A Little Friendly Advice (19 page)

The party is an enormous success. About fifty kids show up in costume, ready to dance, drink, and have a good time. Sure, a few of the boys come in plastic superhero masks made for little kids, but most people have gone all out. It’s almost like how a teen party looks in the movies, except it’s real. I walk around and take a few pictures, but mostly I’m just holding the camera up to my face so no one will talk to me.

The clock ticks away the night. With each passing hour, I grow more and more anxious about Jim. I thought Beth would be feeling nervous and worked up too, but she doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. All she wants to focus on is her birthday. She’s saying hi to everyone and accepting little presents and making sure cool music is always on the stereo. Every time I spot her through the crowd, she’s gulping from her plastic cup. She’s always on the opposite side of the garage from me. It seems almost purposeful, and she’s been acting all weird toward me since our conversation this morning. There are a few minutes when I can’t even find her in the crowd.

Maria isn’t talking to me either. Davey did show up, dressed like a mummy. I’m guessing they made their relationship official tonight, since the white cloth around his mouth is tainted red from her lipstick. I want to be happy for Maria, but I can’t. I know it’s crazy, but I kind of even hate her a little bit.

The person I can’t seem to shake is Katherine. She’s walking around behind me, leaning in and whispering insults like how stupid some kid in her history class looks in his Zorro outfit, and how some freshman girl in a Goldilocks wig has been dancing like a slut all over the boys. It’s beyond annoying.

“Can you please stop?” I say, lifting the cup to my mouth.

She recoils, genuinely upset. “Why are you still mad at me? We didn’t get arrested or anything. My dad obviously didn’t call the cops. So what’s your problem? You think I’m trying to steal your best friend or something?”

“That’s insane.” Why does Katherine care what I think anyway?

“Well, what then? I feel like you hate me.”

I sip my cup until it’s empty. “That’s not true.”

“Then prove it. Let’s have a cigarette.” Katherine knocks into me, sort of playful.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Shut up.” She extends the pack of cigarettes in my direction.

I can’t help but think of Jim, the smoker. He’s probably having a cigar right now, watching the clock tick down like I am. I take one of Katherine’s and bite down on the filter, like I’m tough. And we walk out the side door together into the night.

Katherine flicks her lighter a few times and, once she has a flame, cups it carefully near the tip of my face. It makes my nose feel warm. “Suck it in slowly,” she says. She lights up her own, puffs, and blows out a long steady stream before I can even switch the cigarette from my right hand to my left. It doesn’t make holding it feel any less awkward, though.

I draw in a shallow breath and hold the smoke in my mouth. Some leaks down the back of my throat and I cough like an idiot. Katherine doesn’t make fun of me, though, which is surprising. Instead she says, “Everyone does that their first time.”

I take another tiny puff and quickly blow it into the sky. “You really like the taste of these things?” I ask her.

“No.” She takes another long drag.

“Jim is a smoker,” I tell her.

“My dad too,” she says. “He’s also an asshole.”

“Jim is too.”

She takes in a deep breath, her first without the cigarette perched on her lips, and tips her head back to look at the stars. “But I still feel bad about what I did to his car.”

“Really?” I’m surprised to hear it.

Katherine laughs. “Why is that so hard to believe? I think I’ve probably said ‘I’m sorry’ to you like a million times since we started hanging out.” She pauses for a deep drag. “But I still feel like it’s good to be impulsive. Sometimes you’ve just got to do and say what’s on your mind, no matter who you’re going to piss off.” She leans back toward the garage door, making sure no one is coming. “Did those pictures that you took come out?”

“They came out okay.”

“Can I have one?”

“Yeah, sure. You can have them all, if you want.”

We don’t talk for the rest of the smoke. I don’t take any more puffs. I just watch the length of ash grow and fall to the ground.

“You survived your first cigarette,” Katherine says to me. “Now you’ve earned yourself a cigarette-smoking badge.” She takes her butt and snaps it between her fingers, sending it flying off into the yard. “Here,” she says, and twists my fingers into the same shape.

