 
Blackbird Cry

By James Welsh

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 by James Welsh

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know

-James Joyce, _Ulysses_

1

Lake Murray, South Carolina

October 31, 2014

Ruby could remember a time when she sat at the edge of that dock and her toes never touched the water. She and her father would go fishing there some Sundays, before church. Sundays were usually the only days during the week when her father wasn't working a double shift, and it wasn't until years later that Ruby fully appreciated that he wanted to spend his rare free time fishing with her.

They would wake up before the sun did, and drive over to that little dock tucked into the corner of the lake, and they would try and catch fish for breakfast. One time they woke up so early that even the bait was asleep. At least, that's what her father told her – it wasn't until years later that Ruby found out that her father had accidentally let the bait die. Her father was the only one who ever caught any fish – Ruby never got a bite because she didn't have the heart to drive a fishing hook through the belly of a worm.

But sometimes the point of fishing isn't to catch any fish. Sometimes you just want to sit down by the lake and get full on the silence like dinner. And on those hot summer days when the temperature swelled, Ruby loved to take her shoes off and dangle her legs off the dock. While her legs weren't quite long enough to graze the water, she could still feel the coolness radiating off the lake, like sweat off the sun.

But now, years later, her legs were more than long enough for her feet to sink into the lake. As she kicked her legs back and forth, she was careful not to soak the white dress she had on. The dress was simple in the way sunlight is – even a breath could cause the fabric to ripple like clothes drying on the line. And even though it was the thick of night, the dress still glowed like a city looking at its reflection in puddles in the street. So she had to be careful with the dress – not only was it beautiful, but it was expensive to rent.

As she sat there, her skirt hiked up to her knees, she punched out a message on her cellphone. Her thumbs dancing with rhythm across the screen, Ruby was too focused to notice the eerie light echoing from the other side of the lake. The light was like a second sun, but there was nothing beautiful to it. Instead, it shimmered with a confusion of colors, like a child playing with watercolors, like oil pooling on the driveway. The light was warm the way morning breath is.

There was a deep light behind her as well. About a hundred feet behind her, crowding out what was once the woods on Shull Island, was a reception hall built just a year or so back. Ruby remembered the advertisements in the paper at the time. The hall was crackling with electricity, so full of noise that music and laughter was sloshing out of the open windows. Between the reception hall behind her and the ugly light in front of her, Ruby felt as if she was caught up in the gravity between two stars.

A few minutes went by before the bride spilled out of the front doors of the reception hall. Trudging, carrying the train of her dress bunched up in her hands – the white dress accentuating her cappuccino skin – Nia looked around anxiously. After several seconds, Nia spotted the silhouette of her sister sitting out on the dock. Sighing, she walked across the parking lot, swearing as she stepped barefoot on the gravel. As Nia made her way across the road separating the reception hall from the dock, she called out, "Ruby!"

Even in the cool dark, Nia could see Ruby turn and look in her direction. Nia knew it was her sister: the glow of cellphone screen was illuminating Ruby's caramel skin. Ruby called out, "Is it already time?"

"What's that?" Nia asked as she walked down the dock's narrow walkway.

"I was asking if it's time for the speeches," Ruby repeated.

"No, I'm running away from my own wedding," Nia said dryly. "Yes, girl, of course it's time. If we aren't back in the hall in the next few minutes, folks are going to think I actually did run off!"

Ruby laughed. "They'll be wondering why you waited until after the wedding to run off, then. You were always the late one in the family."

"So says my sister who hasn't written her own damn speech yet," Nia huffed.

"Don't swear when you're wearing your wedding dress – it's probably bad luck to do that," Ruby said. She held up her phone triumphantly. "Besides, I just finished it."

"You texted your speech you'll be giving at my wedding?" Nia asked, incredulous.

Ruby smiled. "You sound surprised – you really shouldn't be. What, you rather I write it down on parchment with a quill then?" She pulled her feet out of the water and stood up, feeling the tickle of the water running down her shins. She wanted to make a joke that connected the parchment with how her sister and new brother-in-law had left the church earlier that day in a horse-drawn carriage. She didn't know how to pull off the joke, though, without sounding mean-spirited.

Nia pursed her lips just the way their mother did. "Hmm, well, I guess it's better than just winging the...now, how long have you had your feet stuck in that water for? You're going to catch a cold like that!"

"I'm alright," Ruby said defensively as she shook her feet dry before putting on her shoes.

"I'm just saying...it's almost November after all. You don't feel this chill in the air?"

"Nia, if we put up four walls and a roof right now, you could call this room temperature," Ruby said as they began walking across the dock. She stained the wood with water as they walked. Ruby was tempted to say that Nia was one to talk. After all, a few weeks back, Nia had caught a cold after going outside before letting her hair dry. _In her defense, by the time she gets her hair dry, it'd be time to wash it again,_ Ruby thought as she looked jealously at Nia's waterfall of hair which bounced as they walked. Ruby subconsciously ran her fingers through her own hair, which was far shorter, barely touching her neck like the static electricity in a lover's fingers.

"And aren't you worried about the catfish out there biting your toes off?" Nia persisted.

"What are you trying to say? Remember what Dad told us? The smellier the food, the easier it is to catch catfish. Just what you trying to say about my feet?"

"No offense or anything, but all the more reason not to be dipping your toes in that water," Nia said as they crossed the street. "Hey, remember that one time when Dad took us out on the rowboat? And he got bit by the catfish when he was trying to throw it back?"

"I remember that too," Ruby said. "And, before you say anything, yes, I also remember him throwing it back because I didn't want the fish to die. He'll never let me forget that."

"It was such a big fish, though," Nia pouted.

"All the more reason not to kill it. The poor fish..." Ruby said, her voice trailing off for a few moments before she found it again. She smiled. "Thank Jesus that Dad was such a bad fisherman. I can count on one hand the number of times he caught a fish."

"Saying that as if you're perfect – only thing you ever caught was a bicycle tire," Nia joked. Then, before Ruby had a chance to say something smart back, Nia looked over her shoulder and asked, "What's that light over there, by the way?"

"Hmm?" Ruby looked back in that direction. "Oh, _that_. I think it's a new marina," she lied.

Ruby knew all too well what it was, but she didn't have the heart to ruin Nia's big day. When driving to the reception hall earlier that evening, Ruby had heard on the radio about Klan activity on the other end of the lake. Just that week, a county clerk decided to make a name for himself by refusing to grant a marriage license for a gay couple. Within a day, the county's numbers skyrocketed with protestors from both sides, picketing cars driving into the parking garage at the courthouse.

Of all the protestors who showed up in support of the gay couple, by far the most prominent was John Emerson, the founder of a privately-owned pharmaceutical company that was negotiating with the state to open a massive production facility. The newspapers all were saying the deal would create more than two hundred jobs and net millions of dollars in revenue for the state. Emerson and his entourage were actually scouting potential real estate when they saw the protests.

When Emerson joined the crowd and told them that he was gay, the Klan down the road reared its ugly head. They found out that Emerson was staying at a resort along the lakeshore, and so they went there to protest – something. No one was quite sure what was making the Klan wet their holey bedsheets like children. Nevertheless, they cut down a nearby tree – one that was reportedly planted over a hundred years before – and carved a cross out of it. They stood the cross up in front of the resort, poured gasoline on the wood, and tossed a match at it.

But that fiery cross – the flames now spreading out of control in the dry grass, and three firehouses working to fight it – was behind Ruby and Nia. Ahead were the only lights that mattered: the reception hall that was lit like a jar of caught fireflies. If only Ruby had been a poet, she would have thought about how the burning cross was behind them in more ways than one, and Nia's marriage was ahead of them. And that was when she remembered why she had snuck out of the reception hall in the first place. Ruby groaned.

"What you moaning about? You're not the one walking barefoot on gravel," Nia said.

"What if Anthony sees me again?" Ruby asked, the panic rising in her voice.

Nia couldn't help but laugh. "Is that why you vanished? So you wouldn't have to deal with Anteater Anthony?"

Anthony "Anteater" Gordon was a boy that the sister had known since childhood, unfortunately. Ruby could still remember the time she caught Anthony sniffing a seat after their fourth-grade teacher had stood up to go help a student. And she could still remember how he would always smell like beans. But most of all, she could still remember how he had earned his nickname. They were all out on the playground during recess, and Anthony had found an anthill. Taking a branch that had fallen off a nearby tree, he proceeded to stick the branch deep into the anthill. After yanking the stick out, Anthony then began to lick off the ants that clung to the branch. When the teacher on recess duty demanded why Anthony did that, he simply shrugged, as good an answer as any.

"I still don't know why you had to invite him," Ruby said sourly.

"Grandma made me," Nia said, helpless. "I've seen those two talking up a storm after Sunday services sometimes. She must have seen him staring at you the way he does during church. Cut Grandma some slack. She just wants some great-grandchildren of her own before she dies. And, I don't mean to defend Anteater, but he isn't as awkward-looking as he was when he was younger, if you know what I mean."

"Some things you just can't outgrow," Ruby said.

"He seems like a nice guy...at least, he does now. And I heard he has himself a decent job too, so at least you'd get yourself a sponsor out of it," Nia offered, clearly grasping at straws. Ruby was glad her sister couldn't see her scowling in the dark. She thought that when she had graduated from college and earned a job with a local bank, her family would realize that she could be trusted with making her own decisions. But, if anything, as she found a career and began looking around the area for a house, her family's pull became only stronger. There was so much that Ruby wanted to share but couldn't – not without ruining Nia's wedding, anyway.

And so the two sisters walked back into the crowded reception hall. As packed as the hall was, with people talking and eating, the space somehow felt open. The architect behind the design wanted as little as possible between the inside and outside. And so the hall had no lobby, and the walls were made entirely of windows, the cathedral ceiling itself made of glass. Ruby couldn't help but wonder how long it took for all of the windows to be cleaned. The kitchen and utility room and restrooms were all buried in the basement. As Ruby walked past the lungs of candlelight exhaling from the tables, beneath the cathedral ceiling reinforced with steel beams like ribs, she had the absurd thought of being inside of a glass man. But then she saw Anteater, and Ruby wondered if there was a difference between ribs and a cage.

They were making their way to the elevated table at the heart of the room, where the wedding party was seated, when Ruby realized that they were about to walk past her immediate family's table. She winced, because she knew that Grandma had requested that Anthony be seated at her table. As they passed by, Ruby shot a glimpse at Anthony. She had to admit that Nia was right, although she could never let her sister know that. Anthony had outgrown his awkward looks. He had traded in his thick glasses for contacts, his weak chin for a strong beard, and his kinky hair for something smoother. But as she walked by him, she was almost certain that she caught a whiff of beans, and beans weren't on the menu that night.

Fortunately for Ruby, Anthony was too busy having an animated discussion with Ruby's grandmother, Lily, to notice anything else going on. Ruby was so used to seeing her grandmother frowning that the sight of her smiling was off-putting, to say the least.

"Maybe I'll get lucky and Anteater will marry Grandma," Ruby hissed into Nia's ear.

Her sister smirked and said, "I heard Grandma gave him your number earlier, during the service."

"Stop it – you're just trying to scare me 'cause it's Halloween."

"It's true," Nia said, enjoying the horror filling up Ruby's face like a drink. "He fed her some line about you two doing some volunteer work at the library."

Ruby scoffed. "Volunteer work...I guess Grandma's never heard of a booty call then?"

Nia laughed a little. "I doubt it. Back then, they probably had to send a telegram if they wanted to tap that."

As they rejoined their table, the maid of honor – Iesha, best friends with Nia ever since the two of them were in Mrs. Appleby's kindergarten class – looked up from her chicken salad.

"Ruby, where were you at?" Iesha asked – no, demanded.

"Sorry about that," Ruby said, sitting down next to Iesha. "I needed a few minutes away from everything."

As Ruby sat her phone down on the table, the maid of honor looked at it and then looked at her, uncomprehending. "Now, what are you doing with your phone out? We're about to be giving our speeches!"

Even though Iesha was sitting between Ruby and Nia, Ruby could still hear her sister stifle a laugh, soft like a shot glass breaking. When Iesha had been made the maid of honor, she became a dictator with it, even going as far as the other day when she mistakenly referred to the wedding as her own "big day." She didn't know that Nia had made the offer to Ruby before her, and that Ruby had declined since she wasn't sure if she could pull off everything that would have been expected of her.

Before Nia had a chance to break up the fight that was brewing, one of their father's dozens of cousins showed up at the table. Ruby had only met Johanna once before, at a family reunion years back, over a decade now that she thought about it. She remembered that Johanna had just gotten her daycare license, and Ruby's father was trying to convince her to look after his two daughters at a discounted rate. Since then, she had moved on to become a relationship therapist, in a way a daycare provider for adults.

Brushing aside a curl that had fallen over her eye – Ruby was jealous that Johanna was able to maintain her wavy hair, given the torrential downpour that had occurred for five minutes earlier in the day – Johanna handed the happy couple a business card. As Nia looked over the card, confused, Johanna said brightly, "I just wanted to wish you two many happy years ahead. But in case that doesn't happen, you have my number."

Now it was Ruby's turn to laugh, as the groom choked on the drink he had just taken, and Nia's jaw dropped. Before the couple had a chance to respond, Johanna had already melted back into the crowd.

With the whole wedding party now back at their seats, Iesha took the opportunity to stand up and ring her half-empty glass of champagne with a butter knife. The audience was thick, and the sound didn't travel past more than a couple of tables. She tried calling out, "May I have everyone's attention please?"

A mezzo-soprano in the church choir, Iesha's announcement rolled over the room and the crowd immediately quieted. Now having everyone's attention – just the way Iesha preferred it, Ruby thought to herself – Iesha smiled and said, "Again, I would like to thank everyone for being here tonight and sharing this special moment with everyone's favorite couple! We'll be getting to the dancing soon enough to burn off what we had for dinner." She paused after her punchline, expecting a laugh. Only a few people in the crowd caught on that it was a joke and chuckled. "But before we do that, each of us up here would like to take the time to wish Mr. and Mrs. Bryant – oh, how I love saying that – to wish them well."

As Iesha launched into her speech, Ruby suddenly wished that she had written her speech on a piece of paper after all, rather than her phone. At least with paper, she could take her stress out on it by balling up the paper in her hands. But now, all she could do was stare at her phone, its screen lit up. And she just realized how low the battery was on her phone, too – she could only hope that it didn't die on her before it was her time to talk. Her nerves were starting to get to her – the headache that had been idling in her brain for the past hour was beginning to ramp up. One time, she had jumped off a cliff into a lake, and here she was, terrified to talk in front of her family and friends.

The real reason she had typed out the speech on her phone was because she was hoping to text it to her old college professor, for him to approve of it beforehand. Professor Samuel Michaelson had taught her freshman English class. His true passion was modernist literature, which seeped through in his lectures. She especially remembered how he taught grammar using the closing chapter from the Irish writer James Joyce's _Ulysses_ , a chapter infamous for having no grammar at all. Rather, the chapter was page after page of run-on sentences, starving for even a comma. As beautiful as the language flowed, Ruby agreed with Professor Michaelson, how miswired grammar can change how words are interpreted. She could only hope that he would approve of what she was about to say. It had been so long since she had spoken with Professor Michaelson that Ruby couldn't even remember why she had his number in her phone. _I guess for this sort of occasion,_ she thought. A shame it was too late now to ask him to look over her speech.

