A Little Friendly Advice (21 page)

I wake up inside a square of sunlight that shines through the window of the tree house. As yellow and bright as it is, it provides no warmth. The icy breeze is strong through the trees and squeaks through the million cracks between the wood beams. My Girl Scout costume is damp and so is the plywood floor underneath me. I shiver.

Two thermal-covered arms squeeze me until I am still again. I look up from the lap where I am comfortably lying, despite the general uncomfortableness of where I am. Charlie is asleep, his back up against the side of the tree house. His crumpled and dented cookie costume is across from us in a corner. His fingers are twitching in tiny movements, like he’s typing on an invisible typewriter. I guess because he’s freezing too. His sweatshirt is draped over my bare legs.

I nudge him gently. His eyes flutter open. “Hey,” he says with a tired voice. And gives me a squeeze.

“Hey,” I say back.

I notice the key in my hands when I push myself up off the floor. I guess I’ve been squeezing it all night because my palm is marked by red flecks that match the toothy grooves. It’s all tender and sore.

“Do you know what time it is?” I ask.

He checks his watch. “Almost nine-thirty. Are you hungry? We could go get some breakfast or something.”

My stomach is empty but I’m not hungry. “I should probably go home.” I stand up and dust my dirty, wrinkly self off. I can’t even imagine how bad I must look right now.

Charlie gets up too. He moves really slow and quiet as he dusts off his jeans, like he doesn’t want to disturb me or distract me from whatever I might be thinking about.

I move over to the window and stare down at my old house. It’s a really nice house. I’ll probably be sad forever that it’s not where I live anymore.

Charlie creeps up behind me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and leads me away from the window and into a shadow. “We should probably keep out of sight.” He pulls a leaf out of my hair. Instead of throwing it on the ground, he tucks it into his pocket. Which is totally weird and sweet and very Charlie.

My heart races. “I can’t believe you’re going to move,” I say. Tears well up in my eyes.

“It’s not going to be for a while.”

“But that’s what I mean. How can I be with someone I know is going to leave me?” I’m full-on crying now.

He wipes my face with the sleeve of his thermal. It’s really soft and smells like dryer sheets. It’s like the most perfect tissue. “I don’t know.”

“And I can’t just forget it either, Charlie. I’ve tried that before and it doesn’t work.”

He wraps up my hands in his and blows on them to keep them warm. “I don’t know what to say, Ruby. It totally sucks. I know that.”

I take a bunch of deep breaths and wrap my arms around Charlie as tightly as I can. We climb down the tree house ladder, him first, me second, and we lock hands at the bottom. Charlie tries to lead me to the street and away from my house, but I pull him harder up the front lawn. We walk over to the front door and kneel down in the grass together. Then I pick up a rock and I put my old house key back underneath.

“What now? Where are you going?”

I don’t know what’s going to happen between us. Well, in a way I guess I do. But it’s not like I’m my dad and I’m caught in a situation I don’t want to be in. I’m not looking for an out. I want to be
in
.

“I’m going home,” I say. I tell Charlie I’ll call him later. And I mean it.

When I get home, Beth is sitting on my front stairs. Her body droops like a rag doll and she’s playing catch with a half-empty water bottle. She’s dressed in grungy jeans, a stained sweatshirt that she likes to sleep in, and a pair of navy-blue Vans. Her wavy hair seems flatter than normal, I guess from being tucked underneath her wig all night. Traces of last night’s eye makeup hide in the folds of her lids. She doesn’t say hello to me, or even make eye contact as I walk past her. She keeps her eyes locked on my peacoat and my book bag, lying next to her.

I reach up on the awning and grab the spare key. I slide it into the lock, but stop turning a second before it clicks over. Even though I’m totally exhausted and emotionally drained, Beth and I will have to have it out sooner or later. Even if we’re never going to be friends again, someone has to say as much, to make it official. And if that’s how things are going to be, I’d rather have it happen sooner than later. I never want to be suspended in the limbo of non-decision again. It’s like torturing yourself on purpose.

I shuffle back down the stairs and lean against the railing. “Hey.”

“Hi.” She wrings her hands and keeps her eyes off me. “So you saw him?”

“Yup.”

“Are you okay? How’d it go?”

I tip my head back and look at the sky. She hasn’t exactly earned the right to hear the story. But if we’re going to have it out, I guess I can’t hold anything back. So I sit down on the stairs next to her. “It wasn’t great. He expected a lot. Way more than he deserved.”

“Oh.” She looks at me briefly, then back at the ground. “Listen, I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I’d still like to explain why I did what I did.” She stares out at the front lawn. “Though maybe
I’m
expecting more than I deserve.” She laughs a little bit.

I don’t. “Listen, Beth, I want to say something to you first. You’re not going to convince me that what you did to me wasn’t wrong. So if you’re planning on being all defensive and self-righteous, like you were acting last night, then just forget it.”

There’s a chance Beth might blow up at me again for saying something like that to her. Instead she just takes a big deep breath, like she’s about to dive underwater. “You know, my party pretty much broke up right after you left. I sent everyone home and spent the rest of the night buried underneath my comforter. Katherine and Maria stayed awhile to help pick up the mess you made of my room. Both of them were pretty intent on telling me how wrong I was for doing what I did to you. Like, over and over again. A taste of my own medicine, I guess.”

“You needed them to tell you that what you did was wrong?”

“No. I’ve known it all along.”

“I don’t know if that makes things better or worse.” I shake my head.

Beth rubs her own shoulders, wincing a bit. “It makes it worse. I know it does.”

This conversation isn’t going anywhere, and I’m getting more and more tired by the second. I pick up my peacoat and wrap it around my shoulders. Maybe I should just go inside.

