Saving Ruth (17 page)

“Dad, I told you already! Enough!” I stood up.

“Hey, Ruth.” He took my hand. “I'm not trying to upset you, I promise. It's just that if this girl's parents do move to sue you two, or the pool, we need to know everything.”

“The only reason you're making such a big deal about this is because you still can't accept the fact that David screwed up. It's inconceivable to you!”

“Honey, I'm telling you that that's not it.”

I pursed my lips and jutted my chin toward him as if to say,
Right.

“Okay, if I'm being really honest, yes. Maybe there's a part of me that's having a hard time understanding how David could be so out to lunch. Who knows, maybe it's because he's been so strange this summer, period.” He raked his hands over his scalp. “Part of my job as a lawyer is to ask the questions that everyone wants to know the answers to. The bottom line is that David's track record makes his irresponsibility suspect.”

“And my track record makes irresponsibility a given. If I had been on the stand, everyone would have just shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘Eh, that makes sense.' But since it was David, everyone assumes that some sinister secret lurks beneath the surface. It's so messed up, Dad. I got busted for drinking beers a couple of times in high school and my reputation is soiled for life? What's the big deal? That's what every normal kid does.” He looked at me. “Except David,” I added.

He put his arm around me. “I'm sorry if I've upset you. Your mother told me to take it easy, but I charged in here anyway.” He threw up his hands. “I can't help it.” He pulled me into him.

So much was swirling in my head. What if this rumor was true? It would mean, among other things, that David had been lying to my parents for months. They hated lying. Once after kindergarten, when my mom and dad were still at work, I had climbed up on a stool searching for sweets in a high cabinet and fallen—taking my mom's crystal decanter with me. It had crashed to the ground, and I had spent what felt like a million years picking up each individual tiny shard in an attempt to cover my tracks. When she got home, of course she discovered the few pieces that I had missed.

“What is all this glass from, Ruthie?” she had asked.

Panic produced my very first lie. I had told her that I picked it up off the playground because I was worried about the other kids getting hurt. She had put her hands on her hips and given me her
really?
face. A few hours later, when my dad came home, they had gathered David and me for the first of many talks about the dangers of lying. Talks like that had had absolutely no effect on my rather illustrious lying career thus far (other than a profound sense of guilt), but David—as far as I knew David had never told a lie in his life. Until now. And if this rumor was true, he had really saved up his reserves wisely.

The doorbell rang, and I sat up suddenly.

“What's wrong?” asked my dad.

“I'm so nervous,” I confessed.

“Sweetie, he should be the nervous one. You could eat poor ole Chris Fuller for lunch.”

Lunch. I had skipped dinner.
I nodded at my dad, gave him one last hug, and grabbed my bag. I turned off the light and jogged to the door with Maddie at my heels.

“Hey, Ruth.” Chris smiled mischievously at me.

“Don't you look guilty,” I said, smiling back. “Do you have a body in your trunk or something?”

He laughed. “Just happy to see you, I guess.”

I patted Maddie good-bye and closed the door behind me. I hugged him hello, relishing the warm firmness of his chest and the impressive musculature of his back. The faint odor of cigarettes lingered underneath his crisp, citrusy cologne. I fought back the surprising urge to lick his neck.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You smell good.” His breath tickled my skin.

I pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “Thanks. Let's hit the road, shall we?”

“So, I've been thinking about the accident,” he said in the car.

“Yeah?”

“You ever wonder what it was that made you look over there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the whole concept of destiny and all that.”

“Whoa, this is a surprise. Chris Fuller asking me about destiny.” I laughed. “I wouldn't think you'd go for that kind of stuff.”

“What, you don't think a jock from the country can be sensitive? I do yoga. I know what's up.”

I laughed. “You do yoga?”

“Yep. Well, I had a girlfriend who was into it. I went a couple of times with her.” I tensed at the mention of a former girlfriend. Who was she? What did she look like? Was she blond? When she sat up, did her stomach stay flat? Did she like sex?

“Your boys know about that?” I teased, hoping that sarcasm would mask my neuroses.

“Ruth Wasserman, you don't know me at all. I don't give a rat's ass about what my boys think. Never have.”

“All right then. I stand corrected.” He looked forlorn. “Hey, I'm sorry. I guess there's a lot we don't know about each other. And I haven't really thought about why I looked where I looked. Except that I was worried about David.”

“Why were you worried about David?”

