County Line (19 page)

Pre-Season, September 1988

“Ruby, bring me some coffee. Have a cup yourself if you want.”

“No, thanks.”

“Try it. You’ll like it.”

“I have tried it.”

“
I have tried it
.” Bella’s mockery reached a pitch Ruby Jane couldn’t achieve without helium. “So try it again.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You say that now. Someday you won’t be able to survive without it.”

“Get your own coffee. I’m in a hurry.” The Moody Shuttle would arrive any moment—nothing could put Clarice off. “We increase team unity by spending time together off the court.” Clarice played the
team unity
card like a joker in a game where the rules could change on a whim. Ruby Jane didn’t need unity to make a pass or see the open shot.

As if on cue, she spied a pair of eyebrows through her bedroom window, Moira marching up the front walk. Clarice waited in the driver’s seat of her Rabbit, tapping her fingers on the roof through her open window. Ever impatient. Ashley sat in back, talking with her hands.

“Ruby, your ride is here!”

She grabbed her backpack. Moira was already knocking when she reached the first floor. Bella waited beside the telephone stand, coffee in hand.

“You couldn’t get the door?”

“They’re not my teammates, little miss.”

Ruby Jane threw the door open. Bella loomed at her side, grinning like a lady’s magazine cover model. She enjoyed pretending to be a parent when she had an audience. “Do your little friends know what you did to your father?”

Ruby Jane’s shoulders jumped to her ears. She pushed past a dumbfounded Moira.

“Does she share her secrets with you, teammate girl?”

Ruby Jane trotted down the walk, backpack to her chest, and yanked open the passenger side door. Moira chased after her.

“That’s my seat.”

Ruby Jane pretended not to hear. She dropped her pack on the floor and climbed in. Moira squeezed in behind Clarice. “She took my seat.”

Clarice was already starting the car. “She’s quicker than you on the break too.” Clarice showed her teeth to Ruby Jane. Her fakey grin emphasized the cracked concealer at the corners of her mouth. Camouflaged whiteheads cast soft shadows on her chin.

Ashley leaned forward between the seats. “So anyway, Junus said he would only ask me to homecoming if I put out. Right to my face. Can you believe that?”

“I can’t believe his mother named him Junus.”

“Clarice, are you even listening to me?”

“If you want Junus Malo to spend money on you, you have to let him cop a feel. Maybe jerk him off to be safe.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Wake up, sweetie, and smell the economics.”

“I just don’t think—”

“Stop acting like you’ve never touched a penis.”

Ruby Jane looked out the window. The car’s atmosphere was a cloying soup of White Shoulders and Estée Lauder—Moira and Ashley’s dueling attempts to smell like adults. Clarice headed east on Gratis Road. The long way. Moira continued to sulk in the back seat, and now Ashley had joined her. Clarice drove, chin high, pleased with herself. Her conversations with Ashley never changed. Ashley sought an ally against whatever boy she’d set her sights on. Clarice responded as the pragmatic slut. Ashley pretended to be scandalized. And the cycle reset.

“Who has the cigarettes? Moira?”

“My folks are trying to quit.”

“So go buy some. Christ.”

“Where am I supposed to buy cigarettes?” No one in Germantown or Farmersville would sell smokes to a member of Coach’s basketball team.

“Drive up to New Lebanon.”

“Why don’t you drive to New Lebanon?”

“Because it’s your job.”

“Ruby should have to bring them. Her mother smokes.”

Ruby Jane snorted. “Coach will have an aneurysm if he catches anyone smoking.”

“It’s not like we inhale.”

“Now we know why you almost failed biology.”

Clarice pressed her lips together. Silence hung in the car for the space of a dozen breaths. “Ruby Jane Whittaker, your attitude works against team unity.”

In the back seat, Ashley squeaked. “Your middle name is Jane? My mother’s name is Jane.”

“Ashley, shut up.”

“Why are you always such a pain, Clarice? I just asked Ruby a question.”

Clarice hit the breaks. Ruby Jane looked over her shoulder. Ashley had her arms folded across her chest in the tight space behind the seat. Ruby Jane couldn’t remember Ashley ever standing up to Clarice. She smiled. Moira caught the look and her lips retracted from her teeth.

“Ruby’s mother said she did something to her dad.”

Quick as a snake, Clarice turned on Ruby Jane. “What does that mean?”

“My mother is nuts.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Moira keyed on Clarice’s sudden interest. “But your mother said, ‘Do your little friends know what you did to your father?’” Her voice gained half an octave.

“Your mother calls us your
little friends
?”

“Can we go?”

“Not until you tell us what your mother meant.”

“My mother’s a drunk. You can’t believe anything she says.”

“Maybe you’re the one we can’t believe.”

“Clarice, shut up.”

“Did you tell me to shut up?”

“What? You forgot to clean Hardy Berman’s cum out of your ears?”

The idling engine ticked, and vinyl squeaked as Ashley shifted in her seat. Clarice worked her jaw from side to side. Ruby Jane could almost hear the judge, prosecutor and jury hard at work behind Clarice’s cold eyes.

