“I wouldn’t run away from scallion breath.”
“Oh, you might. This was serious.”
I kissed him again. And this time I think we both felt the cold outside and how precarious it was where we were sitting. We held on to each other like we were holding on for our lives on the edge of this precipice
of the roof, of the end of high school,
of college,
of love,
of scary, complicated, adult-type relationships—
and I felt Noel shaking and I realized he was crying. Not sobbing, but crying gently, like his eyes were leaking and he just couldn’t help it.
“What’s wrong?”
He swallowed. “Booth died,” he said. “My friend Booth was riding ahead of me down Seventh Avenue. We were crossing Twenty-third Street and this car was making a left and I saw it coming, this blue car, and it was like slow motion, Booth crossing the path of the car and it swerving and then the bike hurtling through the air with Booth still clinging to it.” Noel wiped his eyes and went on. “I threw my bike on the sidewalk and ran over. People were standing around and I suddenly realized maybe no one had called the ambulance, so I called, and I had to tell them what happened, and then it took so long for them to come.”
I put my arms around him.
“He was riding ahead of me,” choked Noel. “Because I asked him to. The traffic there is crazy. I just felt better with him up front, leading. But then—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I had to call Claude,” Noel went on. “I had to tell him what happened. He kept saying ‘What?’ as if he hadn’t understood me. So I had to say it again and again. ‘There was an accident. Booth didn’t make it. There was an accident. Booth didn’t make it.’
“Finally I told him he had to leave work and come home. Like giving him an order. He couldn’t think clearly and it was up to me to tell him what to do. My brother walked out of the restaurant without telling anyone, still wearing his apron. Leaving his tables without their food.
“For a couple days,” Noel went on, “everything was black and choked and we didn’t sleep and people kept coming by. Claude kept saying, ‘Where’s Booth?’ as if he really didn’t know. I couldn’t answer him. I mean, what do you say when someone asks you that?”
I shook my head.
“My mom flew out and even my dad came, our biological dad, and they tried to make me and Claude come home to Seattle, but Claude wouldn’t go, so I stayed too. I mean, he’s my brother and I wanted to be there for him. But once I was alone with him and all the parents left, I just shut down. It was like Claude was feeling everything and I was feeling nothing. I wanted to feel nothing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I kept feeling nothing and kept feeling nothing,” said Noel.
“You can’t feel nothing,” I said. “People can’t. Not really.”
He leaned his head on my shoulder and wiped his face on the hem of his T-shirt. He wasn’t crying any longer.
I squeezed his hand.
Then he kissed my eyelids. Kind of licked them. And if you’ve never had someone lick your eyelids, you should know that it’s not exactly romantic and it’s even a tiny bit gross, but it feels like the other person really likes you and accepts you somehow.
Like he wants your updates. Even your boring ones. Even your mental ones.
“I don’t feel nothing anymore,” he said.
We sat there together for a long while. Holding hands. Thinking about Booth and Claude and everything that had happened.
“Let’s go inside,” I told him finally.
“Yes,” said Noel. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”
We crawled in the window. I went first and scraped my arm.
Noel went second and said, “Why are there—what are these? Are there antacids on my windowsill? Why would there be antacids on my windowsill?” And I laughed so hard I couldn’t explain properly.
Then we shut the screen.
Then we closed Noel’s door.
And the rest of what happened is nobody’s business but ours.
A Final List!
Well, not really a final list. I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop making lists. But a final list in this long chronicle of my therapy process, romantic debacles and friendship dramas. A list of Stuff That Happened After.
Mom’s latest performance-art monologue—Elaine Oliver: Meat to the Beat!—had a three-night workshop production at the Empty Space Theatre in January.
Even after it opened, she continued to explore charcuterie—in other words, she continued to perpetrate creative horrors on the bodies of dead animals and then eat them—until I lost five pounds from lack of edible deliciousness at breakfast and dinner and she got reworried I was anorexic; meanwhile, Dad gained ten pounds and she new-worried he would have a coronary.
At this point she agreed we could have pasta or burritos or something else normal for dinner.
My five pounds came back, but Dad’s ten stayed on.
Varsha and Spencer became regulars at the B&O Espresso. We’d go and meet Nora and Meghan there after swim practice. Yes, they were Future Doctors of America, but they were also seriously nice people. It was good to have a group to eat cake and try to figure out the Calc homework with.
It was nice to have Nora there, especially. After everything. Despite everything.
Robespierre got Imelda the pygmy goat pregnant. In the spring, if all goes well, two little Robespierres will be cavorting around the Family Farm. He seems exceedingly proud of his accomplishment and walks with quite a jaunty step.
First lacrosse team meeting: I rejoined the team. I’ll be playing varsity goalie this spring.
Hutch returned from Paris with DVD recordings of himself fronting a retro metal cover band called Les Hommes Métallique (Metal Men). The other guys were all French high school students he hung around with.
It turns out that Hutch can sing—if by “sing” you mean wail and thrash around and occasionally switch into a high falsetto that makes him sound like an angry girlie opera star.
It is good to have him back.
Though now he considers himself an expert on French film and insists he is going to take my cinematic education in hand with a festival of his own devising entitled Les Sous-entendus des Sous-titres (The Implications of Subtitles).
I sent off the last of my college applications January 4. The movie, the essays, the exam scores, the transcripts, the lists of activities—it was all done.
Which means that next year, I will be living in some other city, learning how to make movies.
Though I will miss Polka-dot (a lot),
And I will miss my parents (a little),
I won’t have to deal with the wenchery of Cricket and Kim.
And my roly-poly-slut reputation will be left behind, along with most of my self-loathing.
I won’t have to be in the Tate Universe. Ever again.
And I won’t be in therapy anymore either. Doctor Z says I can stop when I feel ready.
I asked her: What if all the panic badness comes back when I go to college? If it does, can I call you? Can we have phone therapy if I go completely mental?
And she said, “Of course. You can call me even if you’re not having any particular challenges.”
But she also said: “I am not worried about you, Ruby. You have come a long way.”
And I thought: She’s right.
As for Noel and me, part of me would like to tell you it was ride-off-into-the-sunset easy—but that wouldn’t be true. He is jealous, I am needy. He is silent, I am talky. But we see each other for who we really are, I think. He picks up the phone when I call, and never checks his messages while I’m talking to him. We sit together in the refectory, no worries, no second-guessing. And we kiss. All the time. A lot.