“You went to New York?” Trish said.
“Where’d you hear that?” said Brandon. Trish wasn’t one of the cool girls. She sat beside him on the log, her knees tucked up under her chin.
“It was all around the school.”
“Fuck,” said Brandon, but he wasn’t displeased.
“What was it like?”
“Decent.”
“What’d you do?”
“Not much. Went to a bar in Soho, me and Dewey.”
“That sounds pretty cool.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. The bottles came around. Trish took a big hit off the Captain Morgan, didn’t touch the Coke. Some kid on the other side of her lit a match, lighting up Trish’s face. It struck Brandon that she was as good-looking as most of the cool girls, maybe all of them. When had that happened? She’d always been more or less a loser, lived in the apartments behind the Rite-Aid, worked at the cash register sometimes, like her mom, or stepmom or whatever it was.
The bottles came to him. He took a big chug of the Captain Morgan, just so he could talk to Trish a little better, even if she wasn’t one of the cool girls, felt a nice boing inside his head, made him sit up straight. He dropped the Coke. The bottle rolled down the bank and into the pond; not into, exactly, but on.
“Hey,” said a kid down the log, “it’s fuckin’ frozen.”
“Go for a walk,” said Frankie J.
“No way,” said the kid.
“It’s safe,” said Frankie J. “I was skating this morning.”
The kid shook his head.
“Five bucks if you do,” said Frankie J.
“No way.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty?”
Frankie J took out a twenty, rolled it up in a ball, flipped it onto the ice maybe five feet from shore, just out of reach. Night, but the clouds caught all the lights of civilization and the pond gleamed under them. The balled-up twenty sat there, real clear. The kid got up, a freshman Brandon didn’t even know.
Don’t do it, you asshole,
Brandon thought. But he didn’t say it, and the kid took one cautious step onto the ice, then another, got both feet on the ice, bent down for the money and—
Splash.
Right through of course, losing his balance, a clumsy kid, and falling all the way in, even soaking his head somehow.
Laughter. The kid came up shivering, then shaking. More laughter. “Where’s the twenty?” said Frankie J. “You call that a walk? You owe me twenty.”
Brandon happened to see that Trish wasn’t laughing. He stopped.
A
little later, standing by the big rock with Dewey, he said, “What do you think of Trish?”
“Trish Almeida? She’s a pig.” Dewey had the crack pipe in his hand. “Know who you should go after?” he said. “Whitney.”
“Whitney?” Brandon could see her, sitting around a little fire with a few other girls, just off the path. “I thought she went out with Frankie J.”
“They broke up.”
Whitney’s blond hair glowed in the night.
“Go talk to her.”
Brandon shook his head.
“What’s to lose?” said Dewey. “The girls think you’re good-looking.”
That was news to Brandon.
Dewey lit the pipe. “Try this.”
“No.”
Dewey took a deep drag, passed him the pipe. Brandon shook his head again, but the pipe got in his hand anyway, Dewey letting go. “One little hit and the magic word will come to you.”
Brandon took one little hit. “Wow,” he said, maybe not right away, but fairly soon. And, not long after: “Is that the magic word?”
Dewey was still laughing when Brandon wandered away toward Whitney’s fire. Whitney and some other girls, all cool, some of them seniors, sat in a circle; they had cups to drink from. Brandon thought of sitting too, but it was a long way down. The girls all looked up at him. No smiles, more like,
Yeah
?
“Hey, Whitney,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I know the magic word.”
At least her eyes didn’t narrow any more. The problem was saying
wow
at that moment might not seem as funny to Whitney and these cool girls as it had to Dewey. Another problem was he couldn’t think of anything else. Then, coming up fast was a third problem that swept away everything, a sick dizziness that was going to end in puking, real soon. Brandon turned and ran, or stumbled, away.
Laughter, this time at him.
T
he next thing he knew, he was lying by the log near the pond, wedged under its curve. He sat up, bottles, beer cans, cigarette butts all around, but no people. He was alone.
Brandon rose, real fuckin’ dizzy, and puked again. He went down to the pond to rinse his mouth out, reached in, not in, because his hand bumped up against the ice. Frozen, he’d forgotten that. Had someone actually fallen in? Oh, yeah. All refrozen now. Brandon crouched by the side of the pond, trying to feel right, unable to even rinse his goddamn mouth.
