Chapter Ten
Charlie
So far, the only effect of number two on the list—making Ruby see me as dateable—is that she peppers me with random questions all morning.
Passing each other in front of a computer station: “Would you say you’re more of a Charlie Brown or a Charlie’s Angel?”
Hunting me down in the audiobooks: “You’re a mountain over beach guy, but would you say Appalachians or Rockies?”
When I come by to help her tidy the kids’ section: “If you were offered a superpower to pick the fastest line every time but it meant you never had a cold side of your pillow, would you take it?”
After that one, I snorted. “Come on, Ruby. You know the answers to all of these.”
“Reject the superpower,” she says.
“Right. What are all these questions for?” They are by no means the weirdest she’s ever asked me; she just doesn’t usually ask so many weird ones at once.
“Building the perfect dating bio for you to draw premium babes only.”
“I have concerns.” So she’s making me more dateable to other women. Is any of this getting through to Ruby?
“You’ll see,” she says. “It’s all about nuance with you. I’m figuring out how to communicate the nuance.”
“I’m going to sound like a pretentious wine when you’re done. An Appalachian base with notes of Charlie’s Angel.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t have to. I’ll edit anything I don’t like.”
She smirks. “You won’t need to revise.”
She hits me with a handful more questions before lunch comes around, and I’m getting ready to leave the reference desk for my break when Sydney walks in.
“Hey,” Ruby says, her tone surprised. “It’s not Wednesday.”
“Ignore her,” I tell Sydney. “You can come in any day you want. Also, hi and welcome. Mineral emergency?”
“Self-help today,” she says with a smile. “Looking for books on dating.”
Ruby’s eyes go wide. “Charlie can help you. You want the 300s. Take her to the 300s, Charlie.”
Before I can shoot Ruby a knock it off look, Sydney says, “Yes, Charlie, take me to the 300s.”
Ruby and I both stare at her. Guess I’m not the only one sensing something different about Sydney today. She’s not nervous, I realize.
“Right this way,” I say, coming around the desk. She follows me until I turn down the correct aisle, but when I stop at the shelf with dating guides, she keeps going to the last shelf.
She turns, puts a finger to her lips, points it in the direction of the reference desk, then crooks it. Shhh. Ruby. Come here.
Clear enough, and she’s got my attention.
I glance at the shelf she’s ended up in front of. “May I interest you in some astronomy?”
She smiles but doesn’t look at the books. “May I interest you in a confession?”
Pretty sure I know what the confession is. Is it more respectful to hear her out or stop her before she makes it?
She decides for me. “I’m friends with Katie Armstrong.”
I blink. That’s not the confession I expected. “Madison’s sister Katie?”
“Yeah. She had this idea that we might hit it off, and she wanted to set us up.”
Katie has been hanging out at the condo the last few months as she and Madison work on rebuilding a relationship that broke in high school. All of us like her, but she and I have never talked about my love life.
Sydney seems to sense my confusion. “I asked her not to. I haven’t been sure I want to date right now, and I figured it was lower stakes if I checked you out unofficially.”
“I’m flattered, but . . .”
She holds up a hand. “Brace yourself, because I’m about to make it more awkward, then weird but not awkward, then possibly helpful.”
What do you say to that? “You have my attention.”
“Awkward: I get you’re not interested, and I’m embarrassed because I feel super obvious.”
“Don’t,” I say. “You’re cool. Smart. Pretty. If I was looking to date right now, I’d have already asked you out. I’m sorry my head isn’t in the game.”
“I don’t have to pretend I care about mineral rights,” she says. “It’s all good.”
I grin. “Pretending to care about mineral rights for me might be the most flattering thing anyone has ever done.”
“You’re welcome. Here’s where it gets weird. You’re not dating because of Ruby, right?”
Strangers assume Ruby and I are a couple all the time. I have a lot of practice with this. “We’re just friends.”
“But you want it to be more.”
“Nope.”
She tilts her head to study me. “Katie told me about Ruby’s situation. Long relationship. Recent breakup, ex just got engaged. And now Madison is trying to find Ruby a new guy. Do I have it right?”
