Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday felt like going back to school after a long break. Like I’d been gone for enough time to become a different person.
When I got to my office, the door was already unlocked and I immediately recognized the sequined head wrap and silk muumuu–clad person waiting behind my desk.
“You know,” I told Ruby, “this office does indeed have a lock and I’m pretty sure it was in use.”
She crossed her legs with her arms draped on the armrests of my chair like she was the president.
“Gavin in maintenance is a big fan of Prom Queen from the Swamp. I’ve signed his entire DVD collection of my oeuvre and gifted him a few signed headshots.
He was kind enough to let me into my own granddaughter’s office. ”
I dropped my tote bag on my desk and sat in the chair across from her, bracing myself both physically and emotionally. “You know that just because I work at your senior living facility doesn’t mean you can go into my locked office, right?” This felt pretty on par with working at your kid’s school.
Ruby gave me a sharp, feline-like smirk. “Well, one weekend out from under my roof and you really do have a sudden sense of boundaries, don’t you?”
“Sorry, sorry,” I conceded. “I just want to make sure people take me seriously, and that’s hard to do with you tromping into my office like you own it.
Of course I don’t care that you’re in here, but it also feels a little like Take Your Grandmother to Work Day every day.
And I know how much you hate identifying as a grandmother. ”
Her lip curled with offense. “Do I look like I would ever agree to work in an office without natural light?”
I held one hand up and then walked two fingers through the air. “This is you.” I moved my fingers faster. “And this is you speed-walking past the point.”
“How were the first few days living with Dr. Buckley?” she asked so loudly I swore I heard a group of giggling women in the hallway fall silent. “I’m curious to know: Does the good doctor prefer boxers or briefs? How does he take his morning coffee? With or without a shirt?”
I hopped up and closed the door, my cheeks flaming red. “Could you please be a little more discreet?” Though that was asking a lot of Ruby. Discretion was not something she came by easily.
“Shacking up with your ex-husband is hardly discreet. But leave it to you to steal my fun.” She rolled her eyes and then cleared her throat dramatically. “Anyway, I have big news.”
I held my hand to my chest and fanned myself. “I think I’m having a stress response to the thought of you and big news. Did you sell my car? Donate Marlon to a science research facility? Am I the secret love child of a politician who believes we didn’t land on the moon?”
“It’s a wonder you never went into acting. You’re more dramatic than Susan Lucci.”
“Susan Lucci was dramatic for good reason. They should do anthropology studies on what the Emmys did to that woman. So, what’s the big news?”
“I’ve been invited to Global Horror Con in New Orleans as a guest of honor.” To the untrained eye, Ruby looked cool and indifferent, but I could sense the nervous excitement thrumming there, beneath the surface.
“That’s great, Rubes,” I said. Ruby had done a couple handfuls of conventions over the last few decades, but the requests had certainly dwindled recently. Global Horror Con was a biggie, though.
“That’s not the news,” she said, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t given her sufficient time for the big reveal. “They’ve giving me a lifetime achievement award. And it’s about goddamn time that someone did! I’m not getting any younger.”
“That’s—that’s amazing!” I leaned over the desk to hug her.
Neither of us had ever been physically affectionate with each other, but this was the kind of occasion where Mom would have made a cake or at least ordered baklava from Ruby’s favorite bakery down the street.
It fell to me now that it was just the two of us, and the reminder sent my stomach plummeting.
With Mom sick for so long, people would tell me all the time that she was out of her misery and that it was okay to be relieved and that caretaking wasn’t easy.
But I’d do it all again for tonight and for her to be here so that Ruby and I could fall into our usual roles—the ones we’ve been rehearsing for years.
But instead, we are this indecipherable jumble of mother, daughter, and granddaughter.
She pulled back and primly smoothed out her muumuu. “Well, the especially good news for you is that I’m allowed to bring a guest. Isn’t that lucky?”
“Me?” I asked. “You want me to be your guest?” The thought of Ruby and me trying to navigate the security line and boarding process at an airport was nightmare-inducing, but the fact that she wanted me to be her guest felt—
“Well, technically Hollis is going as my guest, and I’ve listed you as my personal assistant.”
I snorted. “Well, my travel is still covered, right?”
She nodded. “Exactly! And that’s what counts. They’ll hold a special gala and I’ll be on panels and—goddamn it, I need to go shopping.” She looked me up and down, a determined spark lighting her eyes. “As do you, my dear. Badly. ”
“That’s fair,” I said, my jeans and oversize blue-and-white-striped button-down from Old Navy not really feeling very guest-of-the-lifetime-achievement-recipient-y.
“You’ll really go, then?” Ruby asked, and in a rare moment, she seemed almost timid. It made me want to be there for her even more so. For her to ask point-blank like this meant that she needed me, even if she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Of course,” I told her. “I wouldn’t miss it, Rubes. Plus, a free trip is definitely in my budget.”