He heard a crack. A cracking sound, out on the pond. Not the ice cracking, but something striking it. He looked out and saw a big stick still sliding across the ice, not far away.
The cops? They sometimes raided the woods, but not this late, and throwing sticks wasn’t their style; they came barreling right in. Some kid then, because it had to be someone, too far out to have fallen from a tree. He peered through the darkness of the woods around the pond, saw no one. Brandon thought of saying something out loud, maybe
fuck you
, decided he would if another stick got thrown.
That didn’t happen. He rose, found the path no problem—he’d been in these woods all his life—started for home. The air turned funny, and he realized it was snowing. Then, goddamn it, he figured out a cool thing he could have said to Whitney:
Go with the Beatles answer.
Too late. Why couldn’t—
That was when the second stick got thrown. Brandon heard it crack on the pond, now far behind him. Probably some kid, totally wrecked, more wrecked than him. He walked a little faster anyway, not quite so dizzy. Snow drifted down through the bare trees, black flakes that clung to his skin. Brandon realized his jacket, red with black sleeves and
West Hill Tennis
on the back, was gone. No shirt, either. Pants, yes, shoes, yes. Tomorrow was Sunday, sleep for fuckin’ ever. He just wanted to be in his bed.
A
man’s hand was on Linda’s breast, a beautiful hand. She awoke, nipples taut, aroused. No one was touching her. She could sense Scott over on his side, fast asleep.
Maybe now.
Now when they were working together so well at the beginning of this new stage of life, getting Brandon into a good college. Linda remembered a piece of advice she’d come upon while leafing through a self-help book at Barnes and Noble, waiting for Ruby to finish her Christmas shopping:
The heat generated in the master bedroom warms the whole house.
A line that stabbed her at the time, stabbed her now. She reached for Scott.
Just don’t wake up.
Another little stab—why couldn’t she control her mind better, rid it of thoughts like that?—but her nipples stayed taut.
He was hard already, hard in his sleep. In a moment or two her nightie was hiked up and she was straddling him, got him inside. He made a little moan, not a moan, more musical than that, striking a note of surprise and pleasure. She felt him waking up.
Just don’t speak.
“Hey,” said Scott. Only one word, but too much.
I
n the cave: snow, peace, nothing. And then something real bad happened. A fat, fat snake with a squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck was creeping slowly up the inside of her leg. It looked up, looked her right in the eye with eyes of its own, knowing eyes. Then Ruby was bolting down the hall, crying
Snake, snake,
in her mind.
She stopped outside her parents’s door. Sounds came from the other side, sounds that stopped her, stopped her long enough for the nightmare to break up and fall away. More sounds. She still wanted to go in, would have, maybe even a few months ago. But she was almost eleven. Ruby turned back.
But not to her own room, her own bed. No way. She went into Brandon’s room instead, thinking of climbing in with him, which hadn’t happened in years, or maybe settling for the floor in the sleeping bag his friends sometimes used.
Brandon’s CD display was flashing. In the off-and-on green light, she saw that his bed was empty. Green, like snakes. She got out of there, went farther down the hall, up the little stairs, opened the door to the last bedroom.
Ruby could hear her breathing very clearly in the last bedroom. Emptiness made good sound. She switched on the light. Everything had been cleaned out long ago but the bed was made. Ruby understood perfectly: a bare mattress would have been too horrible. Leaving the light on, she climbed into Adam’s bed and closed her eyes. The snake did not return.
M
argie called Julian Sunday morning. “You were a hit,” she said.
Julian was silent. The starlings were back. He tracked their flight patterns, panicky and orderly at the same time, back and forth between the two groves of trees.
“With the Gardner family, in West Mill. They want you back.”
Down below and across the lane, Julian’s landlady came out of the big house, looked immediately at his window—he stepped back—and got into her car.
“What about Sally?” he said.
“How thoughtful of you to ask,” said Margie. “But it’s no problem. This happens sometimes.”
The starlings banked against a white sky, relentless in their going back and forth.
“So you’ll do it?” Margie said. “Same time Saturdays and Wednesdays at seven.”
Julian took a deep drag from his cigarette, first of the day. Oh, the smoke, and that tiny fire in his hand. He recollected every huge emotion he’d ever felt, but in tranquility. “I’ll do it,” he said.
