I slid the box of candy canes in my pocket, then headed up Nate’s walk, taking a deep breath of cool air. The truth was, I’d thought about getting him a Christmas gift. I had even picked out more than one before stopping myself, not sure even after that night in the pool that I was ready or able to make such a grand gesture. But in the days since, I’d also realized that with Nate, everything just came so easily, as easily as letting him take my hand and pull me beneath the surface. Maybe it was impossible for someone to share everything with you, but I was beginning to think what we had was enough. And anyway, it was Christmas, a time above all for hope, or so I’d been told. He’d given me so much, and now, here, I was finally ready to reciprocate. So I stepped up to the door and rang the bell.
The moment he opened the door, I knew something was wrong. It was just the look on his face—surprised, even alarmed—followed immediately by the way he eased the door a bit more shut, the same move I’d once mastered with the Jehovah’s and landlords. “Ruby,” he said, his voice low. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
Right that moment, I heard his dad: loud, bellowing, barely muffled from behind a nearby wall. I swallowed, then said, “Jamie was just handing out stuff, for Christmas—”
“It’s not a good time,” he said as there was a bang, or a thud, discernible. “I’ll call you a little later, okay?”
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“I’m fine.”
“Nate—”
“I am. But I’ve got to go,” he said, easing the door closed a bit more. I could barely see him now. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. ”
I didn’t get a chance to answer this, as the door was already shutting with an audible click. I just stood there, my mouth dry, wondering what I should do. I’m fine, he’d said. I reached out, putting my hand on the knob and turning it. Here I was, finally ready to let him in, and it was me locked out.
“Hey!” Jamie called from behind me. I turned. He and Roscoe were across the street, coming closer. “Are they there? ”
Say something, I thought, but even as I tried to form the words, any words, I remembered that day in the garage, how he’d asked me to keep this quiet. You understand. Did I want to be the Honeycutts, stepping in and ruining everything, even if I thought it was for the best? Jamie was coming up the walk, Roscoe pulling ahead. I had to decide, now.
“They’re not home,” I said, stepping off the porch. The box of candy canes was still in my pocket, and I slid my fingers in, cupping them around it. It felt almost like a hand, resting in mine. “Let’s just go.”
Chapter Thirteen
I was up until way late, but not waiting for Santa. Instead, I lay on my bed, watching the lights from Nate’s pool dance across the trees, the same way I had that first night. More than once, I thought about sneaking over again to find him and see if he was okay. But then I’d remember him shutting the door in my face, the click of the latch catching, and stay where I was.
The next morning, I got a new backpack, some CDs, a few books, and a laptop. Cora got her period.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she sputtered when, shortly after we’d opened gifts, I found her sitting on her bed, crying. “Really.”
“Honey.” Jamie came over, sitting beside her and sliding his arm over her shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“I know.” Her voice was still choked as she reached up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s just, I really had a feeling it had happened this month. Which I know is so stupid . . .”
“You’re not stupid,” Jamie said softly, smoothing a hand over her head.
“. . . but I just started thinking how great it would be to find out today and be able to tell you guys, and how it would be the best gift ever—” She drew in a long, shaky breath, her eyes welling up again. “But it didn’t happen. I’m not pregnant. Again.”
“Cora.”
“I know,” she said, waving her hand. “It’s Christmas, we have a wonderful life, roof over our head, things so many people want. But I want this. And no matter what I do, I can’t get it. It just . . .” She trailed off, wiping her eyes again. This time, Jamie didn’t say anything.
“Sucks,” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said, looking up at me. “It sucks.”
I felt so helpless, the way I always did when I saw Cora upset about the baby issue. It was the one thing that could take her from zero to emotional in less than five minutes, the single tender spot in her substantial personal armor. The previous month she’d finally agreed to a little pharmaceutical help, via an ovulation drug, which made her hot and emotional, liable to be sweating or weeping or both at any given moment. Not a good mix, especially during the holidays. And now, it was all for nothing. It did suck.
“We’ll just try again,” Jamie was saying now. “It was just the first month. Maybe the second time will be the charm.”
Cora nodded, but I could see she was hardly convinced as she reached up, running her finger over the gift I’d given her that morning: one of Harriet’s key necklaces, a silver one lined with red stones. I’d been strangely nervous as she opened the box, worried she wouldn’t like it, but the minute she slid it out into her hand, her eyes widening, I knew I’d scored. “It’s beautiful,” she said, looking up at me. “It’s like yours!”
“Kind of,” I said. “But not completely.”
“I love it,” she told me, reaching up immediately to put it on. She brushed her hair over her shoulders. “What do you think? Does it look good?”
It had, and did now, as she rested her head on Jamie’s shoulder, curling into him. She still had one hand around the key. The necklace looked different on her than on me, but you could see some similarities. You just had to know where to look.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Roscoe, who’d been snoozing at the foot of the bed, perked up his ears and let out a yap. “Was that the door?” Jamie asked.
