Chapter Twenty-One
Ruby
I can’t ever remember dreading coming to work and seeing Charlie, but that’s how I feel when I park at the library Monday morning. I add that to the list of things I’m mad at him for.
Madison had scratched at my door last night after Charlie told her and Oliver about our fight. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and I made her promise not to tell Sami or Ava until I was in the mood to handle it.
I am still not in the mood.
But Charlie never comes in. When he’s five minutes late, I check the schedule posted on a magnet board in our break area. Charlie’s schedule has changed; he’s not on it at all this week.
Relief and annoyance hit me at the same time. I’m glad I don’t have to figure out how to act around him this morning, but to take the whole week off? He didn’t need to do that. It’s dramatic, and Charlie isn’t dramatic. Which only makes the point that he’s changed everything, and so the annoyance.
I consider texting him to ask why he did it, but I know why, so sending a text is stupid. Instead, I start the morning routine, and when I cross paths with Sandy, I try to sound casual when I ask, “Why isn’t Charlie on the schedule?”
“Central branch,” she says. “He’s covering for someone out on maternity. He didn’t tell you?”
“We’ve had our wires crossed this weekend. I’m sure I’ll get a text any minute.”
“He changed it Saturday.”
“Makes sense.” I head to turn on the nearest computers, seething. Now who’s supposed to say, “Good morning, Ruby Tuesday”?
A text comes in.
Good morning, Ruby Tuesday.
I growl. Not Charlie.
My own irrationality upsets me even more. If Charlie had both better say and better not say Ruby Tuesday, how will we ever fix this?
I respond the meanest way I know how.
IT’S MONDAY
It doesn’t make me feel better.
I make it through the day, doing my work and staying courteous with patrons, but it’s hard because Charlie’s absence makes the library feel flat. It always feels like that when I work on his day off, but this is worse. This will be days and days. And more days.
The last thing I want to do is go home and require more babysitting from my roommates.
They had to do too much of that after I broke up with Niles.
When I clock out, I don’t drive home to the condo.
Instead, I head the opposite direction, to the people who were put on this earth to babysit me and fix me.
Thirty minutes and one barely averted fender bender later, I park in my parents’ driveway.
“George! Melody!” I call, walking in through the back door into the kitchen without knocking. “Come take care of me!”
My mom comes in from the living room, her petite frame barreling toward me with her arms already out, and I fall into her hug.
“Your dad’s at the lumber store. What’s going on?”
“Boys are dumb,” I whine.
“Ah, so an emergency,” she says. “More Niles trouble?”
I’d told my parents about his engagement at dinner a few days after it happened. They were thrilled he was engaged, seeing it as one more piece of evidence he’d never be coming around again. Not big fans either.
I slip out of her hug and head toward the fridge. “No.”
She moves me out of the way of the fridge and starts gathering up turkey sandwich fixings. “One of your new dates?”
I’d told them about the bet too, of course. “No. I mean, yes. But not the current problem. You don’t have to guess. You can’t, honestly. It’s—”
“Charlie?” she asks.
I pause, startled. “Who told you?”
“No one had to.” She pops two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Seemed destined.”
“For us to fight?”
She pauses. “Sure.”
“You expected us to fight?”
“Don’t all good friends?” She slices a tomato to perfect thickness and picks up the lettuce.
I settle myself onto a barstool on the opposite side of the counter to watch, chin propped on my fist. “I guess.”
“What did you fight about?”
“He loves me,” I say right as the toast pops, making us both jump.
“And that scares you.”
“The toaster scared me.”
She points her knife at me. “And Charlie’s love scares you.”
Something about the way she says that—“Charlie’s love”—does scare me.
“It sounds weird when you say it like that.”
“But does it scare you?” she asks.
I don’t answer as she spreads cream cheese then raspberry preserves on the toast. “All I want from you is a sandwich and sympathy.”
“Done and done,” she says as the sound of the garage door opening leaks through the door. “Your dad is home.”
“I don’t need to be fixed. And no advice.”
“Sandwich and pity. Got it.”
“And chips? And tell Charlie to take it back. And be one hundred percent on my side.”
“Always on your side, mi sol,” my dad says, walking in and dropping a kiss on my hair. My mom is already pulling out more bread.
“Even if she’s wrong?” my mom asks.
“Mom!”
She shrugs.
“Yes,” my dad says. “But my darling Ruby didn’t do anything.”
“Charlie did,” my mom says. “He finally told her, and she’s melting down.”
“Charlie finally told me?” I repeat, my voice going high.
“’Bout time,” my dad says.