She felt her shoulder being pinched, which brought her back into the moment. She looked wildly around the room, hundreds of eyes looking at her like a spider. She glanced at Iesha, who had already finished her speech, and who was looking at her impatiently. Ruby exhaled hard, to exorcise herself of her demons, and stood up feeling lighter, almost heavenly. Plucking her phone up from the table, she held it in one hand while she held the microphone in the other.

"I hope no one out there really minds, but I decided to try something a little different and type out what I was going to say," Ruby began, holding her phone up in the air for all to see. Then, she started reading what it was she had typed. "There's a book that was written almost a hundred years ago, a book called _Ulysses_. But, although it was written by a little Irishman living in Paris before any of us were even born, it's still relevant tonight. At least, I think so, anyway. At the end of the book, the character Molly Bloom is sitting in her bed, wide awake and thinking. Her husband had just come home after a long night, and now he's fast asleep next to her. And she's looking at him, and she's wondering if their marriage is just as strong now as it was years ago. But then she remembers...she remembers the day that her husband had proposed to her and she accepted. The last line in the story – "yes I said yes I will yes" – is the last line but not the last one at the same time. Because, to the author, _yes_ was the most beautiful word, one that meant hope and new beginnings. And so while the book ends, the couple's story was just beginning. So tonight, when the clock strikes midnight and the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, the love between my sister and her new husband is just beginning. So tonight, let's drink to that."

Ruby sat down shakily as the room burst into applause. Nia reached behind Iesha and shook Ruby's shoulder reassuringly. But Ruby didn't need the encouragement – she knew she did well. She could even see her mother in the crowd, wiping her almond-colored eyes as if she was crying. Ruby knew her mother had never heard of the novel she was just talking about, but she knew deep down that didn't matter. Everyone's possessed by the same demon of emotions, whether it's an Irishman from a hundred years ago or a proud, black mother of two daughters in South Carolina.

As the speeches continued down the table, Ruby felt a sharp stab from her headache. Like waves against the beach, the headache had been advancing and retreating throughout the day. When she had felt it that morning, as she was standing outside of the church, she thought it was just from a lack of sleep. Soon, the headache was gone, and so she had forgotten all about it. When the headache came back, just as the bride and groom were sharing their vows, Ruby wrote off the headache again, this time as being from stress. But now, as the headache was burning brighter, like the wick on a fatty candle, Ruby wasn't so sure.

Ruby winced and shrank in her chair as the headache suddenly erupted, feeling as if a hand had wrung her brain dry. The hand then let go, but only for a second. Ruby gripped the edge of the table and held on, her eyes slammed shut. The headache was so overwhelming that she thought she was going to be sick. After a long count of three, the headache went down a gear but only a gear. It was at that moment that Ruby knew she had to get to a bathroom, even though it meant standing up and walking away in front of a massive crowd. And that's exactly what she did, pushing her chair in and walking across the hall, her head lowered, massaging her temple with one of her hands. She didn't care how she looked at that moment – she just needed not to be there.

By the front doors to the hall was a flight of stairs heading down to the basement, where the bathrooms were hidden. Ruby swept down the stairs, almost knocking over a waiter who was walking up the steps with a wine bottle. At the foot of the stairs, she took a sharp left and went down a lonely hallway. Thankfully she had already gone to the restroom once that evening, and so she knew the way. Opening the door to the women's room, Ruby felt magnetized to the row of sinks lining the far wall. As she headed over, she grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser. When Ruby reached the nearest sink, she twisted the knob for hot water. As she waited for the water to heat up, she gripped the sides of the sink, feeling herself rock back and forth even though she wasn't moving at all.

Once the water was hot enough, she soaked the paper towels under the faucet and applied them to her face. She didn't know how much good that would do, but she needed something to calm her heartrate at the very least. She was feeling the gasoline of adrenaline dripping through her body. As she clamped the soaked towels against her forehead, she felt like a child again, when she would have a temperature, and her mother would put wet towels on her head to break the fever. Almost immediately, she could feel the hand around her brain beginning to loosen, the bile in her throat beginning to sink back down.

She kept the towel pressed to her forehead for another minute or two before she found herself. She was glad that no one from the reception had decided to use the restroom at the exact moment that she was feeling sick – for once, the odds worked in her favor. She had already gotten hounded by questions from every leaf on her family tree that night – she didn't need people asking her if she was sick. She chucked the used paper towel into the trash and checked her face in the mirror, making sure her makeup wasn't smudged.

Satisfied that she was at least somewhat presentable, Ruby slowly made her way to the door. As she walked, she thought to herself what excuse she could use for leaving the party early without people worrying about her. But it was Nia's big day – Ruby had to stay.

She regretted that thought the moment she opened the door. Standing just a few feet away was Anteater, who was wearing surprise like a Halloween mask – fake. "Oh, Ruby!" Anteater said. "I wasn't expecting to run into you down here."

"Uh huh," Ruby said, not entirely convinced. After all, she had to walk right past his table on her way to the bathroom just then. He had to have noticed her.

"Do you have your hall pass?" Anthony asked, trying for a joke.

Ruby laughed weakly. "I guess I'll just have to take Saturday detention then. Excuse me, I need to be getting back..."

Ruby started to walk away when Anthony suddenly grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her towards him. Startled, Ruby briefly lost her ability to speak as Anthony looked her in the face, concerned. He pointed at the beads of moisture on her forehead. He asked, "Why are you sweating? Are you sick? Is that why you ran to the bathroom so quick just now?"

Anthony slipped up with that last sentence. Ruby suspected that Anteater's eyes were stalking her as she left the ground floor just a few minutes before – what he said just confirmed that. Finding her words, she said with a thin smile, "Well, that's just what happens when people get up and talk in front of a bunch of folks. Again, excuse me, but I'm probably missing my sister's first dance."

Ruby turned to walk away, but Anthony wouldn't let go. Instead, he asked with what he thought had good intentions, "Did you want me to take you back home? You seriously don't look well."

Whatever thoughts Ruby had moments before about leaving the party early, they had suddenly vanished. Now, she would rather collapse dead in the hall than have Anthony drive her home. She reached out with her free hand and guided Anthony's fist away from her elbow. Her grandmother's temper, which had skipped a generation, was firing up in her soul, and it took all she had not to smack him in the face. Instead, she said with a tight smile, "How about this? How about I stay for the rest of the party, and I'll let you know afterwards if I should have left early?"

She turned and walked away, half-expecting to hear his footsteps behind hers like an echo. But there was only silence behind her. Ahead of her, though, she could hear music beginning to play. _The first dance¸_ Ruby thought anxiously as she ascended the staircase up to the ground level. When she got back to the main floor, she found all the lights in the room doused except for the lights built into the glass tiles on the dance floor. Ruby look up and noticed there were also lights dangling from the ceiling that were casting down thick beams. Between the lights on the floor shining up and the lights on the ceiling shining down, it looked as if the happy couple on the dance floor was climbing the rungs on Jacob's ladder.

The song that was playing was an old Motown song – Ruby couldn't remember the name of the singer. She did remember, though, how her and Nia used to play that vinyl on their parents' record player when they were kids and it was raining outside. She also remembered how Nia, even as a child, had insisted that song would be the first song she and her eventual husband would dance to. Ruby still couldn't believe that she didn't remember the name of the singer.

Just then, as the song reached its crescendo, the lights in the center of the room shifted from a sun yellow to a deep red, like a rose blooming. Ruby figured that the DJ probably coordinated the lights with the song's ending, that the red symbolized love. Ruby wanted to believe that, although she had already seen a burning cross that evening, although she had a worm of a man grab her by the arm just moments before.

Once again, Ruby had to remind herself that it wasn't her night. It was the happy couple's, and they looked happy. Kevin looked almost professional out there on the dance floor, with a thin, trimmed goatee and a skin fade. Ruby smiled as she thought back to the first time she had met him, when she was a high school freshman who had to take gym class with the upperclassmen. She had vivid memories of a senior with dreads and a beard. He was the only guy in the whole high school who could grow a beard, and that included the teachers. He had changed so much since then.

And Nia looked as beautiful as always. Usually, she kept her long hair draped over her right shoulder, but for her wedding, she had her hair pulled back in a bun. The dimples in her cheeks pulsed as she smiled – the last time Ruby saw her sister that happy was when they were in high school, and Nia had just gotten a secondhand car for her birthday.

Before she had a chance to think of anything else, the song ended and the DJ threw on another song, this one more up-tempo and pounding. It was time for everyone to get out on the dance floor, and everyone certainly did. The lights stuttered with a strobe effect, and Ruby smiled as several of Nia's friends squealed and rushed towards the center of the room. Ruby wasn't a fan of the song that was playing – when she was in the car, she listened to it for as long as it took to switch to another station. But then Ruby turned and saw Anteater making his way to the top of the stairs. Not looking to have to dance with him, Ruby took the plunge and melted into the crowd heading towards the dance floor. Through the crowd, Ruby saw another of her father's cousins: Princess, who ran the biggest catering company in their county. Her company trucks were known to rumble around town, with the phrase "Go Gourmet or Meh" printed in bold letters on the sides. Usually, Princess was all business, which was why Ruby laughed a little as she saw her taking off her shoes, getting ready to dance.

As she stepped out onto the floor, Ruby saw her Aunt Delilah spinning, her beautiful firecracker of dark, fizzy hair taking on a life of its own. She was always the wildcard in the family, and so of course she married a preacher. Uncle Adam was seated at a nearby table, barely approving of the dancing that was taking place. If anything, it seemed as if the dancing was making the bags under his eyes deeper, the wrinkles in his cheeks more pronounced. His grey mustache twitched, the only outburst anyone could ever get out of him.

All Ruby was hoping to do was find her way back to the table for the wedding party. But suddenly she felt a tug on her dress. Ruby looked back, half-expecting to see Anthony again. But it wasn't him – instead, it was several friends of Nia's, looking at Ruby as if she was crazy.

"Now, what you doing?" One of them, Tisha, asked.

"I'm starving," Ruby lied, pointing to her plate of food waiting impatiently for her at the table.

"I'm feeling hungry too," another of Nia's friends, Latoya, said, looking mischievously at one of Ruby's cousins, who was standing at the other end of the dance floor, talking with the guys.

"Hmm, I'd shave my legs for him," Tisha said.

"I'd shave more than my legs for him," Latoya giggled.

"I can't with you right now, pervert," another of the girls said before turning to Ruby. "Girl, get out there! Come on now."

Nia's friends then proceeded to drag Ruby out to dance, against her protests. Ruby started to dance reluctantly to the song, her rhythm off by a few beats. Then, the DJ decided to kill the song out of mercy, switching to another song, this one an old-school hip-hop track. She couldn't remember the name of the rapper, as many times as she had heard the song before. _Why can't I remember any of these names?_ Ruby asked herself. She felt the headache beginning to throttle up again – she tried her best to ignore it and get into the song instead. Ruby pirouetted, her skirt levitating as she spun, the razor of the hemline shaving the air.

Brutally, the memory of her and Nia dancing as children to the Motown vinyl entered her mind again. It caught her off-guard, not just because she wasn't trying to recall it, but because of its vividness. It was as if she was watching a movie in the theater, and someone had spliced another movie into the reel on the projector. But it wasn't the happy memory that she had remembered earlier. No, this time, the colors were off, Ruby and Nia now sickly shades of green. And the colors didn't seem so much to pulse as they hemorrhaged, flooding her. The vinyl in her memory was skipping, and each time it skipped, it grew louder and louder, until the lyrics no longer made any sense.

The pounding in her head grew louder, as if there was someone beating their fists against a door. Before Ruby had a chance to react, everything happened. She felt what she thought for a wild second was a punch to the chest, although no one had hit her. Then, her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor. Any other fall, and her arms would have reached out to cushion her. But her hands didn't belong to her anymore, and she hit the tiled floor hard, splitting her head open just beneath the hairline. Her arms and legs were flailing on their own like fish on the floor of a boat, and Ruby could do nothing but watch as someone nearby, caught up in the heat of the music, accidentally stepped on her hand.

But Ruby didn't feel the pain. All she could feel was her brain flickering like a loose lightbulb, as if she was somewhere between madness and death. And while she felt like she was being electrocuted from the inside out, being blinded by a light that she couldn't see, the dance floor became dark. In the last few seconds of consciousness, she heard hollow shouting and screaming. She only vaguely realized that someone was pushing her onto her side, as her world tilted sharply. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness entirely was the floor looking like the wall, and her sister's shoes running into view. Then, she saw a shade of black that she had never seen before.

2

November 20, 2015

Ruby felt the burn of shame as she sat on the bus stop bench, and she wasn't exactly sure why.

She knew the shame didn't come from the stigma associated with taking the bus. After all, her father had spent more hours of his life sitting on the bus stop bench than some people spend on their couches in front of the television. She remembered once, as a child, she had made a joke at the dinner table about buses that she had heard from one of her classmates. Her father, who was usually a gentle giant, walked outside without saying a word and came back in with a branch he had sawed off a tree with his pocket knife. Years later, she still remembered that lesson.

No, her sense of shame came from something deeper than sitting on that bench. It was the fact that, twenty minutes earlier, she had helped her manager and assistant manager close the bank branch that she worked at. As her manager laughed hysterically at a story she shared involving a customer, Ruby felt a balloon of self-worth inside her.

But, as they locked the doors, the manager and assistant manager both walked to their cars in the parking lot, while Ruby had to walk down the street and sit on a bench. That balloon of self-worth that she had been blowing up had suddenly become deflated. Her assistant manager offered her a ride home, but Ruby had politely declined – she had been a burden to enough people over the past year to add another name to the list.

"Besides," Ruby told her, "my mom's going to be stopping by in a few minutes. She's shopping at the outlets down the road."

Yes, that was it, that was where the shame came from – the fact that she had devolved back into a fourth grader, sitting on the front steps of the school, waiting for her mother to pick her up. It had been over a year since Nia's wedding when Ruby had her seizure – almost six months since her second seizure, which happened during a Sunday dinner – and her family was treating her as a child who had come down with a temperature ever since then.

She was a child again, yes, but a child who was finding ways of getting to doctor's visits, even though the doctor had taken her car keys by state law. She was a child who was arguing with her health insurance about co-pays. She was a child who was learning all that she could about seizures – just a few months before, she even corrected her neurologist when he had used a term incorrectly. And she was a child who was putting in fifty, even sixty hours, a week at work, although there were labor laws against children working such long hours.

And that was not to mention the seizures themselves. The first seizure, during Nia's wedding, had left Ruby in the hospital overnight for observation. Ruby already had an unsettling fear of hospitals, after being in one for several days as a child. So, as she found herself sitting on a lumpy hospital bed, wearing a drafty gown and being poked with needles, the childhood memories came flooding back. After being subjected to a battery of tests, and using her out-of-pocket maximum with her insurance all in one stay, she was told that the seizure may have been due to a recent change in medication for her hypertension.

