Lights Out (40 page)

Brandon got into Dewey’s car.

“Hey.”

“How’s it goin’?”

“I feel like shit.”

“Tell me about it.”

Dewey, the first of Brandon’s friends to get his license, had a joint going, which sometimes happened on the ride home but never in the morning. He passed it to Brandon. Brandon didn’t want to go to school fucked up, didn’t want to go to school at all, but shit. He didn’t take it any further than that, just hit off the joint, passed it back.

“Could use some gas money,” Dewey said.

Brandon handed Dewey three ones.

“Am I driving a lawnmower and I don’t know it?”

Brandon handed over two more, noticing that the fuel gauge read full. But so what? Dewey pulled away from the curb, squealing the tires just a bit. He switched on a CD, some
rap about “fuck you, good as new, all we do, then it’s through” that Brandon hadn’t heard before. Not too bad. “School sucks,” Dewey said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking about dropping out.”

“You mean before senior year?”

“I mean like now.”

“But what about baseball?” Dewey had been captain of the freshman team and had started a few games for the varsity last spring.

“I’m not going to be eligible anyway,” Dewey said. “I’m flunking two courses.”

“Still time to get them up.”

Dewey took a big hit off the joint, breathed out slow. “Right,” he said. Fuck you, good as new, all we do, then it’s through. Not too bad? It was great.

“Who’s this?”

“You don’t know who this is? Unka Death.”

At that moment, Brandon remembered he had an English test third period, counting for 20 percent of the term grade. Macbeth. Hadn’t studied for it, had fallen asleep after the first few lines, some weird shit with witches that was meant to be symbolic or ironic or some other term he’d have to define, probably getting points taken off even though he knew damned well what they meant.

“Got an idea,” Dewey said. “Let’s go to the city.”

“What city?”

“New York, for fuck sake. I know this bar in the Village where they don’t card anybody.”

Almost two hours away. Brandon had been to New York maybe a dozen times, but always with his family. “I’ve only got, like, ten bucks on me.”

“It’s cool. I’ve got a credit card.”

“You do?”

“On my mom’s account. For emergencies.”

Dewey started to laugh. Then Brandon was laughing too. Emergencies: he got it. They drove right past the school. Buses were pulling in and the student lot was filling up. Brandon
saw people he knew. Dewey beeped the horn. Brandon thought, Aw shit, as they went by. Dewey passed him the joint.

“All yours,” he said, ramping up the volume on Unka Death.

The house was quiet. Ruby loved having it to herself. The terrified lady told Holmes: You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me. Ruby checked the time, stuck in a bookmark, the one with Dilbert’s boss—it had finally hit her that the boss’s pointy hair was meant to make you think of the devil, she was so slow sometimes—and got up. Out the window, she saw a cardinal at the feeder, poking its red head inside. It suddenly turned toward her window, then rose and shot off into the town forest behind the house.

Ruby brushed her teeth with the Sonicare toothbrush until the inside of her mouth tingled, then smiled into the mirror. Not a real smile with the eyes joining in; this was just an examination of teeth. Dr. Gottlieb said she was going to need braces. How crooked were her teeth anyway? She studied them from several angles. Some days they looked pretty straight. Today she saw a complete jumble.

Brandon hadn’t flushed the toilet, also hadn’t aimed very well. Careful where she put her feet, Ruby flushed it for him and got in the shower.

She chose the Aussie extra-gentle shampoo with the kangaroo on the front because she liked the combination of shampoo and kangaroo, Helene Curtis Salon Selectives conditioner because it said completely drenched, whatever that meant, and Fa body wash because it smelled like kiwi. Clean, dry, smelling great, she wrapped her hair in a towel and got dressed—khakis from the Gap, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a silver star on the front, black clogs with thick soles to make her taller—and went down to the kitchen. Zippy awoke at once, sprang up from under the table, bounded toward her, tail wagging.

“Down, Zippy.”

But of course he wouldn’t go down, did just the opposite, raising himself higher, resting his front paws on her shoulders.

“Down.”

He poked his muzzle in her face, gave her a big wet lick on the nose.