“Oh, not worried,” I backtracked. “That's not the right word. It's just that there were a lot of Kiddy Kare kids near the pool.”

“Oh yeah. It must have been pretty hectic.”

“It was.”

“Do you feel different now, now that you can say that you saved somebody's life?”

“Not really. I've been thinking about it a lot, though, that's for sure. About that and, you know, the South.”

“What about the South?”

“Well, she's a black girl at a white pool, you know? I've heard some pretty awful opinions.”

“I bet. But can you say that's necessarily a southern thing?”

“What, racism?”

“Yeah. I don't think that kind of stupidity is ours alone.”

“That may be true. I guess it's just more expected here.”

“I can see your point. I'm sorry that we've met your expectations, though. That's bullshit.”

“It's interesting that you say ‘we.' Like you and the South are one and the same.”

“Well, we are. It's in my blood. My parents were born and raised here, and my parents' parents, and so on and so on. Y'all are different.”

“Who's ‘y'all'?”

“The Wassermans.” He grinned. “You come from New York. It's a different thing, even if you've lived here all of your life.”

“That is true,” I agreed. “Plus, the Jewish thing.”

“Yeah, that too. You don't exactly blend seamlessly.”

“Rude!”

“You know I mean it in the best way, Ruth. That's something I loved about my friendship with your brother. As easily as he was embraced here, he was always different. In a good way.”

“Different how?”

“I dunno. His sense of humor, the way he looked at things. That crazy bar mitzvar he had.”

I laughed. “Oh my God. That was nuts. Remember the theme?”

“
Seinfeld
, right?” We both burst into a fit of giggles. “I mean, how is that a theme?”

“Why is that a theme is more like it.” I laughed. “To be honest, I think my parents got a little desperate. David was the last of his age group to go. The other three thirteen-year-old Jews in town had already monopolized the sports market. Nothing was left.”

“I don't remember David even watching
Seinfeld
,” said Chris.

“Me either.” I shook my head. “Sam and Marjorie cracked under the pressure.”

“I think I was sitting at the Kramer table,” said David. “We all got bubble gum cigars or something.”

“Oy.”

“Did you ever have one?”

“Have what?”

“A bar mitzvar thing. Wait, is that what it's called?”

“It's bar mitzvah, actually. That's what a boy has. The girl has a bat mitzvah.”

“Oh. Well, did you have one?”

“Nah. I didn't really care about being Jewish back then, you know? I thought the whole bat mitzvah thing would be a waste of everybody's time. Plus, I didn't want to go dress shopping with my mother.” Dress shopping as an overweight tween was torture. Nothing was designed to make you feel worse about yourself than a dress. Once, my mom and I had spent every weekend for four months searching for an eighth-grade dance dress, finally settling on a peach bridesmaid monstrosity. Horrifying.

“Huh. Wasn't David super into the whole Jew scene around that age, though?”

“Yeah, he was. It was really annoying, actually.”

“Yeah, what was that group called? BBY something?”

“BBYO.” David had spent his early teens as a super Jew. BBYO stood for B'nai B'rith Youth Organization and was, in a nutshell, a national (if not international, I certainly didn't know) group of Jewish kids who got together to do charity work and read the Torah. Or something like that. My interest level had been zero, much to my parents' chagrin. One look at his BBYO leader, who had a ponytail, high-waisted pleated shorts, and a Dodge Neon plastered with Dilbert stickers, and even the remotest chance of my participation was destroyed.

“You weren't into that?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“How come?”

“I dunno. Maybe because it made me feel even more different than I already did. And who wants to feel different in high school?”

“Aw, c'mon. Everybody liked you.”

“I mean, maybe I was liked, but I had to work double time at it. Because I was Jewish.”
And fat.

“Ruth, no offense, but I think that's bullshit. You don't think your sense of alienation is as much your fault as it is the South's?”

“How so?”

“You've always had a little bit of a chip on your shoulder, girl. Always a little bit better than everyone else.”

“Get outta here! All I ever wanted was to fit in!”

“Well, that may be so, but it didn't seem that way from the outside.”

“You're bullshitting me.”

“Nope.”

“No way. How could that possibly be true?”

“That's just the way I saw it. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule.”

“You're trying to tell me that if I had just been ‘sweet,' my phone would have been ringing off the hook? I've always stood out like a sore thumb here, and not in a good way. Whether you admit it or not, the South is a pretty homogeneous place.”