9
R
uby and Kyla got in the back of her dad’s car, Kyla clutching a pair of hot-pink wristbands, prize for winning the round robin this time. Ruby hadn’t even made it to the finals. “Got to concentrate, Ruby,” Erich said. But the lines on the court were becoming a big distraction, like she was trapped in some experiment. And in school Amanda had got elected editor of next year’s fifth- and sixth-grade newspaper,
The Westie,
a job Ruby had really wanted. Not a good day.
“Thanks for driving me, Mr. Gudukas,” she said.
“Hey, no problem,” he said. His smell filled the car, pine or something, like a whole forest packed in there. “Your mom tied up again?”
“Yup.”
More snow. The windshield wipers went back and forth. The town was beautiful, everyone’s lawn all white and puffy, although that morning she’d noticed that theirs had little yellow holes, like Zippy was drilling for something. The roofs of the houses were puffy too, all the edges rounded in snow. The sight calmed her down.
“Want one of my wristbands?” Kyla said in a low voice, the two of them in the backseat.
That was really nice. Hot pink wasn’t Ruby’s color, but it worked for wristbands. She slipped it on, held out her wrist daintily like a model.
“Cool,” said Kyla.
“Yeah,” said Ruby. “Thanks.”
“Want the other one?”
“You keep it,” Ruby said.
Windshield wipers, back and forth. All of a sudden Ruby was very tired, could have fallen asleep right there. She stretched her legs, sticking her feet under the front seat, felt empty cans, stared at nothing.
She and Amanda, the only two candidates, had had to make speeches in front of all the fifth-grade classes. Ruby had promised big changes—a horoscope, advice to the lovelorn, and lots of contests, like the ugliest-sibling photo contest, the stupidest-thing-you-ever-heard contest, the best-limerick contest. Amanda had promised well-written articles with proper grammar and spelling that would make everyone proud of the school, better coverage of the PTA, and bake sales to raise money for student papers in less fortunate countries. Everyone had dropped their ballots in a box, which the principal took to her office and counted. The announcement came over the intercom, exact numbers not mentioned, just that it was close and both candidates were deserving.
“You know the lines on the court?” Ruby said. “They should make them all circles.”
Kyla laughed. “And the ball should be square.”
Ruby laughed too.
“What about your dad?” Mr. Gudukas said, half turning his head.
“Huh?” said Ruby.
“Your dad tied up too?”
“He’s out of town,” Ruby said. “I really appreciate the ride, Mr. Gudukas.”
“Anytime, kiddo,” he said. “Conference or something?”
“I don’t know.”
“Played tennis with him on Saturday. Him and your uncle against me and Erich.”
Ruby didn’t say anything. Was this the first time she’d heard
kiddo
in conversation?
“He mention that?”
“No.”
“Lots of fun. We’re pretty evenly matched.”
They went past a streetlight. Kyla was biting her lip and her forehead was all wrinkled.
“The conference,” said Mr. Gudukas, “Miami, somewhere warm like that?”
“Dad,” said Kyla.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.”
“What is it?”
Kyla didn’t answer. There was no more talking after that. Ruby didn’t feel so sleepy anymore.
T
he house was dark. Ruby went in by the mudroom door. “Hi, I’m home.”
No answer. She switched on the light. Brandon’s jacket wasn’t on its peg.
“Zippy?” she said, dropping everything—hat, gloves, jacket, backpack, racquet—near where they were supposed to go.
No response from Zippy. He was either on the couch in the entertainment center or on the love seat in the living room. Ruby went into the kitchen, turned on more lights. She had homework—math and social studies—plus Hot Jazz was tomorrow and she hadn’t practiced in a week. How about social studies first, then sax, then the math? Good enough. She closed a deal with herself.
But broke it right away to make hot dogs. This time there were buns too. She sat at her place, snow coming down on three sides of her, inches away; hot dogs, mustard, relish, Sprite,
The Complete Sherlock Holmes.
She took a bite, then a swallow of Sprite, and started to open the book. Oops. “The Speckled Band” was in there, unavoidable. Ruby got scissors from a drawer, carefully cut “The Speckled Band” out of
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
, sacrificing only the first page of the next story, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb,” which she quickly scanned so it would make sense later. Summer of ‘89, Dr. Watson gets a new patient, bloodstained handkerchief around his hand—got it.
