by Sarah Dessen
“No,” I said, pulling back. He stayed where he was, his mouth inches from mine, but I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Ruby,” he said. Even as I heard this, though, breaking my heart, I could see his shirt, still pushed aside, the reason undeniable.
“Only if you let me help you,” I said. “You have to let me in.”
He pulled back, shaking his head. Over his shoulder, I could see the lights of the pool flickering—otherworldy, alien. “And if I don’t?” he said.
I swallowed, hard. “Then no,” I told him. “Then go.”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t. That this, finally, more than all the words, would be what changed his mind. But then he was pushing himself to his feet, his shirt sliding back, space now between us, everything reverting to how it had been before. You don’t have to make it so hard, I wanted to say, but there was a time I hadn’t believed this, either. Who was I to tell anyone how to be saved? Only the girl who had tried every way not to be.
“Nate,” I called out, but he was already walking away, his head ducked, back toward the trees. I sat there, watching him as he folded into them, disappearing.
A lump rose in my throat as I stood up. The gift he’d brought was still on the bench, and I picked it up, examining the rose-colored paper, the neatly tied bow. So pretty on the surface, it almost didn’t matter what was inside.
When I went back in the house, I tried to keep my face composed, thinking only of getting up to my room, where I could be alone. But just as I started up the stairs, Cora came out of the living room, where her CD was still playing— Janis Joplin now—the chocolate box in her hands. “Hey, do you want—?” she said, then stopped suddenly. “Are you all right? ”
I started to say yes, of course, but before I could, my eyes filled with tears. As I turned to the wall and sucked down a breath, trying to steady myself, I felt her come closer. “Hey,” she said, smoothing my hair gently off my shoulder. “What’s wrong? ”
I swallowed, reaching up to wipe my eyes. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Two words, said so easily. But even as I thought this, I heard myself doing it. “I just don’t know,” I said, my voice sounding bumpy, not like mine, “how you help someone who doesn’t want your help. What do you do when you can’t do anything?”
She was quiet for a moment, and in that silence I was bracing myself, knowing the next question would be harder, pulling me deeper. “Oh, Ruby,” she said instead, “I know. I know it’s hard.”
More tears were coming now, my vision blurring. “I—”
“I should have known this CD would remind you of all that,” she said. “Of course it would—that was stupid of me. But Mom’s not your responsibility anymore, okay? We can’t do anything for her. So we have to take care of each other, all right?”
My mother. Of course she would think that was what I was talking about. What else could there be? What other loss would I ever face comparable to it? None. None at all.
Cora was behind me, still talking. Through my tears, I could hear her saying it was all going to be okay, and I knew she believed this. But I was sure of something, too: it’s a lot easier to be lost than found. It’s the reason we’re always searching, and rarely discovered—so many locks, not enough keys.
Chapter Fifteen
“So as you can see,” Harriet said, moving down the kiosk with a wave of her hand, “I work mostly in silver, using gemstones as accents. Occasionally I’ve done things with gold, but I find it’s less inspiring to me.”
“Right,” the reporter replied, scribbling this down as her photographer, a tall guy with a mustache, repositioned one of the key necklaces on the rack before taking another shot. “And how long have you been in business at this location?”
“Six years.” As the woman wrote this down, Harriet, a nervous expression on her face, glanced over at Vitamin Me, where I was standing with Reggie. I flashed her a thumbs-up, and she nodded, then turned back to the reporter.
“She’s doing great,” Reggie said, continuing work on his pyramid of omega-3 bottles, the centerpiece of his GET FISH, GET FIT display. “I don’t know why she was so nervous.”
“Because she’s Harriet,” I told him. “She always nervous. ”
He sighed, adding another bottle to the stack. “It’s the caffeine. If she’d give it up, her whole life would change. I’m convinced of it.”
The truth was, Harriet’s life was changing, though coffee had nothing to do with it. Instead, it was the KeyChains—as she’d taken to calling them since Christmas—which were now outselling everything else we carried, sparking somewhat of a local phenomenon. Suddenly we had shoppers coming from several towns over, seeking them out, not to mention multiple phone calls from people in other states, asking if we did mail order (yes) or had a Web site (in the works, up any day). When she wasn’t fielding calls or requests, Harriet was busy making more keys, adding shapes and sizes and different gems, as well as experimenting with expanding the line to bracelets and rings. The more she made, the more she sold. These days, it seemed like every girl at my school was wearing one, which was kind of weird, to say the least.
This reporter was from the style section of the local paper, and Harriet had been getting ready all week, making new pieces and working both of us overtime to make sure the kiosk looked perfect. Now, Reggie and I watched as—at the reporter’s prompting—she posed beside it, a KeyChain studded with rhinestones around her neck, smiling for the camera.
“Look at her,” I said. “She’s a superstar.”
“That she is,” Reggie replied, adding another bottle to his stack. “But it’s not because she’s suddenly famous. Harriet’s always been special.”
He said this so easily, so matter-of-factly, that it kind of broke my heart. “You know,” I said to him as he opened another box, “you could tell her that. How you feel, I mean.”
