by Katie Heaney
“I mean, I know her,” said Jamie. “Her name’s Sami Lerner, if you wanna look her up.” She nodded at my phone, faceup on the counter, and I flipped it facedown.
“What instrument does she play?” I asked, absurdly.
Jamie raised an eyebrow. “French horn…?”
I nodded, like that explained everything. Jamie half laughed, half scoffed, and we returned to staring at everything but each other. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, and jabbed at my neck with my middle and ring fingers until I was satisfied my heart wouldn’t explode. So Natalie Reid likes girls too, I told myself. This doesn’t change anything for you, and it doesn’t necessarily change anything for Jamie, either. I was clutching my neck again, I realized. I wedged my hands into the crooks of my elbow, locking myself in place. Along with the hollowed-out-husk feeling spreading through my body, there arose a wrenching, not unpleasant satisfaction. You called it.
I sat up straighter, scanning the crowd for that telltale orange beanie, but Natalie was short, and the crowd was denser now, and I couldn’t find her, which was just as well. Finally the curtain came to life, puffing out and retreating like a wave as people scrambled into place behind it. A few seconds later, the entity known as Sweets emerged from backstage to whooping applause. David led the pack: floppy brown hair, tight jeans, tight T-shirt, an illicit under-eighteen tattoo of what appeared to be a cheeseburger on the forearm he now used to tune his baby-pink electric guitar. I had to give it to the shrieker: he was, like, totally dreamy onstage.
But I didn’t look at David for long. In fact, I hardly looked at him again for the rest of the show. As far as I was concerned, Sweets had no guitarist, no bassist, no drummer. They had only a singer.
Ruby’s lips were painted a deep, vampy purple, and her silver hoop earrings nearly touched her shoulders. She wore baggy jeans over Timberlands and a red Mickey Mouse T-shirt she’d cropped at her belly button. Boy-style boxers peeked over the top of her waistband, which caused me to feel briefly dizzy, this time in a good way. Her hair was twisted into tight French braids, the tips freshly dyed emerald green. She was texting me when she was applying that dye, I thought with substantial satisfaction. I had previous and direct knowledge of that dye. Who else here could say that? Who could think of Natalie Reid when Ruby Ocampo was onstage? Certainly not me. Not very often, anyway.
I watched Ruby as she smiled at the crowd, took a drink from a water bottle, turned to say something to the guys. I felt Jamie look at me and quickly away but I couldn’t and didn’t take my eyes off Ruby. The palpable excitement in the crowd bordered on impatience. Someone in the audience shrieked, “SWEETS!” The boys stayed serious, focused on fiddling with their instruments, but Ruby smiled and blew the yeller a kiss. I searched the backs of their heads, trying to figure out who had been so lucky, and how much I should now hate them. But then Ruby took the mic in her hand as the drummer raised his sticks to count them off, and she had me captive all over again.
Their first song was, primarily, loud. I noticed Jamie’s head bobbing in time to what I could only assume was the beat, and I followed suit. It was difficult to isolate any one instrument from the others: they all crashed into and over one another. But above it all, Ruby’s voice soared. Most of the time her singing was clear and sweet, but on the choruses she broke into a Hayley-Williams-meets-Karen-O scream. These are not my words. I stole them from Jamie.
“She sounds a little like Hayley Williams,” Jamie shouted in my ear. “And maybe a little like Karen O.”
I nodded thoughtfully and shouted back: “I AGREE.”
Ruby had a surprisingly commanding presence for someone who mostly stood still, occasionally pointing to someone in the crowd (I always looked), or thumping herself so hard on the heart I had to wonder if it hurt. She was wildly expressive, almost goofy, and if she hadn’t been so obviously sure of herself (and so hot) it might have been hard to watch. But she was, so she was a rock star. As each song came to an end she dropped down into a squat and bounced there, bobbing to the beat of the next song starting up. She smiled at David and Ben and waved to people she knew in the audience, and I found myself craning my neck like I might intercept one of these gestures for myself. I was falling a little bit in love with her.
They finished another song and everyone clapped. “WOOOO!” I yelled.
“Thanks for coming out!” Ruby yelled back. This time she saw me. She broke into a huge, gorgeous smile. “We’re SWEETS!” People screamed. I swooned.
