by Ciara Smyth
“You’re early,” I said, offering a tentative half smile like it was all a silly misunderstanding.
“How rude of me,” she replied. She did not smile back. Nope, definitely mad.
Silence fell like a curtain between us.
“I should go,” Ruby said when I didn’t say anything. She looked angry, but she sounded hurt. And even though I was the one who had panicked and tried to stop her coming, I hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. I didn’t like seeing her feel that way and I definitely didn’t like knowing it was because of me.
“Please don’t go,” I said, and I was surprised and embarrassed to hear a break in my voice. I wasn’t going to cry. That was stupid.
“You obviously don’t want me here.”
“No. It’s not that. I mean, OK. I tried to stop you coming. But I was nervous. My dad. He’s weird and annoying and I’m afraid that if you meet him you definitely won’t want to finish the montage.”
It was half the truth. He could definitely do or say something that would put an end to this thing. And I realized how much I wanted to keep it going now that she looked like she might walk away.
“Because your dad is weird?”
“Well, it sounds stupid when you say it.”
“No, trust me, it sounds stupid when you say it too,” she said with a smirk.
I laughed and took Ruby’s hand.
“Please. I’m a dick, I know, but I promise it was not about you.”
Ruby looked at me, appraising my excuse. It was weak.
“Fine. But you better make it up to me.”
“Oh yeah?” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.
“As if. How about next time you’re nervous about something, you actually tell me the truth and we talk about it instead of making up silly stories.”
“Well now, that wouldn’t be very rom-com of me, would it? The guy always gets himself into a stupid situation because he tells some ridiculous lie. If anything, I’m just really committed to our bit.”
“You’re not the guy,” Ruby pointed out. “That’s the whole point. Neither of us is the guy. In the lesbian rom-com, we would discuss all of our feelings until our throats dry up and our bodies shrivel.”
“I promise. No more lies,” I lied.
“I found the candlesticks!” Dad said, appearing with two completely different candlesticks. Why did we have two sets of candlesticks but only one Christmas-themed tablecloth?
“What are you going to study at university, Ruby?” Dad asked around a mouthful of flavorless stir-fry.
“Dad, honestly. Stop grilling her.” I grimaced. “You’re not a guidance counselor.” I shook my foot nervously, wondering when this would be over and whether or not I’d survive it, relationship intact. Of course I’d told Ruby to stay, but that meant I had to be more vigilant than ever. My secrets were bombs that could detonate at any second and the only thing that was making me happy these days would explode.
“Oh, for God’s sake. That’s the first thing I’ve asked.”
“It’s really OK.” Ruby put her hand on my arm before replying to Dad. “I’m not going next year. I’m going to take a gap year,” Ruby said, giving me a reassuring kind of look. She thought I was trying to protect her from Dad’s interrogation.
“Good for you. Do some traveling or something?”
“Well, no. Not quite. I’m going to stay home.”
I didn’t know that. I’d thought before that Ruby must be going traveling and I’d kind of decided that was true without thinking about it again. I didn’t ask her about it for obvious reasons. You know, because I like to stay in the moment.
Kidding. It was because I selfishly tried to avoid any conversation that might lead back to me.
“Do you live anywhere near Oxford?” he asked, pointing at me. My throat seized up. This was it. Doom. I scanned the table as though a smooth change of conversation would leap out at me and I noticed Beth watching me.
“Not really,” Ruby said, a little sadly I thought. “But it’s so impressive that Saoirse’s going there.”
I buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep up the pretense. Lying to Dad and Ruby (OK, and Beth), acting as though I was excited, because who wouldn’t be excited about Oxford? I felt as though the world was coming down around me and I was supposed to paste on a smile. Dad would see through me finally. He’d turn white and demand to know why I didn’t want to go. I wouldn’t be able to speak. I’d be backed into a corner with both of them bearing down on me. He would say Is this about your mum? Ruby would say What about your mum? Dad would tell her all about it and then Ruby would look at me with that pity face and tell me how awful it all was. Meanwhile, Dad would clutch his chest and stop breathing, a heart attack caused by the sheer audacity of someone turning down a place at Oxford. He’d collapse onto the table and die facedown in a plate of egg fried noodles. I’d basically be an orphan and Ruby would be furious I’d lied to her and never speak to me again.
No, I’m not being dramatic.
Shut up.
Just then Beth leapt out of her chair and yelped.
“Oh no!” she squealed. “Rob, get a fire extinguisher.”
Across the table, the candles had tipped over and a small flame was slowly (comically slowly) eating through the crappy paper tablecloth.
Dad looked at Beth, who appeared stricken, and laughed.
“I don’t think we need a fire extinguisher, love.” He patted the flame with a tea towel that was still slung over his shoulder from making dinner.
Beth put her hand to her chest and breathed in a few deep breaths.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, fanning herself, “that was scary. Oh, Rob, weren’t you saying you think you know Ruby’s dad?”
“Yes, my brother Vincey was friends with your dad—Mike, isn’t it?”
I looked at Beth, who was now happily munching on a soggy green bean like nothing had happened. I looked at the candlesticks. I looked at Beth again. She gave me a small smile.