I snap my fingers like she tells me to, but the lit butt comes flying back into my shirt. It just bounces right off though.

Katherine laughs. “Smooth.”

“Whatever,” I say with a smile.

“So we’re cool now?” she asks me.

And I nod.

My throat is killing me, so I head into the house for a glass of water. Beth’s mom is at the kitchen window, peering out through the curtains at the garage. I straighten up and act as sober as I can. I hope I don’t reek of cigarette smoke.

“Is everyone having a good time out there, Ruby?” she asks me.

“Yeah. It’s really fun.”

“How about Beth? Is she having a good time?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”

“I’m glad.” Mrs. Miller lets the curtain fall. “Is everything okay with her lately?”

“I think so. Why?”

“No reason. I guess she seems a little bit down in the dumps the last few days. She’s spent lots of time in her room, working on her costume, of course, but … I don’t know, she just hasn’t been acting very Bethy, you know?”

I shrug my shoulders because I don’t really know what to say.

She shakes her head and drops the subject. “Ruby, you must be freezing out there without a coat. I think I saw yours on Beth’s bed.”

“I’m fine, actually. It’s pretty warm with everyone inside dancing.” Then I think about Beth’s room and that memory box with our picture on top. I want to know what’s inside of it. “But maybe I’ll get it just in case I go hang out outside again.”

It’s weird being up in Beth’s room when she’s not here. It feels dirty and sneaky, but not enough to stop me. I go straight back into her closet and look for the memory box on the shelf. But it’s gone.

She knew I was going to look for it.

One second later and I’m tearing the room apart. I drag her mattress off the frame, pull the clothes out of her drawers. The whole time, I know it’s a terrible idea to be doing this, and I’ll definitely have some explaining to do, but I can’t stop. When I kick over her wastebasket, the memory box tumbles out from underneath a pile of lipstick-stained tissues and fabric scraps.

I’m shaking as I hold it. I flip it open, and find my dad’s letter right on top. Under that are a bunch of Beth’s memories. Like the plastic necklaces we got from Red Lobster, a love note from Pete Southern, a poem she wrote for the school’s journal, and the ticket stub from the time we went to our first concert in Cleveland. And then I see something I wouldn’t have ever predicted.

A key.

It’s the one to my old house.

When I come back down to the garage, I am shaking so hard my teeth chatter.

The entire party is screaming the “Happy Birthday” song. They are all gathered around Beth, like she’s some kind of celebrity. Everyone’s pretty drunk, especially Beth. She keeps leaning over, falling ever so slightly against Maria and Katherine, who flank her at the birthday-cake table.

I’m in shock that they’re already singing. It’s like Beth didn’t even care that I was missing. I press my lips together as tightly as I can, protesting the entire thing. The song ends, Beth blows out the candles, and everyone cheers before getting back to the dance floor. As the crowd disperses, Beth looks at me, then up at the clock. It’s almost midnight. She adjusts her wig and the corners of her mouth turn up the littlest bit.

I step forward and shove a wrapped present in her hand. “Happy birthday.”

She takes it apprehensively. “Thanks.”

“Open it,” I say.

She does. Gently and slowly, as if the wrapping paper was expensive and not the comics page from last Sunday’s newspaper. I can tell she’s impressed. She flips the pages of the Polaroid flipbook and watches as I smile big, wide, and normal for her. I get a weird satisfaction in her happiness, like this proves that I really am a good friend, one who can make the perfect gift for her. Too bad she doesn’t deserve it.

“This is awesome,” she says softly. “Seriously. It’s just what I wanted.”

When she looks back up at me, her face changes. It gets tight. The gold key reflects in her eyes. I’m dangling it in front of her face.

Beth turns bright red. She tries to lead me away from the party guests, over to the near-empty punch bowl that’s in the corner, but she’s stumbly and buzzed. I grind my heels, because after all this time, I’m ready to have it out and I don’t care who’s here to see it. But she ultimately wrestles me to the back side of the door, in a small dark shadow next to the fridge.

