Lock and Key (41 page)

At that point, we didn’t even know if my mom would stay in the program at all, as she hadn’t exactly gone willingly. Once they resuscitated her at the hospital, the police found some outstanding bad-check warrants, so she’d had to choose: rehab or jail. I would have had more faith if she’d gone of her own accord. But at least she was there.

Nothing’s going to change,
Jamie had said that day, but I’d known even then this wasn’t true. My mother had always been the point that I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she’d been gone, I felt like I’d been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn’t. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I’d left behind.

The fact that this had all happened so soon after Nate and I had fallen out of touch seemed ironic, to say the least. At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn’t capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

As the days passed, I tried to forget about my mom, the way I’d managed to do before, but it was harder now. This was partly because she wasn’t lost anymore, but there was also the fact that everywhere I went—school, work, just walking down the street—I saw people wearing Harriet’s KeyChains, each one sparkling and pretty, a visible reminder of this, my new life. But the original was there as well—more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side.

Chapter Sixteen

“So basically,” Olivia said, “you dig a hole and fill it with water, then throw in some fish.”

“No,” I said. “First, you have to install a pump system and a skimmer. And bring in rocks and plants, and do something to guard it against birds, who want to eat the fish. And that’s not even counting all the water treatments and algae prevention.”

She considered this as she leaned forward, peering down into the pond. “Well,” she said, “to me, that seems like a lot of trouble. Especially for something you can’t even swim in.”

Olivia and I were taking a study break from working on our English projects, ostensibly so I could introduce to her to Jamie, who’d been out puttering around the pond, the way he always did on Saturday mornings. When we’d come out, though, he’d been called over to the fence by Mr. Cross, and now, fifteen minutes later, they were still deep in discussion. Judging by the way Jamie kept inching closer to us, bit by bit—as well as the fact that Nate’s dad seemed to be doing all the talking—I had a feeling he was trying to extricate himself, although he’d had little luck thus far.

“Then again,” Olivia said, sitting back down on the bench, “with a spread like this, you could have a pond
and
a pool, if you wanted.”

“True,” I agreed. “But it might be overkill.”

“Not in this neighborhood,” she said. “I mean, honestly. Did you see those boulders when you come in? What is this supposed to be, Stonehenge?”

I smiled. Over by the fence, Jamie took another step backward, nodding in that all-right-then-see-you-later kind of way. Mr. Cross, not getting the hint—or maybe just choosing not to—came closer, bridging the gap again.

“You know, he looks familiar,” Olivia said, nodding toward them.

“That’s Nate’s dad,” I told her.

“No, I meant your brother-in-law. I swear, I’ve seen him somewhere.”

“He donated some soccer fields to Perkins,” I told her.

“Maybe that’s it,” she said. Still, she kept her eyes on them as she said, “So Nate lives right there, huh?”

“I told you we were neighbors.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t realize he was right behind you, only a few feet away. Must make this stalemate—or breakup— you two are in the midst of that much harder.”

“It’s not a stalemate,” I told her. “Or a breakup.”

“So you just went from basically hanging out constantly, pretty much on the verge of dating, to not speaking and totally ignoring each other for no reason,” she said. “Yeah.
That
makes sense.”

“Do we have to talk about this?” I asked as Jamie took another definitive step backward from Mr. Cross, lifting his hand. Mr. Cross was still talking, although this time he stayed where he was.

“You know,” Olivia said, “it’s pretty rare to find someone you actually
like
to be with in this world. There are a lot of annoying people out there.”

“Really? ”

She made a face at me. “My point is, clearly you two had something. So maybe you should think about going to a little trouble to work this out, whatever it is.”

“Look,” I said, “you said yourself that relationships only work when there’s an understanding about the limits. We didn’t have that. So now we don’t have a relationship.”

She considered this for a moment. “Nice,” she said. “I especially like how you explained that without actually telling me anything.”

“The bottom line is that I just get where you’re coming from now, okay?” I said. “You don’t want to waste your time on anything or anyone you don’t believe in, and neither do I.”

“You think that’s how I am?” she asked.

“Are you saying it’s not?”

Jamie was crossing the yard to us, finally free. He lifted a hand, waving hello. “I’m not saying anything,” Olivia replied, leaning back again and shaking her head. “Nothing at all.”

“Ladies,” Jamie said, ever the happy host as he came up to the bench. “Enjoying the pond?”

“It’s very nice,” Olivia said politely. “I like the skimmer.”

I just looked at her, but Jamie, of course, beamed. “Jamie, this is my friend Olivia,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand.

They shook, and then he crouched down at the edge of the pond, reaching his hand down into the water. As he scooped some up, letting it run over his fingers, Olivia suddenly gasped. “Oh my God. I know where I know you from!” she said. “You’re the UMe guy!”

Jamie looked at her, then at me. “Um,” he said. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“You recognize him from UMe?” I asked.

“Hello, he’s only on the new sign-in page, which I see, like, ten million times a day,” she said. She shook her head, clearly still in shock. “Man, I can’t believe this. And Ruby never even said anything.”

“Well, you know,” Jamie said, pushing himself back to his feet, “Ruby is not easily impressed.”

Unlike Olivia, who now, as I watched, incredulous, began to actually gush. “Your site,” she said to Jamie, putting a hand to her chest, “saved my
life
when I had to switch schools.”

“Yeah?” Jamie said, obviously pleased.

“Totally. I spent every lunch in the library on my UMe page messaging with my old friends. And, of course, all night, too.” She sighed, wistful. “It was, like, my only connection with them.”

“You still had your phone,” I pointed out.

“I can check my page on that, too!” To Jamie she said, “Nice application, by the way. Very user friendly.”

