by Kaela Coble
The girl indulges Donna with a smile and a laugh, but is clearly uncomfortable, and rightfully so. I recognize her as one of the giggling sophomores.
“She’s kidding,” I say to her. “How can we help you?”
“My mom sent me in to check if she has any money in her account.” At this signal the dance party is over, Donna heads into the window to model her headgear, and Shawna starts straightening the rack of jeans nearby.
“No problem, what’s her code?” We’re a consignment store, so people bring us their old clothes and we sell them, splitting the profit with the consigner. It’s up to the client to come in and check if we owe them any money, and we assign each account a code so we know the person checking the account is allowed to collect it. We’ve had a few cases where kids have tried to collect on their parents’ accounts in order to buy drugs. I know because they show up at Danny’s later.
“Seven-seven-six-two-one,” she says.
I circle around the cash-out counter to punch the code into the prehistoric Mac computer and get the hourglass symbol on the screen. “It’s going to take a couple minutes to pull up.”
She smiles. She has a nice smile. Kind eyes, too. “No problem,” she says. “I’ve never been in here before, so I’ll look around. You guys have some cool stuff!”
“Absolutely. We actually just started taking summer stuff, and there’s a bunch of cute sundresses right over there if you want to check them out.”
“Thanks, I will!”
Shawna sidles up and plops down in the chair next to the computer. Just as Ally did earlier, Shawna notices me squinting to the back of the store, lost in thought. She whistles and waves her hand in front of my face. “What’s with you?” she asks.
“I think I might have found Murphy’s next girlfriend.”
“Oh! You caught your reflection in the mirror, then?”
“Oh, Shawna, give it up!” She’s been convinced Murphy and I are destined for each other since . . . well, I’ve worked here for two years, and Murphy came in to take my lunch break with me in my second week, so . . . one year, eleven months, and two weeks? When I mistakenly told Shawna he and I had made a pact to go to senior prom together, our “fate was sealed,” according to her. I told her the only reason we decided to go together was because of our respective junior prom experiences. I went with Eddie Rodowski, who grabbed my ass about forty times before puking all over my dress. Murphy went with Ramona Sturgess, whom Emmett set him up with because she was rumored to be easy. She spent so much time complaining about her recent breakup with Jed Sanders that Murphy deposited her at Jed’s feet and told them to work it out, because he didn’t drop $100 on a tux to be a couple’s counselor. After that, we thought it would be best to go with each other, so we could be ourselves and not have the huge romantic pressure that comes with the prom. We have the best time with each other anyway. Even knowing this, Shawna thinks we’re secretly in love. Just because she’s older than me, she thinks she knows everything.
“You listen to me, Miss Ruby. Your generation might buy into the whole ‘men and women can be friends’ thing, but it’s a load of bull. Sooner or later something is going to happen between the two of you, and when it does, you’re going to feel like a total idiot for waiting so long to see it.”
I feel myself start to blush and get up to busy myself straightening the rack of yet-to-be-tagged clothes behind the computer. Once the sophomore girl leaves, I will stand on a stool and read the brand, size, and category of garment to Shawna as she types it into the computer, and based on the condition and popularity of similar items in the store, we price it. Then we print the labels and tag them before we put them out on the floor. I look forward to the repetitiveness of this process. It will help me focus on something other than what I’m focusing on right now, which is the memory of Murphy’s mouth on my neck.
“You little hooker!” Shawna cries out. My eyes shoot over to the sophomore, who whips around to see the commotion, smiles, and then returns to browsing.
“Shhh, Shawna—Jesus!” I whisper-yell at her.
She lowers to a whisper, but gestures emphatically at me to follow her to the dressing rooms, at the other end of the store. I do, but only to avoid a louder scene. “Something already happened between you two, didn’t it?” she asks.
“No,” I say, but I’m a terrible liar.
“Hooker!” she whispers at me, swatting my arm.
“Okay, okay! We . . . accidentally . . . had sex.”
