Saving Ruth

by Zoe Fishman

  I made a thumbs-up sign. “It’s impossible to talk in this wind!” I yelled.

  “What?” he yelled back.

  “Too loud!” He nodded and took a hand off of the wheel to make a circle over his head with his hand.

  “You wanna put the top up?” he screamed.

  “No way!” I smiled as convincingly as I could as my hair blinded me. I was not going to be the girly girl who couldn’t take an hour or two of gale-force winds. Nossir. I was footloose and fancy-free. One of those girls from rom-coms who watches football and eats chicken wings for breakfast, but still has a soft, sensitive side—maybe plays gin rummy with her grandmother in a nursing home three times a week, or runs a foster care program for abused dogs out of her basement. Yep, that was me. A contradiction in terms.

  “There’s a hat in the back!” he yelled.

  “A cat in the what?”

  “A hat! A hat!” He pointed to his own, which advertised a fishing rodeo.

  “Oh, a hat!” I smiled gratefully, although he wouldn’t have known it through the curtain of frizz that now covered my entire face. I reached into the back and retrieved a beat-up Atlanta Braves cap that was wedged beneath one of the seats. I knew this hat. Chris and David had both returned from their seventh-grade trip to Six Flags with them, refusing to actually wear them in public until they were properly broken in. For months you could find the two of them in David’s room playing video games and training the rigid brims to round themselves just so, running their hands around the perimeter of the caps like deranged potters. I jammed it onto my head now, marveling at the memory. Would I ever in a million years, as I snuck glances at Chris on the sly, have imagined that I would one day be wearing that hat on my way to the beach with him? Without David? Never.

  What was going to come of this, whatever it was that we were doing? I was going back to Michigan in less than two months, and he was staying here. I snuck a glance at him in his Wayfarers and cap, his dark hair curling around his brown neck, and I decided that I would try my best just to relish what was happening now. It was best for everyone not to think beyond the summer. Then again, I was the girl whose lunch on Monday affected her dinner on Thursday, so it was easy to doubt my conviction to stay rooted in the present.

  We whipped our way toward the water, and I enjoyed the easy silence, the salty air, and the happy sun bouncing on the horizon. Seagulls cawed and pelicans swooped lazily overhead. Church signs offering cringe-worthy reasons to read the Bible whizzed by us. Jesus will save you! they cried. Salvation is within! And don’t forget the bake sale! You’d never see a sign like that in front of a synagogue. Or would you? Did you call your mother today? one might ask. Enough with this rain! would cry another.

  Finally, the Gulf greeted us; its warm, grayish waters gently lapping at the white shore in the heat. The sand shone like sea salt. We drove away from the main thoroughfare and parked. Chris put his hand on my leg, and I blushed underneath the brim of my hat.

  “You okay?” he asked, with a grin.

  “Perfect.” I smiled back. “That was a great ride.” He leaned in to kiss me.

  “Been wantin’ to do that since I picked you up.” He pushed my brim up gently to see my face. “You look pretty cute in that hat.” Don’t be a smart-ass, Ruth. Take the compliment.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  “All right, let’s get on the beach. I brought a little cooler—just some drinks and snacks and stuff.” He jumped out of the Jeep and reached into the back.

  “Look at you! A regular Martha Stewart.” I got out and stretched.

  “That’s me. Got some crustless sandwiches and homemade potato chips. Them tiny lemon cookies too.”

  “You do not!”

  He laughed. “Nah, I’m playin’. Just some beers and chips. Hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s perfect.” We began our walk to the water. “You had me going there for a minute, though.” Our flip-flops slapped the bleached wood of the boardwalk until we reached sand. I took them off and submerged my feet into its infinite warmth.

  “Nothing like a lil’ sand between the toes,” I said, smiling.

  “Yeah, until it starts to burn your feet to a crisp around noon.” We smiled and made small talk as we set up our camp. I reached for the towel in my bag.

  “I brought a sheet,” he offered shyly, pulling it out of his backpack.

  “You thought of everything!” My heartbeat quickened as I imagined lying next to him, practically naked with nothing separating us.

  “Well, it’s a date. You gotta do things right if you want to impress the ladies.” He gave me a wink. Underneath his bravado, I could sense his nervousness as well. Maybe I would drink a beer. I touched my stomach.

  “Why do you always do that?” he asked, setting the sheet in place by sitting the cooler on one corner and his bag on the other. I put my bag and towel on the remaining two. A perfect square of baby blue looked up at us.

  “Do what?” I stood there awkwardly, nervous about disrobing.

  “You brush your stomach like you’re pushing it off of you. Like this.” He demonstrated by placing his hand underneath his chest and pushing it down across his flat abdomen.

  “I do?”

  “You didn’t know that?” He took off his hat, and his hair gripped his skull like a yarmulke with wings. “It’s cute.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I was embarrassed.

  “Your hair looks really sexy, by the way,” I snarked, hoping to change the subject. Now I really didn’t want to take my shirt off. I sat down heavily.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” He sat down beside me. “I really think it’s a cute tick.”

  “Like Tourette’s, right?”