Beth wrings her hands. “Can I say one thing, though?”

“Sure.”

“I kept the key to your old house because I was eventually going to tell you everything. And that igloo picture was a reminder that I owed it to you to take care of you through everything until I could tell you the truth.”

I shake my head. “You didn’t owe me anything. You should have just told me.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Her eyes well up and her cheeks get red. “I should have done something. I could have rung your doorbell or asked your dad to drive us to my house or even yelled your name really loud so that maybe your mom would hear me and stop and she wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

“I don’t even care about that, Beth.”

“Well, you should!” She chews on her fingernail. “I always told myself that being a good friend to you somehow made up for what I’d done. But deep down I knew that I could have fixed everything if I’d just reacted differently.” Beth completely breaks down, tears running all over her face.

“But how were you going to justify letting my dad leave town without telling me? I would have never seen him again if I didn’t find that letter! And, coincidentally, you’d also never have to own up to anything you did.”

Beth puffs up. “You said that you didn’t
want
to see him again, remember? I thought I was helping you. He did leave you and your mom, after all.”

I stare her right in the face. “But that’s not your call to make. I need to know that you’re behind me, no matter what I want to do.”

“Right. I know.” We sit quietly for a few seconds. She sniffles and wipes her face with her sweatshirt sleeves. “God, I’m just like the worst friend in the whole world, huh?” And then she explodes in tears all over again.

“I mean, you messed up. The key isn’t as bad as the letter to me, but it all really sucks.”

Her whole body shakes as she holds back tears long enough to say something. “Do you ever think we’ll be okay again? Like how we used to be?” Her neck twitches, like she wants to look at me but doesn’t have the courage.

She really is sorry for what she’s done and all the mistakes she’s made. But everything between us has changed because of what she did. There’s no ignoring it.

Maybe that’s a good thing, though.

I take a chunk of her waves in my hand and separate them into little strands.

I’m not going to need Beth in the same way anymore. But I’m still going to need her. And she’s going to need me too.

Mom is waiting for me in the living room. She’s got the box from my dad on her lap and she’s flipping through the photos. I guess she went into my room and found it.

“Mom, I —” I stammer. I have no idea what I should say to her. But she pats the couch cushion next to her. So I just sit down.

She flips to a photo of herself with long hair wearing a pretty flowered dress. She shakes her head. “It’s hard for me to l o o k at this stuff.” I try to close up the box, but she swats my hand away. “I want to jump into this picture and warn the old me.” She sighs and flips to the next photo. “The stupidest thing I ever did was to try and protect you from what I’d done, Ruby. I should have been honest.” She takes a deep breath and puts the photos away. “I’m going to be better with that.
We
need to be better about that.”

“I should have told you he was still in town. But I was afraid it would hurt you,” I say. She smiles at me, but I can’t bear to look at her. “I saw him last night. It was really weird.”

She rubs something off my cheek. Dirt, probably. “I was actually sad when you ran out like that on your birthday. I thought it might be good for you to see him.”

“Weren’t you afraid he would tell me that you cheated?”

“I was, initially. But there was also a part of me that knew it would come out someday. I even planned to tell you myself, that night we carved the pumpkins.” She brushes my bangs off my forehead. “But I lost my courage.”

“It wasn’t your fault he left, Mom. He was looking for an escape. He didn’t want to make things work.”

“Ruby, as much as I had come to terms with what I’d done and the ultimate effect it had on my marriage, I still felt responsible for all the pain you had to go through. I guess closing myself off from everything and everyone was my way of repenting.”

“All this time I thought you were still in love with him. And that’s why you never dated anyone else.”

She smiles. “That would make sense.”

“Who was it? The guy you were with.”

“Nobody special. Just an old friend I’d known in high school.”

“Was it the guy you lost your virginity to?”

Her face flushes red. “What? How did you know about that?”

“I read your journal when we moved. I wanted to know about you, Mom.”

She pats my legs and laughs. “Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

I let my head fall onto her shoulder. “You know, I think Dad only came here because he had nowhere else to go before this new job started. I bet he’s really lonely.” I pull out the Polaroid of my dad that I took just a few hours ago. It’s crazy how similar we look. “Do you think I’m like him?”

“No, Ruby. Your dad was afraid of a lot of things. But you’re pretty fearless.”

I don’t feel fearless, or strong, or brave. I only feel tired. And a little sad. “I think I’m going to go to bed.” I pack up Dad’s box of stuff, and all my pictures from last night.

“Are you hungry? I could fix you something.”

“Not really. But maybe we could have dinner tonight. Together.”

Her face lights up. “I’ve just found a new recipe. It calls for okra. I don’t even know what that is!”

I trudge upstairs and head into my bedroom. I strip off my Girl Scout costume and climb into the covers and close my eyes. And then open them.

I can’t believe everything that’s happened in the last few days. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with all these memories, all these feelings I have. Before, I would have just pushed them out of my mind. But that doesn’t feel right anymore. Sort of like the anti–Girl Scout badges I made, I want to wear what’s happened on my sleeve. I don’t want to forget any of it.

Even though I should go to sleep, I climb out of bed. I gather up all the pictures I’ve taken since my birthday. I collect Charlie’s buttons. I rip off one of my Girl Scout badges. I take my dad’s letter. I run upstairs to the attic and I get my old map. I hang it on the wall over my bed.

And then I attach everything to the map, covering over a quick sketch I make of a tree. My friends are the branches, even Katherine. All the shots of my dad’s blue truck I snapped in the parking lot become the leaves. I stick on Charlie’s buttons like acorns. Everything gets put up like a collage. And right in the center of everything, I stick the picture Beth took of me on my birthday. It’s covered in droplets of wax and melted ice cream, but you can still tell I’m smiling.