She does a happy dance, rattling the mint-green dressing-room station constructed by Donna’s husband.
“Stop it. Stop it!” I say, grabbing her arm to get her attention. “Listen, it didn’t mean anything, and it’s never going to happen again. So there goes your little theory right out the window.” I go to march back to the computer, and she stands in my way. I try to go around her and she blocks me.
“Ruby, you’re eighteen, and you’ve had a pretty fucked-up couple of years. I’m sorry if I’m the first to tell you this, but sex always means something. You and Murphy have something special, and you know it.”
I think for a second, my eyes stinging. “Murphy and I do have something special. It’s called friendship. It’s one of the few things I’ve ever been able to count on, and that means more to me than any stupid sexual encounter. Now please, drop it.”
She lets me pass this time, and when I get back to the counter, the sophomore girl is waiting. “Sorry for the wait,” I say, plastering a smile on my face as I circle back to the computer. “It looks like your mom has forty-three dollars thirty-one cents on her account. Do you want to take those off that amount?” I point at the short stack of sundresses she’s laid on the counter.
“No, I’ll pay for those myself. I wouldn’t want to do that without asking her,” she says.
I smile. So she’s cute, she’s smiley, she’s a sophomore, she’s not a spoiled brat, and she’s cool with shopping for second-hand clothes. I like this girl.
“You go to Chatwick High, right?” I ask as I open the cash register and count out her mother’s money. She nods. “What’s your name?”
“Taylor. Taylor Bishop.” She smiles and extends her hand to me. Bonus points for using her last name and shaking hands, unlike most of my peers.
“Taylor, I’m Ruby St. James. Tell me, do you happen to have a boyfriend?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
RUBY
Now
I climb the stairs to Murphy’s apartment, all five flights of splintering wood attached haphazardly to the back of the apartment complex. From the street, the building gives the appearance of a single-family Victorian mini-mansion. Chatwick’s Main Street is lined with buildings like this—enormous, old, and audacious in color, with chipped paint and sunken front porches in varying stages of yard-sale preparation. I remember when I was little, imagining cavernous hallways and rooms, filled to the brim with antique items that little girls were normally not allowed to touch. It wasn’t until Murphy started taking me with him on his maintenance trips that I realized most of these buildings were sectioned off into depressing two-bedroom units that his parents rented out. The staircase has the appearance of a fire escape, but it is actually the main entrance to the apartments, one on each floor. This one in particular is the largest one.
I hesitate on the landing before the final flight of stairs. What the hell am I doing here? This was not the plan. All day I threw myself into work, assuring myself I would not be coming here. Not only does Murphy’s arrogant summoning deserve to be rebuffed, but the more I interact with my old friends, Murphy in particular, the more likely it is that the secret I’ve worked so hard to bury will be resurrected. And yet here I am.
What is wrong with me?
This is ridiculous.
I turn to go back down the stairs.
“Someone there?” Murphy asks. I remain frozen mid-step. Maybe if I don’t move, he’ll think he imagined the noise and just go back into his apartment. “Ruby, I can see the top o
f your head.” I look up and see him looking down at me through the wooden slats of the stairwell, waving. “Hi. Quit being an idiot and get up here.”
I concede, trapped.
“What were you doing?” he asks as I get to the top of the stairs.
“I wasn’t sure this was your place.”
He nods slowly, in a way that indicates he’s not buying it.
I stand on my tiptoes, peeking over his shoulder. He remains still, sizing me up. “So are you going to invite me in or not?” I finally ask.
“I guess,” he says sarcastically, stepping back and waving me inside.
“Jesus, Murphy, do you have to make everything so goddamn awkward?” I say as I move past him.
“Me?” he says innocently. “I’m not the one creeping around on the stairwell!”
“I told you, I—”
“Wasn’t sure it was my place?” he mocks.
