

  “Yeah. He messed up real bad in the spring with this Chi O slut, but he apologized with some diamond stud earrings, so it’s all good.” Dwight was rich. Well, his family was. They owned a giant shoe store chain—The Shoe Corral. Their empire stretched all over the South. Personally, I thought Dwight was an asshole, but trying to talk M.K. out of him was a fruitless endeavor. I had wasted enough breath on the subject already. Enough to inflate a baby pool twelve times over.

  “You seein’ anybody, Wass?”

  “I was. Tony.”

  “I remember him. Y’all started datin’ last winter, right? Weren’t you tellin’ me about him over Christmas?”

  “Yeah, we had started talking right before break.”

  “He’s the real hot one, right? Looks like Johnny Depp?”

  I laughed. “How do you know?”

  “That’s what you told me, genius.”

  “Well, I think Johnny Depp may have been a little generous.”
/>   “Did you sleep with him?”

  “I did.”

  “Get out of here!” She stopped walking and grabbed my shoulders. “You lost the big V?” Her blue eyes danced. We had been talking about this moment since she and Dwight had done it sophomore year of high school.

  “Gone forever.”

  “Aw, Wass! Congratulations! I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s official. I’m no longer a virgin.” We began to walk again.

  “So, do you like it?”

  “What? Sex?”

  “No, my highlights. Of course, sex!”

  “Oh yeah, for sure.” This was a lie. I didn’t see what the big deal was. Tony always pumped away at me like a jackhammer, came, and then collapsed on top of me in exhaustion. I would have rather been doing almost anything else, to be honest. My lack of interest in the whole endeavor embarrassed me almost as much as my virginity had.

  “Oh my God, isn’t it the best? When Dwight goes down on me, I am telling you!” She raised her fist toward the sky. “Thank you, Jesus!”

  I smiled feebly. Tony had done that for me once, and I had been less than impressed. All of that wetness and then the worst part—seeing his expectant eyes watching me, his nose and mouth obscured by my vagina. It was like a horrible surrealist painting, or a really offensive muppet.

  “Hey, you want to swing by the pool?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “Yeah, let’s.” We made a right. The pool was at the bottom of a big hill, and we began to descend down its slope.

  “How’s David?” she asked.

  “I guess he’s okay. We barely talk these days.” I swatted at a mosquito that had landed on my thigh. “I don’t think we spoke once last semester.”

  “The whole semester? Dang. That’s like, months.”

  “Yeah.” Despite myself, my eyes filled up with tears. “I mean, it’s not like we were super close before I left, you know? I dunno why I’m all dramatic about it now.”

  “ ’Cuz it sucks.” She put her arm around my shoulders. “Did you try to call him?”