Lock and Key(109)

I looked at the display screen, which said CROSS, BLAKE. “You’re screening Mr. Cross?”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, dribbling some olive oil over the chicken and shaking the pan slightly. “I don’t want to. But he’s being really persistent about this investment thing, so . . .”

“What investment thing?”

He glanced up at me, as if not sure whether or not he wanted to expound on this. Then he said, “Well, you know. Blake’s kind of a wheeler-dealer. He’s always got some grand plan in the works.”

I thought of Mr. Cross that morning, practically stalking Jamie in the yard. “And he wants to do a deal with you?”

“Sort of,” he said, going over to the cabinet above the stove and opening it, then rummaging through the contents. After a minute, he pulled out a tall bottle of vinegar. “He says he wants to expand his business and is looking for silent partners, but really I think he’s just short on cash, like last time.”

I watched him add a splash of vinegar, then bend down and sniff the chicken before adding more. “So this has happened before.”

He nodded, capping the bottle. “Last year, a few months after we moved in. We had him over, you know, for a neighborly drink, and we got to talking. Next thing I know, I’m getting the whole epic saga about his hard financial luck— none of which was his fault, of course—and how he was about to turn it all around with this new venture. Which turned out to be the errand-running thing.”

Roscoe came out of the laundry room, where he’d been enjoying one of his many daily naps. Seeing us, he yawned, then headed for the dog door, vaulting himself through it, and it shut with a thwack behind him.

“Did you see that? ” Jamie said, smiling. “Change is possible! ”

I nodded. “It is impressive.”

We both watched Roscoe go out into the yard and lift his leg against a tree, relieving himself. Never had a simple act resulted in such pride. “Anyway,” Jamie said, “in the end I gave him a check, bought in a bit to the business. It wasn’t that much, really, but when your sister found out, she hit the roof.”

“Cora did?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “She’s been off him from the start, for some reason. She claims it’s because he always talks about money, but my uncle Ronald does that, too, and him she loves. So go figure.”

I didn’t have to, though. In fact, I was pretty sure I knew exactly why Cora didn’t like Mr. Cross, even if she herself couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Anyway,” Jamie said, “now Blake’s scrambling again, I guess. He’s been hounding me about this new billing idea and the money ever since Thanksgiving, when I asked him about borrowing his oven. I keep putting him off, but man, he’s tenacious. I guess he figures since I’m a sucker, he can pull me in again.”

I had a flash of Olivia on the curb, using this same word. “You’re not a sucker. You’re just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.”

“Usually to my detriment,” he said as the phone rang again. We both looked at it: CROSS, BLAKE. The message light was already beeping. “However,” he continued, “other times, people even surpass my expectations. Like you, for instance.”

“Does this mean you’re going to give me a check?” I asked.

“No,” he said flatly. I smiled. “But I am proud of you, Ruby. You’ve come a long way.”

Later, up in my room, I kept thinking about this, the idea of distance and accomplishment. The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. In the end, though, maybe it’s not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

Middle-school girls, I had learned, moved in packs. If you saw them coming, the best thing to do was step aside and save yourself.

“Look, you guys! These are the ones I was telling you about!” a brown-haired girl wearing all pink, clearly the leader of this particular group, said as they swarmed the kiosk, going straight for the KeyChains. “Oh my God. My brother’s girlfriend has this one, with the pink stones. Isn’t it great?”

“I like the diamond one,” a chubby blonde in what looked like leather pants said. “It’s the prettiest.”

“That’s not a diamond,” the girl in pink told her as their two friends—twins, by the look of their matching red hair and similar features—moved down to the bracelets. “Otherwise, it would be, like, a million dollars.”

“It’s diamonelle,” Harriet corrected her, “and very reasonably priced at twenty-five.”

“Personally,” the brunette said, draping the pink-stoned one across her V-necked sweater, “I like the plain silver. It’s classic, befitting my new, more streamlined, eco-chic look.”

“Eco-chic?” I said.

“Environmentally friendly,” the girl explained. “Green? You know, natural metals, non-conflict stones, minimal but with big impact? All the celebrities are doing it. Don’t you read Vogue?”

“No,” I told her.

She shrugged, taking off the necklace, then moved down the kiosk to her friends, who were now gathered around the rings, quickly dismantling the display I’d just spent a good twenty minutes organizing. “You would think,” I said to Harriet as we watched them take rings on and off, “that they could at least try to put them back. Or pretend to.”