“Up,” she said, just as an experiment. Zippy dropped to all fours at once, snagging her T-shirt as he did. Two of the little arms of the silver star now hung loose.

“Zippy. Bad boy.”

He wagged his tail.

His water bowl was empty. Ruby filled it. He ignored the bowl, but as soon as her back was turned she heard him slurping noisily.

Ruby made her breakfast—scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice. No milk; she only drank milk when forced. Next to her bedroom, the kitchen was her favorite room in the house, the copper pots on the wall, the fruit bowl, now empty but sometimes full of all kinds of fruit, the wooden spoons, the spice rack, the big fridge humming in the corner—she needed both hands to open the door—the walls a lovely light yellow, perfect for the eating of eggs.

Ruby’s seat at the table was in the actual sticking-out part of the breakfast nook, with windows on three sides. She ate her yellow eggs in a pool of yellow sunlight, leafing through The All-American Girls Book of Braiding, trying to think of the right name for those star arms, totally content.

Maybe her teeth weren’t so great, but her hair, that was another story. Thick, glossy brown, full of all kinds of tints—it had a personality of its own. Ruby chose the Thumbelina Braid because the look reminded her of Dilbert’s boss. She made two high pigtails, divided each into three strands, braided the strands, coiled them into buns, stuck them in place with bobby pins.

“How do I look, Zippy?”

He poked his head over the tabletop and snatched her last piece of toast, the one with the butter melted in perfectly.

“Zippy!”

He growled at her. She gave him the cold look. Zippy made himself smaller and slunk away, like the coward he was.

Ruby put on her blue jacket with the yellow trim and walked him out back and into the town forest, taking the
shortcut to the pond. The banks of the pond were muddy. She let him off the leash.

“Run, Zippy. Make spatters.”

He lifted his leg and peed on a tree.

Were dog spatters different from horse spatters, or was the important difference the one between a dogcart and a horse cart, which would probably stand higher?

“Run, Zippy.”

He didn’t want to run. She tossed him a stick, which he gazed at. She tossed another one into the pond. It disappeared without a splash, which was kind of strange.

“Go get it, Zippy.”

But he wouldn’t. She didn’t blame him. The water, a blue so pale it was almost white, looked cold. She took him home. He lifted his leg at least a dozen times.

“Poo, Zippy, poo.” He finally did, maybe stepping in it just a little.

Ruby loaded the dishwasher, her own dishes and the ones already in the sink, slung on her backpack and left by the front door, making sure it was locked. The school bus pulled up. She got on.

“Hi, beautiful,” said the driver.

“Hi, Mr. V.”

There was only one seat left, beside Winston. He was picking his nose. “Don’t eat it, Winston,” she said. But he did.

The bus rolled away. All of a sudden and for no reason, she remembered her book of Bible stories, sent by Gram to make up for the fact that Mom and Dad didn’t go to church. Specifically, she remembered the story of Lot’s wife, who wasn’t supposed to look back. She had the strong feeling that it was very important not to look back right now. But she couldn’t stop herself. The urge grew and grew in the muscles of her neck. Ruby looked back.

Nothing happened, of course. She didn’t turn into a pillar of salt, and the house wasn’t going up in flames. It stayed just the way it always was, not the biggest or fanciest house on the block, but square and solid, white with black shutters, the
only color the red brick chimney, maybe a little too … what was the word? Imposing; too imposing for the rest of the house. She’d overheard her aunt Deborah say that the Thanks-giving before last.

Winston tore a Snickers in two. “Want some?” he said.

Ruby gave him a close look to see if this was some kind of joke. But no, he’d made no connection between the nose picking and his dirty fingernails on the candy bar. He was just sharing.

“Maybe Amanda wants some,” Ruby said.

Amanda leaned over, with her goddamn pierced ears—Ruby had to wait another year. “Maybe Amanda wants some what?” Amanda said.

And what was that? She was wearing lipstick?

“Snickers,” Ruby said, all of a sudden feeling the power of those devilish horns on her head. “You like Snickers, don’t you?”

“Oh, my favorite,” said Amanda.

Winston handed her the thing. Ruby watched till she’d popped it in her mouth.

“Mmmm,” said Amanda.