The band started up a slightly slower song, and David sang in Ruby’s place, plaintively mumbling with his mouth pressed up against the mic while the girls in the front lost their minds. What a waste, I thought. I watched Ruby sway back and forth and mouth the lyrics into open air. It wasn’t fair, how cool some people got to be. But maybe she’d fall in love with me, and I would become that cool also. Sexually transmitted coolness. Oh my God, I was really losing it.
Impulsively I leaned over and cupped my hand around Jamie’s ear. “She’s been texting me for weeks.”
The words left a semi-sour taste in my mouth. I was openly, pathetically bragging, and so soon after Jamie’s big Natalie reveal. Surely she saw through me now more than ever. But I had needed to say it, I couldn’t not; it was only a matter of when. The relief at having said it was instant, then gone, and then I just felt gross and strange. Surely I could have come up with a more natural segue. Almost anything beat suddenly shouting something like that in someone’s ear. But it was done, I’d said it, and at least now, if something did happen between Jamie and Natalie, I could claim I’d been first to move on. And couldn’t I be proud that Ruby, the person we were all here to see, wanted to spend her rare free time talking to me? So I couldn’t help myself. So I bragged. Sue me. I just wanted Jamie to be happy for me. And maybe the littlest bit jealous, too. Or a lot jealous. A lot would actually be great.
The way Jamie actually responded, though, shocked me: she squealed. Not only that—she clasped her hands together, like an old lady whose daughter has informed her she’s going to be a grandmother. She leaned in, grinning maniacally. Maybe she was drunker than I thought.
“Oh my God! Tell me everything.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes!”
I squinted. “Alexis? Is that you?”
She deflated, relaxing back into herself. “Okay. That was over the top. But I mean it. I know I was weird about this…before, and I shouldn’t have been. I’m trying to make up for it now, so let me, okay? It’s exciting. She’s…Ruby. Tell me everything.”
But something clenched in my stomach, and in the face of her unexpected, wide-open encouragement, I found myself with nothing to say. This is what you wanted, I told myself. Jamie was happy for me, or at least supportive, which was the least she could be. There was no weird, painful tension, no snotty retort or disinterested nod. She cared. She wanted to know more. I should have been so much more relieved than I was.
“Nothing significant.” I shrugged. That sounded unpromising, so I added, exaggerating, “But it’s been a lot.”
“Are you gonna hang out?”
“Well, technically we have.”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “What? When?”
“Just the other night. We made the posters for this.” I swept my hand around the room, and glanced at the stage. The music was picking up now, and Ruby resumed her rightful place at the mic.
Jamie nodded, a small smile pulling at her face. “I thought that handwriting looked familiar.”
“You are the foremost expert.”
Jamie had once kept all the letters I’d written her in a Batman folder labeled WORLD STUDIES—for maximum discretion—beneath her bed. It was stuffed fat with my notes and printed emails, and I only found it a few weeks before we broke up. At the time, I had taken it as evidence she’d love me forever. I wanted to know if she still ha
d it, but I really didn’t want to know if she didn’t. To keep myself from asking her I turned back to the stage, where the band was winding down. How was I going to tell Ruby which song I’d liked best when I kept missing them? I vowed to listen to the next one carefully—whatever it was, it would have to be my favorite. Ruby sidled up behind the mic stand like it was a person, pressing her body against it, and I felt my mouth go dry. Then she looked straight at me, again. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. Fireworks crackled in my chest.
“Thank you guys for coming out to see us,” she said. “It’s exciting to play somewhere new that, like, actually has room for people to stand.”
Everyone laughed but Mikey, who glowered visibly at Ruby’s words. It felt so good.
Ben lifted his arms and smacked his drumsticks together, and Ruby shouted, “We’ve been Sweets, and you can get our new EP, Type Two, after the show!”
“Type Two”? I whispered to Jamie. “Like, diabetes?”
“I know.” She nodded, wincing a little. “It’s their second one. Get it?”
“Mmm.” Shit, I was supposed to be listening. “What’s this one called again?”
