One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (14 page)

The sidewalk feels like a bronco
trying to buck us off its back.

We grab on to the Tree of Death to steady ourselves.

A palm frond crashes to the ground,

and Whip rushes to wrap around me from behind,
as if he's trying to be a human shield.

He covers my hands with his, and whispers
into my ear, “I'll keep you safe.”

And we hang on to that quivering palm
forever,

till the quaking finally stops.
As suddenly as it began.
And that's when I notice
that Whip's hands
feel nice and warm and dry.

Just like the man in my dream.

Is It Really Over?

Whip gently pries my fingers off the tree
and leads me to his car.
My legs feel as if they're made of marmalade.
He pours me into the passenger seat,
then climbs in himself.

My heart's still bouncing off the walls of my chest
like an out-of-control jackhammer.
That was definitely
the
most terrifying five minutes
of my whole entire life.

Whip switches on the radio.
The announcer's voice has this
sort of high-pitched edge to it,
like maybe the adrenaline hasn't stopped
rushing through his veins yet.
“That was quite a little temblor,” he says.

And he proceeds to tell us that the whole
thing lasted a grand total of seven seconds!
Does he actually expect me to believe that?
Then he claims that as far as earthquakes go,
this one wasn't even very big.
Only like a 4.9 on the Richter scale.

“Yeah, well, it was way bigger than that
on the Ruby scale,” I say.
And then Whip and I start laughing.
Almost as hard as we were crying,
only a few minutes before.

When We Pull Up to the House

Max is standing out front,
wearing these goofy pajama bottoms
with cowboys all over them.
He's got a real wild look in his eyes.

But when he catches sight of us,
the wild look vanishes.
He runs over to us
and throws his arms around us.

Then he starts crying.
So,
naturally,
we
do, too.

It Turns Out There Was Hardly Any Damage

Except for my bed.
It was demolished by the huge oak bookcase
that fell over on top of it.

When we walk into the room and see it,
Whip staggers back and then he grabs me
and hangs on like he's never going to let me go.

This is not
an altogether
unpleasant sensation.

I'm standing here wrapped in his arms,
staring at the pile of twisted boards
that used to be my bed,

and suddenly—I remember the dream I had.
I remember my mother shouting,
“Get out of the house, Ruby! Get out of the house!”

And I just about faint.

And This Isn't the Only Thing That Almost Makes Me Keel

My father leads me outside to the gazebo
(in case there's any aftershocks).
And then he tells me a few things.

He tells me that unbeknownst to my mother,
when I was a baby, my aunt Dufty arranged
a series of secret rendezvous for him and me.

And it turns out that one of those rendezvous
took place when I was two years old.
In front of the monkey cage at Franklin Park Zoo!

Aunt Duffy figured it wouldn't do me any harm,
because I'd be too young to be able
to remember that I'd ever even
met
my father.

And besides, Whip had pleaded with her.
hat's right. You heard me.
Whip
wanted
to see me.

It turns out that Whip's
been wanting to be with me
ever since the day I was born.

It turns out
he only stayed away
because my mother asked him to.

And she only asked him to
because she loved him and she thought it
would hurt too much to be around him.

And since he loved her, too,
and he didn't want to cause her any more pain,
he did what she wanted.

That's right.
You heard me.
My father
loved
my mother.

But

The only problem was,
he's sorry to say,
that he loved her like a sister.
Not like a wife.

See,
it turns out that Whip's sorry
for a whole lot more
than I thought he was.

He's sorry
that he and my mom had to get divorced.
Sorry that he couldn't convince her
to accept any child support or alimony.

He's sorry that he got married so young.
And sorry that he didn't
figure out that he was gay
until it was too late.

Gay
…!
Did he say … gay
?

Whoa …
I have a gay father.

I am the daughter of a gay person.
Mega-whoa …

How could my gaydar
have malfunctioned so hideously?!

It Turns Out

That Whip's especially sorry
that he wasn't able to figure out
how to be a part of my life,
even though Mom asked him to stay away.

