Ruby on the Outside (7 page)

Chapter Fifteen

While they thought I was
sleeping, my mother and Nick Sands drove eighteen and a half miles away to a drugstore. There is video recording the entire two-minute-and-forty-two-seconds exchange between Nick and the boy behind the pharmacy counter, so there really wasn't much for the defense attorney to argue.

According to the
Saratoga Daily Gazette
and the district attorney of Saratoga County, Nicholas Sands, age 26, and Janis Sands, age 23, walked into the CVS on Congress Street in Glens Falls, New York. They wandered the cosmetics aisle for a while. Mrs. Sands picked up some shampoo. They then proceeded to the back of the store and approached the teenager working as a clerk in the pharmacy that night. There is a heated discussion that at some point turns aggressive on the part of Mr. Sands. In the video Mrs. Sands stands somewhat behind her husband but does not appear to be in distress, nor does she appear to be participating unwillingly.

At some point during the argument, which became increasingly more heated, Mr. Sands pulled a gun from his pocket and shot the CVS employee. He then fled the scene. Mrs. Sands is seen, in the video, climbing over the counter, where she remained on the floor beside the victim until police arrived.

There is more.

Nick Sands, who had several previous drug offenses, was charged with second-degree murder but was able to reduce his sentence, from life behind bars to eight to ten, by giving the district attorney information that led to the arrest of a well-known local drug dealer. Janis Sands was sentenced to twenty to twenty-five years in a maximum security prison.

The computer screen is the only light in my room. It is like a beacon, but it does not lead me to safety. It threatens to take it all away. I don't want to find out what I know I will find out if I keep searching. But I click link after link.

I keep searching.

There are newspaper articles. Police reports. Court documents, all online. There are follow-up stories on everything from gun control to spousal abuse. It seems to be significant that the defendant, Janis Sands, had no knowledge of the gun prior to the incident; however, she was an accessory to an armed robbery and an accomplice to murder. The boy behind the counter died on this way to the hospital. He was seventeen years old.

His name was Joshua Alan Tipps.

Chapter Sixteen

Even after I figured out
that my mother wasn't coming home with us, I still wanted to be able to at least
call
my mom whenever something bad happened to me. Not even something
that
bad, just a little bad. Like someone at school hurt my feelings or I was scared that I would never learn my times table or I had a stomachache, which usually came from one of those two other things, and I wanted to tell my mommy.

I could always tell Matoo, but it wasn't the same. For one thing, Matoo usually told me to let it go, and for another, she wasn't my mom.

“But there's the phone, right there.” I stood in the kitchen in my pajamas and bare feet.

“Yes, I see the phone is right there,” Matoo told me, sitting at the breakfast table, eating her cottage cheese and berries. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

I was probably in second or third grade. No, what am I saying? It was second grade, I remember exactly, because my supposed best friend in the neighborhood, Kristin, hadn't invited me to her after school birthday party. I only found out because one girl in my class made the mistake of asking me if I was going. Of course, back then, I hadn't yet perfected the skill of how to hide important things from the outside world, and I just started crying. Right then and there, in the middle of free reading time.

Mrs. Chompsky sent me to the guidance office. The guidance lady wanted to know if my emotional state had anything to do with my “situation at home,” and I had no idea what she was talking about since I didn't yet understand that I had a situation at home. I just had a home. With Matoo. And a mom at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

I didn't really understand yet that that wasn't normal.

I was still upset when I got back home that day, and there was the phone. And I just wanted to call my mother and tell her about it. I wanted to ask her why my only friend hadn't invited me to her birthday party and why I got sent to the office for crying in class when Lucille Ramirez does that practically every day. And Jody Bronson has not said one word out loud all year. And Donald Hancock kicks everyone under the table and everyone knows it's him. So why me?

Why? Why? Why?

There are some things only a mommy can fix.

I knew just hearing her voice would fix it. I knew she would say just the right thing and tell me I was okay, or that I was going to be okay, and I would believe her. And everything would start to be okay.

“Ruby, you know you can't call your mother,” Matoo told me. “You know it doesn't work that way. She has to call us.”

Us?

I didn't want her to call
us
.

I wanted her to call
me
. Me. Right now. I needed my mother, right now.

But also, I knew Matoo was right. And not only that, but my mother had to call collect, which meant someone had to be home to pick up the phone and hear the mechanical, recorded message on the other end:

“You are receiving a collect call from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Do you want to accept the charges?”

Matoo tells me it is very expensive, but the worst part is how they cut you off. It doesn't matter if you are right in the middle of talking or singing or telling story. The recording comes back on, interrupts you, and warns you that you have one minute remaining. That recording is like a nightmare in my head, like a horrible bodyless, faceless voice-monster. After that minute the phone goes dead.

