I’d promised Em that I’d put her on Hangouts when the parade was going so she didn’t have to miss it, but it would be the first time we’d talked since the fight with Ruby.
I pressed her contact and waited for her to pick up, wondering if she’d be alone in her cabin this time or if there would be another girl there, wanting to see the parade with her.
Maybe her whole cabin.
In a weird way, I kind of hoped that would happen, because then it would mean I couldn’t ask her about the lipstick thing.
But when she answered, there was just her, her face sort of shadowed.
“Has it started?” she asked, and I turned my phone so she could see.
“Not yet.”
I pointed the phone at Mom and Dad, both of whom were sitting a little closer to the curb than I was. “Say hi,” I instructed, and they both waved at Emma, who waved back, calling out, “Hiiiii!”
When I turned the phone back to me, Emma looked . . . well, it was hard to tell, really. It was still dim on her end of the phone, but she blinked a few times, and there wasn’t the same excitement and . . . Emma-ness, I guess, that I’d been expecting.
“Where are you?” I asked, just as the drums started up somewhere down the parade line.
“In my bunk,” she said, and now that she’d said it, I could make out the purple of her blanket, the one Mom had bought her for camp.
“Are you by yourself?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Everyone is at the campfire, but I didn’t want to miss the parade.”
And then she sighed. “I wish I was there with y’all to see it in person, though.”
I glanced up at Mom and Dad. They were both craning their necks to look down the parade route, and, I thought, very deliberately trying not to listen to me and Em.
It was sweet, but I still stood up and pointed back toward the parking lot. “I’ll be over here for a sec,” I told them, even as Emma said, “Wait, what?”
“Why?” Dad asked, but Mom touched his arm and they exchanged a look. I’d never realized that my parents could do the whole silent-communication thing me and Em had perfected, but they clearly could, because Dad finally nodded and said, “Don’t go far, and make sure you can see us.”
“Got it!” I replied, and then jogged far enough away that they couldn’t overhear me.
Emma was frowning at the screen. “The point of this was to see the parade, Livvy,” she said.
“Are you homesick?” I asked, scratching my ankle with the tip of my shoe. “Or is camp not fun anymore or something?”
Em wrinkled her nose. “It’s okay, I guess? But I am getting so tired of archery and canoeing, and Sasha was being totally rude to me at lunch—”
“So I gave up my summer so you could get bored?”
I hadn’t meant to say that. I really hadn’t. The words had kind of exploded out, and I could tell Emma was shocked, too. She sort of reared back from the screen, blinking.
“What?”
“You let me take the fall for something you did so you could go to this dumb camp, and now you don’t even like it anymore?”
Emma stared at me for a second, then said, “I didn’t ask you to lie for me, Livvy.”
“You didn’t have to,” I told her, sitting down in the grass. “You knew I wouldn’t let you lose camp.”
“I didn’t,” Emma insisted. She was sitting up now, and it was clear the phone was on her lap because she was sort of looming over the screen. “You always do this, you know,” she went on. “You think everyone can read your mind, and we might be twins, Livvy, but I can’t read your mind. And you go along with things without saying how you feel, and then you blame me for it! I took the lipstick to see if I could do it, and I felt really bad about it, and wish I hadn’t, but you’re the one who decided to say it was you. I never asked you to do that, and it isn’t fair to blame me for it. Yes, I took the lipstick, and when I get home, I’ll tell Mom, and I’m sorry.”
Her voice was getting higher and squeakier, and she used her free hand to wipe at her eyes. Em always teared up when she got angry, something I knew she hated.
“But you should have said something then, Em,” I said, feeling my own eyes sting. “And maybe you didn’t ask me to, and maybe you’re right that I don’t tell people how I feel enough, but you make me feel like I’m . . . I don’t know, holding you back or something.”
And there it was, the thing I’d been scared to say to her: that I was afraid my own twin didn’t like me all that much. She loved me, I knew that, but liking was something different.