And that a little bit of him even felt
happy
when he found out she was dead,
because he knew it meant that he'd finally
be able to be a father to me.

He's way sorry about that feeling happy part.
And he's sorry for all the pain he caused Mom.
Sorry for all the pain he caused me.
Sorry that being sorry is all he has to offer.

It turns out
he's even sorry
that he's such a pitiful excuse
for a father.

“Don't be,” I say between sobs.
“Don't be sorry.
For anything.
I'm
the one who should be sorry
…”

And my tears keep coming.
Hard and fast.
If it was below freezing right now,
there'd be a
blizzard
falling from my eyes.

But This Is the West Toast

So, of course, it's
not
below freezing.
In fact, even though it's December 1st,
it's a sultry ninety degrees.

When I point this out,
Whip laughs and calls it
“real shake and bake weather.”

And I find myself telling him
about how much I've been
missing
weather.
Especially the snow.

“Well, why didn't you say so?” he asks.
“We'll drive up to Big Bear this weekend.
There's a foot of fresh powder up there.”

He says we can go snowboarding.
And that it's only two hours away.
And that he's got a little cabin by the lake.

That's when Max walks up to us,
with this big smile on his face,
and hands me a thick scrapbook.

“I think it's time to show her this,” he says,
brushing a wisp of hair off my cheek.
Then he winks at me and walks away.

This thing looks so familiar …
Where have I seen it before … ?
Now I remember!

It's the same one Whip was looking through
on that afternoon when he was
sitting out here crying in this very gazebo.

About twelve millenniums ago.

We Open the Scrapbook

And a little gasp escapes me:
The first thing I see
is an old photograph of Whip
holding a tiny baby in his arms,
grinning like a classic proud father.

And the baby he's holding is
me
!
I'd recognize that
shock of red hair anywhere.
I always thought it made me look
sort of like a peanut on fire.

“I don't
know
how your aunt Duffy
managed to sneak me into the hospital
to snap that picture,” he says,
running his fingers over the image as if
he wants to reach back and touch that moment.

“You were such a cute newborn,”
Whip says, smiling at the photo.
“But so teensy.
And that tuft of red hair you had made you look like a flaming peanut.”

There he goes again—doing that
thing
.
But this time, it doesn't make my blood boil.
This
time it just makes me feel
like reaching over and taking hold
of my father's nice, warm, dry hand.

We Flip to the Next Page

And there's another photo.
Whip's holding me on his hip,
standing in front of the monkey cage.

Man.
This is
heavy
.
It's like someone somehow managed
to take a snapshot of my dream.

We leaf through the rest of the book together,
and I pretty much can
not
believe what I'm seeing.

There's lots more pictures of Whip
holding me when I was a baby.
Plus copies of all my school photos.
Even my Student of the Year award.

There's a fuzzy little lock of my baby hair,
(I wonder how Aunt Duffy swung that …)
and Xeroxes of every single one of my report cards.

There's even a copy ofthat essay I wrote.
The one about my dream room
for the contest that won me first prize.
(So
that's
how he got my bedroom just right!)

As Whip and I sit here next to each other,
turning each of the pages,
it slowly starts to sink in—
all
of it.

And my heart can hardly hold it.

Just as the Last Star Fades

And the sun starts dusting the sky with rose,
Max reappears with some muffins and juice,
and sits down next to me on my other side.
Together, the three of us turn to the last page of the book.

It's yet another photo of Whip and me.
I'm sitting on his shoulders,
wearing this little pink polka dotted dress.
He must have been tickling me or something,
because I'm giggling like crazy.

“Oh, I love this one,” Max sighs.
“It was taken on the day you named your dad.”
“On the day I did
what
?” I ask, turning to my father.
So he explains.

He tells me that he'd been
struggling for weeks to come up with
the perfect stage name for himself.
And on the morning that this photo was taken,
he'd finally decided on
Rip Logan
.