“ ‘If You Say So.’ ”
“Right.” The track was one of their new ones and, judging by the crowd, an early favorite. It was catchy, and a little bit punk, and between verses Ruby jumped up and down to the beat, swinging her braids side to side. I even found myself shouting along to the chorus, or at least the half of it I could make out: “IF! YOU! SAY! SO! IF! YOU! SAY! SO!”
When it was over, the crowd whistled and clapped, and one of the girls up front flung a ninety-nine-cent grocery-store rose still wrapped in plastic onstage. It smacked into David’s shin and fell to his feet. He ignored it in favor of pushing his hair back, and lifted the hem of his T-shirt to wipe his forehead, revealing four inches of scrawny boy stomach “by accident.” Ruby bowed deeply, while Ben and Mikey gave little nods and waves and refused to smile. Together they hustled offstage, but they left all their instruments onstage, so it was clear they weren’t really done. The crowd cheered and clapped and chanted, stretching the band’s name into two syllables: “SWEE-EETS! SWEE-EETS!”
I leaned over to Jamie. “Is it really an encore if they make you do it?”
“I know,” she yelled back. “It’s like, guys…you’re not fooling anyone.”
“ ‘Bye! We’re definitely finished!’ ”
“ ‘The only song we didn’t play is your favorite, see ya!’ ”
Sure enough, the band came back, and Jamie and I turned to each other with our mouths hanging open in mock disbelief, which made us both crack up. Sweets launched into their crowd-pleasers, a couple of screamy, dancey jams that made Ruby seem so happy I was nearly lifted off my stool just watching her. Her face was red and shimmering, and she jumped up and down. I felt myself grinning, watching her, like a moron. Then I felt Jamie watching me and pulled myself together.
“You were right,” I shouted. “I’m a fan now.”
“I bet you are.”
Ruby held her last note, and the crowd smothered the end of it in applause. Once again she bowed and sauntered offstage, the rest of the band trailing behind her. This time, they really were done. The lights lifted like magic, controlled by the still-invisible Gaby, our own (wo)man behind the curtain.
Dee came over to pick up our empty glasses and leaned over the counter to mutter, “They’re no Le Tigre.”
“Nobody knows who that is.”
Dee pointed to Jamie. “She does.”
“Thanks to you,” said Jamie, and high-fived Dee’s outstretched hand.
Dee and Jamie started chatting about their favorite all-womyn-with-a-y, gurl-with-a-u bands, and I fully tuned out, scanning the room for Ruby. The denim-jacket boy from before resurfaced, picking up instruments and waddling backstage with them one by one, and the lesser fans started filing out the door in pursuit of an after-party. I had no plans yet, which was why I had to grab Ruby before she left: so she could invite me to hers. I told Jamie I’d be right back and headed for the office. Right about now Gaby would be getting ready to clear out for a strict twenty minutes, during which time the office became a postshow greenroom for “the artists.”
I made it only halfway down the hall before someone grabbed me around the waist, and I jumped and shrieked oddly. Something like this: “Yoweaagh!”
Ruby, her arms still around me, laughing just inches from my face. Pulling me into a hug and holding me close. My hand fell to the edge of her cropped T-shirt where her back was exposed. And a little sweaty. But I didn’t care about that. Ruby was hugging me, in plain view of her bandmates, who came sauntering up behind her. Then she pulled back, smiled at me, and kissed me.
On the cheek. But still.
Over her shoulder, Mikey glared at me. Say it, I thought. I dare you.
But he said nothing. None of them did. Ruby released me, and the boys brushed past us, crowding into the office/greenroom, where Gaby held the door open, trying her hardest not to look too displeased. We exchanged a look that meant: Boys. Ugh. Once they were inside she slipped discreetly past me toward the front, giving me a quick squeeze on the shoulder. I loved her so much at that moment, for making all of this possible and for knowing how important it was for me to stay right here, talking to nobody but Ruby.
“Thank you,” said Ruby. “This was so much fun.”
“You were amazing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Best show I’ve ever been to.” One of the only, too, I thought, but she didn’t need to know that part.
Ruby clasped my wrist, setting it on fire. “That’s really nice.”
I shrugged. “What are you up to now?”
She looked over her shoulder, and my eyes followed hers—the boys were laughing and talking quietly, passing around a bagged forty-ounce beer they’d pulled out of thin air.
