Imaginary Girls(51)

“And O,” I said. “Owen’s here, too.” His face was unreadable as I confessed him being there; I couldn’t tell if he wanted her to know or not.

There was a long beat of silence on the other end of the line as she took this in. She could have yelled, and everyone would have heard, and I would have been mortified. But she saved her true response to that for later.

“I see,” she said. “So what’re you doing that’s so interesting you lost track of time and couldn’t text your sister even though I know you have a clock on that cell phone?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Where are you then, doing this nothing?”

“Just”—I eyed London and her friends—“no place really.”

“Are you at the reservoir?”

“Why would you think that? No, we’re not at the reservoir.”

“You sure?”

“I swear.”

Everyone was looking at me now. “We were in the cemetery,” I whispered. I walked away to the fence.

“Okay,” she said. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised.

“The old cemetery.”

And, here, before I had the question on my tongue, she was saying, “The one that used to be in Olive. My favorite one.”

“So you knew about that?”

“Sure. Parts of Olive got moved before the water was flooded in. Roads got rerouted, and some houses were picked up and stuck somewhere else, and then there were the cemeteries and what they did with them . . . I’m sure I told you before. What did you think, all this time we were swimming on people’s graves?”

“I—I don’t know.” The way she’d told it, maybe I had thought that.

“Oh no,” she said. “All the graveyards were relocated first. Sometimes people did their own families, and could you imagine? One of us having to dig up our mother?”

“No,” I said. I couldn’t—didn’t want to—imagine that.

“So you were in the graveyard,” she said. “I’m glad you two stayed in town like I told you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But when I was up there . . . I saw . . . the mayor.”

“What do you mean you saw him?”

I turned and caught everyone still eyeing me. They couldn’t know what we were talking about. Maybe they thought I was inviting Ruby here, or that Ruby was inviting herself. Their eyes said something I couldn’t quite decipher because none of them were Ruby and I wasn’t used to reading anyone’s eyes but Ruby’s. Something about . . . about how I should try to keep Ruby from coming if I could.

“Ruby?” I said into the phone.

“Don’t worry, Chlo. I know what you’re thinking, and stop it. I don’t want you scared. Because there’s nothing here that could hurt you. I made sure.”

Just hearing her say that made me think she’d once thought something here could. Hurt me. That this had been a real and viable worry in her mind and, without warning me first, she went ahead and found a way to be certain it couldn’t.

“Is Lon still there with you?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re keeping an eye on her like I asked?”

“Yeah,” I said, immediately annoyed. “I’m looking at her right now. She’s fine.”

“At least there’s that,” Ruby said. “As for you, Chlo, we’ll talk later, after London drives you home. Your curfew is midnight. I’ve never believed in curfews for myself—like I would’ve listened if our mother gave me one.” She laughed, sharply, and I held the phone away from my ear as she did. “But,” she went on, and I pulled the phone back, “I’ve decided I now believe in curfews for you. Midnight.” And at that she cut the line.

I turned around to face everyone. “I have to be home by midnight, London.”

“No problem,” she said. “Ruby knows I’ll drive you.”

London took a step forward now, like she’d been voted the one to speak.

“So,” London said, as I walked closer, “does that mean Ruby’s not coming?” She suddenly looked so fragile, as if I could knock her over into the dark, damp grass with the tap of a finger and she wouldn’t have the strength to pull herself back up.

“She’s not coming,” I said.

“Sweet,” Laurence said.