Mommy? Mommy? Are you there? Mommy?

“What is it you need to talk her about, Ruby? About school today? About Kristin's birthday party?” Matoo asked me.

She knew? The school
called
her?

“I took care of it, “ Matoo said, before she put her glasses back on. I hoped she didn't see my mortified expression.

“You're going to the party. So get ready. You're going to meet everyone at the bowling alley in ten minutes.”

Matoo was smiling. But I thought I was going to die.

I knew I couldn't call my mother but I wanted to so badly right then. I wanted to so badly that I thought maybe my wanting could be strong enough to make it happen. If only I deserved it more, never got into trouble, never did anything wrong, never cried in school—if only I did all those things, then my mother would somehow just
know
I needed her and she'd magically be calling right at this very minute.

Please, Mommy, call me.

Please call me right now.

Because if I was good enough, she'd know.

By the way, I never saw Rebecca again. Just a few weeks ago I found out that Rebecca ran away from her foster family. I overheard one of the other visitors saying she heard that Rebecca was in juvie now.

I get it.

You can run but you can't hide. And no matter what you do.

And nobody knows that better than I do now. I thought I was hiding but I wasn't. Or I was, but I can't any longer.

Josh Tipps is Margalit's brother.

I am sick.

I am so sick.

I am really so sick to my stomach and I have been all night. I didn't shut down my computer until after midnight and then I don't think I ever fell completely asleep. So I probably look pretty bad, which is good. I want Matoo to just go to work and leave me alone. When she calls up the stairs, I tell her I'm not feeling well.

There is no way I can go to camp today.

No way. I feel like I am drowning. I've never felt so alone before. I am drowning and there is no one who can save me. I just need time to think. I need time to think.

It takes a lot of convincing, but Matoo is running late and it's summer, so missing camp is not like missing school. And finally she leaves.

It's just me and Loulou now.

“Loulou, what can I do? I don't deserve this. I didn't do anything. It's so not fair. I can't tell Margalit. Ever. She can never find out.”

Loulou looks at me but she doesn't have any solutions either.

I rack my brain. I consider every possibility for how to live with this terrible truth and not lose my very first, very best friend. For a crazy second, I want to call my mom—which, of course, I know I can't do—like I used to when I was little. I want her to put her arms around me and make everything all right. Or at least tell me what to do.

And then I realize my mother can't fix anything.

Because she's the one who broke it.

Chapter Seventeen

Here's another famous motto:
Where there is a will, there's a way.

I have the will. And I sure hope I can find a way.

I don't have a plan exactly, but twenty-four hours later, and somehow I've successfully put my two worlds back where they belong—which is as far apart from each other as can be.

I just need to stay alert and keep a lid on it, which is another one of Matoo's expressions. You don't need to show everyone what you are feeling all the time, Matoo says:
Keep a lid on it.

So I go to camp in kind of a daze, but as soon as I get there, as soon as I see Yvette and Elise and Beatrice and Margalit, and the inviting glint of the swimming pool, it's like yesterday never happened. And the night before
that
really never happened.

I hand Margalit the story notebook, before camp even begins, and tell her how sorry I am but I just couldn't think of anything to write.

“I'm sorry,” I tell her.

“That's okay,” she says. “I'll do the story today and you can do the pictures, okay?”

I nod.

“So where were you yesterday?” Margalit is asking.

Yesterday is already, so effectively, gone from my memory that it takes me some time to even remember that I
wasn't
at camp.

“Oh, I had a dentist appointment.” I am impressed with myself for my quick thinking. If I said I had stayed home sick, Margalit would want to know why I didn't answer the phone. She called three times.

“All day?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“I called you three times. I used Beatrice's cell phone. You couldn't have been at the dentist
all day
.”

“Quiet down, you two,” Yvette jumps in. She is trying to be a camp counselor today for some reason. She's decided to teach us some songs while she plays the guitar. She hands us both two paper cups.

Just as I am about to worry that this lying business isn't going to be as easy as I hoped and maybe I should have had a better plan, Margalit drops the questioning, but adds, “It was awful here yesterday without you.”

And she isn't saying it angrily. She really missed me.

I mouth:
I am sorry.

And that's all it takes. Margalit squeezes my hand. I shut the lid and I lock it.

We are back at the clubhouse, but outside at the picnic tables between the pool and the building. Since it's during the week, there aren't many people around, but there are a few young moms with their real little babies and a few kids and a couple of teenagers like Yvette and Beatrice, which is kind of embarrassing for them, I guess, since they have to be hanging out with us.

“Okay, you guys got your part?” Yvette positions her fingers on the neck of the guitar, one at a time, and I get the impression she is just learning to play.