“Get out of the car.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Clarice—”

“Get out!”

Ruby Jane looked at Ashley for support, but she’d crossed Clarice as much as she ever would. “It’s her car, Ruby.” She sounded like a cartoon mouse. Moira was more emphatic. “You took my seat, bitch.”

Ruby Jane grabbed her backpack. Clarice had the car in gear before Ruby Jane got clear of the door. She jumped back as Clarice tore away.

She checked her watch. First period in half an hour, three miles from school. An easy pace under other circumstances, but she didn’t normally run with twenty pounds of books bouncing against her spine. All she could do was walk and take a tardy. Coach didn’t like tardies or absences by his girls—a fact which no doubt played into Clarice’s sentence.

Twenty minutes later, not even to the grain elevators at the west end of Farmersville, a car slowed beside her. She heard it before she saw it, guessed it was Clarice returning. Pretending to be magnanimous. Or maybe she’d gotten hold of some cigarettes and wanted to make sure Ruby Jane got dragged into her miscreance. She gazed into the ditch beside the road as though fascinated by empty pop cans and broken beer bottles in the trickling water.

“Hey, Ruby.”

She turned. Finn Nielson leaned across the passenger seat of his car.

“What are you doing here?” He lived in Germantown, in the opposite direction from school.

“My dad’s car’s in the shop. I had to drive him to the dealer in Eaton.”

“Oh.”

“Out for a stroll?”

“It’s a long story.”

“How long does it take to say, ‘Clarice was being a bitch again’?”

“Clarice was being a bitch again.”

“You want a ride?”

“Obviously.” She climbed in next to him, crossed her hands on her lap. “Thanks, Huck.”

“No problem.” He drove through town, turned down Farmersville Pike. “You hear from James?”

“I haven’t talked to him.”

“You got a date for homecoming?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “No.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Pretty sure of yourself.”

“On some matters, yes.”

“Wow.”

“That’s all you got? Wow?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Try harder.”

“Would it matter?”

“No.” But then she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Used to be, all it took was an icy Jimmie stare to get Huck to stuff the blue back into his balls. But Jimmie was gone now. When he called—rarely—it was only to hang quiet on the phone, breathe through his nose, and finally insist she put Bella on. That’s the way he said it. “Put Bella on.” He never asked Ruby Jane the question which had to be chewing him up inside.

“What have you heard?”

Nothing, Jimmie
.

Later, she’d ask Bella what he called about. “He’s sad. He got a bad grade in math. Who the hell knows?” She complained, but she took Jimmie’s calls.

“So you really haven’t heard anything?”

“Nothing, Jimmie.”

“What?” Huck was pulling in to the school.

“Nothing from Jimmie, I mean.” She felt her face go hot, but then she fixed her gaze on Clarice, Moira and Ashley crossing the parking lot. “Please tell me Clarice is still fucking Hardy Berman.”

Huck raised an eyebrow. “He seems to think she is.”

A few minutes before the bell, Ruby Jane passed Clarice at her locker. Their eyes locked, but neither spoke. Clarice was too busy offering Ashley a cost-benefit analysis of sucking Junus Malo’s cock.

- 20 -

Pre-Season, September 1988

Coach called them together at center court. The girls gathered in a clump on the dark blue Spartan emblem. Ruby Jane held back, waiting to see how everyone sorted themselves. Clarice Moody stood a head higher than the others, her long face and shiny black hair a gravitational draw. Gabi remained in the back too. She gave Ruby Jane a tentative smile when their eyes met.

“Welcome, girls. As of now, all twenty of you are in the mix. Ten will make the varsity squad. The rest will move to JV. But as of this moment, you’re all equal. You all have the same chance.”

Ruby Jane pursed her lips. Clarice could coast through fall workouts and still start. Moira would be Ruby Jane’s most direct competition, but Coach would carry five or six forwards. She wasn’t worried. No one else shot better from the outside.

“We’ve got some promising girls hoping to make a move from JV to varsity this year, plus a transfer from Bay Village. Schilling?”

Gabi looked up. “Yes, sir?”

“Front and center, please.”

The girl moved to the front of the group. Ruby Jane took a good look at her for the first time. She was shorter than anyone else. Her bobbed, ginger hair swung along her jaw line as she ducked her head.

“You played—?”

“Guard, sir. Point and shooting in rotation.”

“Starter, or off the bench?”

“Both. I averaged fourteen minutes a game last year.”

“You’re a senior, right?”

“A junior.”

Coach nodded, his long face thoughtful. “In the past we ran a three-guard offense, perhaps similar to what you’re used to. But last year we had the chance to build our offense around Moody at center. Two forwards, two guards. I may suit up only three guards on varsity this season.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to need a bigger voice than that if you hope to run my offense.”

“Yes, sir!” Ruby Jane saw Clarice smirk and whisper something to Moira. Coach glared at her, then turned his gaze to Ruby Jane.

“Whittaker.”

“Yes, Coach!”

“You found your shot last year on JV.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Forty-two percent from three point territory.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Impressive. But this year, expect to pass. You’ll need more assists than points.”

“I shot fifty-five percent overall, Coach.”