The second seizure was just as worse, leaving Ruby with bruises that she could not see, pain that she could not ice, torture that she could not describe. This time, however, the doctors could not so easily explain away the seizure as being due to a change in medication. And so, with no avoidable cause, her neurologist had no choice but to ban her from driving. She understood why the doctor had to do so – Heaven forbid if she had another seizure, this time while she was out on the highway. But this meant she had to go six months being seizure-free before she was allowed behind the wheel again. Now, she was only two weeks away from getting her car keys back from her parents, and she was terrified of having another seizure at any moment that would reset the clock.

_If I'm going to be a child all over again,_ Ruby thought, _just what am I ashamed of?_ After all, the pastor always said we felt shame for "not living up to our Father's expectations," and Ruby's father was expecting her to remain his "little girl." She rolled her tongue as she told herself this, tasting the bitterness of what she was saying.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby noticed an elderly woman, sporting purple hair and jingling with jewelry, sitting down next to her on the bench. Ruby nodded a hello to the woman while reaching into her purse. Usually, Ruby struck up a conversation with strangers – and not just the hollow conversations about the weather, but real, probing questions. But it had already been a long day at work, and Ruby knew that waiting on the bench was going to make the day even longer somehow.

Ruby fished around in her purse until her hand closed around the spine of a paperback. She pulled the book out of her purse, unable to help but admire the cover. The cover was a bit rough from wear, but the artwork on the front looked just as beautiful as it did the day she bought it in a used bookstore, back when she was nothing more than a college freshman. Ruby had never heard of the author before – Nadia Skirej – but she thought the book was worth buying for the cover design alone. It was a cubit painting of a rushing river, from its humble beginnings as a struggling stream in the mountains to rapids to waterfalls to a wide mouth draining into the sea, all in one picture. It reminded Ruby of the times when she was a child and she and her sister looked through her grandmother's photo albums from over the decades.

As beautiful as the artwork was, though, the writing in the book was even richer. But while the book was a collection of the author's major works, it was lacking when it came to her life. When Ruby tried finding out more information about the writer online, she was disappointed to find very little on Nadia. There were a billion webpages on reality television, and only five on the writer. She was in Professor Michaelson's freshman English class at the time, and so she had taken the book to him during office hours one afternoon.

"What's this?" Michaelson asked as she handed him the book.

"Have you heard of her before?" Ruby asked, curious.

"I can't say that I have, although it is a beautiful name: Nadia Skirej," Michaelson said, taking his time with the words, rolling the sounds like a ball in his hands. Having grown up with a thick speech impediment, which meant years of speech therapy, Michaelson appreciated the sound in words more than most.

"Oh," Ruby said, disappointed. "I was hoping you would have heard about her at some point."

"Well, now you have me interested," Michaelson said, writing the name down on a busy notepad that he always kept on hand. "I'm going to poke around, see what sort of information I can find on her."

"You'll do that for me?"

Michaelson shrugged. "Of course. At the very least, it'll keep me off the streets for a few days. Besides, I'm one of only five English professors in this whole damn place – I have to know a little bit of everything when it comes to literature. The school can't exactly afford an expert on Indian theater or Vorticism, as much as I'd love that. Anyway, in a week, ask me that same question: what do I know about Nadia Skirej? I promise I'll have an answer then."

And so, a week later, Ruby asked him the same question again. She was expecting a stock response from Michaelson that she had heard from other professors when she asked questions, that they were too busy with grading essays or publishing. But she was thrilled when Michaelson had managed to put together a short, yet comprehensive biography on Nadia. She was one of four daughters, born to a poor farmer in Ceuta, a Spanish-held city just north of Morocco. In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, only Nadia and her younger sister had escaped the violence, fleeing the Spanish territory and making their way south into French-controlled Morocco. The way Professor Laron explained it, during the Second World War, as armies under different flags marched across Morocco, Nadia had learned a hard lesson in independence. Following the war's end, Nadia had worked with her fellow writers, poets, and artists in an attempt to expel European culture from her home and give birth to a new, nationalist consciousness. It was a twist of the knife that she had died from cholera in February 1956, just before Morocco had formally won its independence from France.

While Ruby had adored the book – the margins of the book were tattooed with her notes – she had put the book away sometime later. It was only a month or so back that Ruby had rediscovered the book in a box in her closet, and she fell in love with Nadia all over again. The Moroccan poet's starvation for independence especially resonated with Ruby now, as she felt ruled over by everyone in her life.

And although Skirej had first rose to prominence as a poet, there was only an excerpt of one poem in the book's three hundred pages. Professor Michaelson explained that Skirej had written a book of poetry during the Second World War, a book so controversial for including a sexually charged poem that the authorities had banned it, imprisoning anyone who had a copy of it. In fact, the book was so dangerous that a British spy had written a coded message on the back of a torn page from the book. The spy had reasoned that if the message was intercepted, the authorities would immediately burn the page, not realizing the secret message written on it. And that was how, of the hundreds of copies that had gone into print initially, only one torn page had survived as evidence of Skirej's poetry. And even though only the Lord knew just how many times Ruby had read the English translation of that excerpt, she read it again:

... _and I'm a crow nailed to the knuckle of my heart,_

watching how fast the corn grows,

rather than the corn,

all for it to become an empty basket

at the market that tastes like food.

I am my own lord, who has written his biography

in cursive across the sands of this nation,

his horse's hooves as drips of ink

but his revelations much more

than drips of thinking.

The winds may smooth out

the hoof prints like sea glass,

but the words will last. And I'll stay alive

as long as I keep reminding myself to breathe,

keep reminding myself to breathe.

Ruby had reached the last line just in time to hear the familiar beep of a car horn, with its one-two punch. Startled, Ruby looked up to see her mother's car parked along the curb. Her mother rolled down the window and waved for her to get in. As Ruby stood up, stowing her book back into her purse, the elderly woman spoke up in a surprisingly strong voice, "You have your own ride? Lucky you, miss."

"Trust me," Ruby said, "I'd take the bus if I could."

Before the old woman could say anything else, Ruby opened the passenger door and clambered into the car. As Ruby got settled in and buckled her seatbelt, her mother said, "I'm sorry about being late."

"Don't be," Ruby said, more out of good manners than anything else.

"It's just that someone at the checkout just threw the whole newspaper of coupons at the clerk and..."

"Don't be," Ruby repeated.

"Okay," her mother said before looking behind her, pushing away her long, straight hair that streamed over her left shoulder. Confident that they had the all-clear, Ruby's mother pulled away from the bus stop and accelerated down the road. As they drove, there was a thick silence in the air between them. Some people would have found the silence to be awkward, suffocating almost, but Ruby treated it like a blanket on the cold nights. It meant that no one was lecturing her on how to live her life. After a minute or two of this, though, she found just how brittle the silence was. Her mother easily broke the silence by saying, "So I got a real fascinating voicemail a bit earlier from your doctor's office..."

Ruby groaned – she knew what was coming. Her mother heard the groan but ignored it, saying, "Now, they mentioned on the voicemail that you had missed your appointment this morning and that you'd need to reschedule. I called them back right away – I told them there must be some mistake, because my daughter never mentioned no appointment to me. I mean, how could she miss an appointment if there was no appointment?"

"I completely forgot," Ruby said, not wanting to look her mother in the face. She really needed to remove her mother as a secondary contact for the doctor. "Was just a follow-up – nothing major, really."

"Just a follow-up? A follow-up is what you do when you need to get stitches removed. This is a bit more serious. Something's causing your seizures, Ruby, and all the doctors know so far is what's not causing the seizures. I've looked it up online, to see what the remaining possibilities are, and they don't look good."

Ruby was tempted to say that, after the string of appointments she had in the past year, it got to the point where each individual appointment was like little more than the number you get in the deli line. It honestly felt like each appointment was only to get her to the next one. Each doctor's visit by itself felt worthless, to the point where she felt like she was making more of a difference standing at the teller station than she did in the waiting room at the doctor's. But she wasn't looking to debate her mother on the point of doctor's visits – she'll save that argument for another time, preferably one where she could walk away. It's harder than it looks to walk away from an argument when you're in a car doing fifty down the road.

"And even if I had remembered," Ruby did say, "then how would I have gotten there?"

She felt she was making a good point, one her mother couldn't argue. It was just the day before, actually, when Ruby had left the bank to find that her bike was stolen. In the mornings when the weather was nice, she would ride her bike to work and chain it to a nearby tree. That morning, though, while she had wrapped the anti-theft chain around the tree, she had forgotten to scramble the combination on the lock. She found the anti-theft chain laying in the grass, useless – ironic, since Ruby was pretty sure that the chain was worth more than her secondhand bike.

"Did you ever tell your manager about that?" Ruby's mother demanded. "Did they look at the security cameras to see who did it?"

"Manager said there aren't any cameras pointing in that direction," Ruby said. She resisted the urge to crack a joke, how the thief would return the bike once the chain on it broke.

"Well, anyway, when I spoke with the doctor, I got them to reschedule your appointment for next Tuesday morning at eight. So make sure you tell your manager you need that morning off-work. I'll be free at that time also, so I can drive you in."

"You don't have to make my appointments for me," Ruby said indignantly. She was trying her best not to sound annoyed at her mother, but it wasn't working.

"It seems like I have to. Someone around here's got to be concerned about your health, and it's apparently not going to be you. And keep this in mind the next time you complain about needing a ride somewhere: the more appointments you miss, the longer it'll take you to get the okay to drive again."

"I don't get why I can't just drive on my own," Ruby complained for the hundredth time. "I'll be fine, as long as a cop doesn't pull me over and ask for my license."

Her mother took a moment to look at Ruby with a raised eyebrow. "Really? Ruby, you're already driving while black. Do you really want to be caught driving while epileptic?"

She had a point there – Ruby was willing to admit that much. She replied, "Well, I do need to start driving soon – a lot of driving, actually."

"Oh?" Her mother said, uneasy. "Now why's that?"

"Because my manager gave me a promotion earlier," Ruby said brightly, trying to change the topic to something more positive. In her desperation to do so, she didn't realize that she sounded as happy as she used to, before the seizures started happening.

"That so? Well then, I suppose congratulations are in order. You certainly do deserve it. What comes with this promotion then?" Ruby's mother said, not sounding nearly as enthusiastic as her daughter was about the new job. Ruby noticed.

"Well, you remember me saying before how the bank partnered up with that investment company? My manager told me this afternoon how they're looking to try out a pilot program, where the bank will pick up more of the responsibilities that the investment firm has. Since I have an investment certificate from school, management decided to have me be in charge of the investments for our branches. The catch obviously is that the bank has seven branches, so I'm going to have to do a decent amount of driving throughout the week."

"They know about your condition, right?"

Ruby winced. "Yes, they do. They also know that I'll be a big girl again in a couple weeks when I'll be able to drive. The timing works out real good too, because in late December, I'm supposed to take a trip up to the firm's New York office and do some in-person training. So you or Dad don't have to worry about driving me to the airport at five in the morning or any of that nonsense."

"That's good," Ruby's mother said blankly, as if she wasn't sure what else to say. They drove in silence for a few moments before she found her words. "So, this job...do you think you're ready for it?"

"Well, I'll never know until I know, won't I?"

"It's just, well, that sounds like it's going to be a real stressful job. Being in charge of people's investments, their retirement money? You remember what the doctor said, about you lowering your stress..."

"I know." Ruby already had this argument too many times with her mother. Everyone wanted her to limit herself, it seemed. Ruby desperately wanted to tell them that the only reason to have boundaries is to give yourself something to push against. She wanted to say that, but she figured she would get her point across better by taking the job.

"He said stress can trigger another of your seizures, and no one wants that. Shoot, you shouldn't even be working now. Dealing with ticked-off customers all day long, complaining about their money? Honey, no one needs stress like that, least of all you. I'm sure your father and grandmother would agree with me."

"Grandma's just looking for someone to stay home and watch soaps with her."

"She needs the company."

"I need the insurance."

"I've told you before, you can always stay on my insurance policy – you're only, what, twenty-three?" Her mother said. "You still eligible to stay on my insurance, at least for a few more years."

"I know, and I appreciate that. I just want to be able to make my own way," Ruby said.

Her mother sighed. "Well, if you ever change your mind, let us know. Your father and I are always there to help our little girl."

Ruby flinched at the "little girl" comment, but before she had a chance to say anything, her mother continued, saying, "And speaking of your grandmother, we're thinking for tomorrow to take her to that orchard down the road. She's been wanting to go there for a few weeks now."

"Is anything at the orchard still in season?"

Ruby's mother shrugged. "Does it matter? But did you want to come with us?"

"I'd like to, but can't. I'm...meeting someone," Ruby said, a bit reluctant to divulge even that much information.

"And who's this someone? Is it that Martin boy?"

"Maybe," Ruby said, edgy.

"You been seeing him a lot lately, but we've never seen him."

"You'll meet him one of these days."

"How about tomorrow then? I'm sure your grandmother would love to meet him also."

Ruby scoffed. "She's already picked Anteater as who I'm supposed to marry. Anyone else is just me committing adultery."

"I wish you would stop calling him Anteater. Whatever Anthony was as a kid, he's grown up now. Not only that, but he has a job – that's a lot to ask for around these parts."

_So Anteater's allowed to have a job but I can't?_ Ruby wanted to ask. Instead, she said, "Since someone took my bike, remind me when we get home. I think Nia's old bike is still in the barn. I'll need to dust it off probably, before getting over to Martin's house."

"If you're going to be giving this boy the time of day, least he could do is drive over and pick you up. That too much to ask for these days?"

"I can get by on my own, Mom," Ruby said. She wanted to tell her so much more. Ruby wanted to say that on the early mornings when she rode her bike from their house to Martin's, she actually went to see a childhood friend of hers. She wanted to say that Martin only existed in an old book she used to read when she was little, because no man could be that perfect. She wanted to say how on the days her old friend wasn't around, she would ride her bike to Lake Murray and spend the day just walking along the shore. She wanted to say how sometimes, she felt an urge to walk into the lake and not walk back out.

There were so many things that she wanted to say, but instead she took her book back out of her purse and continued reading where she had left off. Fortunately, her mother got distracted by a song that had just come on the radio, and so she had a few minutes to herself. On the next page of her book, there was an essay written by Skirej, composed in the months leading up to her death. Mostly, the essay dealt with the technical issues on how Morocco should govern itself after expelling the French, something that Ruby couldn't really relate to. But the essay's conclusion was meant for everyone:

We've been living under this fever dream all our lives that the only way to start over is through hate. Babies have their umbilical cords cut by a pair of scissors, young men run away from home and become sailors, and revolutionaries fertilize a sapling nation like our own with their own blood. Why is it that we do these things? Because we're trying to undo our mistakes. Look at an essay a teacher assigns his students: life is little more than an essay of mistakes, and death's the schoolchild with an eraser that eats the mistakes. Even the end of our lives is a mistake, because death is unexpected and crosses out the conclusion that we were readying ourselves for.

But there are as many ways as there are people for people to become their own people. Hate is not the only mitosis – so is love. And when I'm talking about love, I'm not talking word incest the way our French poets engage in where they are in love with love. Part of the French founding myth after all is courtly love and how young love is the best of humanity. But young love is the Renaissance is the spring is the yesterday and all have come and gone already. The elderly couple's love is the modern is the winter is he today and all are here. The old couple goes to sleep in each other's arms, not sure if they will wake up or not. In the morning, they awake and are thrilled that the other person is alive, and they share their first kiss again. Again, our French brothers think that a kiss drives life. A kiss doesn't drive life but the other way around: a kiss is life celebrating itself, mistakes and all. So, as we break away from the French over their mistakes, let's acknowledge that we will make our own mistakes, but at least now we will have something of our own to celebrate.