“It was,” Cora said as Roscoe hopped down, bolting from the room. A moment later, we heard him barking from the foyer as the bell sounded again. “Who would show up on Christmas? ”
“I’ll find out,” I said, although as I quickly got up, heading for the stairs, I was hoping I already knew. The bell rang again when I was halfway down, then once more as I approached the door. When I got to the door and looked through the peephole, though, Nate wasn’t there. Nobody was. Then it chimed again—so weird—so I just opened it.
It was Gervais. Too short for the peephole, he was standing on the front step, in his glasses, peacoat, and scarf, with what looked like a brand-new scooter parked on the walk behind him. “Hi,” he said.
I just looked at him. “Hey,” I said slowly. “What are you—? ”
“I have a proposition for you,” he said, all business. “Can I come in?”
“Um,” I said. Behind me, Roscoe had stopped barking but was still trying to nudge past me. “We’re kind of busy, actually—”
“I know.” He reached up, adjusting his glasses. “This will only take a minute.”
I still didn’t really want to let him in. But in the spirit of the holiday, I stepped aside. “Shouldn’t you be with your family?” I asked as he shut the door behind him.
“We finished Christmas hours ago,” he told me. “My dad already took down the tree.”
“Oh.” Now we were just standing there, together, in the foyer. “Well,” I said, “we’re still kind of doing things, so—”
“Do you think you’ll be prepared for your next big calculus exam?”
I just looked at him. “What?”
“Your next exam. It’s in March and counts for half your grade, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“Will you be prepared for it?”
Upstairs, I heard Cora laughing. A good sign. “Define prepared,” I said.
“Scoring a ninety or higher.”
“No,” I said. Which was, sadly, the truth. Even with all my studying and preparation, calculus was still the one
thing that could take me from zero to panicked in less than thirty seconds.
“Then you should let me help you,” Gervais said.
“Help me?”
“I’m very good at calculus,” he explained, pushing up his glasses. “Not only doing it, but explaining it. I’m tutoring two people in my class at the U right now. And that’s college-level calc, not that easy-schmeezy kind you’re doing.”
Easy-schmeezy, I thought. He hadn’t changed entirely. “You know,” I said, “that’s a very nice offer. But I think I’ll be okay.”
“It’s not an offer,” he said. “It’s a proposition.”
Suddenly, I had a flash of him in the car that day, drawing in his breath. Plus the staring at lunch in the green, and the weird way he’d acted at the Vista 10. Oh, God, I thought, finally getting it. Nate was right. He liked me. This was just what I needed. “You know,” I said, reaching behind him for the door, “you’re a nice kid, Gervais, but—”
“It’s about Olivia,” he said.
I stopped, mid-sentence, not sure I was hearing him right. “What?”
He coughed. Then blushed. “Olivia Davis,” he said. “You’re friends with her, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “Why?”
“Because,” he said. He coughed again. “I, um, like her. Kind of.”
“You like Olivia?”
“Not like that,” he said quickly. “I just . . .”
I waited. It seemed like a long time passed.
“. . . I want to be her friend,” he finished.
This was kind of sweet, I had to admit. Also surprising. Which brought me to my next question. “Why?”
“Because,” he said as if it was simple, obvious. When it became clear this was not the case, he added, “She talks to me.”
“She talks to you,” I repeated.
He nodded. “Like, at the theater. And when she sees me in the hall at school, she always says hello. Nobody else does that. Plus, she likes the same movies I do.”
I looked down at him, standing there before me in his heavy coat and glasses. Sure, he was annoying, but it did have to be hard for him. No matter how smart you were, there was a lot you couldn’t learn from books. “Then just be friends with her,” I said. “You don’t need me for that.”
“I do, though,” he said. “I can’t just go up and talk to her. But if I was, you know, helping you with your calculus at lunch or something, then I could just hang out with you guys.”
“Gervais,” I said slowly. “I think that’s really sweet—”
“Don’t say no,” he pleaded.
“—but it’s also deceptive.”
He shook his head, adamant. “It’s not, though! I don’t like her that way. I just want to be friends.”
“Still, it would be like I’m setting her up. And friends don’t do that.”
Never in a million years would I have thought I would be offering up a primer on friendship, much less to Gervais Miller. Even less likely? That I would feel sorry for him after I did so. But as he regarded me glumly, then stepped back to the door, I did.
“All right,” he said, his voice flat. Defeated. “I understand. ”
I watched him as he turned the knob, pulling the door open. Once again, I found myself torn as to what to do, but this time, the stakes weren’t so high. Maybe I couldn’t do anything for Nate. But I could help someone.
“How about this,” I said. He turned back to me slowly. “I’ll hire you.”
“Hire me?”
“As a tutor. I pay what everyone else pays, you do what you do. If it just so happens we meet during lunch and Olivia is there, then so be it. But she is not part of the deal. Understood? ”
He nodded vigorously, his glasses bobbing slightly. “Yes.”
“All right then,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” he replied, stepping outside and starting down the stairs. Halfway there, he turned back to me. “Oh. I’m twenty dollars an hour, by the way. For the tutoring.”
Of course he was. I said, “Am I going to pass calculus?”
“It’s guaranteed,” he replied. “My method is proven.”