I drop my head into my hands and groan, “What is happening?”
“We’re supposed to give her food and pity,” my mom tells him.
“Why? Charlie’s good people.”
“It scares her,” she says.
“Good thing we didn’t raise a chicken,” my dad answers.
“I’m not scared,” I protest. “I’m mad.”
“Because you’re scared.” My mom gives an exaggerated sigh. “I already told her that.”
I can’t take it anymore and my head flies up. “I feel like I walked into the middle of a conversation where I can’t catch up. What do you mean he finally told me? Did he tell you he was going to?” I hate this idea.
My dad scoffs. “No. But that boy’s been coming around here forever. It was obvious it was only a matter of time before it came out after you dumped Niles.”
“We were just friends!” I say. “Guys and girls can be friends. I’m friends with Josh and Oliver. Nobody thought they were in love with me.”
“You weren’t always in their laps, wrestling, playing, sharing an inside joke every two minutes that no one else gets,” he says.
I draw back, stricken. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Fault?” He looks confused. “Why is there a fault? Nothing bad happened.”
“Dad,” I almost wail, “he wrecked everything. I didn’t ask him to fall in love with me, and it’s not my fault I can’t fall in love with him.”
His eyebrows shoot up, and he looks at my mom like he’s at a loss.
She nudges my plate toward me. “Eat your sandwich, sweetie. Then maybe you should tell us what happened.”
Twenty minutes later, we’ve rinsed our plates and moved to the long dining room table.
It’s pockmarked and scratched from years of service, but my dad made it when my mom found out she was pregnant with me.
The Ramos family had officially outgrown all the standard size family dining tables, and he had no confidence that anything in a furniture store could withstand his four sons, much less adding a fifth kid to the mix.
Simply taking the seat that’s been mine since I graduated from my high chair lightens the weight I’ve been carrying since Charlie told me that he wasn’t sure what he needed for us to get past this.
All of my biggest problems have been solved at this table, and this will be too.
No one gives better advice than my dad, except my mom.
I told them about Charlie’s confession and his temporary transfer to the main branch.
“So what do I do to get us back to normal?” I ask.
“Let me ask you something,” my mom says.
“You say you’re friends with him like you are with Josh and Oliver.
But if I didn’t know you and I was watching you two together, I’d assume you were in a relationship.
That’s not how you act with Josh or Oliver.
It’s also not how you act with your brothers. ”
“If I treated Charlie like the boys, I’d be punching him all the time.”
My dad chuckles. “True enough. But the only time I’ve seen you act the way you do with Charlie, it’s with someone you’re dating, including Niles and every boyfriend back to high school.”
I don’t have a defense. If that’s what my parents say they see, that’s what’s happening, no matter my intentions. Regret invades my chest like the ragweed giving Joey fits right now. “I didn’t mean to.”
My mom stretches her hand across the table to take mine.
“You don’t need to feel bad, Roo. But now that you’re aware of it, do the work to understand why you two are like that.
You like being in a relationship and taking care of people.
Could you have made Charlie your surrogate boyfriend without realizing it? ”
“No, of course not. I know I’ve been pretty clueless, but I’m not that clueless.”
“But if Charlie took it that way . . .”
I groan. This is so messy. “I want things to be like before.”
“But he told you things were never what you thought,” my dad points out. “You have to figure out what you want things to be like now.”
“I already know! I want to be friends, but he says he’s not sure how long that will take. Or what he needs from me. What am I supposed to do?” I ask them.
“Be his friend anyway,” my mom says.
“I don’t think he expected you to get mad,” my dad adds. “Start by letting him in from the cold.”
“I hate that image,” I say.
“Then undo it,” he says, like it’s that simple.
But maybe it is?
“Excuse me a second.” I pull out my phone.
Sorry I walked off yesterday. You didn’t ruin anything.
Feels kind of ruined
It’s not
Sad you went to Main
Tacos tomorrow?
Charlie’s reply takes long enough that I set my phone down. My parents have both gotten up, and I watch them in the kitchen together, my dad swatting my mom’s butt as he passes her to put away the bread and preserves.
Not tomorrow but soon
Need a little time
That’s fair
Not because I’m mad
Just
Gotta fix my face?
Fix his face. Like figure out how to get his game face on for dealing with me?
Yeah, I hate this. But the options are push through or break up as friends, and I could never.
You give good face
You don’t need to fix anything
But I get it. We good?
Will be. Promise.
I have to believe that because there’s nothing else I can do. Charlie has to decide how this will go next, and it’s my job as his friend to give him all the time he needs to do that.