She laughed, almost surprised that I was clever enough to say something funny, and then hopped up from my chair, muumuu fluttering behind her as she left.
ELIAS BUCKLEY
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
TRUTH OR DARE
We’d only been in Vegas for five hours and Brody had already lost six hundred dollars of my dad’s money at the roulette table while Vera and I sat at two nearby Dolly Parton slot machines, pulling the levers over and over again.
Now we were in the bowels of one of the casinos, eating New York–style slices from some Guy Fieri–branded pizza parlor while Brody chugged his beer, then finished Vera’s and eventually mine.
“Let’s play a game,” Brody said.
“We’ve been playing games all night,” Vera told him.
“I think I’m on the verge of crashing. That drive wiped me out.
I did the opening shift this morning and I barely slept last night.
I got to that point in the night where it was just easier to stay awake than it would be to try to get up at four thirty. ”
“No one needs smoothies that early,” I said.
Vera looked at me, a little taken aback that we were both in agreement or maybe that I even knew where she worked. But of course I knew. I regularly drove past Smoothie Hut just to see if she was there in the glow of the drive-through window.
She sighed. “I never see anyone before eight a.m. anyway.”
“You are not fucking crashing,” Brody said, his words tripping one over the other as he slung an arm around her shoulder.
I almost told him to fuck off, but then Vera giggled and dropped her head against his chest.
I’d gotten used to it. The bitter burn I felt every time they touched. Every time her body arched toward him like he was the sun on a chilly day. I wanted to know what it felt like to be her fucking sunshine, but I doubted I’d ever been anyone’s light a day in my life.
He came home from one of their study sessions at the library the Wednesday before spring break.
They’d rented a private room and he said he’d kissed her.
A kiss turned into making out and ended with her going down on him.
I wanted to hate him for it. But when he told me, it wasn’t some sort of trophy or locker room story.
He was delightfully surprised and not even a little worried about what it might do to their friendship.
There was no mention of him reciprocating the favor, but maybe she didn’t want that. It wasn’t my business, anyway.
That didn’t stop me from imagining myself barging in on the two of them. But the scenario always ended there. I never knew what came next. Did I sweep her off her feet? Did I try to beat the shit out of him? What right did I even have to imagine the possibilities?
“What’s the game?” I asked.
“Truth or dare on steroids,” Brody said. “If you refuse your truth, you have to do whatever you’re dared to do next. No exceptions. Same goes for dares.”
“I’ve never actually played truth or dare,” Vera admitted.
“Seriously?” I asked.
Brody practically jumped out of his seat. “Oh shit! We’re about to conquer some virgin territory!”
Vera’s cheeks warmed with a soft pink. “Truth or dare, then,” she said to Brody without missing a beat.
He shrugged indifferently. “Truth.”
“Tell us about the most devastatingly embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you.” She grinned devilishly. “Or don’t and I’ll give you a dare that will set a new benchmark.”
He pursed his lips and thought for a moment.
“Christmas break. Last year. I was on my way back to LA and I fell asleep. Middle seat. Back of the plane. I dreamed that . . . I shit my pants. And for whatever dumb psychological reason, my body decided that dreaming about shitting my pants wasn’t enough—”
“Oh no,” Vera said through a gasp.
He nodded. “It was so bad they had to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City and wait for a new plane.”
“You said that was because of some kind of mechanical issue,” I said, feeling slightly jealous at how easy it had been for him to fess up to something like this.
He wasn’t even that embarrassed! I grew up in a medical family where bodily fluids were regular topics of dinner discussion and even I was mortified on his behalf.
“Yeah, did you think I was pumped to tell everyone it was because I shit my pants?”
Vera watched him and then slowly began to nod before dissolving into a fit of giggles. “Well, Brody. You set a high bar. I guess I’m next.”
He turned to her, his legs spread so that her knees were tucked nicely between his thighs as he braced his hands on the tops of her legs, one thumb stroking back and forth along the worn, thin denim of her favorite jeans that I’d seen her in so, so many times.
The ones with the small bleach spot near the hem from when she’d helped us tie-dye matching jumpsuits for the Sigma Phi track-and-field day last month.
“Truth or dare?” he asked.
She inhaled deeply, a wild look in her eyes. “Dare.”
“Get us kicked out of this casino.”
I looked from Brody to Vera, who was such a diligent rule follower that she once waited the required fifteen minutes before class could be officially canceled for a professor who had already emailed the class to say she’d gone into labor.
She bit down on her lip and nodded repeatedly, like she was psyching herself up. “Okay, okay, okay.”
“Just do a truth,” I told her. “I really don’t want to bail you out of jail.”
But she didn’t hear me. She was already standing up and storming out of the pizza place.
“Fucking yes!” Brody grabbed his half-eaten slice of pizza and pumped a fist into the air as he jogged after her.
I dropped a few bucks into the tip jar at the counter and then followed them both.
I was not nearly drunk enough for this.