Imaginary Girls(20)

Ruby was near—somewhere. I could sense her in the dark.

I reached the bottom of the pit and looked up at the other slope, a gleaming red crest in the night to show where the bonfire was burning, and where I’d find her.

Waiting for me.

Waiting to hear about the cold shoulder I gave the state of Pennsylvania. She’d ask, I’d tell, we’d be in sync again, and then the summer would get started, picking up where we left off two years ago, on a warm night like this one, before it all went so wrong.

I was almost up to the top of the other slope when someone stopped me. A hand drawn closed around my ankle. Pulling me down.

“Chloe! I heard you’d be here!” some girl said. She was stretched out on the gravel slope with a few of her friends, and I guess we knew each other, or used to. Then other girls were there, and guys, and remember-this and rememberthat, and was I living with Ruby now? and really? and wow and, hey, did I want a beer?

My pocket buzzed. Ruby again. ur here!

She was somewhere in the dark—she could see me, but I couldn’t see her.

Then another text: im SO thirsty

And one more: meet me up at the keg xo

Which was strange, because she didn’t exactly like beer—it fizzed. And maybe this should have been my first clue that she’d set me up. I should have known meeting her here had nothing to do with some party, because Ruby didn’t care about showing her face at parties, even her own.

But all I could focus on was finding that keg in the dark, and, as I did, climbing over the people sprawled out on the slopes, trying not to step on anyone’s hand.

It was up at the keg that my eyes finally adjusted to the low light. I could see where we were: either an old construction site or a place where gravel was stored. There was a crane in the distance, blocked off by stacks of concrete slabs. The air was thick with dust, brushed up by all these trespassing feet. The trees, they were everywhere around us, and the mountains, they were out there in the dark, pale imitations of the ones found in day.

I could see clearly, and then I couldn’t.

It felt like I was looking up at the surface from deep below. I was down under, and getting sucked deeper, covered in bubbles from all my thrashing, lungs blowing up tight with unbreathed air. So familiar, like I’d been there before.

Time pooled around me, spun me in a washer, jerked to a stop. And I was back here, as if it hadn’t happened. I was here.

And so, it turned out, was she.

“Hey, Chloe,” she said. “Long time no see.”

She was at the nozzle, controlling the flow of beer. I could see her hand holding the plastic cup she was filling, red plastic, the foam rising, white foam, the cup tilting to sift the foam, the hand holding it, the five fingernails on her hand.

“Take it,” she said, passing me the red cup. “There’s not too much left in the keg anyway, so you may as well or the guys’ll hog it.”

She wasn’t who I expected to find—not now, not here.

But I didn’t say that. I took the cup, put the cup to my lips. Opened the lips. Held out the tongue. Tipped the cup back. Took one swallow.

“See you later?” she said.

“Yeah.” That’s all I said, all I could say. Because the girl who was talking to me wasn’t a girl I thought I’d ever be talking to again.

Was I even at this quarry? Standing at the edge of this gravel pit? Holding this cup?

I’d turned away, taken a step in some direction, because I wasn’t beside the keg anymore and now two familiar arms were around me, a familiar voice in my ear.

“Chlo! You’re here!” Ruby cried. She pulled back to take a look at me.

I must have been making a peculiar face because she laughed and snatched the cup from my hands and poured out the rest of my beer. “What are you doing!” she said. “You hate fizz.”

Ruby looked just as I remembered, as she had three weeks ago, but she was a stranger to me all of a sudden, red-eyed in the firelight, weird.

“That’s—” I choked out. “That’s—” I pointed toward the keg. I couldn’t get control of my mouth to make it say the name.

“Pabst,” she said. “Tastes like puke before you’ve puked it, I know. Don’t worry, you don’t have to drink it.”

“No, no. Not the beer.”

“Oh no, that bus ride was worse than you texted, wasn’t it? Did you really almost crash? Did you get lost on the thruway? Did you hit like a whole herd of deer?”