3

New York, NY

November 23

When Dylan measured foot feet against the kitchen wall, he had a Sunday school teacher named Ms. Simmons. With glasses like portholes and hair so frizzy that she could floss the teeth on a comb, Simmons looked too innocent to be anything but a monster. When she wasn't shaking the parents' hands, she was making the children's hands shake. To this day, the sound of crunchy leaves in autumn sounded like Simmons snapping a ruler across the back of a student's hand, just like Jesus would have done.

But there was one day when Simmons made the mistake of appearing human. In her raspy voice, Simmons was teaching the class about the story of Genesis, how God created light on the first day, then the Heavens on the second. Dylan could still vividly remember when Simmons had reached the sixth day, when man was created in the funhouse mirror-image of God. And that was when Simmons launched into what was – for her, at least – a fragile moment of imagination. She said that after God created humanity, He then created the lily flower. None of the students bothered to ask why, but Simmons answered anyway, that it made sense for God to create the lily last. Once God saw the lily sprout from a meadow, He would have realized that nothing else He could create would top it.

Simmons was beautiful when it came to gardening, showing up at church every week with a fresh flower pressed and pinned to her dress. She lived down the road from Dylan, and he would have to walk by her little jungle every morning to be late for the school bus. He also remembered as a child, eavesdropping on a phone call his mother had with a lady she played bridge with on Saturday nights in the church's basement:

"I bet you if Gertrude could ever have a kid of her own, she would name it Lily, damn if it was a boy or girl."

When Dylan measured five feet against the kitchen door, an ambulance visited the jungle. He remembered the paramedics lugging out the stretcher, with a lumpy, white sheet draped across it. The clean sheet had a pattern like red poppies across it, like a bloody flag of surrender. For the longest time, Dylan never knew what, exactly, hid beneath the sheet, and he didn't realize he didn't want to know.

But when he was an awkward sophomore in high school, Dylan became friends with the son of the town's coroner. The coroner's son liked to boast of all the horror stories his father had brought home. When Dylan wondered over a microwaved school lunch one time about what happened to Ms. Simmons, the coroner's son said she had drank an entire bottle of Chilean wine and slashed her wrists open with a pair of garden shears. When Dylan wondered aloud what would compel her to do such a thing, the coroner's son laughed and said, "The old prune, she must have taken the idea of pruning a little too seriously."

When Dylan measured a hair under six feet against the kitchen door, the coroner's son was found in his idling car, his eyes as empty as the whiskey bottle and pill bottle he had swiped form his mother's bathroom closet. There was a little scandal in town when the coroner refused to label his son's death a suicide.

The reason Dylan was thinking of Ms. Simmons, all those years later, was because there was a lady standing in front of him in the packed elevator who looked identical to his old Sunday school teacher. For a brief, mad moment, Dylan thought he was seeing ghosts, and it was too early in the morning for that. But the lady didn't have a flower lapel, and so she couldn't have been Simmons. Dylan tried to push those memories out of mind, but he needed words to think about. He was drowning in numbers. Twentieth floor. The elevator capacity was 4,000 pounds. There were fifteen people in the elevator. All of them five minutes later for work somewhere in the skyscraper that Dylan called the "termite mound," after the towering colonies he saw on a nature documentary before.

Dylan felt the punch as the elevator came to a halt and a synthesized voice dinged over the intercom, "Twenty-five."

"So much for me being nothing more than a number, right?" Dylan asked as he pushed his way through the thicket of arms, hoping for a laugh. But he said it to no one, and so no one as much as chuckled. The silence felt hot against Dylan's cheeks as he stepped through the open door. He winced as the elevator door had already begun to close, cracking him in the shoulder before folding back like a viper's fangs.

His floor was a hedge maze of cubicles with no exit. As Dylan walked down one of the snaking corridors, he could hear the walls talking all around him. The hallucinations could not have been any more ordinary and boring, though – all he heard was talk of sales and promotions and stock picks. As Dylan walked, he was praying to gods he didn't believe in that his boss wouldn't see him walk in late. As much as he hated walking into work that morning, he hated even more the idea of him leaving work that same morning.

Finally, Dylan reached his desk and sat down. His desk was a tight squeeze – he had to share it with one of the many support columns that dotted the floor. As he turned to set his briefcase down, he banged his elbow against the column, like he did every day. As Dylan winced and tried to rub life back into his arm, a familiar face popped up over one of the cubicle walls. The man had that fashionable grizzled look and a tuft of blond hair combed over to hide a low-tide hairline. Dylan couldn't see through the cubicle wall what he was wearing, but he knew still that his co-worker had the same business suit and red tie that he had on every day. Dylan was always tempted to ask him if he had those clothes laminated onto his skin – it would save on dry-cleaning at least.

"Morning," Kyle said, casually flipping up the mike on his headset.

"Morning," Dylan replied, distant, his numb fingers stumbling over the computer's keyboard, his arm still tingling.

"You know," Kyle said with a grin, "you're so consistent with hitting your arm on that column, I can keep time by it."

"It does have me worried for the fall, when we turn the clocks back. It means I'll have an extra hit to worry about that day."

Kyle snorted. "So, what's the excuse going to be for being late this time?"

"The elevator was giving me grief. I tell you, my relationship with it has been very up-and-down lately," Dylan deadpanned.

"Be careful not to use that excuse too much around here, else you'll get the shaft."

Dylan groaned. "I'll keep that in mind." His computer finally finished booting up. "How are the calls today?"

Kyle shrugged. "Decent for a Monday. Remember, though, that one bank I told you about last Friday?"

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific. You share too many horror stories with me."

"The one where their customer came in with papers they needed notarized, but the customer had already signed the paperwork."

"Oh, that one. Yeah, I remember," Dylan said, not at all remembering. He was too busy setting up his systems for the day to pay much attention to anything else.

"Well, get this: customer gets pissed, goes home, prints out another copy of the forms, _signs them again_ , and faxes those to the banking center manager personally. He includes a comment on the fax coversheet, complaining of the treatment he got earlier, and if no one helps him this time, he's going to pull his business accounts with the bank. The manager sees the note, gets scared, and notarizes them."

"The manager notarized a fax? How'd you catch onto that?"

"When I got the fax earlier, it had two time stamps on it, one from the customer sending his fax to the manager, and other from the manager forwarding the fax to us. The whole thing stunk, so I called the manager and got him to confess. You know, if you're going to commit a misdemeanor like that, at least put in a little sweat to cover up your tracks. At least, I think that's a misdemeanor, what he did."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Kyle sighed. "I'm going to strangle myself with this phone cord, that's what."

"I'm pretty sure that's why they make the phone cord all curly, to make it harder for you to do that," Dylan said dryly.

"Well, either I do that or apply to become a regional director, so I don't have much of an option," Kyle said with a barking laugh, startling Dylan.

"Go for it," Dylan gave a stock answer. His systems were all set up, and he really needed to start taking his calls for the day. He didn't have time to join a support group for their work.

As Dylan put on his headset, though, Kyle persisted, asking, "Have you been looking at the job postings too?"

"Is there a reason I should be?" Dylan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well..." Kyle began, but then paused to look around dramatically. He leaned in over the cubicle wall and continued in a lower voice, "Rumor has it that Dusty is getting antsy. He's looking to jump up to the next rung on the ladder."

"You shouldn't jump when you're that high on a ladder. You might hurt yourself. So, he wants to be the director of sales then?"

"Hey, you didn't hear it from me," Kyle said, before suddenly sinking behind the cubicle wall.

Now it was Dylan's turn to stand up and look over the wall. Their manager, Dustin Wright, had been double-dipping for salary by being both a regional director and a pain in their asses. The thought of Wright leaving gave Dylan a flicker of hope that almost seemed cruel. "Who did you hear that rumor from?" Dylan asked.

"People have seen him laughing it up with someone high up in the food chain. Turns out, they were in the same fraternity. Go figure. And he's been in a lot of meetings in the conference room. You aren't in that conference room unless you did something really good or really bad. So I...good morning and thank you for calling Palm Investments, this is Kyle Croft."

Dylan was caught off-guard for a moment before realizing that Kyle had a call come through. He sat back down and stared forlornly at his computer screen. Part of him was glad he hadn't gotten a call yet, while the other part of him was feeling a twinge of paranoia. Like Kyle, Dylan also specialized in service calls from a particular state, South Carolina in this case. When he had first started with the company, he was busy taking calls from five banks and credit unions, answering questions related to the investment products that Palm Investments provided to them.

But for the upcoming fiscal year, Palm Investments announced they were raising fees due to "a changing business landscape." The fact that the fledging company's key investor was recently arrested in the United Kingdom due to money laundering was surely a coincidence. Because of the fee changes, Dylan's list of client banks had dropped dramatically, until he was left with just one, Florence Bank. Wright had also noticed the drop in call volume in recent weeks for South Carolina, and so he had Dylan electronically index contracts for his co-workers while he was in between calls. There were only so many contracts one could index before going insane.

A god somewhere must have heard Dylan's thoughts, and that god must have had a sense of humor, because it was at that moment his headset chirped in his ear. Dylan pressed a button on the headset and launched into his first call of the day. It was Yvette, who worked at Florence Bank's Cayce location. Dylan suddenly wished there was a contract he could index for someone.

"Now, how are you today, Mr. Dylan?" Yvette cooed.

"Well, I'm doing just fine..." Dylan said, muting his headset just in time for him to groan.

"I have a problem – I can't attach these forms to an email for our customer!" Yvette said, breathless.

"I'll be glad to help. Do you know, though, that we have a technical support team that is always available for any questions you may have about the system?" Dylan offered, repeating what Kyle had advised him to say the next time Yvette asked a stupid question like that.

"Why, I know that, Mr. Dylan. But if I did that, then I wouldn't be able to trouble you!" Yvette giggled.

Yvette had started working with Florene Bank when she was just a teenager, however many years ago that was. She had started as a part-time teller before eventually graduating to the role of relationship banker. She was a customer favorite, but for all her people skills, she was allergic to computers. And so Dylan had to field daily questions from her, questions that ranged from how to navigate the investment products page on the company website to printing out paperwork for customers. Dylan became immune to Yvette's disarming Southern charm the day she had clicked several wrong buttons in a row somehow and accidentally moved a customer's entire life savings into a penny stock that was about to be delisted from the exchange.

It was towards the end of this call with Yvette that Dylan's computer dinged, notifying him of a new email. He dedicated just a few neurons to listening to Yvette rambling about her computer's default font being hard to read, all while he brought up the email.

To: Larson, Dylan

From: Wright, Dustin

Subject: Meeting

Importance: High

Dylan, stop by my office when you're done with that call. -DW

Dylan muted his phone again so he could groan. Something about the tone in that email sounded ominous, like a death row inmate hearing the electric chair getting warmed up for him. When his call with Yvette was over, Dylan stood up and leaned over the cubicle wall he shared with Kyle. Croft, who had just finished a call as well, looked up and said, "What's up?"

"Just got an email from Dusty – he wants to meet with me."

"You know that's never a good thing," Kyle said, pointing out the obvious. "Remember what happened to the last guy who got an email like that: he wound up decapitated and his head stuck on a pike down in the lobby to ward off evil spirits."

"I'm being serious," Dylan said, exasperated by Kyle's sense of humor needing calibration. "If it was good news, he would have said so in his email, right?"

"I don't know what to tell you, except that one time I was working as a temp for some insurance company across the river in Brooklyn, and they called me into a meeting. I thought for sure they were going to shoot me out of a cannon, but they were actually recognizing me for my performance from the month before. Don't bother trying to read management – they're all psychopaths."

"Yeah, and they're running the insane asylum. Thanks for the encouragement – I guess. I'm going to walk over now."

"Walk slowly," Kyle offered helpfully. "But in case you're getting the boot, can I get your computer monitor? I can always use another one."

Dylan didn't answer – already, he was walking down the aisle, past the cages of cubicles. Every one of the employees was hunched over their desk, bent out of shape by the scoliosis of their work. Dylan walked by one man – he couldn't remember his name, just that he worked with Connecticut banks – and saw him shaking pills out of a bottle into his hungry hand.

Wright's office was at the far end of the aisle, one of a dozen or so offices with windows overlooking the East River. The offices were made of walls of glass, and that morning's sun was particularly blinding. Dylan felt like he was walking towards the light that people say never to walk towards, which didn't help his unease. The door heading into Wright's office was open, but Dylan made it a point of leaning in and knocking on the heavy oak door. Wright, who was sitting at a desk that looked like it was taken from a sunken ship, was mining a mountain of paperwork strewn across his desk. Hearing the knock, Wright looked up with that little smirk of his that seemed to be tattooed on his face. He said in his scratchy voice, "Come in, please."

As Dylan started to walk in, Wright added, "And shut the door behind you."

Dylan froze when he heard that sentence. Wright repeated, still with a smirk, "Shut the door."

Slowly, Dylan turned and shut the door behind him. The hum of voices from the cubicles was stomped out the moment the door clicked shut. The room's glass walls were soundproofed, so much so that Dylan swore the only thing he could hear in that moment was his heartbeat. It sounded as if he had arrhythmia.

"Sit down," Wright said, offering with an outstretched hand a chair by his desk. _The electric chair,_ Dylan thought. With some hesitation, he sat down and looked expectedly at Wright, waiting for his boss to start talking. But Wright didn't say anything for an eternity that lasted just a few seconds. The look on his face was as if he was breathing in a glass of bourbon before sipping it. Finally, he said, "So, how's your day going so far?"

"Good..."

"Good! That's good," Wright interrupted. "Now, that we have the formalities out of the way, let's get down to business. Dylan, do you have any idea why I've called you into my office just now?"

"Honestly, I don't have a clue," Dylan said, pleading the fifth. "I was about to ask you the same question myself. What am I doing here?"

"Do you keep up with our internal memos?"

"Why, um, yes, yes I do," Dylan said, sputtering a little bit. He wasn't expecting that question.

"And when I say memos, I'm not talking about things like casual Fridays or potluck days. No, I'm talking about our quarterly financial reports."

"I read those, yes," Dylan said. He had to put his years of business school to use somehow, and he certainly wasn't doing that by being technical support for Yvette.

"So you know then that in our third quarter, we reported our first loss, to the tune of some $2 million."

"I remember all too well, sir," Dylan said.

"Of course, all startups have losses at first. This is only our second year as a company, after all. But that loss came after a year and a half of profits. And I've got a feeling the next FY isn't going to be any better for us..."

Dylan wanted to point out that the year and a half of profits was the result of their investor laundering tens of millions of dollars from his father's arms trading in Africa, but there was never a time or place to point that out. And so Dylan stayed quiet as Wright continued.

"The powers-that-be thought the fee increases would nip our money problem in the bud. They still want the company to go public next month, and it'll be hard to milk new investors if they think we're just wiping our asses with their money."

_Not to mention it'd be ironic if a company that specializes in investment products was to fail in its IPO,_ Dylan thought.

"Of course, the fourth quarter isn't over yet. Hell, Thanksgiving isn't even here yet. But I'm willing to bet that when they announce our earnings for this quarter, we're going to have to bolt down the windows so that people can't open them. Catch my drift?"