  “No, like cute.” He put his arm around me and pulled me to him. I was keenly aware of his bare chest pressing against my tank top. There was only so much longer that I could keep my shirt on without feeling like a Mormon.

  “That sun feels amazing,” he said, lying back on the blanket. Okay, one, two, three, take it off. I lay down quickly before I could obsess. The sand cupped my back like a heated foam mattress underneath the blanket.

  “It really does.” I agreed, stretching out my legs. “For some reason so much different here than at the pool.” I stretched my arms out too.

  He rolled over onto his arm and peered down at me. “What?” I asked.

  “I feel like I’m on a date with Pamela Anderson.” He touched my red rib cage.

  “Very funny. This happens to be the only bathing suit I own.” He put his arm around me and lowered his curly head onto my chest.

  “I’m serious, Ruth! You look hot. Red is your color.”

  “What are you, my gay stylist?” I laughed. “Red is my color?”

  “Gay! I’ll show you gay!” He rolled on top of me and pinned me to the ground, hovering just inches from my face. His hands made my forearms feel like chopsticks. Inside, I turned to jelly. He leaned down to kiss me, and the exquisite weight of his chest on top of mine made me catch my breath.

  “Okay, you’re not gay,” I whispered as we lay on our sides facing each other.

  He smiled and touched my face.

  “Want a beer?” He sat up and rummaged through the cooler.

  “It’s not even 11:00 AM!”

  “What are you, a nun? It’s a summer day at the beach.” He pulled a can out and popped it open. “You want?” Cold beads of water glistened invitingly on its aluminum surface.

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?” The calories! Shut up, Ruth. You’ll skip lunch.

  “Nice.” He handed it to me and opened his own. I sat up as straight as I could, careful to arrange my suit over my stomach as I moved, and gazed out at the water. Our blanket smelled like coconut.

  “How’s David?” he asked.

  “Oh, he’s good, I guess.”


  “You guess? Don’t you see each other every day at swim practice and stuff?”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we talk.” He nodded and took another sip.

  “I get that. But y’all used to be pretty close, right?”

  “Depends on what you mean by close, you know? I mean, we would hang out and stuff, but we never really broke it down or anything.”

  “You were always hangin’ out with us.” He smiled. Jesus, he was cute.

  “Yeah, volunteering for slaughter.”

  He laughed. “Whaddya mean? We played fair with you.”

  “Ruth, grab our rebounds! Ruth, watch for cars! Ruth, bring us some popcorn.” I smirked. “Yeah, super fair.”

  “You were so cute, Ruthie. And fun too.”

  “I dunno about cute or fun, but I did love being around you guys. It was great to be the token chick. I didn’t really have any guy friends growing up, you know. I’m a girl’s girl.”

  “The best kind to be, if you ask me. Who the hell would want to hang out with dudes all day if they had the choice?” The beer zipped quickly down my internal highway to my brain.

  “But I feel like you and David were close, even without me around.”

  “I guess we were when we were little,” I said. “Things got more complicated around middle school. He became David Wasserman, you know? And I was just the same.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah, with his soccer and how good-looking he was and stuff. And his good grades.” I screwed my empty can deep into the sand. “He’s like a celebrity.”

  “He’s always just been David to me.”

  “That’s because you’re a celebrity too, silly.”

  “Oh yeah?” He smiled sadly. “That’s rich. Me, a celebrity.” He took his cap off and raked his hands through his hair. “Maybe I used to have a fair amount of clout in high school, but that’s not the way it is now.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  “Come on, I go to Tech, and I live at home with my mama.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Not that I miss that bullshit, I truly don’t, but I’m just sayin’ that status like that can flip on a dime. That’s one of the reasons I miss talkin’ to your brother. We used to really talk about shit, you know? Not just surface stuff. I wonder how he’s doin’ in Oxford.”

  “You guys really used to talk talk?”

  “Ruth, please start sayin’ ‘y-all’ again, at least when you’re with me. That Yankee ‘you guys’ mess is like nails across a chalkboard.”

  “Oh well, excuse me. First Martha Stewart, now you’re Paula Dean!” He threw his head back and laughed.

  “Point for Ruth.” He sighed. “But yeah, of course we used to talk. You think we just sat around from first grade to senior year playing video games and passin’ gas? C’mon now.”

  “What would you talk about?”

  “Oh you know, this and that. He may have seemed really confident on the outside, but he wasn’t so much on the inside. I think he felt sort of trapped by, what did you call it, his celebrity?”

  “How?”

  “I mean, when you’re that perfect, it’s hard to fuck up, you know? Especially if you’re a good guy like he is. You don’t want to disappoint anybody.”

  “I didn’t realize that it was a struggle for him.”

  “Well, struggle is sort of a dramatic word, but yeah, I’d say it bothered him. And then the whole art major thing. He really wanted to study that at school, but knew that it wasn’t exactly a smart plan for the future.”

  “He knew, or my parents convinced him?”

  “Probably a little of both. But listen, I don’t wanna really get into this. It’s stuff between me and him.”

  “Oh, bro code?”