“Oh, Livvy,” Emma said on a sigh, sagging back against her bed and taking the phone with her. “You’re not holding me back. I’m . . . I want to figure out how to be me without you sometimes, you know?”
I opened my mouth to say no, I didn’t, and then I realized . . . I kind of did, actually.
I’d been angry at Emma, and feeling like this summer was all her fault, but I’d also had fun. I’d been fun. Ruby was a lot of things, but she was definitely honest, and I knew she hadn’t pretended to think I was fun, that I was funny. At Camp Chrysalis, I’d been Olivia instead of EmmaandOlivia, and I’d liked it.
So I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
We were quiet, the sounds of the parade getting louder, and I glanced over my shoulder. The marching band had already passed by, but the majorettes were still coming, and I looked back at my phone.
“You wanna see some girls in sparkly costumes throw fire batons?” I asked, and Emma hesitated before smiling a little.
“Yeah,” she said, “I really, really do.”
And when I walked back toward the parade, I was smiling, too.
CHAPTER 28
RUBY
“Are we gonna go through the boxes today?”
My mom looked up from her spot at the kitchen table, where she was eating cereal and reading the newspaper. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and she was wearing her glasses. They had hot-pink frames to match the streak in her hair, just like my blue frames matched my hair. We’d gotten our glasses at the same time, and I still teased Mom about picking out ones from the kids’ section. “Not my fault y’all get all the cool stuff,” she’d said, and I couldn’t argue with that. The adult glasses did look super boring.
“You mean Grammy’s boxes?” Mom asked now, and I nodded.
That made Mom sit back. “Wow,” she said. “Not even a joke about how, no, you meant Batman’s boxes or the boxes by Narnia.”
I was leaning against the door frame, which meant shrugging wasn’t easy, but I still managed it.
And then Mom leaned forward, cupping her chin with one hand. “It’s not a joking thing, I guess, is it?” she asked, and before I could say anything, she was standing up and pushing away from the table, the chair squeaking on the floor. “Yeah, let’s do the boxes,” Mom said. “And afterward, we’ll go out for lunch, okay? Somewhere fun.”
The boxes had sat in our garage for the past two months, ever since Grammy died. They were all that was left of her stuff. Mom had cleaned out the apartment, but all the furniture belonged there—Grammy had rented the place furnished because she said she didn’t want to keep hauling boring things like couches and chairs to new houses.
But the apartment had been the last place she’d moved. She just hadn’t known that.
It was weird, going out into the garage and looking at the boxes, knowing this was the last little thing we had to do to say good-bye to her. Mom must’ve felt the same, because she paused at the top of the brick steps leading down into the garage, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“This sucks, kid,” she said, then added, “Don’t repeat that.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “But it does. A lot.”
There were five boxes in all. Mom had meant to separate Grammy’s things into types—you know, books here
, pictures here, that kind of thing—but in the end, she’d put the stuff in boxes, saying we could sort it later. Which meant the first box I opened had three framed photographs, a stack of Travel and Leisure magazines, and four half-empty perfume bottles, plus a few little knickknacks. Salt and pepper shakers shaped like cows, a wireless speaker, a crochet angel that had probably gone on a Christmas tree at some point.
“Anything you want to keep, we keep,” Mom said, kneeling over one of the other boxes.
That one was all books, and I nodded at it. “I want everything in there.”
Mom didn’t even look surprised or ask if I was sure. She nodded and shoved the box toward the steps up to the kitchen, then moved on to the third box.
It didn’t take us very long to go through everything, which was such a weird feeling. Grammy had felt so . . . big. Not in her body—like me and Mom, she was a shrimp—but just her. The person she was had felt so full of life, so fun, and like her head was full of a million things. It didn’t seem like all that person could be squeezed down into five boxes in a garage.