It takes her most of the morning to teach us the cup part. Margalit caught on really fast. After a few hundred tries, I got it too. Elise, funnily enough, got it right away. Must be all the ball-bouncing hand-eye coordination.

Yvette strums once and then starts playing and singing.

On the chorus Margalit and Elise and I join in with our cups, hitting the opening, flipping the cup over, hitting it again, and back down on its side.

We sing. Yvette taught us all the harmonies. It's actually kind of fun. Yvette's guitar playing gets better and better and our rhythm with the cups starts to happen without thinking and before you know it, we are all singing, really loud and, I think, really good. Before you know it, it's time for lunch. Margalit and I take a working lunch, writing, drawing, and eating all at the same time.

And by now, with the day more than half over, I am pretty confident that Margalit won't ever find out. I won't even say the name inside my head, ever again.

Josh Tipps.

There.

That will be the last time.

I mean, how can she ever find out? It isn't like anyone knows about my mother, so as long as I keep that a secret I am safe. Now, if I want to keep my best friend, I just need to be a little more careful, and for the first time, I am grateful that I have a different last name from my mother.

So I can be sad and thankful. Relieved and nervous. Both. It's all just a matter of keeping that lid on the pot so it doesn't boil over and mess up the stovetop.

But I can do that.

“I started a whole new story,” Margalit tells me. We are supposed to be changing for swim time, but Yvette seems ready to play her guitar again until Beatrice groans and Yvette gets her feelings hurt and while they are arguing Margalit and I go back to drawing and writing.

This pot will not boil.

“Oh, good. Can I read it now?” I ask.

“Of course,” Margalit passes the notebook back to me. “I am so excited for you to read it.”

Yvette is sulking and refusing to go to the pool with us. Beatrice announces free time. Elise is bouncing her ball. I open to Margalit's new pages.

This story is different. It's not about mermaids or elves or witches like our last one. Margalit is watching me read, which makes it hard, but her story is so good.

“I did something different,” Margalit says. “I hope that's okay. I couldn't think of any more for the elf story.”

“Yeah, me neither.” I continue reading.

This story is about us. At least I think it is. It's about two girls who meet one summer at a summer camp that has only three kids and two counselors. The two girls become best friends. When I come to the end of Margalit's three pages, I look up at her.

“Marion? Is that you?” I ask her.

Margalit nods.

“And Pearl?”

I point to myself, and Margalit nods harder.

A big smile breaks out over my face. “I love it,” I say.

“Whew, I'm so glad.” She lets out her breath. “Okay, then, your turn. And I'll work on the illustrations.”

I take the notebook and settle in. I am pretty confident now that my writer's block is cured. Margalit's story seems easier for me to follow. Real-life stuff instead of fairies and mermaids.

Write what you know.
Isn't that what Ms. Genovese would say?

What comes out of my head into my fingers and down through the pen I don't think much about. I mean, I'm thinking about it, of course, but I'm not forcing it. One thing follows another easily, like a reflex.

That's another thing we learned in science class, there are voluntary and involuntary muscle movements. Like a sneeze is involuntary and the way your foot kicks up when the doctor knocks you in the knee with that little rubber hammer.

And writing a story about how your mother died when you were first born is probably, most certainly, one of those involuntary muscle action that you have no control over.

I don't even realize what I've written until I pass it back to Margalit and then I realize that in order to keep the lid on, and keep anything from spilling out, I just switched pots on the stove completely.

“Oh, Ruby,” Margalit has just finished reading my chapter. “Is this true?”

I know what exactly she means.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Ruby looks down at the notebook in her hands. “I mean, is this part true about your mother? Is that why you don't have a mother? And you live with your Matoo?”

Of course, Margalit would figure it out. She knew Matoo wasn't my mother and now she thinks she knows why.

And I did it on purpose, didn't I?

The old bait and switch.

I killed off my mother in the story because I don't want a mother, not a mother in prison. Not a mother who is ruining my life.

“Well, it was a long time ago,” I say. I try not to look Margalit in the eye.

“I'm so sorry,” Margalit says. She lowers her head. “I can't imagine not having a mom.”

Margalit looks like she's going to cry. No one has ever cried for me. How could they? I guess. I've never told anyone about my mom, and now, the first time I have, it's a big fat lie.

No one would feel sorry for me if my mother was in prison for murder, but if my mother was dead well, that's a whole other story.

“It's okay,” I say because I don't know what else to say.

“Oh, Ruby. You don't have to talk about it,” Margalit says. “If you don't want to.”

“I don't want to.”

In my story, I wrote that my mother, or rather Pearl's mother, died in childbirth. I got that from the book
Sarah, Plain and Tall
. Luckily, I've read that book three times, so I had the details readily available.

“I'm just so sorry,” Margalit is saying, wiping her eyes.

“Me too,” I say.

Oh boy, if she only knew.