“We’re probably just gonna go back to Ben’s or something,” Ruby sighed.
There was no invitation there. I knew that. But there was something about Ruby’s expression that made me want to second-guess myself. I could still feel the spot on my cheek where she’d kissed me.
“Can I give you a ride?”
“Oh!” She smiled. “That’s so nice. I’ll probably just ride with the guys, but thank you.” I must have looked let down because she touched me again, this time higher up on my arm. “Seriously,” she added.
“No problem,” I said. “I guess I’ll just…”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a thing.” (???????)
“Sounds fun.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you soon?”
“Yes, please,” said Ruby. I swooned so hard I almost felt seasick. Surely she was putting my health at risk.
“You know where to reach me,” I said—lamely, but she laughed anyway. She gave me another quick hug, waved, and joined the guys in whatever it was they were going to do next. Before I walked away, I noticed that she had two open seats to choose from, and she chose the one next to Mikey.
When I returned to the main room, Jamie was gone, and so was Natalie Reid. Only a few stragglers remained, and Dee and Gaby eyed them warily from behind the counter. I ran out to the parking lot, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jamie and Natalie leaving separately, but I saw neither. I checked my phone, but Jamie hadn’t so much as texted a goodbye. It’s late, for Jamie, I thought. I’m sure she just went home. I was getting good at lying to myself. If I kept practicing like this, one day I might even believe it.
I forgot all about getting pancakes with my dad until an hour before I was supposed to meet him, at ten-thirty the next morning. My body woke me up, sweaty and panicked, and I checked my phone to find a reminder text from him, sent at five-fifteen a.m., which for him was sleeping in.
See u 10:30 @ Mantequilla
—JR
My dad signed all his texts like I might forget who the DAD in my phone referred to otherwise. And still no mention of his apparently impending move. I texted him back (Sounds good!) and tapped my conversation with Ruby in case she’d texted me late last night when I was already asleep. Obviously that wasn’t the case, but you could never be too careful. I really had missed a text message once. It was from my mom, not a girl, but it could happen. So a minute later I checked again.
I wasn’t in the mood to see my dad, really, but I knew I should be grateful for the distraction. It wasn’t that I’d expected Ruby to text me, but what a relief it would have been if she had. Without it, I was left to my own horrible imagination of what she might have done with the rest of her night. She’d said she was done with Mikey, but couples like that were never really done. Brody Warshaw and Alina McCaskill had been on and off since literally the fifth grade. They were not good together, clearly, but no one knew what to do when they were apart. Once when they were broken up, the stock market crashed. It was all over the news. Sure, it was a coincidence, but then again…was it?
Ruby and Mikey felt a little like the alt Brody and Alina. I worried that if something more serious than a cheek kiss didn’t happen soon, I would lose my chance for good. And then I would finish high school as single as I’d started it.
That said, the cheek kiss was pretty freaking great. I touched the spot on my face where it had happened and closed my eyes to replay it over and over, giving myself the good kind of chest pain every time.
I’d wanted to tell Jamie first thing. Had she still been there when I came out of the coffee shop, I knew Ruby kissed me would have been the first words out of my mouth. In the sharp morning light, I realized that might not have been the best idea, and I felt momentarily grateful she’d left, saving me from myself. But then I remembered Natalie Reid, and punched my pillow, and got up to get ready.
* * *
—
I was told (mostly by my dad) that Mantequilla was an institution. Though the food was delicious, this was somewhat difficult to accept, especially if you read some of the snottier reviews online. The cafe was situated in a strip mall between two constantly rotating storefronts—currently, an orthopedic-shoe outlet and a nail salon decorated to look like some middle-aged white lady’s version of a Tibetan monastery. Mantequilla had a faded yellow awning and always sticky fake marble tables out front, which nobody sat at unless it was crowded. When I walked in at 10:32, I saw my dad sitting at our usual booth, if you could count a place we sat together every year or two “usual.” His criteria for restaurant seating were as follows: (1) close to the windows, (2) within eyeshot of the bathroom, (3) as far as possible from the kitchen, and (4) highly observable by the server, whom he tended to flag down with special requests three or four times per meal. There was only one booth at Mantequilla that fulfilled all four requirements, so he made sure to arrive early to get it.