I nodded, and then he continued down the steps, grabbing his helmet from his scooter and pulling it on. Maybe this was a big mistake, one among many. But sometimes, we all need a little help, whether we want to admit it or not.
“Come in, come in,” Jamie said as yet another group came bustling in, their chatter rising up to the high ceiling of the foyer. “Welcome! Drinks are in the back, and there’s tons of food. Here, let me take your coat. . . .”
I leaned back against the doorjamb of the laundry room, where I’d been hiding out with Roscoe ever since Jamie and Cora’s post-Christmas, pre-New Year holiday open house began. Officially, it was my job to keep the ice bucket full and make sure the music was audible, but other than doing this on a most perfunctory level, I wasn’t exactly mingling.
Now, though, as Jamie, with his arms full of coats, glanced around him, I knew I should show myself and offer to help him stow them upstairs. Instead, I slid down into a sitting position, my back to the dryer, nudging the door shut with my foot. Roscoe, who’d been exiled here for his own mental well-being, immediately hopped up from his bed and came over to join me.
It had been two days since Christmas, and I hadn’t seen or talked to Nate. Once, this would have seemed impossible, considering our very proximity—not to mention how often we crossed paths, intentionally or otherwise. Maybe it was just that school was out, we weren’t riding together, and we were both busy with our respective jobs, where things hadn’t slowed down, even after Christmas. But even so, I had the distinct feeling he was avoiding me.
This was surprising, but even more shocking was the fact that it was bothering me so much. After all, this was what I’d wanted once—more space between us, less connection. Now that I had it, though, I felt more worried about him than ever.
Just then, the door opened. “One second, I just have to grab another roll of—” Cora was halfway inside, still talking to someone over her shoulder, when she stopped in mid-stride and sentence, seeing me and Roscoe on the floor. “Hey,” she said slowly. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. She shut the door as Roscoe got up, wagging his tail. “Just taking a breather.”
“But not in the closet,” she said.
“This was closer.”
She reached over the washing machine, pulling down a roll of paper towels. “Already a spill on the carpet,” she said, tearing them open. “Happens every year.”
“Sounds like it’s going well otherwise, though,” I said as some people passed by in the hallway outside, their voices bouncing off the walls.
“It is.” She turned back to me, the towels in her arms. “You should come out, have some food. It’s not that bad, I promise.”
“I’m a little low on cheer,” I told her.
She smiled. “You’ve been a real trooper, I have to say. Christmas with Jamie is like an endurance trial. My first year I almost had a total breakdown.”
“It’s just weird,” I said. “I mean, last year . . .” I trailed off, realizing I didn’t even remember what I’d done last year for the holidays. I had a vague recollection of delivering luggage, maybe a company party at Commercial. But like everything else from my old life, this was distant, faded. “I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Just make an appearance,” she said. “Then you can come back here, or hit the closet for the rest of the day. All right? ”
I looked up at her, dubious, as she extended her hand to me. But then I let her pull me to my feet and followed her out into the hallway. Two steps later, as we entered the kitchen, we were ambushed.
“Cora! Hello!” I jumped, startled, as a petite woman in a flowing, all-white ensemble, her dark hair pulled back at her neck, suddenly appeared in front of us, a wineglass in one hand. “Happy holidays!”
“Happy holidays,” Cora replied, lean
ing forward to accept a kiss—and a shadow of a lipstick stain—on her cheek. “Barbara, this is my sister, Ruby. Ruby, this is Barbara Starr.”
“You have a sister? ” Barbara asked. She was wearing several multicolored beaded necklaces that swayed and clacked across her chest each time she moved, as she did now, turning to face me. “Why, I had no idea!”
“Ruby just came to live with us this year,” Cora explained. To me, she said, “Barbara is an author. Best-selling, I might add.”
“Oh, stop,” Barbara replied, waving her hand. “You’ll embarrass me.”
“She was one of my very first clients,” Cora added. “When I was working in a family law practice, just out of school.”
“Really,” I said.
“I got divorced,” Barbara explained, taking a sip of her wine. “Which is never fun. But because of your sister, it was the best divorce I’ve ever had. And that’s really saying something.”
I looked at Cora, who shook her head almost imperceptibly, making it clear I should not ask what exactly this meant. Instead, she said, “Well, we should probably go check on the food, so . . .”
“Everything is just wonderful. I love the holidays!” Barbara said, sighing. Then she smiled at me and said, “Is the rest of your family here, as well? I’d just love to meet your mother.”
“Um,” I said, “actually—”
“We’re not really in touch with our mom these days,” Cora told her. “But we are lucky to have so many great friends like you here today. Would you like some more wine?”
“Oh,” Barbara said, looking at her glass, then at us. “Well, yes. That would be lovely.”
Cora eased the glass from her hand—still smiling, smiling—then passed it off to me, touching the small of my back with her other hand. As I took this cue, moving forward, I looked back at her. Barbara was talking again, her hands fluttering as she made some point, but my sister, even as she nodded, was watching me. Awfully smooth, I thought. But then again, she’d been away from my mom a lot longer than I had. Practice does make perfect, or close to it.