“That’s my dad! I didn’t realize you knew him.” Ruby seemed delighted. If I met someone who said they knew my dad I’d probably apologize or run away.
“He’s a good man, Mike. What’s he up to these days?”
“Well, he works for the civil service, but I get the feeling he’d rather be a professional football commentator. He’s practicing really hard.”
Dad laughed. “That’s the dream.”
In a very mature fashion, I declined to point out that Dad often called soccer Gaelic football for wimps.
“What about your mum?” Beth chimed in.
“Oh, she isn’t working.” Ruby cleared her throat. She looked like she wanted to add something, but she didn’t.
“That’s lovely,” Dad said encouragingly, “always having your mum at home when you get back from school.”
Ruby nodded, but I noticed her smile was tight and she filled her mouth with wilted broccoli spears.
“Saoirse’s mum started working from home when she was wee so she could be around too. It’s nice for kids, I think, to have their mum at home.”
Oh God, this was it. My face got hot and I cut across Dad.
“Remember what we said, Dad,” I warned, but tried to keep my voice light.
“What’s controversial about that?” Dad said bewildered.
I faltered for a brief moment before it came to me.
“You’re being sexist!” I announced. He was being sexist, but I wouldn’t have bothered bringing it up; I only wanted to steer him away from talking about Mum.
“Am I?” he asked, looking to Beth for reassurance. Surprisingly she nodded and took my side.
“I mean, why did you say it’s nice for kids to have their mum at home and not, for example, ‘a parent’? If we had a kid do you think I’d stay home with it while you swan off to work?”
“Er . . . ,” Dad blustered. “No, I didn’t say that. It’s not like I think women should give up work and be chained to the dishwash
er. I’m not a dinosaur.”
“Good, because I make more money than you.”
I snorted a laugh before I could stop myself. I felt weirdly proud of Beth for a second.
“That’s good with me. I’ll stay at home and eat bonbons and mind our imaginary baby,” Dad joked. He received stony glares in response.
“Because that’s what mums do?” Beth raised an eyebrow. Why could everyone do that one-eyebrow thing but me?
The ghost of a thousand other dinner conversations lingered. Dad saying something stupid he didn’t really believe and Mum snapping back and setting him right. A specter of Mum could be sitting where Beth was sitting right now.
“It’s a joke,” Dad said.
“Jokes can be sexist too,” she said, simply like Dad’s comment was too stupid to be worth any more of a response. Which it was.
Dad waved his napkin in surrender.
“OK, OK. I only said it was nice. I didn’t say it was mandatory. I can see I’m outnumbered here. Don’t burn me at the stake, all right?”
“That’s sexist too,” Beth said lightly, like she was pointing out he had spinach in his teeth. “Implying you’re at some kind of physical risk because women are disagreeing with you, not to mention invoking a type of capital punishment historically used against women who didn’t conform to patriarchal standards.”
Ruby mouthed at me, She’s great.
A thought occurred to me, unwanted, but I knew it was true: in a parallel universe, Mum and Beth would be best friends. It felt like something was stuck in my throat.
“You’re right, I’m an arse,” Dad said, though I caught the glint in his eye that told me he enjoyed all of this. “I shall go prepare a peace offering. It comes with ice cream.” He kissed Beth on the forehead before he left and winked at me. She shook her head at his back.
“Men!” she said, exasperated. “It’s all a joke because there are no consequences for them.”
I got the impression that the consequences would be a serious talking-to from Beth later and it made me feel better.
“Yep. He’s basically a knob. But you’re the one choosing to go out with him. I’m stuck on account of the whole ‘being my dad’ card he keeps playing.”
She laughed and for a moment it felt like Beth was on my side. Or I was on hers.
“He isn’t perfect,” Beth said fairly. “But he cares and he’s open to changing his mind; that’s a great quality to have.”
I was going to argue that it would be better to not be an arse to begin with, but Ruby spoke first.
“What’s your job, then?” she asked.
“I’m an ethical advertising consultant,” she said. “Firms hire me to collaborate with them on creating ethical campaigns and to root out stereotyping in their work. There’s a whole team of us. We look at different issues according to our specialties.”
“That sounds so interesting. How did you get to do that?” Ruby was staring at Beth like she was some kind of rock star now. It did sound interesting. I hadn’t realized that’s what Beth did. Advertising blah blah was the gist I had caught up to now.
“Well, I did Women’s Studies at university. Eons ago. In the States at an all-women’s college. I was particularly interested in how advertising can both create and drive patriarchal narratives. I wondered if there was a way to counteract that or to even harness that power for something positive.”
“Do you think I could do a job like that?” Ruby asked, wide-eyed.
Beth laughed. “I don’t see why not. But I have to warn you, I don’t know how successful an endeavor it really is. Sometimes I feel like I’m only changing the parts of the machine when I should be dismantling it, but other days we do something really amazing and put it out in the world and I feel like maybe it does do some good.”
Ruby nodded seriously. “Every little bit helps, doesn’t it? Like those tampon ads where the boys have periods and they all talk about them like it’s some kind of badge of honor and then they showed the facts about period shame and poverty around the world. . . .”