“Yes.” I feel my face flush, so I don’t meet his eye. Instead, I survey the place he calls home. It’s small, by Chatwick standards, but large by New York City’s, a typical bachelor pad, complete with leather furniture and a neon beer sign over the kitchen sink. I’m surprised by how tidy it is, remembering the state of his childhood bedroom. There is a distinct smell of Pine-Sol, and it is no small consolation imagining Murphy spending the day cleaning in preparation for my arrival.
“Nice print,” I say, pointing my chin at the canvas on the living-room wall. I’m lying again. It’s a generic painting of a little bistro with café tables and barrels of flowers in front. Two people face each other, their silhouettes blurry, sipping coffee. The colors are muted. It looks like it was mass-produced for customers of Bed Bath & Beyond who are looking for something that will go with everything. I’m only saying anything about it to find out how it got there, because it’s a sign of a woman’s input.
“Thanks. Mom picked it out.” I glance at him, and he is half grinning. Is he smiling because he’s embarrassed his mother decorated his apartment, or because he’s lying and he knows that I know it? This is ridiculous. It shouldn’t matter to me. And it doesn’t.
It doesn’t!
“So,” I say, running my hand over a plush blue blanket flung on the back of his black leather couch and adding it to my mental evidence locker. “Now what?” Oh God. Did that sound like what I think it sounded like?
“I don’t know. You wanna go for a ride?”
“Sure,” I say, thankful he didn’t respond in the pervy way he would have when I last knew him.
Murphy grabs his keys and we make our way back down the stairs. “So I guess climbing these is the drawback to living in ‘the penthouse’ rent-free?” I ask.
He laughs, but with a hint of offense taken. “Have you met Cecile? Not only do I pay rent, I don’t even get a discount for being the super.”
When we get to his truck, I think back to yesterday and how I wanted nothing more than this ride. Part of me wishes I had hopped in and demanded he take off. We would never have heard Danny’s suicide note, dripping with disdain. We would never have been handed our secrets in little envelopes like remotely operated bombs. The others could read them, but who cared? We would be long gone.
As soon as I buckle up, I kick off my flip flops and fold one leg underneath me. I reflexively reach for my purse, before I realize rooting around in it will not produce a pack of Camel Lights and a lighter. I quit before I went to college, just one of the many bad habits I decided to leave in Chatwick.
Murphy is eyeing me. “Feel free to make yourself comfortable,” he laughs.
I flash him a sheepish smile. “Force of habit.”
“Your feet stink,” he says.
“They do not!” I protest, whacking his arm with the back of my hand.
“Some things never change.”
“And some things do.”
We’re both silent for a few minutes after that. Murphy takes me through town, and it’s so surreal I feel almost sick. As I drove through it myself yesterday, it was easy to keep my eyes safely trained on the car in front of me without seeing what I now see. The Burger King the crew would hang out at after Emmett and Aaron’s hockey games. Margie’s Pub, and the retail space where The Exchange used to be—it closed about five years ago, Murphy tells me as we pass. After I left, at their insistence, I used to send Shawna and Donna letters care of the store, actual handwritten letters on fancy stationery I purchased at the NYU bookstore. I told them the same pack of lies I told my parents during my rare calls home. That I was healthy. Happy. Thriving in my new life. After a while it got to be too hard, so I stopped. Had I kept up my correspondence, I probably would have known they went out of business. Suddenly the image of them closing up shop for the last time, without me, wrenches my heart almost as badly as Ally’s call about Danny’s death.
We pass the high school, that pile of ivy-covered bricks, which used to look so gigantic and frightening. There’s my pediatrician’s office, where I used to love going because, after dutifully receiving my shots, they would give me this weird kind of bubble gum with a cold, liquid center. Nancy tells me Dr. Bates is still practicing, despite the fact he was approaching retirement age when I was his patient twenty years ago. Murphy turns onto Lake Road, and we go over the tracks and pass Charlene’s Deli, formerly Deuso’s Deli.
None of you bothered to try to help me when I was alive, when it counted.