"I think so, yeah," Dylan said dully.

"There are ways this can be avoided, obviously," Wright said before taking a sip of coffee. Dylan didn't like his tone – it was too casual for their conversation.

"Like what? Increasing the fees again?" Dylan asked.

Wright scoffed. "They went about that the wrong way. Sure, we still deliver at the lowest cost in the industry. But when your clients are all small banks that are barely staying afloat in the first place, fees are the kiss of death. No, no, we have to cut costs without passing the buck to the clients."

Wright paused for dramatic effect, and then smiled widely. "Now, I have an idea, but I need your help to make it happen."

"Okay..."

"Like any other business, our highest expenditure is payroll..."

"You're not talking about firing people, are you?" Dylan interrupted.

"Let me finish," Wright said, his eyes flaring for a moment. "I'm not talking about firing people – I'm talking about firing redundancies. Our state liaisons have been redundant from the start, and no one's picked up on that. You were hired to answer questions that our clients – well, in your case, _client_ – in South Carolina had about our products. But the call volume has been dropping, because your client is becoming more and more self-sufficient. With just a bit more training, they can be as knowledgeable as you, and we wouldn't have to pay their salary."

Dylan had never been so terrified in his entire life, and he wasn't sure what was scaring him more: the fact that his job could be going extinct before his very eyes or the fact that Wright was so excited about the possibility.

"Of course, we would win, because we could cut down on payroll while still earning money from licensing our products out to those banks. And the banks would win, because they could continue selling our investment products without fear of the fees going higher. And I would win, because management would see what I could do just as being a lowly regional director. They would wonder what I could really do if I had a fancier job title."

Dylan could barely stomach any of this. He asked in a small voice, "And how would I win in all of this?"

Wright clapped his hands. "You have the honor of being my guinea pig! You're going to be getting an email from me by the end of the day to make things official on paper. But Dylan, we're going to have to let you go by the end of December. With the grand total of one client that you've been able to retain for the company, you're officially more trouble than you're worth. And so, over the next month, you're responsible for training the person who's going to be your replacement at Florence Bank. I guess you can say we're finally going to get a return on the investment we made when we hired you."

"And if I say no?" Dylan wondered, trying to find his courage.

"Then I fire you right now and have Kyle train the person at Florence Bank instead. Unlike you, Kyle has initiative – all you are is a bottleneck. Not only that, but I'll make sure that you could never put your time here on a résumé. Anyone who calls us, they're going to get an earful about all the awful things you've done here."

"Lies."

Wright shrugged. "Maybe, but who are they are going to believe? You? Or the company that let you go in the first place? And don't forget, you signed an NDA when you came here. You tell anyone a word about what's going on here, I'll be able to keep this company afloat off suing your hide. And you think you have choices, but you really don't. You see, this is the reason I never respected you. All you give a damn about is yourself. What about the common good? Didn't they teach you millennials that in one of those liberal arts classes? This company might just have a chance after all if you just make the sacrifice. A lot of people could lose their jobs if you don't play along with this. Don't you want to make an impact for once?"

Dylan's face turned a dangerous shade of red, as he let his emotions get the better of him. "You're one to talk about sacrifice. And you're acting like you're running this whole operation, but you aren't."

Wright looked thoughtful. "True, but I will be, soon enough anyway."

"Yeah, but for now, I don't work for you. I work for Palm Investments."

"Not anymore, you don't," Wright said, almost gleefully. "You're about to be part of a mass layoff of one person."

Dylan refused to look his monster of a boss in the eye. Instead, he glanced to the side, towards one of the glass walls. He could see the ghost of his reflection in the wall – he could see how tired and worn-down it looked, hazy to the point that he looked like he was dissolving in acid. And, just like a ghost, he had a hard time believing in himself. Past the reflection, the manager who was working in the office next door was busy putting together a presentation, unaware that Dylan was haunting her. Either unaware, or she just didn't care.

Dylan thought back to the ghost of Ms. Simmons that he had seen in the elevator that morning, and he wondered if he had just seen his second ghost for the day.

4

November 27

Dylan had just finished his first call for the day – after three hours at work – and was getting back to indexing when he felt an eclipse over him. Suddenly, Wright reached down and rapped his fist on Dylan's desk to get his attention.

"Knock, knock," Wright said, all smiles. Dylan couldn't tell if he was about to break good news or bad.

"Hello," Dylan said, cautious, his right eye twitching. He wished that he could say it was just a tic he couldn't quit. The reality was that he had just celebrated Thanksgiving the day before with an old bottle of whiskey he found in the kitchen cabinet. The hangover still had its hooks in his brain.

Wright took a chair from a nearby empty desk and sat down with him. "Just wanted to touch base with you. Don't worry, I'll make it real quick...I know you've been busy all morning, what with taking that one call," he said. "I know – I've been monitoring the volumes. So I'm going to cut you some slack, because deep, deep, _deep_ down, I'm a good person. Don't worry about taking any more calls or doing any more indexing. For the rest of the day, I want you just reviewing the procedure manuals. You're going to be training first thing Monday morning after all, and I don't think you've had enough time with the procedures lately. We don't want our instructor being rusty, now do we? That wouldn't be a best practice now."

"No," Dylan said slowly. The loud typing he had heard through the cubicle wall from Kyle's desk just a minute before had suddenly stopped.

"So, first thing Monday morning, you're going to be getting a call from your replacement at Florence Bank...what's her name." Wright paused as he looked down at his notepad. "That's right, Ruby Martel. She has your desk number already, so expect a call from her at eight that morning. So try not to be late like you always are. And make sure you bring up the procedures from the website, so that you can review them over the Collaborate program with her. From the 30th of this month to December 18th, you'll be working with her over the phone and online. And from the 21st to the 24th of December, she'll be flying up here to take care of some in-person stuff. Then after that..."

"You're firing me the day before Christmas?" Dylan asked bluntly.

"Think of this as being a Christmas gift for the both of us. You hate working here as much as I hate you working here," Wright suggested. "Hey, we're finally in synergy now!"

Wright playfully slapped Dylan on the shoulder, clearly enjoying this. With Dylan's execution as an employee approaching, Wright didn't have to pretend to be a decent manager or even a decent person anymore. Dylan had never seen Wright so energetic and youthful before.

Wright abruptly stood up. He was about to push the chair back to over to the empty desk when he stopped. Looking back at Dylan, he added, "One more thing – I'm about to go into a meeting, and it's not going to end until noon. Can you do me a favor and run down to the deli – what's it called? Gorgio's, right? Yeah, it's Giorgio's. I need you to get over there before the lunch crowd and get me a Reuben. I have a feeling I'm going to need some comfort food after this meeting. Can you do that for me?"

Dylan's eye twitched again, this time not from his hangover. "Sure."

Wright's face brightened. "Great! We're going to miss your enthusiasm around here soon, although not soon enough."

And that was how Dylan found himself walking into Giorgio's twenty minutes later. It wasn't lunchtime yet, and already there was a line that was curling around the counter. As Dylan took his place in the tail of the line, his mind went elsewhere. _I need to find a new job soon,_ Dylan thought anxiously. It wasn't like he had much of a choice otherwise. But he kept repeating it to himself, almost as if in prayer, hoping that he could speak it into existence. But he chose to major in finances after all, an industry that inhaled and exhaled payrolls between boom and bust. Dylan was expendable, and every potential employer was going to realize the same thing during the interview, whenever they ask why Dylan's time at Palm Investments was cut short. One way or another, though, he was going to find a way out. Dylan had to believe in himself as if he was his own priest. But even priests need to go to confession.

Already, the line was beginning to move. As Dylan ambled forward, he noticed some familiar faces at the table nearby. He recognized Vanessa, a lady who had started working at Palm Investments at the same time as him. As short as she was, she carried her weight well, in part due to her addiction to exercising. In fact, it looked as if she had just come from the gym, with a stray bead of sweat working its way down her forehead, even though it was late November and it was too cool outside to sweat. Her dark chocolate skin glowed like granite in the afternoon sun, and her hair was pulled back in a tight bun. And yet, even though there was still the lingering weight in her breath from working out, she was dressed professional as always, with a gym bag tucked under one arm.

The other lady was someone that Dylan had seen around the office before, but he couldn't quite place her name. With puffy lips and slippery, raven hair that drenched the side of her face, she looked more at home in any other decade but this one. She certainly dressed as if she had just come from the eighties. She looked bitter – a little too literally, as her face was puckered as if she was chewing on a lemon.

Dylan reached over and knocked on their table to get their attention. Startled, the two women turned and Vanessa yelped, "Jesus, why'd you always got to scare people like that?"

"Sorry," Dylan said, his face a little red. Vanessa had apparently forgotten from earlier in the week when she had walked up behind Dylan and got his attention by drilling her finger into his shoulder blade. His shoulder was still bruised. "How are you two doing today?"

Vanessa just shrugged as her companion said – more to Vanessa than Dylan – "I'll be right back."

As her co-worker walked towards the bathroom, Vanessa called out, "Girl, I hope you're going to hurry up in there! We're getting our food to go." Vanessa turned to Dylan and said, "She's so damn slow. The other day, it took her so long to shut down her system to leave work, I was able to take a shit. I lost some serious weight waiting for her."

Dylan was so caught off-guard by what she said that he laughed despite the week he was having. He asked, "Are you getting food for your lazy manager too?"

Vanessa looked at him, confused. "What the hell you talking about?"

His attempt at a joke falling flat, a deflated Dylan explained, "Dustin is making me get his lunch."

Vanessa wrinkled her nose. "Since when did you become an intern?"

"Since Dustin decided he was going to let me go in a few weeks."

"So, the rumors are true then."

Dylan wanted to know where she had heard that, because he hadn't broken the news to anyone at work since Wright had told him earlier in the week. Instead, Dylan glided over the comment and asked, "There anything you can say to someone who's about to be down on his luck?"

Vanessa looked at him for a long moment, longer than she could keep up her tough act. For a fraction of a second, Dylan saw in her the look he imagined only a mother would have. But then the look broke, and Vanessa said nonchalantly, "Sorry, but you have to help yourself before you help others. I can't be sticking my neck out if heads are going to start rolling around here. I'm sure you understand, right?"

"Sure."

Vanessa hesitated before saying, "Now, between me and you, I am going in for an interview next week with a brokerage downtown. If anyone else hears about that, I'll get my ass handed to me, along with whatever I have in my desk at work. Can't have me looking for work with one of our competitors. But if I get in, I'll see if I can get a job for you. Deal?"

"Sounds like a deal to me," Dylan said, trying to sound grateful, but knowing they were just going through the motions. Deep down, he knew that if Vanessa found a job elsewhere, she wouldn't come back for him. He hadn't realized until he asked the question that they were not the friends he thought they were. The two of them were just people who passed each other in the hallway, who shared little more than work. Vanessa had known this for quite some time now. However, Dylan was only just starting to understand this.

He also was starting to understand that he needed to change the topic.

"So, who was that?" Dylan asked, pointing with his thumb towards the bathroom.

"Hmm? Oh, that's just Brooke," Vanessa said. "She started in marketing a couple weeks before." Then, noticing Dylan's look of distaste for Brooke, she added, "Don't pay her no mind – she's so full of hot air that I have to tie a string around her ankle when we walk outside."

Vanessa laughed, but Dylan didn't. She pretended to pout. "Don't get all offended for her now. She's not going to sleep with you. Besides, I've called her worse things to her face, and she keeps coming back to me."

Just then, Dylan heard someone behind him clearing their throat. That was when he realized that the line ahead of him was still moving, and there was a solid five-foot gap between him and the next person. "Oh!" Dylan exclaimed. As he moved forward, he said to Vanessa, "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you then..."

"Yes, yes," Vanessa said.

As Dylan shuffled along with the line, he wondered if there was anyone he could turn to now. Vanessa had punctured his theory that someone in the office would be able to point him in the right direction, or any direction for that matter. But he realized now that he was essentially on his own. Dylan was going to try asking Kyle for help, but with the expectations as to what Kyle's answer would be.

Getting to the front of the line – finally – Dylan placed the order for the Reuben and waited. It wasn't until he had placed the order that he realized Wright had neglected to give him any money. Knowing his boss, Dylan had no doubts as to whether that was intentional or not. He sighed as he reached into his wallet and pulled out some money. He didn't go to school all those years just to be a credit card for other people. He couldn't even afford to buy himself a hoagie while he was there, and yet he was buying an overpriced Reuben for someone he hated. It made Dylan wonder if he hated himself even more.

"Here's your number," the teenager working the cash register said, handing Dylan a ticket.

As he waited off to the side for the sandwich to get made, he noticed Vanessa and Brooke – the two most unlikely friends – laughing as they left the deli. He thought about something he had heard before: two people laughing are a sign of normalcy, while a person who is alone and laughing is a sign of insanity.

Dylan laughed.

***

As Dylan trudged up the last stretch of stairs from the subway, he breathed in the fresh air, or as fresh as air could get in the Chinatown in Queens. In every direction he looked, there were waves of feet crashing against the sidewalk, polishing down the concrete as if it was jewelry. Just a few feet away from the subway entrance was a grocery store with lobster tanks that doubled as windows. Next door was a fast-food joint that was sweaty with fry grease.

Every neighborhood in New York City claims to be the heart of the city, but the Chinatown on the edge of Queens was the defibrillator. While some neighborhoods began to slow down at night, the lights here never stopped dancing, like a carnival ride high on electricity. Once, Dylan found himself waiting for a bus at three in the morning here – even at that late, or early, hour, there were crowds still tapping out a Morse rhythm on the sidewalks, buildings still glowing even though they had closed hours before.

As he walked alone through the crowd, he felt as if it was a telling metaphor for his life. He was an orphan who had grown up with his biological parents, a loner who had friends all throughout school, a hermit with roommates, an introvert who worked customer service. And he continued to feel like an outsider as he boarded the bus that would take him the remaining twelve blocks home.

That is because, when he sat down on the crowded bus, he realized that he was the only rider who wasn't on their phone. He had no wife to call, asking if she can leave the dinner in the oven for a few minutes longer. He had no friends to call, telling them to hold off on ordering dinner at the restaurant. Just then, the bus pulled away from the stop, almost sideswiping a car trying to make a right turn. Dylan could hear a car horn cursing behind the bus. _Hell, the way this guy's driving the bus, he's probably on the phone too,_ Dylan thought sourly.

Feeling self-conscious, Dylan pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. His thumb jumping around on the cracked screen, he tapped out a phone number, the only one he had memorized besides his own. It was an automated system for the bank where he kept his savings account. He listened numbly as a woman's voice read off the available options. When the woman reached the end of the menu, she asked if he wanted the options repeated to him. Dylan said softly, "Yes."

As the voice rocked him to sleep, he tried to think of his minor-league baseball team and what those guys were up to now, about the farmer he read about in an article the other day, about the disease that was decimating the salmon population out in Washington state. But all he could think about was nothing.

In a way, that was what he was becoming: nothing. Within just a week, he was reduced to a command: _you're going to lose your job now, you're going to get me a sandwich, you're on your own now._ And just like words, he was only alive when other people spoke. He was at the mercy of the world, little more than a plaything, a murder weapon for killing time and only that.