“So how did your brother defy the odds?”

“He's an athlete! And he's super good-looking!” I covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh wow, I'm yelling. Sorry. I'm really sorry.”

“It's okay. But I think there are some big holes in your argument here. Just sayin'.”

“I need a drink.”

Chris laughed. “I can get you that drink.”

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“How do you feel about bowling?”

“I'm not sure that anyone actually feels a certain way about bowling, but I'm game.” Honestly, I despised bowling. But being with Chris was taking my mind off of David somehow, even though we were talking about him. It was almost like the more we spoke about the David I had always known, the less possible it became that this new rumored David could even exist. “And I'll try to remove my shoulder chip before we strap on those ridiculous clown shoes.”

“Do that,” he replied. “See what happens.”

18

I
swung around the corner on my bike, nursing the pit of dread in my stomach with some deep breaths.

In . . . hold for five-four-three-two-one . . . outttttttt. In . . . hold for five-four-three-two-one . . . outttt.

I was on my way to the house of Miss Carol (or Carol Cummings, as the rest of the world knew her) for the board meeting. I wasn't sure why I was so terrified—I mean, really, what was the worst that could happen? It had already been established by the sibling code of silence that I was never ratting David out. Whatever consequences stemmed from that decision were par for the course: a jail sentence, an afterlife in the pits of hell, a guilty conscience that sat on my shoulders like an iron cloak. All of it was worth it, right? For this wonderful relationship with a brother who was completely open with me and loved me beyond a shadow of a doubt. Right.

Here I was, expected to put it all on the line, and he was living a full-on secret life. Maybe that's why he had no trouble ignoring the facts and claiming sobriety—he'd been spinning his own cobweb of lies for months. This wasn't how the Wassermans operated. I was the endearing fuck-up who couldn't lie my way out of a paper bag but always attempted to nevertheless (
No, Mom, I didn't sneak out—I have no idea why the window screen is broken / No, Dad, I wasn't drinking, I just smell like this because everyone else was / No, this isn't a new shirt that I bought with your credit card last week—I've had it forever
), and David was the perfect son. He never lied because he didn't have to. He made excellent grades, he didn't drink or do drugs, and he could always be counted on. If those tenets of his persona were erased, who was he? Who was I? Who were the Wassermans?

I stopped in front of Miss Carol's house. Jason's and David's cars were parked outside already, along with the familiar cars of the board: a navy blue Volvo for Cynthia Sherman (her family had built the pool and she was my favorite of the bunch—a no-nonsense, crimson lipstick–wearing former debutante with a liberal streak); a silver minivan for Bill Whitaker (dad of Tyler and beleaguered member of every board in town courtesy of the bossiest wife I had ever encountered); and a giant black Suburban for the infamous Dusty Forsythe (co-head of the board along with Miss Carol and the most good-ole-boy-iest good ole boy there ever was).

I parked my bike and rubbed my sweaty palms on my shorts. Here we go. I rang the doorbell.

“Well, heyyyyy, honay,” Miss Carol said, opening the door to a foyer filled with War Eagle paraphernalia.

“Hey, Miss Carol.” I smiled down at her. She was as broad as she was tall—the human version of a potbelly pig. Standing, she came up to my collarbone, and at least three inches of that height was teased blond hair.

“Come on in, we're all just sittin' around and talkin' about nothin'. Are you hungry, darlin'?” She beckoned for me to take the lead.

“Oh no, I'm fine, thank you.”

“Well, if you change yer mind, I've got chips out for y'all.” I heard her stop behind me. I turned around to make sure she hadn't been eaten alive by the giant macramé eagle adorning the wall.

“Let me git you somethin' to drank, at least.”

“A Diet Coke would be great, thank you.”

“You're welcome, sweetie. I'll git it for you. You go on in. I'll be right there.” I followed the hallway down to the wood-paneled living room. Everyone was sitting together on a giant, forest green couch, but they only filled three-quarters of it. It was one of those circular couches with pop-up footstools that made laziness optimal at every angle.

“Hey, Ruth,” greeted Jason, obviously desperate for an out from the conversation he was having with Bill. Bill was in standard form, wearing a white golf shirt, khakis, and boat shoes, the bald top of his head gleaming like an ice cube. He had the bad luck of being pear-shaped—a phenomenon I had never before witnessed in a man. It was unfortunate, but very fitting considering Bill's personality. If there ever was a man who fit being pear-shaped, it was him. He had the machismo of a toy poodle.

