Imaginary Girls(24)

“I don’t know,” London said at last, her voice faint. “I don’t remember.”

Something was going on here, something between this girl who’d come back to life and my sister, who’d maybe possibly had a hand in it, and I couldn’t figure out what.

“Hey,” Pete called out, dumb to the world as usual, “is everyone high but me?”

Ruby tore her eyes from London. “Yes,” she said, “everyone but you.”

Pete looked down at his feet, crushed. It was so easy to hurt him.

“Oh, Petey,” Ruby said, softening, “c’mere.” She pulled him into a hug for a few lingering seconds. When she pushed him away, he seemed placated, so caught up in the moment and in her that I thought he might keel over—and then she did him one better.

“I have one hit left,” she told him sweetly. “And I’m warning you, Pete—Petey, look at me so I can talk to you—I’m warning you . . . you’ve never had anything like this. You might not know where you are when you come out of it. You might lose your head.”

She had him. “You don’t want it?” he said. “You sure?”

She nodded.

Pete’s eyes widened in anticipation as she slipped a hand into one of the small pockets sewn at the hips of her sundress. The pockets were triangular, meant for decoration. They could hold maybe a stick of gum if it was folded in half, or one key, if it was a small key for a small lock. But she took her time rummaging through that pocket as if it sunk deep down the length of her leg.

Then she pulled out her hand, keeping the treasure hidden from sight in a closed fist. “I guess you can have it,” she told Pete.

“Awesome,” Pete said, though as far as he knew it was a pill of lint.

Ruby pulled the fist close to her ribs as if considering keeping whatever it was for herself. But then she smiled.

“All right, Pete. Here you go.”

He opened his mouth and dangled a flabby pink tongue. Ruby, ever so careful not to touch the tongue, dropped the pill onto it and told him to close his mouth. He did, and swallowed. Then he hacked up lung for a minute and swallowed some more.

He was so trusting, so simple when it came to my sister. He’d do whatever she wanted, always had. Pete was the only one here acting like himself.

“Tastes sort of . . . chalky,” he said once he got it down. “What was that?”

“You’ll see,” Ruby chimed out. “Go over there, Petey”—she was pointing at a rusted bulldozer parked away from the fire, so far off that the flickering light barely reached—“put your head back and close your eyes. Wait a while. Think happy thoughts. Open your eyes. Then you’ll see.”

“Sweet,” Pete said, and stumbled off into the dark to follow her instructions.

Ruby sighed. “Sometimes I have to distract him.”

I motioned at the bulldozer. “Think he’ll be all right?”

“Do we care?” Ruby said.

“No,” I admitted. “Not really. But what’d you give him?”

She pulled it out of her tiny pocket: the leftover rind from a roll of foil-wrapped Tums. “For desperate situations,” she said, “and dire emergencies.”

And we laughed, knowing Pete was exiled at the bulldozer, eyes sealed shut, waiting for a thrill ride he wouldn’t get on any antacid. Laughed, seeing the deep night filled with fireflies and fire smoke. Knowing it was our night, and I was back now where I belonged, we laughed and kept laughing.

I didn’t know why I was laughing, but I couldn’t stop.

We laughed at everyone down in the gravel pit. Laughed that the keg was already empty. Laughed at the whole show Ruby had arranged for my first night home. Laughed the way we used to, for no reason and every possible reason, Ruby and me.

It was here that I realized someone else was still with us, and she wasn’t making a sound. London wasn’t laughing or even smiling, but she drifted at the edge of our small circle, like she wanted us to make some room so she could come in.

She was the hot center spot in a lightbulb; when looked at directly, she burned. And even when I turned away, I couldn’t not-see her. She was etched onto the backs of my eyelids, there undeniably if I could face it or not.

Ruby was talking to her, asking if she was tired, asking if she wanted to go home.

And all at once London was yawning, as if on command, lifting a hand to cover her gaping mouth. “What time is it?” she mumbled.