Or maybe he wasn't nothing. Maybe he was a cautionary tale, like someone who had spent a lifetime of growing up, going through school, finding a job, getting married, and starting a family, only to die in an accident involving firecrackers and cheap vodka. Maybe he was supposed to be the skull and crossbones on a bottle of cleaner. Maybe he was supposed to scare off people from making the same mistakes he had made in life.

He kept the charade going for the ten minutes it took for the bus to reach his stop. As Dylan hopped off the bus, a cold hand of wind slapped him in the face. Shivering, he awkwardly tried to zipper up his jacket with one hand, his other hand holding his briefcase. His bus stop overlooked the Long Island Expressway, a highway that was carved into the earth and served as an artery for the whole island. While the city streets around the expressway were elevated and so he could not see the traffic, he could hear their engines and see their headlights bouncing off the steep embankment walls of the highway.

Once – a few months back, now that he thought about it – Dylan was walking across that same overpass one night, well after midnight. He was almost to the other side when a disheveled homeless lady suddenly stepped out of the darkness.

"Give me some money!" The woman demanded. Dylan was startled and took a step back, his hands balling up into fists, before he realized who it was: Alexandra, who was known for pushing a shopping cart around the neighborhood.

"Don't you think you're going about that the wrong way?" Dylan demanded. "Jumping someone in the middle of the night?"

To Dylan's surprise, Alexandra looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, "Yeah, I guess you're right." That was the last time Dylan had ever seen her.

From the overpass, he was a short block away from the house that he rented with two other guys. The street on which they lived was a line of old houses standing at attention. All the houses were camouflaged by looking identical – same floor plans, same siding, same mailboxes, and so on – and so it was virtually impossible to tell the houses apart from a distance. It wasn't until you got closer to the houses and saw the scars of broken siding and the liver spots of poor masonry that you could find their personalities.

But Dylan didn't need to apply a microscope to the houses to figure out which was which. His home was the one that had a broken streetlight in front of it. So, while the other houses on the street blushed in the lights, his house was like spilled ink on the paper. The only sign of life coming from the house was a lonely light in the top window. It looked like Dylan forgot to turn off the light in his room before leaving that morning.

He trudged up the steps and opened the door, the doorknob loose in his grip. Closing the door behind him, Dylan turned the lock, but the lock just spun on the doorknob like car tires in the snow. For the next minute, Dylan struggled with the door. He was so intent on getting the lock to work that he didn't hear padded feet behind him. He did hear the squeal of a foot stepping on a loose floorboard, though. Dylan glanced behind him to see one of his roommates standing at the other end of the hallway.

"Lock's broke," Cody said helpfully.

Cody wore to bed the exact same clothes he once wore for track practice back in high school: a greasy, hooded sweatshirt and a pair of dry-rotted sweatpants. Dylan found it a wonder that Cody didn't have to notch belt loops into his sweatpants yet, the pants being close to falling down dead at any moment. Dylan suspected at one point that Cody's brown hair must have been curly, but years of having the hood up on his sweatshirt caused the hair to become matted.

"How did the lock break?" Dylan asked.

Cody shrugged. "Guess some kids were messing with it."

"So how'd you lock..." Dylan began, but Cody had already slipped back into the kitchen. He turned back to the lock and struggled for another minute before giving up entirely. Throwing his hands up in surrender, Dylan walked down the hall, drawn by the smell of eggs sizzling on a skillet. As he stepped into the kitchen, he spotted Cody at the stove nearby. As a nest of eggs cooked on the stovetop, Cody was lighting a joint on the flame underneath the skillet. As Dylan opened the fridge to grab his container of orange juice, Cody breathed in the smoke and asked, "So, what's new?"

Once, there was a young man named Cody who was fresh off the boat from upstate Vermont and looking to start a software company in Manhattan one day. Three years later, he didn't find fame but he did find drugs, and the way Cody talked it up, he couldn't be any happier. As far as Dylan knew, Cody's most important life goal now was striving to find the perfect omelet recipe. Dylan didn't understand how Cody was still functional, let alone still finding ways to pay the rent every month.

"What's new?" Dylan repeated, almost mocking. "Well, I'm still going to lose my job soon. I guess that's new."

Cody struggled to look even mildly surprised. "Losing your job, huh? So, when's that, like, happening?"

"In a few weeks...I told you that the other day. Don't you remember?" Dylan asked.

Cody shrugged. "You got some sort of backup plan cooking?"

"I've been busy sending in résumés – haven't heard anything back yet."

"Well, let me know how it turns out," Cody replied, before turning back to his crackling eggs.

Dylan wasn't expecting much sympathy, if any, from his roommate. They had hated each other since before Dylan could remember why. Maybe it was because of an answer he gave when he was being interviewed as a potential roommate. And while the other roommates, Theo and Hwan, liked the answer, Cody didn't. And while Dylan couldn't remember the answer, he could remember the look on Cody's face, because he had never seen hatred hatching before.

Even then, Dylan felt safe and comfortable taking them up on their offer of a room. It wasn't until Theo took a job out in San Diego a few months back that Dylan began to fear the worst. The fact that he was subletting on a former roommate's lease – and so he had the same legal rights to his room as a houseplant did – wasn't reassuring.

Rather than give Cody another reason to hate him, Dylan took a swig of his orange juice and walked into the living room. No one was watching television – a rare moment of mercy. Dylan walked over to the corner and leaned back in a secondhand recliner, with a lever that squeaked when the footrest was opened. Grabbing the remote off the nightstand, Dylan turned on the television as he tried to burrow his way into the recliner's flabby cushions. As the television hummed to life, the audio came to before the video did, and Dylan groaned as he heard a familiar Midwestern accent.

Before Dylan had a chance to boo, Governor Joshua Bullock of Minnesota popped up on the screen. Born to focus groups and damned to a lifetime of smiling, Bullock was the cartoon of a politician. He was addressing a noisy gym in Iowa, and his speech and the crowd's cheers bounced off the walls like light lost in a prism. Dylan found it amazing that the governor could talk and smile at the same time.

Cody, drawn to the glowing television like a mosquito to a lantern, emerged from the kitchen. Holding a skillet in one hand and a spatula in the other, he looked curiously at the television. "Is that my man, Bullock?" Cody asked. It was the most excited that Dylan had ever seen his roommate.

"Do you think he dyes his hair?" Dylan asked randomly. The governor was in the sunset years of his life, and yet his hair was still a curly chestnut brown. "I think he dyes his hair."

Cody scoffed. "We're trillions in debt to China, and you're talking about hair color."

Dylan preferred his politicians not being so insecure that they would dye their hair, but he kept quiet. He knew he was at Cody's mercy – one wrong word risked everything, although Dylan didn't have much left to lose. Just then, Bullock made an off-color joke that made Cody laugh.

"I can't wait for that man to get into the Oval Office," Cody said. "It's about time we had someone in D.C. with a sense of humor."

Dylan couldn't resist. "He's entertaining only because he's never going to get anywhere close to the White House."

Cody's smile flickered, but he said confidently, "I wouldn't be sure about that if I was you." Cody then commanded, "Turn up the volume."

Dylan reluctantly obeyed. It was probably for the best that Dylan turned up the volume, so that Cody couldn't hear him groaning as Bullock launched into one of his usual tirades. It was only a few weeks before that there was a mass shooting at an art exhibit in San Francisco, where almost a hundred people were killed or wounded. The exhibit had been launched by a prominent peace activist who was hoping to raise funds for smuggling books into North Korea. The attackers escaped, only to be killed a few days later during a massive manhunt. The investigation afterwards found that the attackers were North Koreans who had acted their way into the country by posing as South Korean students.

The resulting political hellfire consumed not only the holey visa system, but the public perception of Korea. Bullock's campaign had spoken with enough potential voters in recent weeks to know that the path to salvation was damnation. So, in order to talk his way into the presidency, Bullock had to focus on a common fear. And that's why Bullock got lost in a rant about withdrawing troops from South Korea, renegotiating trade agreements, revamping the visa system, and even imposing immigration quotas. Ten minutes of hate speech later, and the crowd – Cody included, even though he was hundreds of miles away – was still hungry for more. Dylan looked at Cody in amazement – he couldn't understand how someone could be so supportive of a candidate spouting anti-Korean remarks. Dylan was especially amazed given that their Korean roommate was currently holed up in his bedroom just feet away.

Suddenly, Cody spoke up, saying, "Like I was saying earlier, dude, it sucks that you're going to lose your job soon. That's tough, real tough. You said though you got some sort of backup plan or something?"

"One way or another, I'm going to have a new job soon," Dylan said with conviction that he didn't believe in.

The look on Cody's face showed that he didn't believe it either. "You got enough money for the rent?"

"I've got enough to last through next month," Dylan said, trying to sound as vague as possible.

"And the month after that?" Cody persisted.

"I'll have a new job by then," Dylan answered, realizing just then how flimsy his financial plan was. But still, he had to convince himself that it was a good plan in order to convince Cody.

Cody sighed. "Now see, I can't have that. And I'm sure that Hwan..." he paused and looked down the hallway at their roommate's locked bedroom door. "I don't think he has the time for that either."

"Just get to the point already," Dylan said impatiently. "You're looking to kick me out, aren't you?"

Cody's face went blank for a moment as he tried to process an answer. He wasn't expecting that outburst from Dylan – frankly, Dylan wasn't expecting that either. Finally, Cody's eyes lit up as he said, "It's not so much that I'm looking to kick you out as much as I want to bring someone else in."

"Who do you have in mind?" Dylan asked. "Whoever it is, I'm sure they wouldn't mind sleeping on the couch. I mean, hell, I slept on the couch right over there for the first few months, until Theo moved out."

"Oh, I couldn't do that to her."

"Oh," Dylan said, immediately recognizing who Cody was referring to. "You're talking about Holly, aren't you?"

"The one and only."

"Doesn't she already have a place over in Hell's Kitchen?" Dylan asked.

"Well, yeah, but the rent there has been climbing recently and..."

"Climbing?" Dylan wondered out loud, incredulous. "I can't imagine it getting much higher. The rent there is at the damn mountaintop already."

Cody continued, "I just texted her a few minutes ago. I remember her mentioning sometime last week that her lease was about up. So I hate to break it to you like this, but...well, I'm going to offer her your room. We're going to need someone to keep on paying their share of the rent after next month. So she'll be moving in then."

"And she can't – oh, I don't know – use your room?" Dylan demanded. There was acid in his words, but he didn't care anymore. Cody couldn't use Dylan's room as leverage against him anymore.

Cody shook his head. "If only, man – that'd be sweet. But see, she's real Catholic, so I'm sure her folks wouldn't be fans of her sleeping in some guy's room. And they don't know about me yet, so they'll think I'm just a roommate and not her boyfriend. You know how it is – got to keep up appearances and all that."

Dylan couldn't deny that he wanted to understand. He had been losing everything lately and for once, he wanted an explanation that came close to making sense. Sometime before, Cody decided to throw a party for some of his fellow college alumni. Of course, the handful of old friends somehow blossomed into dozens of strangers that proceeded to lay waste to the house. Not knowing any of the people at the party, Dylan retreated up the long flight of stairs to his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He was never interested in loud parties, or parties at that. Since they were in the thick of summer, and the house being older than the invention of air-conditioning, Dylan was forced to open the windows to let a breeze into the room. And that was how he remembered it, him reading a novel by lamplight, the curtains rippling, the sound of the party below like an upset stomach.

He had just gotten to the book's climax when he heard voices climbing up the stairs. He had put the book down and listened as the voices, one of them being Holly's shallow accent, made their way through the hall before coming to a stop a few feet away from Dylan's door. Curious, Dylan listened as they opened the linen closet, and there were a few seconds of silence. Dylan suddenly dropped his book, losing his page, as a scream rang out like a gunshot in the hallway. He ran out of his bedroom to find one of Holly's friends kneeling in front of the closet, shouting, "I'll get a lifeguard!"

What Dylan later learned was that Holly and her friends had done PCP earlier in the evening, and Holly became possessed by the delusion that she was back on her high school swim team. So she had gone to the linen closet, which had a laundry chute dropping down to the basement where the washer and dryer were, all in the mistaken belief that she was standing on a diving board. And that was the story of how Holly had tumbled down a laundry chute, her fall broken by a pile of Dylan's dirty clothes and her wrist.

This was the person who just took Dylan's room away from him.

5

December 20

"Good evening, everyone – this is your flight attendant, Karen, speaking. I wanted to let y'all know that we will begin our descent shortly. Again, thank you so much for your patience and understanding for the delay due to weather conditions. Now, me personally, I think the delay was actually a good thing, and not just because that's what Aero Georgia would want me to say..."

Ruby snorted. She wondered if the flight stewardess was about ready to retire, for her to be talking like that. One way or another, this was possibly Karen's last flight with Aero Georgia. What Ruby didn't know was that the employees at Aero Georgia had just been informed earlier that day of an impending layoff.

Karen continued. "Really, the delay just has me more anxious to stretch my legs in the city. Our pilot just told me that New York City looks especially beautiful tonight. And if it looks beautiful from an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet, then it must look even better on the ground. The time right now is 1:12 AM, and the temperature is 33 °F. I hope y' enjoyed your flight with us, and that you enjoy your time on the ground even more. I know I will – I'm hearing one of the department stores in Manhattan is having a big sale on shoes. Welcome to New York City!"

The intercom went silent, and Ruby went back to committing a felony. Ruby was so bored – she had already seen all the movies that were offered on that particular flight – that she had committed the sin of going online with her phone. Somehow, she was picking up a signal from a cell tower thousands of feet beneath her, and Ruby couldn't let this little miracle go to waste. She knew how illegal it was, but she didn't care. She wasn't even doing anything worthwhile, anything deserving of committing a felony in the eyes of the federal government. She was just on the website of a local newspaper, going through some of the articles they had.

While this was the first time she had ever been onboard an airplane, Ruby always had a suspicion of the law against cell phones, something she had inherited from her Aunt Delilah. Ruby remembered one Sunday dinner where her aunt made the argument that, if a cell signal is strong enough to reach an airplane, then turning off your cellphone won't do anything except give everyone a false sense of security. After all, she said, the plane was still getting hit by the signal, which should be wreaking havoc with the navigation and frying the systems on board. If cell signals actually did any damage, then planes should be falling out of the sky like rain.

Ruby's father, an aerospace engineer, tried to shut down Delilah's argument. Instead of giving a technical answer, though, he made the mistake of saying that Delilah had no idea what she was talking about, since she worked in advertising. True, Aunt Delilah worked in advertising, but she had to do a lot of flying for work, and Ruby could only imagine the number of times that her aunt had conveniently forgotten to turn off her phone on a flight. Ruby looked at the number of bars she was getting with her phone – she always had trouble with irony back when she took English classes, but she was pretty sure it was ironic that she got a better signal up in the sky than she ever did on the ground back in South Carolina.

Ruby had just finished an article, talking about how her old high school's track team had won a big meet. Ruby was jealous – back when she was on the track team, running the mile race because that was the event she was the least-awful at, they were downright awful. In a sport where it was the goal to earn the most points out of any team at the meet, Ruby's high school played the game like it was golf. One time, a runner from another school was disqualified during the mile race, and Ruby was bumped up from fourth to third place for the event, earning the only point for her school for the entire meet. That meet was the team's best showing that entire season.

