Imaginary Girls(16)

She dropped her eyes back down to me and let her mouth perk up into a smile. “Forget the balloon,” she said. “You know . . . you could always take the bus.”

“The bus? How much would that cost?”

She let the smile have her whole face. “Don’t worry about that. You know the Trailways stops right on the Green.”

Maybe she’d lost her grip on everyone all around her, maybe the Ruby I remembered wasn’t the Ruby who was here now, but she had enough of an influence on me to make me sure. I would go. Balloon or bus or thumb out on the highway, I’d head home to her.

I didn’t know then that she hadn’t lost anything. Not me—and certainly not what she could do. It was only the physical distance. The farther she got from her blue mountains, down away from her green trees, the less she was herself. She couldn’t do anything she wanted, not like she was used to, not while she was all the way out here.

Back home, though—that would be another story.




That night, my dad wouldn’t budge, and my stepmom—not like we cared—backed him. On hearing the definitive decision, Ruby wouldn’t set foot in the house again. But she didn’t leave the state yet, either. She said she’d go when she was good and ready and how’d my dad like that?

All that happened that night was Ruby and I drove to the Wendy’s, then to the KFC, because there isn’t much in the way of dining options off Route 80 in Pennsylvania, and then we drove back to the camper to drink our milk shakes—we’d both ordered chocolate—plus spoon each other mouthfuls of mashed potatoes because we figured they were liquid enough to keep Ruby cleansed. We spent the night in the camper with the screens wide open, listening for mosquitoes instead of bees once the dark had fallen, and by morning she was gone: a wrinkle on the sheet and a long strand of hair, like I’d imagined her.

I wouldn’t have believed she’d come at all if I didn’t get this text:

  look under yr pillow xo





And there, under my pillow, like how all those years ago she’d snatch and reward my teeth, she’d left probably every cent she’d had in her purse: six twenties, two fives, eleven singles, seven quarters, ten dimes, one nickel, and twenty-seven pennies, totaling up to $144.07. Not enough to rent a hot-air balloon, but more than enough for a bus ticket home.





CHAPTER FOUR


  I WANTED


I wanted to skip the good-byes entirely. Skip all the hours of every night that came after, skip the entire three weeks.

Time sped up, calling me closer to Ruby, but it wouldn’t run fast enough. Back in my dad’s house, it felt like she’d never been there at all. She was a hazy vision in boots and jam-stained slip, guzzling down my bottle of juice. Only the wad of cash in my pocket let me know she’d come for real.

I wanted school to end so I could go. To skip the math final, the science final, the final count of all our sit-ups and pull-ups in gym.

I would have skipped the fight about my grades in the kitchen, definitely. The half-siblings—one boy, one girl—knocking on the door to my camper, asking why won’t I come inside the house to eat. The moment Jared did or didn’t call eventually and if I made like Ruby and tried not to care either way.

I’d skip the last night in the camper, propped up on cinder blocks, unable to sleep. Skip sneaking out over the fence the next morning.

Skip the longest bus ride of my life—please.

Skip all thoughts of London, or try to.

I would have, if I could have.

Far easier was avoiding thoughts of my mother, because who knew where she was spending her nights these days, and it’s not like I felt like calling to tell her I was coming home.

I landed in the Port Authority terminal in New York City, to change buses. That meant I was less than three hours from Ruby.

I wanted to skip the layover. The woman taking a bath in the sink. The hours spent in the basement level of the bus depot and the pretzel vendor who tried to grope me. The free pretzel when I threatened to scream.

Then the Lincoln Tunnel, which cuts through the Hudson River to escape the city. Skip the worries of being trapped in that tunnel, the gush of relief at seeing the light at the end.

Skip the entirety of New Jersey.

The New York State Thruway at night even though that’s the best time to drive it.

The familiar turn to exit 19.

The traffic circle, where Ruby once got pulled over and convinced the cop not to search her and then laughed maniacally when he let her go.