But apparently, when I tried to say Rip,
it came out sounding more like “Wip.”
And that's when he decided
to call himself
Whip
Logan instead.

Oh. My. God.
It was
me
who came up with that lame name!
“You mean it's all
my
fault?” I cry.

My father looks wounded.
“Don't you like the name ‘Whip'?”
But I don't answer his question.
Because suddenly
I'm burning to ask another one of my own.
“If Whip's your stage name,
then what's your
real
name, Dad?”

At which point, Max clears his throat and says,
“Ruby Milliken, I'd like you to meet Ripley Loogy.
Ripley Loogy, meet Ruby Milliken.”

Dad is Ripley? Dad
…?!
“The Ripley who you're
in love
with?!” I gasp.
Max hesitates for just a split second,
then nods his head.

My father looks like he's afraid to breathe.
I look from Dad to Max, and back again to Dad.
Suddenly my heart dances up into my throat.
“Wow …” I say. “… WOW!”
And I fling my arms around both of them.

“Yep,” Max says, with a mile-wide smile
spreading across his face.
“This is Ripley. Believe it or not.”
And the three of us crack up.

“Do you have
any
idea how long I've been
waiting to make that joke?” Max asks.
“Too long,” I say, holding them close.
“Way too long.”

Dad Lets Me Skip School the Next Day

To catch up on my sleep.
But the morning after that,
I'm back in dream class.
Sitting in the circle.
Right next to Wyatt.

When Feather asks us all to hold hands
and Wyatt reaches for mine,
this jolt of electricity
floods out of his fingers
and ricochets through my whole body,

like I'm this human pinball machine
and Wyatt's the ball.
Making all my bells ring,
all my lights flash.
Scoring. Big time.

After class,
Wyatt asks me if I want
to go over to Barnum Hall
to see if either of us
got a part in
Pygmalion
.

The auditions!
I'd almost forgotten about them.
It seems like they happened a lifetime ago,
to an entirely different person,
to someone I only vaguely knew …

We head up the stairs together,
bumping into each other every other second.
Elbows. Shoulders. Hips. Bump. Thump. Bump.
As if our bodies are these two huge magnets,
one positive, the other negative…

It's hard to see over the heads
of all the other kids.
But then we spot our names right at the top:
Eliza Doolittle—Ruby Milliken,
Henry Higgins—Wyatt Moody.

Suddenly Wyatt bursts out laughing,
like he just can't contain his happiness.
Then he grabs me
and lifts me right off my feet
into a bear hug.

A bear hug that practically gives me a fever.

Dear Mom,

How are things up there in heaven? I'm beginning to think maybe it
does
exist, after what happened the other night.

Before I say good-bye, I just want to say thank you, Mom. Thank you for saving my life.

Love u 4 ever,

Ruby

I've Just Hit the Send Button

And I'm about to sign off AOL,
when suddenly the little man says,
“You've got mail!”

Whoa—it
couldn't
be.
Could it?

Then it dawns on me.
It's probably just another one of those
“Returned mail: Host unknown” messages
telling me I have a permanent fatal error.

But I can't help clicking on “new mail”
just to make absolutely sure …

It's from Lizzie!

Maybe I won't even open it.
Maybe I'll just delete it
without even reading it …

Yeah, right. Who am I kidding?

Dear Ruby,

I'm writing to tell you that Ray dumped me. For Amber. Big shock, huh? I guess he finally got fed up with listening to me trying to resolve all the guilt feelings I had about hurting you. But I'm glad he left me. I got what I deserved.

Listen, Ruby, I'm not asking you to forgive me. Because what I did was unforgivable. I still don't even know how it happened. All I remember is being at that Halloween dance, and Ray was talking to me and all of a sudden he forgot what he was saying, right in the middle of his sentence. He just stood there looking at me, all googly eyed, like I was so breathtakingly beautiful that he couldn't even concentrate. And after that, it was like he'd put me under a spell or something. I was a complete goner.