Lock and Key(106)

There was still a lot of the year to go, though, which I reminded myself was a good thing whenever I surveyed what I had done so far on my English project. One day, in a burst of organization I’d hoped would lead to inspiration, I’d spread out everything I had on the desk in my room: stacks of notes, Post-its with quotes stuck up on the wall above, the books I’d used as research—pages marked—piled on either side. Lately, after dinner or when I wasn’t working, I’d sit down and go through it bit by bit waiting for that spark.

So far, no luck. In fact, the only thing that ever made me feel somewhat close was the picture of Jamie’s family, which I’d taken from the kitchen and tacked up on the wall, right at eye level. I’d spent hours, it felt like, sitting there looking over each individual face, as if one of them might suddenly have what I was searching for. What is family? For me, right then, it was one person who’d left me, and two I would have to leave soon. Maybe this was an answer. But it wasn’t the right one. Of that, I was sure.

Now, I heard Harriet call my name, jerking me back to the mall, and the present. When I looked up, she was waving me over to the kiosk, where she was standing with the reporter.

“This is my assistant, Ruby Cooper,” she said to the reporter as I walked up. “She had on that necklace the day I hired her, and it was my inspiration.”

As both the photographer and the reporter immediately turned their attention to my key, I fought not to reach up and cover it, digging my hands into my pockets instead. “Interesting,” the reporter said, making a note on her pad. “And what was your inspiration, Ruby? What compelled you to start wearing your key like that?”

Talk about being put on the spot. “I . . . I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just got tired of always losing it.”

The reporter wrote this down, then glanced at the photographer, who was still snapping some shots of the necklaces. “I think that ought to do it,” she said to Harriet. “Thanks for your time.”

“Thank you,” Harriet said. When they’d walked away, she whirled around to face me. “Oh my God. I was a nervous wreck. You think I did all right?”

“You were great,” I told her.

“Better than,” Reggie added. “Cool as a cuke.”

Harriet sat down on her stool, wiping a hand over her face. “They said it will probably run on Sunday, which would be huge. Can you imagine if this gives us an even bigger boost? I can barely keep up with orders as it is.”

This was typical Harriet. Even the good stuff meant worrying. “You’ll do fine,” Reggie said. “You have good help.”

“Oh, I know,” Harriet said, smiling at me. “It’s just . . . a little overwhelming, is all. But I guess I can get Rest Assured to do more, too. Blake’s been pushing me to do that anyway. You know, shipping, handling some of the Web site stuff, all that. . . .”

“Just try to enjoy this right now,” Reggie told her. “It’s a good thing.”

I could understand where Harriet was coming from, though. Whenever something great happens, you’re always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself. Good begets bad, something lost leads to found, and on and on. But even knowing this, I was surprised when I came home later that afternoon to find Cora and Jamie sitting at the kitchen table, the phone between them. As they both turned to look at me, right away I knew something was wrong.

“Ruby,” Cora said. Her voice was soft. Sad. “It’s about Mom.”

My mother was not in Florida. She was not on a boat with Warner or soaking up sun or waiting tables in a beachside pancake joint. She was in a rehab clinic, where she’d ended up two weeks earlier after being found unconscious by a maid in the hotel where she’d been living in Tennessee.

At first, I was sure she was dead. So sure, in fact, that as Cora began to explain all this, I felt like my own heart stopped, only beating again once these few words—hotel, unconscious, rehab, Tennessee—unscrambled themselves in my mind. When she was done, the only thing I could say was, “She’s okay?”

Cora glanced at Jamie, then back at me. “She’s in treatment, ” she said. “She has a long way to go. But yes, she’s okay.”

It should have made me feel better now that I knew where she was, that she was safe. At the same time, the thought of her in a hospital, locked up, gave me a weird, shaky feeling in my stomach, and I made myself take in a breath. “Was she alone?” I asked.

“What?” Cora said.

“When they found her. Was she alone?”

She nodded. “Was . . . Should someone have been with her? ”

Yes, I thought. Me. I felt a lump rise up in my throat, sudden and throbbing. “No,” I said. “I mean, she had a boyfriend when she left.”

She and Jamie exchanged another look, and I had a flash of the last time I’d come back to find them waiting for me in this same place. Then, I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and seen my mother, or at least some part of her—bedraggled, half-drunk, messed up. But at least someone had been expecting me. No one was picking up my mom from the side of the road, getting her home safe. It was probably only coincidence—a maid’s schedule, one room, one day—that got her found in time.

And now she was found, no longer lost. Like a bag I’d given up for good suddenly reappearing in the middle of the night on my doorstep, packed for a journey I’d long ago forgotten. It was odd, considering I’d gotten accustomed to her being nowhere and anywhere, to finally know where my mother was. An exact location, pinpointed. Like she’d crossed over from my imagination, where I’d created a million lives for her, back into this one.