When we got to the last box, Mom sighed, pulling out a thick beige envelope. I could see my name scrawled across the front in bright blue pen, the familiar sight of Grammy’s handwriting suddenly making me feel like crying in a way that nothing else in the boxes had. She always added all these loops and flourishes to my name, making it look bigger than it was. That’s how she’d made me feel, too. Like I was bigger.
I took it, trying to keep my lips from trembling, but moms are too smart for that. “Rubes,” she said softly, coming across the garage to hug me. As soon as my face was pressed into her shoulder, I felt the tears come, and I let them. I hadn’t cried since the funeral because I hate crying. The snottiness, the wet face, the stinging in your eyes. But it felt good now, like a relief. Like I’d been holding on too tight to something.
Once I’d cried myself out, Mom and I sat there, cross-legged on the floor, facing each other with the envelope between us.
“Do you want to read it?” Mom asked, her voice gentle, and I looked at the letter, thinking. I did, but it was like the boxes—it felt like the end of something, the last thing from Grammy I was ever going to read, and that was harder than I’d thought it would be. But in the end, I wanted to know what it said too much to save it for another time, and I figured I might as well get this all done with at once. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
So I picked up the envelope, gently opened it, and read:
Rubes,
It feels so silly leaving a letter for you like this, like I don’t talk to you and see your sweet face every day. But there are some things it’s easier to say in a letter, I suppose, and I never wanted us to talk about what was happening, how I might not be around much longer. Honestly, I’m not scared to go, but I sure will miss you, Ruby Sue. (And yes, I know that’s not your actual middle name, but it should’ve been, and I like it, and this is my last letter to you, so there.)
I think we’re very lucky in that we’ve probably said everything there is to say to each other over the past few years. You know I love you, and I know you love me. I know that might not seem all that unusual, but believe me, there are a lot of people in this world who don’t get that. So I’m not going to be sad, because I had the best granddaughter in the whole world, and I made sure she knew it.
So don’t be sad, sugar. Listen to your mama, be sweet, and please, please, please keep being you. You are funny and smart and the world needs more people who know who they are as well as you do.
A few last-minute things:
The next time you dye your hair, try purple. I think it would look so pretty with your coloring.
Make your mom try that internet dating site again. I know that Fish Guy was a disaster, but she’s gotta keep trying.
Whenever you pass a fountain, throw a penny in. Unless that’s not allowed, then don’t do that.
Actually, do it anyway, but try not to get caught.
Check the root cellar.
Honestly, I don’t know what that last one means, but I woke up the other night with “Tell Ruby to check the root cellar” in my head, so there you go.
Don’t change one little thing about yourself, Ruby Sue. You are unique and brave and beautiful, and I love you so much,
Grammy
After I’d read it a second time, I handed it over to Mom, who was also looking a little teary. She took it, her eyes moving over the page. She smiled, but it wobbled a little, and then, when she got to the list, she frowned. “Fish Guy?”
“That guy who liked that one band so much,” I reminded her.
“Oh, Phish Guy.”
She handed the letter back to me. “I wonder what she meant about the root cellar.”
Shrugging, I gently folded the letter up and put it back in its envelope. “You know how Grammy always said she was a little bit psychic, but over random things.”
“We don’t even have a root cellar,” Mom said, standing up and dusting her hands on her jeans before offering me a hand up.
I took it, letting her pull me to my feet, but as she did, something occurred to me.
No, we definitely did not have a root cellar.
But Live Oak House probably did.
LivAndLetLiv: Hi.
RubyToozday: Hi?
LivAndLetLiv: It’s me. Liv. I got a new username.
RubyToozday: I picked up on that.
RubyToozday: ;)
RubyToozday: I saw you at the parade the other night. You were on your phone?
LivAndLetLiv: Oh, yeah. Talking to Emma.
LivAndLetLiv: Well, fighting with Emma.
LivAndLetLiv: But it’s good now? At least I think it is. I don’t know, it’s weird.