Ruby could simply have tossed “The Speckled Band” in the trash under the sink, but would that have been as good as burning it? Not nearly. She took “The Speckled Band” into the living room instead. Zippy, on the love seat, didn’t open his eyes. Ruby hadn’t actually made a fire before, but she’d seen Dad do it, the odd time they had fires. It didn’t look hard.
First, you pull away the screen, like so. Then you crumple up a bit of newspaper—there was some in the wood box—and shove it under the grate. On top of the grate went sticks of kindling—she arranged them in a neat square—and then two or three nice split logs, in this case three, because a triangle on top of the square seemed right. Ruby chose birch for the logs because of the way the white bark curled up when it started burning. Matches: on the mantel. She pulled up the ottoman, stood on it, reached the matches, barely.
Ruby hadn’t actually lit a match before. These were from Bricco, her favorite restaurant. She always ordered the double-chocolate pie for dessert, could never finish it and had the rest the next day at home, when it was even better. Bricco had a kind of wine Dad liked, started with
Z
, and Mom always had a glass of champagne, just one. Ruby had Sprite like at home—at home when no one was around to make her drink milk. At Bricco they put a plastic swizzle stick in it, with a monkey on top.
Ruby slid open the matchbox. The matches inside were wooden, with bright red ends. She felt the rough strip on the side of the box, took out a match. On the box she read: Close Before Striking. She closed the box and holding the match at the very tip, drew it along the strip. Nothing happened. She tried it again, harder. The match broke in two. She threw it in the fireplace, took out another one, closed the box, pressed the bright red tip to the rough strip and gave it a quick scrape.
Presto! Fire, a little sparkly fire right there between her fingers. The flame steadied into a pointy-tipped oval, blue, orange, and yellow at the top. Ruby knelt and held it close to one of the crumpled-up newspaper balls. The paper browned a little but didn’t catch fire. Meanwhile the flame was burning down the matchstick, closer and closer to her fingers, losing its pointy-oval shape, spreading out. Starting a fire wasn’t so easy. She felt the heat of the flame and dropped the match. Maybe she’d have to rethink the cavewoman thing. She might not have been as good a cavewoman as—
Hey! Kazaam! With a tiny popping sound, fire sprang to life down among the crumpled newspapers under the grate. More popping sounds and the flames reached up, wrapped their ends around the kindling.
Crackle, crackle.
How great was this? Ruby decided on the spot to make a fire every night. She could even roast her hot dogs over it!
Zippy barked. His head was up, eyes open. She had his attention now. “Not bad, huh, Zippy? I rule.” He barked again.
The kindling was burning beautifully. Big flames swelled all over the place and the white skin of the birches curled up, popping and crackling. The flames grew and grew, fat orange dancers all brought to life by that tiny pointy-tipped oval. And there was a nice smoky smell, too, reminding her of cookouts on the Fourth of July. That Fourth of July smell must have been in the caves all the time. She would have been a great cavewoman after all, would have called herself Rubyfire so the rest of the cave guys would know where she was coming from.
But had it been this smoky in the cave?
Zippy barked, barked again.
“Shut up, Zippy.”
It was maybe a little too smoky. The fire itself was burning fine, all the logs burning now, the crumpled-up paper just ashes and even some of the kindling practically gone. But smoke was kind of flowing out, starting to sting her eyes. She could see it; in fact the whole room was a bit hazy, like a scene in a movie. Ruby made a scientific breakthrough: the fire wasn’t drawing properly. She remembered Dad using that phrase once, and the next thing he’d done was open the window a few inches.
“Shut up, Zippy.”
Ruby opened the nearest window, the one behind the Tin Man sculpture. They just called it the Tin Man; the real title was
Untitled—19
, a cool welded sculpture by a New York artist Mom had kind of discovered. Ruby felt cold air flowing in, turned to the fire, saw flames shooting up. But it wasn’t drawing any better, maybe worse. Smoke was sort of boiling in now, making her cough. The screen: maybe time to put it in front of the fire.
She reached for the screen. Then came a horrible noise, so loud and piercing it jolted her body like an electric shock. Ruby didn’t even know what was happening at first, just put her hands over her ears to shut out the shrieking. Zippy started howling. It hit her: the smoke alarms.