I stiffen, and Murphy squeezes my shoulder, only for one second, before returning his hand to the wheel. I close my eyes against the words repeating in my head. When I open them, I see we’re passing Hardy Crane’s old house. Neither Murphy nor I comment on this particular landmark.
Not far after the deli, the homes and shops become farther apart, and Murphy picks up speed. We’re going into Chatwick Town, the countryside. We pass the old white church I used to feel a tug toward. I was not raised religiously, like Murphy. Instead I grew up worshipping Santa Claus and Bob Barker, so the source of the tug was more a sense of mystery and magic than of any type of real faith. The people spilling out of the cathedral doors on Sunday mornings always seemed so bright and happy, and I longed to belong with them.
After the church come the farms and the manure. I take a deep inhale and instantly feel more relaxed. This is the part of Vermont I truly miss. The country. “Nothing like a little cow shit to remind you you’re home,” I say. I glance at Murphy and instantly realize my mistake.
“There’s more to Chatwick than cow shit, Ruby.”
I forgot the number-one guiding principle of this town. You can only talk smack about it if you’re an insider. The crew and I used to bitch about this place all the time, but that was when we were in it together. The second I packed my bags and left, it became forbidden for me to utter so much as a syllable against it. It’s like how you can criticize your own mother, but no one else better, except your sister. Even then it’s only okay if your sister still talks to your mother (I know, because mine doesn’t). Murphy, like Ally, like everyone I know here, is poised to attack anyone—including, or maybe especially, me—who talks shit about their proverbial mother.
“I’m actually serious, Murph,” I say. “I really have missed this.” It’s the truth. The sensations I’m experiencing from riding around with Murphy are exactly what give me anxiety every time I think about coming home. They’re exactly what I was afraid of feeling: Youthful. Yearning. Alive.
As we drive farther, I can see the sun starting to set over the lake. This used to be my favorite time of day to ride around, the light filtering through the leaves and branches of the 100-yearold maple trees. The promise this time of day has always held, the night stretched ahead so full of opportunity for mischief or excitement or even disappointment. Anything to make you feel . . . something. Now, just like back then, the moment is so romantic it feels sad. That beautiful, lonely kind of sad.
We pull into the parking lot of Chatwick Bay Park. We’re not supposed to be here past dusk, but that’s never stopped us before. I look out over t
he lake and remember all the times I came here with Murphy or Danny or Ally, or by myself to let the placid waters smooth out the clutter in my mind from the latest blowout at home. Murphy swings the truck around in the parking lot so the bed of the truck faces the water. We get out and Murphy opens the tailgate. He holds out his hand to help me into the bed. I pretend I don’t see it and haul myself up on my own. He laughs. “Still a toughie,” he says.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It just kills you to ask for help. Or even accept it, when it’s right in front of your face.”
“I didn’t need it,” I shrug my shoulders. He nods, looking at a spot on the lake way in the distance, smiling to himself.
We sit in silence for a while before he says, “So . . . should we talk about—”
“Emmett. We should talk about Emmett,” I interrupt. I know he’s going to want to talk about our secrets, and I can’t lie to him. And I definitely can’t tell him the truth.
“Right,” he says, his face turning grim. He turns to face the water. After a moment, he whispers, “He could die. He could have already died.”
As overwhelmed as I feel, I can only imagine what Murphy must be feeling. He could have lost them both—Danny and Emmett—in one fell swoop. And even though Emmett assures us he’s fine, that could change at any minute, according to Steph. These people are part of my past—hell, they are my past—but to Murphy they are his present and future, too. And they all seem to be disappearing. “Are you okay?” I ask. He nods, staring off into the distance. “It’s okay if you’re not, you know,” I say. I put my hand on his knee, and he covers it with his. I get a flash of us in this same position, Murphy’s hand over mine on Blue’s gearstick, on the way to dropping him off at baseball practice. I remove my hand and tuck both of them underneath me.
“Why was it always so hard for them?” Murphy asks softly.
“Hard for who?”
“Em and Dan.”
I look at him in shock. “You’re kidding, right?”