Imaginary Girls(11)

They were like any two people I might pass in the halls at school. One boy, one girl. You see them and wave. Maybe you have on the same color sweater and you’re like, “Hey, look. We’re wearing the same color sweater.” But there’s nothing else to be said beyond that, so you each keep moving. You know you’d barely give it a thought if you never saw them again.

This is how I know blood is meaningless; family connections are a lot like old gum—you don’t have to keep chewing. You can always spit it out and stick it under the table. You can walk away.

Ruby was my sister, but she was so much more than that. She loved me. She loved me more than anyone else in the whole entire world loved me. More than Mom, more than Dad. More than friends. More than any guy ever had, because no guy had. No matter how far apart we’d been these past two years, there was no question she did.

My stepmom cleared her throat. She did things like that, she had to, or else I’d forget she was there. “Are you sure you want to go away with this Ruby?” she said.

“Ruby is my sister,” I said. “She practically raised me.”

“Well, this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.”

I didn’t feel like explaining how Ruby never left the state of New York, let alone the confines of our wooded county. Mostly she stayed in our town, where everyone knew her, where all you had to do was say her name and anyone in hearing distance would snap to attention, wondering if she’d been sighted around the corner and was coming this way.

Not just the boys but the girls, too. Did Ruby like this song? Then everyone had to hear it. Had Ruby worn this jacket? Then everyone wanted to slip arms into its sleeves.

Back at home, I got used to people knowing about Ruby, peppering me with questions about her, saying how this one time they talked to Ruby about really old French movies and did she say anything about it, do you think she likes Godard? How Ruby pumped their gas last Tuesday; how Ruby bummed their smokes, but they didn’t mind; how years and years ago Ruby saw them play live at the old Rhinecliff hotel, and how, after the show, they let her bang away at their drums.

Pennsylvania was a strange state. No one knew who Ruby was.

“It’s odd that she didn’t visit all this time and now here she is,” my stepmom said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. But that’s Ruby.”

“We invited her for Christmas and she didn’t come.”

“She doesn’t like Christmas. She says it’s too obvious. Plus she hates all the red together with the green.”

“Besides the fact that she never calls . . .”

“Ruby has this thing with her ear. Telephones make it buzz. I don’t mind if she texts instead of calls. I know all about her ear.”

Defending her came naturally. Usually no one asked such questions about Ruby, but I guess I had some answers lying in wait in case they did.

My stepmom, though, wouldn’t let it go. “All of a sudden she drives out here, without warning, lands on our doorstep, wearing . . . I’m sorry, but was that a nightie? Did she even bother to get dressed this morning? And then she marches in to tell your father she’s taking you with her. Just like that?”

“Yup. Like I said, that’s Ruby.”

“Did she even ask if you wanted to go?” my stepmom said, pushing.

(She hadn’t.)

“Didn’t she think there was a reason you came to live with us in the first place?”

(There was . . . but what was it?)

“And why now? Why today?”

(I hadn’t asked Ruby that, either.)

“Chloe?”

Ruby wasn’t here to tell me what to say or remind me of what I wanted. Maybe she should have coached me before going in to talk to my dad.

All I knew is she’d landed in Pennsylvania so suddenly—appearing in my camper, hoodie sweatshirt on over summer negligee, a new freckle I didn’t recognize on her nose, the pink sunglasses I’d stolen and she’d stolen back perched on her forehead, standing there sucking down the bottle of tropical fruit punch she’d found in my minifridge—and I hadn’t had a chance to decide how I felt about it.

If I wanted to go with her.

If I was allowed to go, if I even would.

But, before I had a chance to answer, Ruby emerged from my dad’s office. This was down in the basement of the house, wood-paneled and lit with dim, dull bulbs so it looked like we were lost in an alien forest, walled in on all sides by flattened trees.