“You think? We’ve had some complaints.”

“Oh, please.” Olivia flipped her hand. “It’s easy. Now, the friends system?
That
needs work. I hate it.”

“You do?” Jamie said. “Why?”

“Well,” she said, “for starters, there’s no way to search through them easily. So if you have a lot, and you want to reorganize, you have to just keep scrolling, which takes forever.”

I thought of my own
UMe.com
page, untouched all these months. “How many friends do you have, anyway?” I asked her.

“A couple of thousand,” she replied. I just looked at her. “What? Online, I’m popular.”

“Obviously,” I said.

Later, when Olivia had gone—taking with her a promotional UMe.Com messenger bag packed with
UMe.com
stickers and T-shirts—I found Jamie in the kitchen, marinating some chicken for dinner. As I came in, the phone began to ring: I went to grab it, but after glancing at the caller ID, he shook his head. “Just let the voice mail get it.”

I looked at the display screen, which said CROSS, BLAKE. “You’re screening Mr. Cross?”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, dribbling some olive oil over the chicken and shaking the pan slightly. “I don’t want to. But he’s being really persistent about this investment thing, so . . .”

“What investment thing?”

He glanced up at me, as if not sure whether or not he wanted to expound on this. Then he said, “Well, you know. Blake’s kind of a wheeler-dealer. He’s always got some grand plan in the works.”

I thought of Mr. Cross that morning, practically stalking Jamie in the yard. “And he wants to do a deal with you?”

“Sort of,” he said, going over to the cabinet above the stove and opening it, then rummaging through the contents. After a minute, he pulled out a tall bottle of vinegar. “He says he wants to expand his business and is looking for silent partners, but really I think he’s just short on cash, like last time.”

I watched him add a splash of vinegar, then bend down and sniff the chicken before adding more. “So this has happened before.”

He nodded, capping the bottle. “Last year, a few months after we moved in. We had him over, you know, for a neighborly drink, and we got to talking. Next thing I know, I’m getting the whole epic saga about his hard financial luck— none of which was his fault, of course—and how he was about to turn it all around with this new venture. Which turned out to be the errand-running thing.”

Roscoe came out of the laundry room, where he’d been enjoying one of his many daily naps. Seeing us, he yawned, then headed for the dog door, vaulting himself through it, and it shut with a
thwack
behind him.

“Did you see that? ” Jamie said, smiling. “Change is possible! ”

I nodded. “It is impressive.”

We both watched Roscoe go out into the yard and lift his leg against a tree, relieving himself. Never had a simple act resulted in such pride. “Anyway,” Jamie said, “in the end I gave him a check, bought in a bit to the business. It wasn’t that much, really, but when your sister found out, she hit the roof.”

“Cora did?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “She’s been off him from the start, for some reason. She claims it’s because he always talks about money, but my uncle Ronald does that, too, and him she loves. So go figure.”

I didn’t have to, though. In fact, I was pretty sure I knew exactly why Cora didn’t like Mr. Cross, even if she herself couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Anyway,” Jamie said, “now Blake’s scrambling again, I guess. He’s been hounding me about this new billing idea and the money ever since Thanksgiving, when I asked him about borrowing his oven. I keep putting him off, but man, he’s tenacious. I guess he figures since I’m a sucker, he can pull me in again.”

I had a flash of Olivia on the curb, using this same word. “You’re not a sucker. You’re just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.”

“Usually to my detriment,” he said as the phone rang again. We both looked at it: CROSS, BLAKE. The message light was already beeping. “However,” he continued, “other times, people even surpass my expectations. Like you, for instance.”

“Does this mean you’re going to give me a check?” I asked.

“No,” he said flatly. I smiled. “But I am proud of you, Ruby. You’ve come a long way.”

Later, up in my room, I kept thinking about this, the idea of distance and accomplishment. The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. In the end, though, maybe it’s not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

Middle-school girls, I had learned, moved in packs. If you saw them coming, the best thing to do was step aside and save yourself.

“Look, you guys! These are the ones I was telling you about!” a brown-haired girl wearing all pink, clearly the leader of this particular group, said as they swarmed the kiosk, going straight for the KeyChains. “Oh my God. My brother’s girlfriend has this one, with the pink stones. Isn’t it great?”

“I like the diamond one,” a chubby blonde in what looked like leather pants said. “It’s the prettiest.”

“That’s not a diamond,” the girl in pink told her as their two friends—twins, by the look of their matching red hair and similar features—moved down to the bracelets. “Otherwise, it would be, like, a million dollars.”

“It’s diamonelle,” Harriet corrected her, “and very reasonably priced at twenty-five.”

“Personally,” the brunette said, draping the pink-stoned one across her V-necked sweater, “I like the plain silver. It’s classic, befitting my new, more streamlined, eco-chic look.”

“Eco-chic?” I said.

“Environmentally friendly,” the girl explained. “Green? You know, natural metals, non-conflict stones, minimal but with big impact? All the celebrities are doing it. Don’t you read
Vogue
?”

“No,” I told her.

She shrugged, taking off the necklace, then moved down the kiosk to her friends, who were now gathered around the rings, quickly dismantling the display I’d just spent a good twenty minutes organizing. “You would think,” I said to Harriet as we watched them take rings on and off, “that they could at least try to put them back. Or pretend to.”

“Oh, let them make a mess,” she said. “It’s not that big a deal cleaning it up.”

“Says the person who doesn’t have to do it.”

She raised her eyebrows at me, walking over to take her coffee off the register. “Okay,” she said slowly. “You’re in a bad mood. What gives?”

“I’m sorry,” I said as the girls finally moved on, leaving rings scattered across the counter behind them. I went over and began to put them away. “I think I’m just stressed or something.”