“You’re well-informed.”
“I know it’s weird that I know this and I’m bringing it up. But I pay attention. Based on what I’ve seen when I’m here, I want to help Ruby, and that means helping you.”
If this conversation takes any more turns I might get dizzy. “You want to help Ruby?”
“I have my own recent breakup, and Katie was nudging me toward you as a way to snap me out of it,” she says.
“I’m not in a place to start something, but if there was a way to pull me out of my funk, I’d give a kidney to whoever could do it.
I’d like to help a girl out. I won’t bore you with the reasons why, but file it under karmic justice. ”
“Women and their projects,” I mutter.
“Sorry, did you say that you admit you have a thing for Ruby and you want to hear my plan over lunch? Because there’s no point in telling it to you if you’re not into her.”
I haven’t talked to anyone about this because Ruby or Oliver would be my go-to. But as Sydney stands here, sincerity written all over her face, I think I need a listening ear, even if it’s for a reality check.
“All right,” I say slowly. “Here’s my confession: Ruby and I are just friends, but I’m working on changing that.”
She smiles. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Admitting it? No. Changing it? Different story.”
“She doesn’t know you’ve got more-than-friends feelings, does she?”
“No.”
She glances at her watch. “I have forty minutes left on my lunch break. Want to grab some food and solve this?”
“Solve it?”
“Solve it.”
“Lunch is on me. Let’s go.”
Ruby eyes us with naked curiosity when we get back to the desk.
“We’re going to lunch,” I say. “You good?”
“Oh, I thought you and I were . . .” Ruby trails off, her eyes traveling between me and Sydney. “Have fun.”
As Sydney and I walk out together, she says, “If tacos are okay, I’ll drive and you talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re at a small wooden table with our taco remnants in front of us. Katie had told Sydney about Ruby’s matchmaking last year, and how the girls have flipped the bet on her. Sydney wanted to hear my plan to get Ruby before they do, and I’ve just finished laying it out for her.
She takes a sip of horchata, her face thoughtful. “You’re going to Ruby Ruby.”
“I what?”
“You’re pulling an elaborate scheme with her specific psychology in mind to make her see what she really needs.”
“Uh, no. Ruby’s ideas work, but she does them on hard mode. I’m in the keep-it-simple camp.”
She gives me a deeply skeptical look. “Doing a deep sociological dive, compiling research, then distilling patterns into a list of actionable steps is the simple way of handling this?”
“Compared to Ruby? Yeah. If Ruby had been in charge of getting us to the moon, she’d have figured out how to contact alien life first and asked them to come to NASA to build us a rocket instead of just building the rocket.”
“If you’re just building the rocket, why not tell Ruby how you feel? Wouldn’t it get her thinking about you as more than a friend so she could decide if it’s what she wants?”
“It might. But it also might make her see me as a tidy solution. She’d get to prove she moved on from her ex, and since he never liked me, it would be a bonus.”
“You don’t think she’d want to be with you even if her ex was a nonissue?”
“I do, but I couldn’t be sure unless this is driven by Ruby. If I bring it up, she could slip into autopilot girlfriend mode because I’m already integrated. Nothing would have to change, and she doesn’t like change.”
Her forehead wrinkles, and she watches me for a couple of seconds before it smooths out.
“Gotta say, maybe pulling a Ruby is the smart thing to do. Let me see your list again.” I hand her my phone. “Put the first two steps together. See if you can get her to agree to double, and I’ll be your date. She’ll see you as Charlie the Hot Commodity.”
“You’re saying you want to be my wingman but let Ruby assume we’re dating?”
“It keeps me from wallowing, it helps her, it helps you. It’s a good plan.”
I tap the tabletop. “Hmm. It’s a very Ruby plan.”
Sydney holds up her water for a toast. “To contacting alien life.”
I snort and tap my Coke against her bottle. “To becoming a rocket scientist.”
Sydney drops me at the library with a smile on my face that lasts until I get to my cubicle where Ruby wipes it away with a single sentence.
She beams at me. “I love her for you.”
Not the intended result. Great.
Maybe I am doing this on hard mode.