by Sarah Dessen
“This is my assistant, Ruby Cooper,” she said to the reporter as I walked up. “She had on that necklace the day I hired her, and it was my inspiration.”
As both the photographer and the reporter immediately turned their attention to my key, I fought not to reach up and cover it, digging my hands into my pockets instead. “Interesting,” the reporter said, making a note on her pad. “And what was your inspiration, Ruby? What compelled you to start wearing your key like that?”
Talk about being put on the spot. “I . . . I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just got tired of always losing it.”
The reporter wrote this down, then glanced at the photographer, who was still snapping some shots of the necklaces. “I think that ought to do it,” she said to Harriet. “Thanks for your time.”
“Thank you,” Harriet said. When they’d walked away, she whirled around to face me. “Oh my God. I was a nervous wreck. You think I did all right?”
“You were great,” I told her.
“Better than,” Reggie added. “Cool as a cuke.”
Harriet sat down on her stool, wiping a hand over her face. “They said it will probably run on Sunday, which would be huge. Can you imagine if this gives us an even bigger boost? I can barely keep up with orders as it is.”
This was typical Harriet. Even the good stuff meant worrying. “You’ll do fine,” Reggie said. “You have good help.”
“Oh, I know,” Harriet said, smiling at me. “It’s just . . . a little overwhelming, is all. But I guess I can get Rest Assured to do more, too. Blake’s been pushing me to do that anyway. You know, shipping, handling some of the Web site stuff, all that. . . .”
“Just try to enjoy this right now,” Reggie told her. “It’s a good thing.”
I could understand where Harriet was coming from, though. Whenever something great happens, you’re always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself. Good begets bad, something lost leads to found, and on and on. But even knowing this, I was surprised when I came home later that afternoon to find Cora and Jamie sitting at the kitchen table, the phone between them. As they both turned to look at me, right away I knew something was wrong.
“Ruby,” Cora said. Her voice was soft. Sad. “It’s about Mom.”
My mother was not in Florida. She was not on a boat with Warner or soaking up sun or waiting tables in a beachside pancake joint. She was in a rehab clinic, where she’d ended up two weeks earlier after being found unconscious by a maid in the hotel where she’d been living in Tennessee.
At first, I was sure she was dead. So sure, in fact, that as Cora began to explain all this, I felt like my own heart stopped, only beating again once these few words—hotel, unconscious, rehab, Tennessee—unscrambled themselves in my mind. When she was done, the only thing I could say was, “She’s okay?”
Cora glanced at Jamie, then back at me. “She’s in treatment, ” she said. “She has a long way to go. But yes, she’s okay.”
It should have made me feel better now that I knew where she was, that she was safe. At the same time, the thought of her in a hospital, locked up, gave me a weird, shaky feeling in my stomach, and I made myself take in a breath. “Was she alone?” I asked.
“What?” Cora said.
“When they found her. Was she alone?”
She nodded. “Was . . . Should someone have been with her? ”
Yes, I thought. Me. I felt a lump rise up in my throat, sudden and throbbing. “No,” I said. “I mean, she had a boyfriend when she left.”
She and Jamie exchanged another look, and I had a flash of the last time I’d come back to find them waiting for me in this same place. Then, I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and seen my mother, or at least some part of her—bedraggled, half-drunk, messed up. But at least someone had been expecting me. No one was picking up my mom from the side of the road, getting her home safe. It was probably only coincidence—a maid’s schedule, one room, one day—that got her found in time.
And now she was found, no longer lost. Like a bag I’d given up for good suddenly reappearing in the middle of the night on my doorstep, packed for a journey I’d long ago forgotten. It was odd, considering I’d gotten accustomed to her being nowhere and anywhere, to finally know where my mother was. An exact location, pinpointed. Like she’d crossed over from my imagination, where I’d created a million lives for her, back into this one.
“So what . . .” I said, then swallowed. “What happens now? ”
“Well,” Cora replied, “the initial treatment program is ninety days. After that, she has some decisions to make. Ideally, she’d stay on, in some kind of supported environment. But it’s really up to her.”
“Did you talk to her?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then how did you hear?”
“From her last landlords. The hospital couldn’t find anyone to contact, so they ran a records search, their name came up, and they called us.” She turned to Jamie. “What was their name? Huntington?”
“Honeycutt,” I said. Already they’d popped into my head, Alice with her elfin looks, Ronnie in his sensible plaid. Stranger danger! she’d said that first day, but how weird that they were now the ones that led me back not only to Cora but to my mother, as well.
I felt my face get hot; suddenly, it was all too much. I looked around me, trying to calm down, but all I could see was this clean, lovely foyer, in this perfect neighborhood, all the things that had risen up in my mother’s absence, settling into the space made when she left.
“Ruby,” Jamie said. “It’s all right, okay? Nothing’s going to change. In fact, Cora wasn’t even sure we should tell you, but—”
I looked at my sister, still seated, the phone in her hands. “But we did,” she said, keeping her eyes steady on me. “That said, you have no obligation to her. You need to know that. What happens next with you and Mom, or even if anything does, is up to you.”