“I spent all week trying to tell myself that there was no way you’d keep this from me.” I hold the letter up to her face, so close it touches her nose.

Beth pushes it away. The paper almost rips. Her mouth is wide open. “You went digging through my room? Through my personal stuff?”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t purposefully hidden that box from me!”

She shakes her head back and forth, like she can’t believe it. “That was my memory box! You had no right to look in it!”

My hands fall to my sides but then immediately spring back up. I can’t believe she’s trying to turn this around on me. “Yeah, with that picture on top of the day my dad left? What a cherished memory for you to hold on to!”

“Sorry I care about you, okay? Sorry I don’t want you to get hurt.” She is so defiant.

“Oh, please. You just love telling me what to do. You do it to everyone! You tell Katherine to bury her feelings about her dad. You tell Maria to get over Davey. You think you can go around and dictate how everyone should live their lives. Well, I’m not letting you run mine anymore.”

“Right, Ruby. Like I’m such a bad person. All I did was try to help you, keep you positive and give you advice
when you asked me for it
. Did I ask to be drawn into your whole family drama? No. Was it fun for me to have to help pick up the pieces of your life? I don’t think so.” She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’m such a monster. Give me a break.”

“Is that what you call advice?” The words pop out fast and hard like punches. “Don’t you mean
Listen to what I say or else
? Because that’s what you basically said to me in the library.” My hands clench into fists. “You’re not supposed to tell me what to do. It’s my life. If I want to see my dad, you can’t stop me!” I swear to God I’ll hit her if she tries to stop me.

Beth sucks in air through her gaping mouth. Then she leans forward, throwing her arm up on my shoulder. She’s not even the slightest bit afraid of me. Her eyes get narrow and mean. “If you really wanted to see Jim, Ruby, if you knew about his letter all along, why didn’t you just go? Why did you need my permission?”

I take a step back, unclench my fists, and steady myself against the wall. A few couples on the dance floor have noticed us fighting and angle themselves for a better view. “I know I didn’t need your permission. I was hoping that you’d eventually come clean about it! I trusted that you were my friend and that you would tell me the truth! And what do I get for giving you the benefit of the doubt? My dad’s probably gone by now! And I’ll never get to see him again.” Then I start to cry, right there.

“Stop trying to make me sound like a bad friend,” Beth screams back into my wet face. She rips off her feather headband and throws it on the ground. “I have a good reason for not telling you!”

I wipe my eyes and stare at her so hard I think she might spontaneously combust from the heat. Beth is the most insensitive, self-obsessed person in the history of the world. How could I have not noticed before? “Right, I know all your reasons. You hate my dad. He’s a total screwup. He left me and my mom. I got it. But he’s still my dad. Not Jim. My dad!”

Beth is so frustrated, she’s practically jumping up and down. She lets out a big exasperated groan. “No! That’s not it! I wish that were it, for your sake.”

“Then what? Explain it to me. And tell me why it is exactly that you have the key to my old house? Because that’s just creepy.”

Beth opens her mouth to yell again, but she closes it again before any words come out. Her eyes look around the room at all the faces staring at us. Someone turns the music off.

Maria runs up to us, dragging Davey along with her. “What’s going on?”

Katherine comes up behind me. She pulls the letter out of my hand and scans it quickly. I’m too stunned to stop her.

The blood drains from Beth’s face, and when she looks back at me, she’s pale as a ghost. “I walked in on your mom with some other guy that day we built the igloo. I didn’t want you to have to see it, so I took your stupid key. And I’ve been keeping it secret so you wouldn’t have to know that it was your mom’s fault this happened in the first place.” She bends over, picks up her headband, and hangs it on the doorknob.

“Shut up,” I say, gasping for breath like someone’s holding a pillow over my face. I take a step back. And another.

Maria drops Davey’s hand and reaches for me. “Ruby, wait. Don’t go.”

Katherine guides Maria’s arm away from me. She folds up the note and places it in my clammy hand.

Beth turns her back to me. I take off running.