Lock and Key(40)

“. . . okay, you know?” the blonde was saying. “You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it’ll happen.”

“Denise,” the brunette said. She shook her head, taking a sip of her wine. “That’s not helpful. You’re making it sound like it’s her fault or something.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Denise said. “All I’m saying is that you have plenty of time. I mean, it seems like just yesterday when we were all so relieved to get our periods when we were late. Remember?”

The brunette shot her a look. “The point is,” she said, turning back to whoever they were speaking to, “that you’re doing everything right: charting your cycle, taking your temperature, all that. So it’s really frustrating when it doesn’t happen when you want it to. But you’ve only just started this whole process, and there are a lot of ways to get pregnant these days. You know?”

I was moving away from the door, having realized this conversation was more than private, even before both women stepped back and I saw my sister walk out of her bathroom, nodding and wiping her eyes. Before she could see me, I flattened myself against the wall by the stairs, holding my breath as I tried to process this information. Cora wanted a baby? Clearly, her job and marital status weren’t the only things that had changed in the years we’d been apart.

I could hear them still talking, their voices growing louder as they came toward the door. Just before they got to me, I pushed myself back up on the landing, as if I was just coming up the stairs, almost colliding with the blonde in the process.

“Oh!” She gasped, her hand flying up to her chest. “You scared me . . . I didn’t see you there.”

I glanced past them at Cora, who was watching me with a guarded expression, as if wondering what, if anything, I’d heard. Closer up, I could see her eyes were red-rimmed, despite the makeup she’d clearly just reapplied in an effort to make it seem otherwise. “This is Ruby,” she said. “My sister. Ruby, this is Denise and Charlotte.”

“Hi,” I said. They were both studying me intently, and I wondered how much of our story they’d actually been told.

“It’s so nice to meet you!” Denise said, breaking into a big smile. “I can see the family resemblance, I have to say!”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Excuse Denise,” she said to me. “She feels like she always has to say something, even when it’s completely inane.”

“How is that inane?” Denise asked.

“Because they don’t look a thing alike?” Charlotte replied.

Denise looked at me again. “Maybe not hair color,” she said. “Or complexion. But in the face, around the eyes . . . you can’t see that?”

“No,” Charlotte told her, taking another sip of her wine. After swallowing, she added, “No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” Cora said, steering them both out of the doorway and down the stairs. “Now go eat, you guys. Jamie bought enough barbecue to feed an army, and it’s getting cold.”

“You coming?” Charlotte asked her as Denise started down to the foyer, her ponytail bobbing with each step.

“In a minute.”

Cora and I both stood there, watching them as they made their way downstairs, already bickering about something else as they disappeared into the kitchen. “They were my suitemates in college,” she said to me. “The first week I thought they hated each other. Turned out it was the opposite. They’ve been best friends since they were five.”

“Really,” I said, peering down into the kitchen, where I could now see Charlotte and Denise working their way through the crowd, saying hello as they went.

“You know what they say. Opposites attract.”

I nodded, and for a moment we both just looked down at the party. I could see Jamie now, out in the backyard, standing by a stretch of darkness that I assumed was the pond.

“So,” Cora said suddenly, “how was the mall?”

“Good,” I said. Then, as it was clear she was waiting for more detail, I added, “I got some good stuff. And a job, actually.”

“A job?”

I nodded. “At this jewelry place.”

“Ruby, I don’t know.” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back against the rail behind her. “I think you should just be focusing on school for the time being.”

“It’s only fifteen hours a week, if that,” I told her. “And I’m used to working.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said. “But Perkins Day is more rigorous, academically, than you’re used to. I saw your transcripts. If you want to go to college, you really need to make your grades and your applications the number one priority.”

College? I thought. “I can do both,” I said.

“You don’t have to, though. That’s just the point.” She shook her head. “When I was in high school, I was working thirty-hour weeks—I had no choice. You do.”

“This isn’t thirty hours,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me, making it clear I just wasn’t getting what she was saying. “Ruby, we want to do this for you, okay? You don’t have to make things harder than they have to be just to prove a point.”