As it turned out, though, this wasn’t exactly true. We soon found out that the rehab place where my mother was staying—and which Cora and Jamie were paying for, although I didn’t learn that until later—had a strong policy of patient-focused treatment. Simply put, this meant no outside contact with family or friends, at least not initially. No phone calls. No e-mails. If we sent letters, they’d be kept until a date to be decided later. “It’s for the best,” Cora told me, after explaining this. “If she’s going to do this, she needs to do it on her own.”
At that point, we didn’t even know if my mom would stay in the program at all, as she hadn’t exactly gone willingly. Once they resuscitated her at the hospital, the police found some outstanding bad-check warrants, so she’d had to choose: rehab or jail. I would have had more faith if she’d gone of her own accord. But at least she was there.
Nothing’s going to change, Jamie had said that day, but I’d known even then this wasn’t true. My mother had always been the point that I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she’d been gone, I felt like I’d been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn’t. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I’d left behind.
The fact that this had all happened so soon after Nate and I had fallen out of touch seemed ironic, to say the least. At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn’t capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.
As the days passed, I tried to forget about my mom, the way I’d managed to do before, but it was harder now. This was partly because she wasn’t lost anymore, but there was also the fact that everywhere I went—school, work, just walking down the street—I saw people wearing Harriet’s KeyChains, each one sparkling and pretty, a visible reminder of this, my new life. B
ut the original was there as well—more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side.
Chapter Sixteen
“So basically,” Olivia said, “you dig a hole and fill it with water, then throw in some fish.”
“No,” I said. “First, you have to install a pump system and a skimmer. And bring in rocks and plants, and do something to guard it against birds, who want to eat the fish. And that’s not even counting all the water treatments and algae prevention.”
She considered this as she leaned forward, peering down into the pond. “Well,” she said, “to me, that seems like a lot of trouble. Especially for something you can’t even swim in.”
Olivia and I were taking a study break from working on our English projects, ostensibly so I could introduce to her to Jamie, who’d been out puttering around the pond, the way he always did on Saturday mornings. When we’d come out, though, he’d been called over to the fence by Mr. Cross, and now, fifteen minutes later, they were still deep in discussion. Judging by the way Jamie kept inching closer to us, bit by bit—as well as the fact that Nate’s dad seemed to be doing all the talking—I had a feeling he was trying to extricate himself, although he’d had little luck thus far.
“Then again,” Olivia said, sitting back down on the bench, “with a spread like this, you could have a pond and a pool, if you wanted.”
“True,” I agreed. “But it might be overkill.”
“Not in this neighborhood,” she said. “I mean, honestly. Did you see those boulders when you come in? What is this supposed to be, Stonehenge?”
I smiled. Over by the fence, Jamie took another step backward, nodding in that all-right-then-see-you-later kind of way. Mr. Cross, not getting the hint—or maybe just choosing not to—came closer, bridging the gap again.
“You know, he looks familiar,” Olivia said, nodding toward them.
“That’s Nate’s dad,” I told her.
“No, I meant your brother-in-law. I swear, I’ve seen him somewhere.”
“He donated some soccer fields to Perkins,” I told her.
“Maybe that’s it,” she said. Still, she kept her eyes on them as she said, “So Nate lives right there, huh?”
“I told you we were neighbors.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t realize he was right behind you, only a few feet away. Must make this stalemate—or breakup— you two are in the midst of that much harder.”
“It’s not a stalemate,” I told her. “Or a breakup.”
“So you just went from basically hanging out constantly, pretty much on the verge of dating, to not speaking and totally ignoring each other for no reason,” she said. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Do we have to talk about this?” I asked as Jamie took another definitive step backward from Mr. Cross, lifting his hand. Mr. Cross was still talking, although this time he stayed where he was.
“You know,” Olivia said, “it’s pretty rare to find someone you actually like to be with in this world. There are a lot of annoying people out there.”
“Really? ”
She made a face at me. “My point is, clearly you two had something. So maybe you should think about going to a little trouble to work this out, whatever it is.”
“Look,” I said, “you said yourself that relationships only work when there’s an understanding about the limits. We didn’t have that. So now we don’t have a relationship.”
She considered this for a moment. “Nice,” she said. “I especially like how you explained that without actually telling me anything.”
“The bottom line is that I just get where you’re coming from now, okay?” I said. “You don’t want to waste your time on anything or anyone you don’t believe in, and neither do I.”
“You think that’s how I am?” she asked.
“Are you saying it’s not?”
Jamie was crossing the yard to us, finally free. He lifted a hand, waving hello. “I’m not saying anything,” Olivia replied, leaning back again and shaking her head. “Nothing at all.”
“Ladies,” Jamie said, ever the happy host as he came up to the bench. “Enjoying the pond?”