“Oh, I have,” he replied.
“You have? When?”
“Over Christmas.” He picked up a bottle of shark-cartilage capsules, examining it, then set it aside. “We went down to Garfield’s one night after closing, for drinks. I had a couple of margaritas, and the next thing I knew . . . it was all out.”
“And? ”
“Total bust,” he said, sighing. “She said she’s not in a relationship place right now.”
“A relationship place?” I repeated.
“That’s what she said.” He emptied the box, folding it. “The KeyChains are selling so well, she’s got to focus on her career, maybe expanding to her own store someday. Eye on the ball, and all that.”
“Reggie,” I said softly. “That sucks.”
“It’s okay,” he replied. “I’ve known Harriet a long time. She’s not much for attachments.”
I looked over at Harriet again. She was laughing, her face flushed, as the photographer took another picture. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
“That’s very nice of you to say,” Reggie replied, as if I’d complimented his shirt. “But sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it’s not what we want, at least it’s something. You know?”
I nodded, even though it was exactly what I didn’t believe, at least not since Nate and I had argued on Valentine’s Day. The space I’d once claimed to want between us was now not just present, but vast. Whatever it was we’d had— something, nothing, anything—it was over.
As a result, so was my involvement in the carpool, which I’d decided to opt out of after a couple of very silent and very awkward rides. In the end, I’d dug out my old bus schedules, set my alarm, and decided to take advantage of the fact that my calculus teacher, Ms. Gooden, was an early bird who offered hands-on help before first bell. Then I asked Gervais to pass this information along to Nate, which he did. If Nate was surprised, he didn’t show it. But then again, he wasn’t letting on much these days, to me or anyone.
I still had the gift he’d given me, if only because I co
uldn’t figure out a way to return it that wasn’t totally awkward. So it sat, wrapped and bow intact, on my dresser, until I finally stuffed it into a drawer. You would think it would bother me, not knowing what was inside, but it didn’t, really. Maybe I’d just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing.
As for Nate himself, from what I could tell, he was always working. Like most seniors in spring semester—i.e., those who hadn’t transferred from other schools with not-so -great grades they desperately needed to keep up in order to have any chance at college acceptance—he had a pretty light schedule, as well as a lot of leeway for activities. While most people spent this time lolling on the green between classes or taking long coffee runs to Jump Java, whenever I saw Nate, either in the neighborhood or at school, he seemed to be in constant motion, often loaded down with boxes, his phone pressed to his ear as he moved to and from his car. I figured Rest Assured had to be picking up, business-wise, although his work seemed even more ironic to me than ever. All that helping, saving, taking care. As if these were the only two options, when you had that kind of home life: either caring about yourself and no one else, like I had, or only about the rest of the world, as he did now.
I’d been thinking about this lately every time I passed the HELP table, where Heather Wainwright was set up as usual, accepting donations or petition signatures. Ever since Thanksgiving, I’d sort of held it against her that she’d broken up with Nate, thinking she’d abandoned him, but now, for obvious reasons, I was seeing things differently. So much so that more than once, I’d found myself pausing and taking a moment to look over whatever cause she was lobbying for. Usually, she was busy talking to other people and just smiled at me, telling me to let her know if I had any questions. One day, though, as I perused some literature about saving the coastline, it was just the two of us.
“It’s a good cause,” she said as I flipped past some pages illustrating various stages of sand erosion. “We can’t just take our beaches for granted.”
“Right,” I said. “I guess not.”
She sat back, twirling a pen in her hand. Finally, after a moment, she said, “So . . . how’s Nate doing?”
I shut the brochure. “I wouldn’t really know,” I said. “We’re kind of on the outs these days.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just . . . it got hard. You know?”
I wasn’t expecting her to respond to this, really. But then she put her pen down. “His dad,” she said, clarifying. I nodded, and she smiled sadly, shaking her head. “Well, I hate to tell you, but if you think keeping your distance makes it easier not to worry . . . it doesn’t. Not really.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the brochure again. “I’m kind of getting that.”
“For me, the worst was just watching him change, you know?” She sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. “Like with quitting swim team. That was his entire world. But in the end, he gave it up, because of this.”
“He gave you up, too,” I said. “Right?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I guess so.”
Across the green, there was a sudden burst of laughter, and we both looked in its direction. As it ended, she said, “Look, for what it’s worth, I think I could have tried harder. To stick by him, or force the issue. I kind of wish I had.”
“You do?”
“I think he would have done it for me,” she said. “And that’s been the hardest part of all of this, really. That maybe I failed him, or myself, somehow. You know?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“So,” a dark-haired girl with a ponytail said to Heather, sliding into the empty seat beside her. “I just spent, like, a half hour working on Mr. Thackray, and he’s finally agreed to let us plug our fund-raiser again this afternoon during announcements. I’m thinking we should write some new copy, though, to really make an impact, like . . .”
I started to move down the table, our conversation clearly over. “Take care, Ruby,” Heather called after me.