“That was us!” Beth said excitedly.
“Seriously? Everyone I knew was talking about that. The same week it came out we had to decide our health class project that term. I started a campaign about period poverty and raised all this money for a charity that distributes free sanitary products to low-income women.”
I watched Ruby’s face as she spoke, animated and glowing. How did someone so lovely and thoughtful want to be with me with all my sarcasm and selfishness? She was incredible. Beth was so happy she looked like she was going to cry. Dad walked in on the words sanitary products and walked out again, muttering about forgetting the chocolate sauce.
22.
Ruby and I escaped to my room after dessert to watch Pillow Talk, even though it was positively ancient and kind of homophobic. Dad jokingly called up after us to leave the door open.
“I don’t want to be a grandfather this young,” he wailed.
“That’s pretty amazing what you did at school,” I said, shutting the door behind us. “With your campaign.”
I thought if I started the conversation, directed it, I might distract her from any of the weirdness that had happened downstairs. In my mind I thanked Beth for having an interesting job.
Ruby blushed. “It was important to me.”
This girl was too good for me. This girl was also going through all the open boxes of my things.
“Er, what are you doing?” I asked, settling myself cross-legged on the bed.
“Being nosy,” she said.
“Oh, OK, so long as you know.”
“I like your room,” Ruby said, inspecting a ceramic giraffe I’d had as long as I could remember.
“It’s a box graveyard now and not exactly like your room,” I said, thinking of the high ceilings and expensive furniture in Ruby’s room.
“That’s not my room,” Ruby said. “It’s nothing like Oliver’s house.”
“What’s it like?”
She thought about it. “Claustrophobic. Not because it’s small though. Although it is small.”
That didn’t make sense. I had a picture of Ruby’s room in my head and while it probably had the decorative sensibilities of Aladdin’s cave, I assumed it also had the expansive square footage.
I had to stop making things up in my head and then believing them as if they were true.
“Why, then?”
“Do you actually want to know?” Ruby stopped rummaging and rounded on me, hands on her hips.
“Of course I do,” I said. I could feel a hot flush on my chest. I had obviously avoided asking Ruby anything about her life back in England and she clearly noticed because she’s not stupid. But if I avoided it now, it would look really odd.
“It’s not fun,” she said, and I heard a note of bitterness.
“That’s OK,” I said. Perhaps I had to be a bit more flexible or it would only highlight how cagey I was being. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.
“Is it, though? I mean, you didn’t tell me your dad was getting remarried in a few weeks, which is really weird. You never even mentioned Beth.”
I didn’t like where this was going. We were meant to be having a conversation about her family. I felt tricked.
“It’s pretty recent news to me too. I was going to tell you.” I tried to force my tone into something resembling patience. “I thought we could go to the wedding together before you leave,” I offered. “Check off the slow dance there.”
Of course I’d never intended to tell her about the wedding, but she knew now so I might as well try to use it.
She didn’t respond to my invitation. Rude.
“What else don’t you talk about? Do you ever tell me anything real? You’re really weird whenever Oxford comes up.”
I suppose it was too much to hope that she hadn’t picked up on that, in spite of Beth’s diversionary tactics.
Ruby wouldn’t look at me; she looked at her hands instead, her fing
ers twisting into knots like she wasn’t used to confrontation and she didn’t much care for it. I felt my heart open up and let in something I’d been trying to keep out. I could tell her this. She deserved to know something and maybe we could talk about it. Maybe she’d get it. It didn’t mean I had to talk about Mum. But I could let this one thing out and maybe it wouldn’t feel like I was keeping so much trapped inside me.
I took a deep breath.
“I applied to Oxford last year. I passed the interview. I’m probably going to get the grades I need, but I don’t think I want to go anymore and I haven’t told my dad. He’ll go ballistic.” It was stupid, but I felt nervous saying it and my voice wobbled over the words. When had I become so incapable of being honest?
“OK . . . ?” She drew the word out like a question. “But why couldn’t you tell me that? Why is it such a big secret?”
I laughed, feeling lighter already. “I suppose it isn’t.”
It never occurred to me that I could tell Ruby I didn’t want to go to Oxford and she wouldn’t find that so suspicious that she’d ask loads of follow-up questions.
Later I’d wonder if there was a part of me that wanted her to ask, that wanted her to drag the truth out of me when I couldn’t make myself say it.
She sat down beside me on the bed and played with the loose tendrils of hair around my neck. “You can tell me anything,” she said. “And your dad is going to get over it. It’s obvious he loves you so much. If you want, I’ll help you figure out a way to tell him. I’ll even be there with you if you need me.” She kissed me on the nose.
Tight bands of pressure around my chest released a little. I felt like I’d gotten away with something huge and even got some of the worries I’d been hanging on to off my chest.
“Tell me your thing,” I said, and I meant it. Not just because I’d been burning with curiosity for weeks but because I finally thought that maybe we could share some things without the world cracking open and swallowing me whole. Bend the rules without breaking them. For the good of the montage.
“Really?” she asked softly, looking at me finally.