“Hey, Jason,” I replied. “Hey, Mr. Whitaker.”

“Hey there, Ruth. How are you?” He struggled to get up, but the depth of the couch fought him like quicksand.

“Oh please, don't get up! That's okay. And I'm fine, thanks.”

“Hi, David,” I said curtly. He was sitting at the far end with a handful of chips and a glass of soda at his feet. He gave me a tight smile and shoved what appeared to be ten chips into his mouth. His chewing sounded like road construction.

“Hey, Mr. Forsythe, hey, Cynthia,” I said. Cynthia had ordered me to drop the “Miss” the first time we were introduced, thereby cementing my fondness for her immediately. I attempted to perch daintily on the couch's edge. It was useless, though—the sheer volume of the seat affected the gravity of the room. Against my will, I was soon reclining.

“Ruth, you're what, nineteen now? I think it's okay to call me Dusty, sweetie.” He was a giant bear of a man, standing six feet four inches tall and weighing what had to be 285 pounds. Even the couch looked small underneath him.

“I'm sorry, I always forget!” In contrast to Bill, Dusty was the epitome of maleness, at least by southern definition. Wealthy, sporty, heterosexual, and Republican.

“Dusty, if I didn't know any better, I would think you were flirtin' with her,” interjected Cynthia. She rolled her eyes and smiled conspiratorially at me. Her silver hair was pulled into a loose bun, and she was wearing a men's chambray work shirt and white jeans.

“Here's Ruth's drank!” Miss Carol came bustling in with a glass of ice and soda and handed it to me with a nervous smile. “I thank we're all here, right?” She sat down in a rocking chair facing us. The room was silent except for the whir of the ceiling fan blades.

“Yes, we're all here, Carol,” said Dusty. “Let's cut the small talk, shall we? We're all in a world of shit right now.” I glanced at David. His face was obscured by his drinking glass.

“It looks like this Tanisha's mama is gonna sue the pool.”

“Are you kidding me? How? How is this our fault?” asked Jason. “She almost drowned and Ruth saved her! She saved her damn life! These people should be kissing our asses, not riding them.”

“Jason, I know tensions are high, but if you could not curse, I'd appreciate it,” scolded Miss Carol. “You too, Dusty.” She looked to the wooden cross adorning the wall as if to guilt them into submission.

“Apologies, Miss Carol. I'm not myself at the moment.” Jason smiled at her. “But, Dusty, on a legal level, do they even have a leg to stand on? You're not assured 100 percent safety at a swimming pool, I mean, gawleeeeee. Let's get real. Shi—, I mean, stuff happens.”

“You have a point, Jason. I'm not sure if this lawsuit will even take shape, but I know that we need to be on point if it does.”

“We need to know exactly what happened,” added Cynthia. “We want to make absolutely sure that everything is on the table.”

“No surprises,” added Miss Carol.

“There are no surprises,” said David, his mouth finally chip-free. “She was in my blind spot, she went under, Ruth saw her, dove in, got her out of the pool, and saved her. There was no resuscitation necessary.” I detected a spark of irritation beneath the buttery surface of his speech.

“Ruth, is that what happened?” Cynthia asked me. Her blue eyes searched my face like a flashlight.

“Yes, that's what happened,” I answered, forcing myself to maintain eye contact and keep my voice level.

“You sure nothin' went on before the Kiddy Kare got there that would have impaired your ability to watch the pool? Y'all were on point?” Dusty asked both of us. My mouth went dry.

“We're sure,” answered David quickly. “Why would you think that?” He appeared completely calm and at ease, as though his outright lie had soothed him somehow.

“Aw, I know y'all didn't do anything wrong, son,” said Dusty. “I just want to be sure that we're all on the same page. We all know that they're gonna get some nigger lawyer who hoots and hollers all over the place.”

I cringed and opened my mouth to say something, but Cynthia beat me to it.

“Dusty, I will not have that language spoken in my presence, do you hear me? And you sure as hell better not use it in regards to this case.”

“Oh, c'mon, Cynthia. All due respect, we know exactly how this is gonna go down. I apologize for that word. That was ugly.” He reached out and put his hand on her knee. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Don't you know that this is how we're going to be expected to react? To be the racist jerks they perceive us as being? To say something derogatory about black people and swimming pools and prove their point that we didn't care about their child the way we would have cared about one of our own?” Cynthia was practically yelling.