RubyToozday: Kind of going around lately, isn’t it?
RubyToozday: The Weird.
RubyToozday: Sorry, that was me trying to make this NOT weird, and failing.
RubyToozday: And also I’m sorry in a general sense.
RubyToozday: About Mrs. Freely’s office and being bossy about it.
RubyToozday: I am a bossy monster.
RubyToozday: Hello?
LivAndLetLiv: I like how you talk too much even when you’re NOT talking.
LivAndLetLiv: :)
RubyToozday: Diarrhea of the mouth AND of the fingers!
LivAndLetLiv: EWWWWWWW!!
RubyToozday: BUT YOU LAUGHED I BET.
LivAndLetLiv: I DID NOT.
RubyToozday: YOU DID I SENSED IT I SENSED THE LAUGH THROUGH THE COMPUTER AND OUR FRIENDSHIP BOND.
RubyToozday: I mean. If we are still friends?
LivAndLetLiv: We are.
LivAndLetLiv: Real friends argue sometimes, right?
LivAndLetLiv: Yo Yo Yo tomorrow?
RubyToozday: Yo.
RubyToozday: By which I mean YES.
CHAPTER 29
OLIVIA
We met at Yo Yo Yo again, my mom dropping me off while she went to go do some shopping. I wasn’t sure if Ruby’s mom had taken her or if she’d ridden her bike, but she was already in the shop when I walked in the door, sitting at the same back table we’d chosen the last time we were there. She already had her cup of yogurt, and I could see the mound of sprinkles from where I stood.
I got my own cup and filled it with cookies-and-cream yogurt, a dollop of brownie batter, and finished it off with white chocolate cheesecake. Then I got a little scoop of every sugary topping they had, covered the whole thing in whipped cream and caramel sauce, and went to pay.
It was the most expensive yogurt I’d ever bought, but the look on Ruby’s face when I came to the table made it more than worth it.
“Respect,” she said solemnly, eyeing the monstrosity I’d concocted.
“I can’t eat all of this,” I told her, and she shook her head.
&nbs
p; “No, that’s really something you should just admire rather than eat,” Ruby agreed, and I laughed, sticking my spoon in anyway.
For a little while, we ate in silence. The last time we’d talked in person, we’d argued, and while we’d apologized for all that on chat, that had been typing, not talking. This felt different and a little weird.
Ruby finally sighed and set her neon-green spoon on the napkin by her nearly empty cup of yogurt. “This is awkward,” she said, and I felt kind of relieved.
“Super awkward,” I agreed, and Ruby sighed again.
“Can we maybe have a whole do-over on everything?” she asked. “Forget the rest of the summer and start fresh?”
I thought that over and, after a second, shook my head. “No, because sometimes friends argue. It’s over now, but we can’t pretend it didn’t happen. That’s . . . part of being friends.”
Ruby looked at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face before. It was almost . . . serious. When was Ruby Kaye ever serious?
“So we are friends,” she said at last, and I felt my cheeks go hot.
“Of course we are,” I said. “We’ve had yogurt and hunted ghosts together. What do you call that if not friendship?”
Ruby grinned. “One messed-up summer.”
That made me laugh, and I drew a little spiral in my whipped cream with the tip of my spoon. “It’s been that, too,” I agreed. “But it’s . . . I don’t know, it’s been fun. Scary and yeah, messed up, but . . . fun. Which is a weird thing to admit.”
Ruby gave a shrug, sitting back in her chair and picking up her spoon again. “Sometimes fun should be weird,” she said, and now she looked and sounded more like the Ruby I was used to.
“I feel like all your fun is weird,” I told her, and she made a fake-outraged sound.
That got me giggling again, and for a while, we sat there and talked about normal stuff—I told her about the fight with Em, and Ruby told me about cleaning out the boxes from her grandmother’s apartment, and that it hadn’t been as sad as she’d thought it would be.