Ruby ran to the kitchen, filled a pot with water, ran back. But Zippy was on the move. She tripped over him, or he bowled her over, and the pot went flying. Ruby landed hard against the ottoman, knocking it into the fireplace. A burning log came tumbling out, landed on the rug, a beautiful Persian rug that had been in Mom’s family for—
Suddenly a big form appeared in the haze, a man—had to be Dad, even though he was in Boston. He stepped over her like the Colossus of Rhodes, not Dad, but some stranger. He stuck his hand in the fireplace at the top right-hand side, yanked something that made a clanging sound. Ruby got a good look at the side of his face: not a stranger but Julian, Brandon’s tutor. Great balls of smoke got sucked up the chimney. Was there something called the damper?
Julian picked up the burning log with tongs from the fireplace tool rack, dropped it on the fire, jerked the ottoman out. He moved so fast: sliding shut the windowed pocket doors to the rest of the house, throwing open all the windows, plus the French doors to the deck. Zippy trotted around after him, wagging his tail. The smoke started clearing right away. The shrieking stopped. Then it was very quiet and everything was all right, just like that. The fire blazed merrily away, burning clean.
Ruby got to her feet, kind of stunned, almost the same feeling as when the roller-coaster ride was over. Julian was examining the ottoman. “A bit scorched.” He looked at her. She’d never seen eyes quite like Julian’s; they seemed to be carrying on a conversation of their own. “You’re not hurt?”
“No.”
His gaze went to the Tin Man. “Where’s Brandon?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded loud. Here she was, back in normality; she tried to make her voice normal too. “Was there a lesson tonight?”
“At seven.”
“Sorry.”
“Hardly your fault. You’re by yourself?”
“And Zippy.”
His eyes went through two or three changes. “Do you like playing with matches?”
Ruby shook her head, was suddenly close to tears. She was in trouble, the biggest trouble of her life, by far. She could have burned the house down, would have if Julian hadn’t turned up. He knew it too: probably why he looked so—not mad, but serious, maybe, or thoughtful.
Julian picked up the ottoman, picked it up easily although it was very heavy. “Where does this go?”
“Over by the leather chair.”
“That green one?” he said.
“Yeah.”
He carried the ottoman over to the leather chair, put it down. “A bit scorched,” he said again, looking up at her “so the placement will be crucial.” He turned the ottoman a little so that the scorched part was up against the front of the chair, invisible.
A crucial placement, the scorched part invisible: Ruby got it. “You’re not going to tell?”
“Do you want me to?” said Julian.
“No.” Ruby felt her stupid lip trembling.
He nodded. “Then we’ll need the vacuum cleaner, paper towels, soapy water.”
Ten minutes later, or even less, the living room was back to normal too, no evidence but a little damp patch on the rug where she’d spilled the water. Maybe not even Sherlock Holmes could have figured out what had gone on. Julian glanced around, Zippy at his side like a prize dog waiting for the next command. The living room looked perfect to Ruby, the way it did after Maria left, but Julian spotted something on the far side of the wood box, scattered pages—“The Speckled Band.”
He picked them up, leafed through. A little smile appeared on his face. “Ah,” he said, “the bell rope.” He peered over the top of the pages. “I deduce that you’ve been reading Sherlock Holmes.”
“How do you know it was me?” Ruby said.
“Good question.” He didn’t answer it. “The puzzle is—why has it been cut from its binding?”
“I don’t like snakes.” That popped out on its own, a little surprise.
Then came a bigger one. “Well, then,” he said, and tossed the story into the fire. Poof: it was gone.
T
hey closed all the doors and windows, went into the kitchen. Ruby’s dinner waited on the table.
“Want a hot dog?” she said.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Sprite?”
He shook his head, looked down at his watch.
“Brandon should be here any minute,” Ruby said, feeling that not just Brandon but somehow the whole family was being rude. She’d offered food and drink. What else did you do to entertain guests, not including playing the sax for them? That was out. Then she remembered that visitors liked to see the renovations for some reason. “How about a tour of the house while you’re waiting?”
“That might be nice,” Julian said.
“Great,” said Ruby. “Over here’s the mudroom, and—”