  “Yeah.” We sat in silence for a moment, watching the waves lap at the shore.

  “I’m sorry he’s been so distant.” I put my hand on his back, which was damp with sweat. “I know how it feels. I miss him too.” I wondered if Chris had heard the rumor. Should I ask?

  “Wanna get in the water?” I nodded, and he pulled me to my feet.

  Another day, I would ask. Today was about us and whatever this was. Because whatever this was felt pretty great.

  23

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ruth?”

  “This is her. I mean, she. This is she.”

  “Ruth, this is Miss Mary, Tanisha’s mom. You called?”

  “Oh, hi.” My palms immediately began to sweat, and I put the dish sponge face down on the aluminum sink. I glanced nervously at the kitchen table, where my dad was reading the paper and spooning cereal out of a giant orange bowl. Maddie’s tail swished against my feet. She looked up at me expectantly.

  “How are you?” I asked awkwardly.

  “I’m fine. Happy Fourth of July. Y’all got somethin’ goin’ at the pool today?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. A big day of relays and pizza and stuff. What are you guys gonna do?”

  “Our family has a big party every year down at the park. We’ll be barbecuin’ while the kids run around all day.”

  “Oh, nice.”

  “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about that message you left for me the other day. About swim lessons for Tanisha?”

  “Sure.” I walked out of the kitchen and through the family room.

  “Can I ask you somethin’?”

  “Please.”

  “Why you doin’ this? Tanisha could get swim lessons from someplace else, you know, we don’t need a handout.”

  “Oh, I—”

  “Not to mention the fact that you’re askin’ my baby to come back to the scene of the crime—the place where she almost drowned. That could be pretty traumatic for a five-year-old.”

  “I understand that, Ma—, Miss Mary. I thought it might be good for her, though, to go back to the pool and see it as a safe place instead of a scary one. You know, confronting her fears and all that.”

  Mary laughed. “Look at you, gettin’ all Dr. Phil on us! She’s five, girl.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know. Maybe that was naive of me.”

  “You feel guilty about what happened? Is that what this is about?”

  “I don’t know if ‘guilty’ is the right word. I just don’t want her to be scared of the water. And I like Tanisha a lot—she’s a sweet girl. I coach swim team anyway, so I’m up in the morning early. An extra half-hour of coaching time isn’t a big deal to me.”

  “How come your brother ain’t offerin’ his services? He’s the one who let her go under, isn’t he? He doesn’t feel guilty?”

  “All due respect, Miss Mary, he didn’t let her do anything. She was in his blind spot. That’s why you have two lifeguards on duty at a time, in case one of you misses something. He doesn’t even know I’m offering these lessons up.”

  “Oh, y’all don’t talk?”

  “Yes, we talk.” She was annoying me. Were we sorority sisters shooting the shit or were we going to agree to something here? “Listen, do you want to do this? I have to get to work.”

  “Okay, Miss Attitude! Hold on a second.” She covered the receiver with her hand, but I could hear muffled voices. Moments later, she peeled her hand off and returned. “You know what, I think we should give the lessons a try. If it’s not workin’ out, we quit.”

  “I think that’s a great idea. I really do. I like Tan—”

  “Yeah, we already covered that. When do we start?”

  “How about Monday at nine AM?”

  “Same pool? Down at the bottom of that hill?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “All right, we’ll be there.”

  “Great, see you then.”

  “Ruth?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” she said quickly and hung up. I
felt good about this—like I was doing the right, unselfish thing for once. Should I tell David? I wasn’t sure how he would react. He’d either tell me that I was a busybody and that I should just have left it alone, or he’d want to get in on the action and help Tanisha too. I wanted this to be my thing. So much for unselfish.

  “Who was that?” asked my dad, suddenly appearing in my doorway.

  “No one! Quit snooping around.”

  “I’m not snooping. I was just concerned. You sounded nervous.”

  “Dad, take it easy. I’m a big girl.” I sighed heavily. “You’re such a yenta.”

  “You headed to the pool?”

  “Yeah, I have to work all day.”

  “Your mom and I might come down later for some pizza or something.”

  “Okay, cool.” I got up and grabbed my backpack. As I walked out the door, he hugged me.

  “I’m sorry, Ruthie. I’ll try to de-yenta-ize myself.”

  “It’s okay, Dad, I know you can’t help it.”

  “Hey, listen, your brother’s exhibition game is this weekend—on Saturday. Your mother and I are going to drive over to Atlanta and surprise him. I don’t know what your plans are, but it might be fun if you came along. A Wasserman road trip, just like the old days!”

  My stomach plunged to the floor. “Do what now?”

  “It’s their annual Mercer opening scrimmage. All of the guys come together for a practice game before they return to school for good. Remember? We went last year.”

  “Why are you not telling David you’re coming?” My voice cracked.

  “Eh, he’s been such a pill all summer. We thought it would be nice to surprise him and maybe take him out for a big meal afterward. Make him feel special. Why, what’s the big deal?”

  “No big deal, just asking.” This was going to be a disaster of epic proportions. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to protect more, them or David.