“It’s very nice,” Olivia said politely. “I like the skimmer.”
I just looked at her, but Jamie, of course, beamed. “Jamie, this is my friend Olivia,” I said.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand.
They shook, and then he crouched down at the edge of the pond, reaching his hand down into the water. As he scooped some up, letting it run over his fingers, Olivia suddenly gasped. “Oh my God. I know where I know you from!” she said. “You’re the UMe guy!”
Jamie looked at her, then at me. “Um,” he said. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“You recognize him from UMe?” I asked.
“Hello, he’s only on the new sign-in page, which I see, like, ten million times a day,” she said. She shook her head, clearly still in shock. “Man, I can’t believe this. And Ruby never even said anything.”
“Well, you know,” Jamie said, pushing himself back to his feet, “Ruby is not easily impressed.”
Unlike Olivia, who now, as I watched, incredulous, began to actually gush. “Your site,” she said to Jamie, putting a hand to her chest, “saved my life when I had to switch schools.”
“Yeah?” Jamie said, obviously pleased.
“Totally. I spent every lunch in the library on my UMe page messaging with my old friends. And, of course, all night, too.” She sighed, wistful. “It was, like, my only connection with them.”
“You still had your phone,” I pointed out.
“I can check my page on that, too!” To Jamie she said, “Nice application, by the way. Very user friendly.”
“You think? We’ve had some complaints.”
“Oh, please.” Olivia flipped her hand. “It’s easy. Now, the friends system? That needs work. I hate it.”
“You do?” Jamie said. “Why?”
“Well,” she said, “for starters, there’s no way to search through them easily. So if you have a lot, and you want to reorganize, you have to just keep scrolling, which takes forever.”
I thought of my own UMe.com page, untouched all these months. “How many friends do you have, anyway?” I asked her.
“A couple of thousand,” she replied. I just looked at her. “What? Online, I’m popular.”
“Obviously,” I said.
Later, when Olivia had gone—taking with her a promotional UMe.Com messenger bag packed with UMe.com stickers and T-shirts—I found Jamie in the kitchen, marinating some chicken for dinner. As I came in, the phone began to ring: I went to grab it, but after glancing at the caller ID, he shook his head. “Just let the voice mail get it.”
I looked at the display screen, which said CROSS, BLAKE. “You’re screening Mr. Cross?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, dribbling some olive oil over the chicken and shaking the pan slightly. “I don’t want to. But he’s being really persistent about this investment thing, so . . .”
“What investment thing?”
He glanced up at me, as if not sure whether or not he wanted to expound on this. Then he said, “Well, you know. Blake’s kind of a wheeler-dealer. He’s always got some grand plan in the works.”
I thought of Mr. Cross that morning, practically stalking Jamie in the yard. “And he wants to do a deal with you?”
“Sort of,” he said, going over to the cabinet above the stove and opening it, then rummaging through the contents. After a minute, he pulled out a tall bottle of vinegar. “He says he wants to expand his business and is looking for silent partners, but really I think he’s just short on cash, like last time.”
I watched him add a splash of vinegar, then bend down and sniff the chicken before adding more. “So this has happened before.”
&nbs
p; He nodded, capping the bottle. “Last year, a few months after we moved in. We had him over, you know, for a neighborly drink, and we got to talking. Next thing I know, I’m getting the whole epic saga about his hard financial luck— none of which was his fault, of course—and how he was about to turn it all around with this new venture. Which turned out to be the errand-running thing.”
Roscoe came out of the laundry room, where he’d been enjoying one of his many daily naps. Seeing us, he yawned, then headed for the dog door, vaulting himself through it, and it shut with a thwack behind him.
“Did you see that? ” Jamie said, smiling. “Change is possible! ”
I nodded. “It is impressive.”
We both watched Roscoe go out into the yard and lift his leg against a tree, relieving himself. Never had a simple act resulted in such pride. “Anyway,” Jamie said, “in the end I gave him a check, bought in a bit to the business. It wasn’t that much, really, but when your sister found out, she hit the roof.”
“Cora did?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “She’s been off him from the start, for some reason. She claims it’s because he always talks about money, but my uncle Ronald does that, too, and him she loves. So go figure.”
I didn’t have to, though. In fact, I was pretty sure I knew exactly why Cora didn’t like Mr. Cross, even if she herself couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Anyway,” Jamie said, “now Blake’s scrambling again, I guess. He’s been hounding me about this new billing idea and the money ever since Thanksgiving, when I asked him about borrowing his oven. I keep putting him off, but man, he’s tenacious. I guess he figures since I’m a sucker, he can pull me in again.”
I had a flash of Olivia on the curb, using this same word. “You’re not a sucker. You’re just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.”
“Usually to my detriment,” he said as the phone rang again. We both looked at it: CROSS, BLAKE. The message light was already beeping. “However,” he continued, “other times, people even surpass my expectations. Like you, for instance.”