The next article, she read through it simply because of the headline:

Student Protests Continue Against Pro-Confederate Group

By Keith Lambert

Saluda College has endured a third day of protests, following the student council granting approval for a student group named The Sons of the Confederacy. The group, founded by those who claim descent from those who fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War, was approved as an official student group during a closed-door meeting by the student council. It was only when the group began advertising that it was accepting new members ahead of the spring semester that protests began. While the group is new, it has long been causing controversy. Its president, Alexander Vance, had sued the college last winter, after his pickup truck, adorned with Confederate flags and bumper stickers, was vandalized and set on fire in the library's parking lot.

During an email interview, Vance stated that he formed the group as a direct response to his vehicle being vandalized, alleging the campus' lax security and failure to investigate the arson has led him to "be afraid in his own school." Vance went on to state that he was being "persecuted for my own believes (sic)," chiefly his support for the Confederacy and a return to slavery. As a result, he said that he formed the group "to protect the whites as this country becomes mixed and mixed up." When it was pointed out to Vance that Caucasians still hold a majority, he claimed "Not for long!" before ending the interview.

A look at the calendar on the group's website indicates a confrontational future ahead for the group. On December 22nd, they are planning to protest at Gretchen Hall, where the Asian-American Club will be holding its monthly meeting. On December 27th, they will be attending a local event featuring Joshua Bullock, Governor of Minnesota and Republican presidential candidate, and whose anti-Asian rhetoric has sparked a political firestorm.

Ruby could barely finish reading the article before shaking her head. _To think,_ she wondered, _the men who bombed homes and churches just a few decades back, now they're afraid for some reason._ While she had trouble grasping irony when she was in school, she never had any trouble grasping sarcasm.

And Ruby thought it was hysterical – hysterical as in she couldn't tell if she should be laughing or crying – that Vance and his fellow club members were desperately looking for a safe place to protect their good luck of being born white. After years of hearing many people, either on the TV or online, mockingly refer to college as a "safe space" for minorities, Ruby thought it was rich that those same people were embracing what they once hurled as an insult. _I'm pretty sure that's irony,_ Ruby randomly thought to herself.

But all this talk about college and race and safe spaces made her think back to one of Professor Michaelson's lectures back in college. They were having a discussion on the struggle for black female characters in 1920s literature, when one of the students – the star quarterback, no less, who single-handedly won a game against their rival the week before – spoke up.

"Michaelson?" Lamar asked, raising his hand.

"Lamar," the professor said, as he wrote a term on the blackboard. Any other professor would have been insulted by a student not using their title, such as Professor or Doctor, but Michaelson was something entirely different.

Ruby could remember groaning, because she knew that whatever Lamar was about to say, it was going to be cringeworthy, and she was right. Lamar asked, "Why are we spending all this time talking about the women in the book? There are men in the book who got problems too. What makes the women's problems so special?"

There was an angry murmuring from the class, just loud enough for Michaelson to say dryly, "Alright, everyone, let's not be rude to Lamar. We all make mistakes."

Lamar flinched as Professor Michaelson continued, "So, Lamar, what do you know about wolves?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe that was too big of a question to ask. You might not give me the answer I want to hear. So, let's be a little more specific. What do we know about..." Michaelson paused as he wrote something on the blackboard. "...alpha males?"

Ruby raised her hand. Michaelson pointed to her, and Ruby said, "You mean, like wolves that are in charge of their pack?"

Michaelson nodded. "And how do they become in charge of their pack? We know they don't elect their alpha male – after all, they don't have opposable thumbs, so they can't fill out a ballot. So how does an alpha male come into power?"

"They fight for it?"

"That's right – the largest, meanest, most vicious wolf is the one that becomes the alpha. When that happens, the other wolves get scared into submission – right?"

The students nodded. Michaelson shook his head and said, "Wrong – the truth of the matter is, as afraid as the beta wolves might be, I'll bet you that no one in that pack is more terrified than the alpha wolf is. Quick, Ruby, ask me why that is."

Ruby smiled. "Why, Professor Michaelson?"

"Because as scared as the betas are of the alpha, there is a certain level of contempt that comes with that fear. When I was your age, I remember watching the evening news and seeing the Soviet Union crumble in real-time. Those were a busy couple of years – there was a lot going on – so let's just focus on Czechoslovakia. Now, when the Communists took over that country after the Second World War, they stamped out dissent. Political opponents disappeared in the middle of the night, authors had their books banned, people lost their jobs for evangelizing, kids were kicked out of school because their parents didn't support the regime. The leadership silenced the people, and they were able to do this not because they were strong, but because they were weak. They were so weak, they were afraid that the wrong word would make everything fall apart.

"What the Communists didn't realize was that the people they silenced simply went underground. By that I don't just mean they had secret meetings – I mean they had a building sense of indignation and frustration that they couldn't let loose. It's like turning on a spigot full blast and pinching the garden hose – something interesting's going to happen. And something interesting did happen: over the course of a month – yes, I think it was a month – I watched a student protest topple Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Just think about how amazing that is. The Communist party, which controlled the country for decades, which had control over the television and radio and newspapers, which had control of an army and secret police, fell after some students put together some signs and protested.

"So, what the hell does this have to do with a wolf pack? Well, think of the Communist party as being the alpha, and the whole country of Czechoslovakia as being the beta wolves. As the people were repressed, their rage built like a volcano does before it erupts. Meanwhile, the leadership was on the defensive, doing all they could to keep from being overthrown. The alpha's afraid because it once was a beta itself, and it knows what the betas would love to do to an alpha. So, for those of you out there who eat instant noodles for dinner and are jealous of the rich bastards who eat at gourmet restaurants, take comfort in the fact that they are terrified of you. Yes, Lamar?"

"I don't get what this has to do with my question."

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there. But this power dynamic, of the strong fearing the weak, it is product of evolution. Wolves aren't the only ones hard-wired to follow an alpha male – you see the same thing in birds and gorillas and – of course – people. You see this dynamic everywhere, whether we're talking about men and women, white people or black people, rich and poor. Turn on the TV, and you'll see the collective alpha male of our whole society, whether we're talking about sexual harassment or our immigration policies or gerrymandering of political districts or vilifying food stamp recipients. All those actions aren't being done out of dominance but out of fear of displacement. We have people at the very top of the food chain who realizing they no longer have a safe space, and they're reacting accordingly. And to answer your question, Lamar, about why we're focusing on the women in the book instead of the men – women are the beta wolves who have been silenced for thousands of years now. So I'll be damned if we don't hear them out for once. As a guy, you should hear them out too – that is, unless you're afraid."

Ruby could still remember the look on Lamar's face – it reminded her of the passage from the Book of Genesis, when Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. Lamar just sat there, frozen, quiet, as quite a few of the girls in the class laughed and applauded.

Just then, the airplane started to shake, jolting Ruby out of her reminiscing. It was just a bit of turbulence as the plane was beginning to make its descent. The seatbelt lights dinged on, and Ruby reached down to buckle up. As she did so, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Ruby turned and saw that the passenger sitting next to her – an elderly, white man – was looking disapprovingly at her and her phone. Realizing why the man was judging her, Ruby tried for a joke, saying, "This flight has been so long, I figured that if I turned my phone on, I'd get us down on the ground faster."

At least, that was what she wanted to say, but she knew that if she made a joke about crashing the plane, it wouldn't end well for her. Instead she mouthed the word "sorry" as she turned off her phone and stowed it away in her purse. Not wanting to look the man in the eye again, Ruby instead decided to look in the other direction, out the window. For most of the flight, they were above the clouds, and so for the past two hours, there had been nothing but darkness outside. But now the clouds were beginning to break up, and she saw New York City for the first time ever.

If only there was a poet in Ruby, she would have been inspired to think of how the city looked like day in the night, or how the city looked like a puddle of sunshine. But oddly enough, the only thing that Ruby could think of was that the city looked like an egg cracked on a skillet. She thought that not just because she was hungry. As a matter of fact, that morning, before she had left for the airport, she had made herself a breakfast of eggs – sunny side up, in her opinion the only way to make eggs. And just like how the egg whites seemed to glow on the black skillet, so too did the city have the same shock of color. And just like how the egg whites sizzled and bubbled and crackled to life, so too did the city pulse with traffic jams of light. And just like how the egg whites that morning were runny, so too did some of the lights in the city run away from home. Ruby watched as light – jagged like the blade of a lightning bolt – evangelized the darkness in New Jersey and upstate New York. If there was ever a time when light could be a living, breathing being, this would be it.

The thought about eggs made her hungry, and she wondered if she had time to get something to eat before Dylan took her to the hotel. Probably not, Ruby thought. There was no time – they had so many impossible things they needed to get done. Ruby only had a week left to familiarize herself with the products that Palm Investments offered. One way or another she was going to be an expert by the end of the week. After all, starting next Monday, she was in charge of her bank's investment products. Although Florence Bank had only recently started up its partnership with Palm Investments, the bank tellers had succeeded in converting quite a few customers over to the investment products already, thanks to aggressive sales quotas. If she failed, those people would lose out on their retirement funds. It was a lot of responsibility, true, but she had gone to school and learned about investment strategies and worked on the front lines as a bank teller, all for this moment.

Ruby could only wish that her family saw her the same way she saw herself at that moment.

6

At Same Time

As Dylan stood on the top level of the parking garage across from LaGuardia Airport, watching the conveyor belt of planes landing and taking off, he thought back to Ms. Simmons' Sunday school classes again. He remembered one Sunday when she spoke about Jacob and his vision of angels climbing up and down a ladder between Earth and Heaven. While Simmons was talking, one of the students – a little girl with frizzy hair and large glasses – raised her hand.

"Yes, Rachel?" Simmons said.

"Ms. Simmons, why would the angels use a ladder if they had wings?" Rachel asked.

Simmons opened her mouth as if to say something, but then abruptly closed it. She churned her thoughts for a few moments before finally saying, "Well, that's...um, a good question. Perhaps the best way you'uns can think of it is as being a hole you've dug yourself into, whether it's with school or your friends or family. The only way you can get out of a hole is with a ladder, right? And so the angels in Jacob's vision are escaping those same distractions here on Earth and are re-acquainting themselves with the Lord, the only thing that matters."

Rachel may have been satisfied with the answer, but Dylan wasn't, although for the longest time he wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't until his first airplane ride – going from his hometown in the Appalachia to college- that he found his answer. The angels climbing the ladder were no different than the jets climbing in altitude. They were not so much running away from something as much as they were running into the open arms of something else. That something else could be God, true, but God doesn't appear as an old, white man to everyone. To some, He shows as the beach, to others as London, to others as a camping trip.

As he thought about this, Dylan idly looked over the ledge and down the several stories to the street far below. As he looked down, he didn't so much feel as tall as he did small in the world, like he imagined a bird must feel. And suddenly, a dangerous idea infected his brain, as he realized that you don't always need a plane ticket to fly. Thankfully, that thought was pushed out of his head by the roar of a passenger jet coming in for a landing.

It had been three hours since he had arrived at the airport. He was assigned to be the welcome committee for Ruby. She had taken the red-eye from Charleston International for her week of in-person training. There were investment products that they needed to cover that they couldn't by phone, hands that Ruby needed to shake, and a sense of awe that came with seeing New York City for the first time. Florence Bank had a contract with Palm Investments that needed to be renewed on an annual basis – in Wright's eyes, he couldn't risk his "lab rat dying so soon." For his experiment to work, Wright needed Florence Bank to renew their contract. For Florence Bank to renew, he needed Ruby to convince them that it was a good idea to do so. _For being a bastard with no emotions, Dusty sure knows how to manipulate them,_ Dylan thought.

He had a lot of time to think about things, which is never good. Earlier in the evening, he made the mistake of taking a nap – so he was late leaving and had just missed the bus. On a good day, getting from his house to LaGuardia would take over an hour and two buses. But since he had missed his bus it wouldn't be for another twenty to thirty minutes before the next one had arrived. He didn't want to leave Ruby stranded at the airport, and he wondered why during the whole bus ride there. It wasn't like he was picking up Ruby out of loyalty to Palm Investments, especially since they were going to be kicking him out to the curb in less than a week anyway.

Of course, he got to the airport late only to find out that he was early. Ruby's flight had been delayed leaving South Carolina due to a storm sweeping across Virginia. After talking with the customer service desk for the airline, Dylan tried to occupy himself with a couple slices of pizza. But you can only eat three slices of pepperoni pizza so slowly, and when he was done, Dylan found he still had two hours left to wait.

Rather than spend any more time in the airport that was humid with babies crying and intercoms announcing flight delays, Dylan decided to walk outside. Even though they were deep in the mud of December, the air was unusually still. It had been Dylan's experience since moving to the city that the winds would kick up this time of the year. And while there was a chill to the air, it was no colder than iced tea, and so he took the time to enjoy it. As soon as he left the terminal though, Dylan quickly realized that wherever he went, the airport's ugly architecture chased him. And so he took refuge on the top level of the nearby parking garage, trying to rise literally about it all.

And that was where he found himself now, his hands gripping the railing of the top level, looking out over the city. Even at this time of the night, the city was glowing with insomniac lights. The sight made him think back to an oceanography course that he was required to take as an undergrad. He remembered the professor talking about a type of algae in the ocean that glows blue at night. The professor said the algae only did this when it was stressed, such as getting churned up in rough seas or breakers crashing against the beach. To this day, Dylan thought it was a waste that the professor didn't talk about the algae being an example of beauty under stress. They all could use that lesson here and there.

For the fifth time since the top of the hour, Dylan took his phone out of his pocket and looked down at the cracked screen. He wasn't checking his phone so much to see if Ruby had called him as he was being tempted to call someone else. Even though it had been almost three years since they had last spoken, Dylan still had Kimberly's number in his phone. He thought back to the last time he saw her, when he was on spring break and decided to visit home for some reason. To this day, he was never sure why he bothered to visit home. It wasn't like there was anything waiting for him when he got there. His mother certainly wasn't waiting for him at the airport, even though he told her that he was on his way. He found out from a neighbor that his mother had left earlier in the day to go gambling across state lines with a trucker that she had just met at their town's only bar.

Dylan found his old bike under a tarp in the backyard and took it around town – that was until the rusty chain snapped cleanly in half as he went down Main Street. Dylan took the bike down an alleyway and threw it into a dumpster before walking back down the street, this time at the town's pace of living. From the old man slowly sweeping the front step to the barbershop to the lady knitting on the bench in the town square to the stray dog napping under a tree, it seemed as if the whole town was sleep-walking through its days. The town moved so slowly, it was no wonder they were behind on the times – they had just installed their first computer in the town library a few months beforehand.

As Dylan trudged past the convenience store – the biggest business in town after the grocery store closed the winter before – he happened to spot a familiar face through the window. His high school sweetheart, Kimberly, was working the register. She looked the same as when Dylan last saw her, at their graduation, with a perpetually cocked smile and short, blonde hair. Dylan hesitated at the door, but only for a moment, before entering.

"Do you have any toothpaste?" Dylan asked, in reference to an inside joke between the two of them, one so old he even forgot where it came from.

Kimberly, who was resting her head in her hands as she leaned against the counter, looked up, startled. "Oh! Well, hello there, college boy."