“You, too,” I told her. As she turned back to the girl, who was still talking, I reached into my pocket, pulling out the few dollars’ change from my lunch and stuffing it into the SAVE OUR BEACHES! jar. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things. But it made me feel somewhat better, nonetheless.
Also slightly encouraging was the fact that while I hadn’t been of help to Nate, I didn’t have to look far to find someone who had benefited from my actions. Not now that Gervais was front and center, at my picnic table, every weekday from 12:05 to 1:15.
“Again,” he said to me, pointing at the book with his pencil, “remember the power rule. It’s the key to everything you’re trying to do here.”
I sighed, trying to clear my head. The truth was, Gervais was a good tutor. Already, I understood tons more than I had before he’d begun working with me, stuff even my early-morning help sessions couldn’t make sense of. But there were still distractions. Initially, it had been me worrying about how he’d interact with Olivia, whether he’d act so goopy or lovesick she’d immediately suspect something, and rightfully blame me. As it turned out, though, this wasn’t an issue at all. If anything, I was a third wheel now.
“The power rule,” Olivia recited, flipping her phone open. “The derivative of any given variable (x) to the exponent (n) is equal to product of the exponent and the variable to the (n-1) power.”
I just looked at her. “Exactly right,” Gervais said, beaming. “See? Olivia gets it.”
Of course she did. Olivia was apparently a whiz at calculus, something she had neglected to mention the entire time we’d been sharing our lunch hour. Now that Gervais had joined us, though, they were in math heaven. That is, when they weren’t talking about one of the other myriad, inexplicable things they had in common, including but not limited to a love of movies, the pros and cons of various college majors, and, of course, picking on me.
“What exactly is going on with you two?” I’d asked her recently after one of Gervais’s visits, which I had spent alternately struggling with the power rule and sitting by, open-mouthed, as they riffed on the minute details of a recent sci-fi blockbuster, down to the extra scenes after the credits.
“What do you mean?” she asked. We were crossing the green. “He’s a nice kid.”
“Look, I have to be honest,” I told her. “He likes you.”
“I know.”
She said this so simply, so matter-of-factly, that I almost stopped walking. “You know?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, right?” she said. “He was always hanging around the theater when I was working. Not exactly slick.”
“He wants to be friends with you,” I told her. “He asked me to help him do it.”
“Did you?”
“No,” I said. “But I did tell him he could help me with my calculus at lunch. And that you might, you know, be there.”
I kind of spit this last part out, as I was already bracing myself for her reaction. To my surprise, though, she seemed hardly bothered. “Like I said,” she said with a shrug, “he’s a nice kid. And it’s got to be tough for him here, you know?”
Ah, I thought, remembering back to what she’d said to me about having things in common. Who knew Gervais would count, too? “Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’re right.”
“Plus,” she continued, “he knows nothing is going to happen between us.”
“Are you sure he knows that?”
Now she stopped walking, narrowing her eyes at me. “What?” she said. “Do you think I’m not capable of being clear? ”
I shook my head. “No. You are.”
“That’s right.” She started walking again. “We both know the limits of this relationship. It’s understood. And as long as we’re both comfortable with that, nobody gets hurt. It’s basic.”
Basic, I thought. Just like the power rule.
Calculus aside, I had surprised myself by not o
nly keeping up my end of the deal I’d made with Jamie but actually feeling slightly confident as I sent off my applications back at the end of January. Because of ongoing worries about my GPA, I’d done all I could to strengthen the rest of my material, from my essays to my recommendations. In the end, I’d applied to three schools: the U, Cora’s alma mater and one town over; a smaller, more artsy college in the mountains called Slater-Kearns; and one long shot, Defriese University, in D.C. According to Mrs. Pureza, my guidance counselor, all three were known to take a second look at “unique” students like myself. Which meant I might actually have a chance, a thought that at times scared the hell out of me. I’d been looking ahead to the future for so long, practically my entire life. Now that it was close, though, I found myself hesitant, not so sure I was ready.
There was still a lot of the year to go, though, which I reminded myself was a good thing whenever I surveyed what I had done so far on my English project. One day, in a burst of organization I’d hoped would lead to inspiration, I’d spread out everything I had on the desk in my room: stacks of notes, Post-its with quotes stuck up on the wall above, the books I’d used as research—pages marked—piled on either side. Lately, after dinner or when I wasn’t working, I’d sit down and go through it bit by bit waiting for that spark.
So far, no luck. In fact, the only thing that ever made me feel somewhat close was the picture of Jamie’s family, which I’d taken from the kitchen and tacked up on the wall, right at eye level. I’d spent hours, it felt like, sitting there looking over each individual face, as if one of them might suddenly have what I was searching for. What is family? For me, right then, it was one person who’d left me, and two I would have to leave soon. Maybe this was an answer. But it wasn’t the right one. Of that, I was sure.
Now, I heard Harriet call my name, jerking me back to the mall, and the present. When I looked up, she was waving me over to the kiosk, where she was standing with the reporter.