“She's right, Dusty,” agreed Carol. “We need to defy expectations.”

“I know that's what Tanisha's mom is thinking, but I swear that wasn't the case,” I said. My voice sounded strange to me—like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “The fact that she was black had nothing to do with her accident, at least on our part.”

“Not at all,” agreed David. “The truth of the matter is that Tanisha couldn't swim. If anyone should be sued, it's those Kiddy Kare people. They're the ones who let her wander off. And without floaties.”

“And what about her mama?” asked Mr. Whitaker. “Obviously she knew that her daughter couldn't swim, but agreed to let her go to a pool anyway. Surely she would have had to sign a permission slip. She knew about the risk she was taking, and now she wants to cry wolf?”

“That's a damn good point, Bill. A damn good point,” said Dusty. Bill swelled with pride at the compliment.

“Have y'all reached out to a lawyer?” asked Jason.

“Yes, I have a friend who's agreed to take this on if need be,” answered Cynthia. “He's quite reputable.” I thought about my dad's offer to defend us. By not telling him the whole truth either, we'd be asking him to lie on our behalf. I wondered if David's conscience would get the better of him if our father was on the line. I certainly hoped so, but watching him lie so effortlessly here made me doubtful.

“Cynthia, if they do sue, will they sue the pool as a whole, or will they single out David and me?” I asked.

“We're all in this together, Ruth. All for one and one for all.” She gave me a sad smile.

“Are we all set then?” asked Miss Carol. “For now?”

“I believe we are,” answered Dusty. “Ruth, I want to commend you again on a job well done. You saved a little girl's life, and we're lucky to have you on our team.”

“Yes, absolutely,” agreed Cynthia.

“Thanks,” I replied. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

“Well, I guess we'll take off then,” said David. “Miss Carol, thank you for hosting.”

“Yes, thanks, Miss Carol. I'm taking a cookie to go,” said Jason, grinning.

“Please, Jason, take the bag! My behind doesn't need any more of these, believe me.” She got up to get them from the kitchen.

“You are such a kiss-ass,” I whispered.

“Don't say ‘ass'!” he whispered back. “Jesus doesn't like that word.” He pointed to the cross.

“You guys ready?” asked David. He stood up and loomed over us.

“You all right?” asked Jason. “You look about as nervous as a whore in church.”

“I'm just ready to get outta here, man.” He popped his knuckles.

“Here are your cookies, Jase. And David, here are yours.” She handed them Ziplocs filled to bursting. “Ruth, I would have offered some to you, but I know how good you are.” She winked at me. “I wish I had half the self-control that you do.”

What if I did want a damn cookie? It was ironic that I had started not eating to look like everyone else, but had ended up sticking out even more. We waved good-bye a final time and wandered into the yard.

“You want a ride?” asked David.

“I can't. I rode my bike.”

“I'll drop your bike off in my truck,” volunteered Jason.

“No, that's silly,” I said.

“But it's far. Seriously, it's no problem.”

“Well, if you're sure, Jason. I am a little tired.”

“You got it.” He picked up my bike and deposited it into his truck bed with a clank. “See ya'll. I'm headed to the pool to see what's what.” He climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. ACDC poured out of his truck's speakers, the beat shaking its body and, seemingly, the pavement beneath its wheels. “I'll just park yer bike in yer carport, 'kay?”

“Great. Thanks.” He drove off, leaving David and me in awkward silence.

“What did you think about the meeting?” he asked as we walked to his car.

“Mmm, I guess it was productive. I mean, nothing was really resolved or anything. But really, what could be resolved at this point?”

“Yeah, it was more about getting ready for battle, I guess,” he answered. We opened our doors and got in.

“Battle?”

“Yeah.” He started the engine. “Battle.”

“That's a pretty aggressive way of phrasing it.”

“What else would you call it? If they sue the pool, it's on.”

“I guess.” We pulled into the road, and I watched Miss Carol's house grow smaller in the rearview mirror. “I just don't see how they would really have a case, though. And why spend all that money if you don't have a case?”

“I think they could make a case pretty easily, actually. People love that shit.”

“What shit?”

“The race card and all that goes with it.” He glanced at me. “Why do you look so surprised?”

“I guess I just can't believe that they would accuse us of being the kind of people that would wish a kid dead because she was black.”