"Have you been huffing the same chloroform the rest of this place has been?"

"Hmm?"

"When I took a taxi in from the airport, seems like the whole 'Burgh is asleep at the wheel today."

"Oh, well, it's still early in the day," Kimberly offered with a shrug.

Dylan looked down at his watch. "It's almost three o'clock in the afternoon."

"Living in the big city's spoiled you. We live a bit slower around here – don't tell me you've already forgotten that now."

Dylan tried to laugh it off. "Well, I did forget to turn my clock back an hour last fall, and I was an hour early for class because of it. So I guess I have been too used to living fast."

Kimberly's face was blank, and Dylan tried changing the topic, asking, "So, how have you been? Your family doing well?"

"As well as we can be. Dad likes to say that the good thing about being a funeral home director is that the business never dies down."

_Well, one day this place is going to run out of paying customers for him,_ Dylan thought.

"So how long are you going to be in town for?" Kimberly asked.

"I'll be heading back Thursday."

"That doesn't give you a lot of time to catch up."

_I beg to differ._ "You looking to hang out a bit before I head back to the city?"

Kimberly thought on it for a moment and said, "Sure, Lord knows I need something to do in the evenings."

"What's your number?" Dylan asked.

"You don't have my number anymore?"

Dylan looked sheepish. "I may have accidentally dropped my old phone down the toilet."

In spite of what he had just said, Kimberly still typed her number out on his phone, and he had kept it ever since. He never thought he would feel the temptation to give her a call again, because to him Kimberly meant home and home meant failure. But since taking the elevator up to the top level of the airport parking garage, he had already given the number a call four times, hanging up after a couple rings each time.

The urge to go crawling home had never felt so real – it was getting to the point where the urge seemed more real than he felt. He was about to lose his job and home, and no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find replacements for either. The financial market was going through another one of its squeezes, tighter than a boa, and so jobs were scarce. An interviewer at one bank told Dylan he liked his credentials, and he would be willing to offer him a job in the next financial year. Unfortunately, Dylan couldn't wait nearly that long. At the same time, he went to a number of open houses around the city and interviewed with an infinity of potential roommates. However, every time they asked him about employment, he had to give them an honest answer, that he was about to be in between jobs. He never got a call from those potential roommates after that.

By the end of the month, he would be homeless, unemployed, and have just enough money for a plane ticket back to his hometown. For now, it seemed as if the only way forward was to go backward. With that thought in mind, he found himself peering over the edge of the parking garage again. The same infectious thought from before wormed its way back into his brain. _Maybe I don't have to go backwards after all,_ he thought, _maybe the only way forward is to go down._

At that moment, his phone chirped, startling him. Dylan glanced down at his phone, half-expecting a call from Kimberly, curious as to who was calling her repeatedly in the middle of the night. But it wasn't her. Instead, it was a phone number that he didn't recognize at first. But then he realized that the incoming call had a South Carolina area code. And so he took the call. "Hello? Ruby?"

"The one and only," Ruby's voice bubbled over the receiver.

"Did you just land?" Dylan wasn't paying much attention, but he didn't recall any planes landing in the past few minutes.

"I sure hope so," Ruby laughed. "Otherwise, you would be seeing a plane falling out of the sky because I couldn't wait to use my phone. I'm walking over to baggage claim right now. Where are you?"

"Oh, I'm...I'm getting some air. It was too stuffy in there," Dylan said, as he turned away from the railing and began walking towards the nearby elevator. You're in Terminal B, right?"

"That's right."

"When you leave baggage claim, walk over to the pizza place nearby. I'll meet you there."

"Pizza? Am I already about to get my first taste of New York?" Ruby wondered, excited.

Dylan couldn't help but smile a little. "I'll see you in a few."

Dylan hung up as he pressed the down button for the elevator. As he waited for the elevator to creak up to his level, he couldn't help but wonder what Ruby was like in real life. True, the two of them have spoken by phone for several hours a day, every day for the past few weeks. But sometimes a voice over the phone is just that, feeling more like a voice in your head than an actual person.

And as sparky as her voice was, jump-starting Dylan in the mornings when she called in for their little conferences, he wondered if that was the real Ruby or customer service Ruby. At work, he had a bipolar example sitting just a few cubicles away from him: Vanessa went from being aggressive to almost the point of bullying her coworkers to being cotton candy to her customers on the phone. Dylan could never understand how someone could manage two sides of their personality like that: it was like correctly predicting if a penny was going to be heads or tails every time you flipped it.

And so, as Dylan took the elevator down to the ground level, he wondered what side of the coin he was about to meet. But no matter who he was about to meet, Dylan was prepared to be disappointed. If Ruby was rude, then his last week at work was about to get worse. If Ruby was pleasant, then he would feel like life was just teasing him before it took away his home and job. As Dylan took one of the crosswalks between the parking garage and the terminal, an airliner roared overhead, its engines shaking the dust from Dylan's soul.

Before entering the terminal again, he braced himself, for the smell of leftover grease from the food courts, the vanilla sounds of announcements over intercoms, the air littered with sweat from travelers. At least the air in the city around him, which reeked of garbage and sewage, was organic and overwhelming with life. _If a robot were to die and decompose, it would smell like LaGuardia,_ Dylan thought, just before he was almost sideswiped by a portly man dragging a suitcase on wheels.

He really needed to get some sleep.

For as long as Dylan had lived in the city, he would never understand how so many people could be awake at this time of the night. Not only that, but how many people could be hungry for a Danish – the strangling smell of chocolate icing alone was enough to make him gag. As he walked, he looked down and could see a vague reflection of himself in the scuffed tile – for an absurd moment, it made him think back to when he was little, learning to skate on that pond near his house. He pushed that thought to the side, though, telling himself that it was little more than an optical illusion, like how the lighting tricked them into thinking it was the afternoon, like how the planes idling outside tricked them into thinking they were birds.

Then, up ahead, he saw her. He hadn't seen a picture of Ruby before, but he knew it had to be her – or maybe he wanted it to be her. The girl had caramel apple skin and hair as dark as the woods that Dylan once got lost in years before. She had a cute, squished nose and alive eyes, wearing makeup as little as the smile she had. If Dylan had paid more attention in poetry class back in school, he would have thought of how the old poets had described their loves to the extreme: eyes that twinkle like stars, a smile as bright as God, skin like a marble sculpture. But for the girl, her looks didn't fight itself for the spotlight. Instead, everything about her seemed to work with everything else, like paints being mixed on the artist's palette. That sentence alone fit with the voice he had been listening to over the past month.

As Dylan approached, he felt a swinging pendulum of nerves in his throat. He coughed into his hand, watching as the girl fiddled with her phone, as if trying to make a call. As soon as she brought the phone up to her face, Dylan's phone started ringing in his pocket. Only a few feet away now, Dylan took his phone out of his pocket and waved it at the girl.

"Ruby?"

Caught off-guard, Ruby smiled widely as she put her phone away. She took a step forward, suffocating the distance between the two. Then, before Dylan had a chance to react, Ruby dropped her luggage on the ground and hugged him around the neck. "My goodness!" Ruby squealed as she released her hold on him. "We finally meet. How are you?"

"Fine," Dylan said, his face reddening. He was not used to physical contact, especially when it came to people he had never met before. He could feel himself blushing and tried to write it off. "I've just been melting."

"It's a bit warm in here, ain't it?" Ruby agreed, either not catching Dylan's blushing or too polite to say anything. Regardless, Dylan was grateful.

"Your flight go well?" Dylan asked, feeling as small as their talk, but he didn't know what else to say.

"Just a bit of turbulence," Ruby said. She then added, "The engines also fell off. Lucky us, the co-pilot got up on top of the plane and flapped real hard with his arms to get us the rest of the way here."

"I bet his arms must have been tired," Dylan said with a laugh, the old joke coming to mind. Then, suddenly remembering himself, he said, "Well here, let's stop being a fire hazard, standing out in the middle of the corridor like this. Let's get you to your hotel."

"You mean you aren't in the mood for a Danish?" Ruby asked, looking around. "Those are Danishes I smell, right? I need something to eat with my medicine."

"Sure, we can stop for one," Dylan said. "I wouldn't mind getting one myself, actually." He wasn't sure why he said that. After all, it was just a few minutes earlier he had been thinking of how much he hated that smell.

"Great!" Ruby beamed as she picked up her luggage. "I could go for a cup of coffee also – I don't care if it's the middle of the..."

"Excuse me, ma'am?" A voice suddenly barked behind them. Both Dylan and Ruby jumped a little and turned around. Standing before them were two security guards. The one who had spoken was a little bit on the round side, stretching out his dark blue shirt that seemed a size too small. Dylan suddenly had a hallucination of a talking blueberry in his head – he tried his best not to laugh.

"What seems to be the problem?" Dylan asked, confused.

The blueberry ignored him and instead said to Ruby, "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to come with us..."

"Why's that?" Ruby asked, in a voice that was more curious than scared. She stood her ground.

"I'd rather us not discuss this out on the floor..."

"Well, if you're looking to search me, I just want to let you know that you're a little bit late – I just landed," Ruby said with a smile. Dylan wasn't sure what was going on, or why he was feeling frightened. He guessed he had to feel scared for Ruby, because she certainly wasn't.

"That's my purse!" Another voice called out. Dylan looked over the shoulder of the blueberry to see a woman marching towards them, being half-restrained by a female security guard. The woman was elderly, although that may have just come with being on a red-eye. Jet lag can age a person.

The blueberry sighed and said to Ruby, "Miss, this lady here says she saw someone matching your description walk off with her purse about ten minutes ago."

Ruby cocked her eyebrow in a way that could only come with practice. "Is that so? If she saw me steal her purse, then why didn't she stop me then?" Ruby then turned to the elderly woman. "Why didn't you stop me then?"

As the elderly woman sputtered, one of the security guards asked, "What's your name?"

"Ruby Martel," she responded, before fishing through her purse. "You probably want my driver's license, don't you? I have it in here somewhere. No, that's not it – that's my medical insurance card. That's my pack of gum. That's my makeup. That's my credit card. That's my checkbook. I'm sorry, I'm just so disorganized...ah, here's my license."

Dylan noticed that Ruby was placing a lot of emphasis on the word _my_. The guards noticed as well, because one of them said, exasperated, "Let me just see the license."

Ruby readily handed it over. As she did, one of the guards asked, "So, what flight did you just come in?"

"From Charleston. Here's my plane ticket, just in case you're also accusing me of stealing her airplane too," Ruby offered, sarcasm dripping off the words.

Dylan snorted. The round security guard turned to him and snapped, "And what's so funny?"

Startled, Dylan mumbled something that even he couldn't understand. Lucky for him, Ruby apparently had enough confidence for the both of them.

The guard looking over Ruby's ticket turned to the elderly woman and said, "Ma'am, what flight did you come in on, again?"

"The Hawk flight, from Houston," the woman said stiffly.

The security guard asked one of his colleagues. "Isn't Hawk Airlines at Terminal D?"

The other guard nodded. Taking her cue, Ruby asked, "So, just to make sure I understand...you're accusing me of getting off my flight here in Terminal B, running across the airport, stealing her purse in Terminal D, filling her purse with all of my stuff, and running back here? All within the past ten minutes?"

"Something like that, yeah," one of the guards said, beginning to realize their case was falling apart before their very eyes.

"I guess that all makes sense," Ruby said, before adding, "that is, if you don't think about it."

A few minutes later, Ruby had the guards convinced that they were questioning the wrong person. Despite that, though, the guards still took down her information and said they would be in touch if they had any further questions, before they left to go review the security footage of the terminal. But finally, Ruby and Dylan were alone, although they weren't really alone. Passersby were staring at the two of them, wondering what was going on, coming to their own conclusions.

Dylan turned towards Ruby and said in an apologetic tone, "Listen, I'm really sorry you got drawn into that..."

"What are you sorry for?" Ruby asked, confused. "Now, none of that was your fault. Besides, it's not my first time matching another person's description, if you catch my drift."

"I still feel embarrassed..."

"If anyone should feel embarrassed, it should be me. All this time, I thought I had good taste in purses, until I met that lady just now. Let's go have a Danish," Ruby said, clapping her hands together in anticipation, refusing to let that episode get in the way of her good day.

And that was the moment that Dylan's drifting mind found its anchor.

7

December 21

"So how are you finding your first day of training?"

Ruby smiled. "Should my instructor really be asking me that? Shouldn't you give me a survey that I can fill out anonymously?"

Dylan reached across the table and pulled a napkin from the dispenser. He pushed it over to Ruby. "You can write your review on there."

"And where do I put it when I'm done?" Ruby asked, playing along.

Dylan pointed to a garbage can across the café. Ruby laughed. "Is that how highly Palm Investments thinks of its partnerships?" She wondered.

"Legally, I'm not sure if I can answer that or not."

The two of them were in the café on the ground level of the building where Dylan worked. As late in the morning as it was, there was a steady line of people waiting for their coffee. Dylan couldn't help but wonder if people worked on their way to getting their coffee instead of the other way around. Ruby picked it up on it too, because she asked, "Is it always this crowded around here?"

"Yup."

"Even at this time of the morning?"

"Yup."

Ruby gazed in wonder. "I went into the wrong line of business. I should have worked in a coffee shop in New York. But here's something I don't get: don't they all realize you can just make your coffee at home on the cheap? How much do you think they spend on coffee every year?" She asked, gesturing at the long line in front of them.

"At least a month's worth of rent."

"So why spend the money? They're burning up their savings just as much as that kid over there burned my cup of coffee."

"Funny enough, my old business ethics professor broke it down like this for me," Dylan said. "What's the one thing you can get in a coffee place that you can't get from your coffeemaker at home? Other people, that's what. It's all a lesson in being sociable. If you can get your coffee without cutting in line or shoplifting a pastry when no one's looking or without cussing at the help for adding cream when you didn't want cream, then you have the right to be human."

"Business ethics? I didn't get the chance to take that back in school. How did you like that class?"

"I failed the class after cheating on the final," Dylan deadpanned. Ruby, who was taking a sip of her coffee as he said that, snorted and spilled some of her drink on the table. "Sorry," Dylan said, red-faced.

Reaching for her napkin, Ruby smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'll just clean it up with my survey form."

"But I feel like this café is a bit of an illusion, you know?" Dylan said, gesturing around them. "I don't think it's so much that there's a lot of folks as it is the place is just too damned small. You know, this used to be a storage closet."

"Really?"

Dylan nodded. "Building management converted it to a coffee place a few years back. I guess they wanted people to forget about the outside world."

As Dylan said that last sentence, he could only wish it was true. He definitely wanted to forget the night before. After escorting Ruby by cab to her hotel in the East Village, Dylan faced a long ride back home. Once again, he had been stiffed by Wright, and so he had to pay for their taxi ride out of his own pocket. And so he had no other choice but to take the subways and buses that were sleep-walking at that time of the night. This meant walking what felt like an infinity of city blocks to the 14th Street-Union Square subway stop, taking the Q train to Times Square, catching the 7 train for a forty-minute ride to Main Street in Flushing, and then taking a bus for the rest of the way home. That was too much math for him to crunch, especially at three in the morning. But a taxi was a luxury – at least, it was for him now.

He knew that between a short taxi ride and a long train ride, he was going to regret his decision no matter the choice he made. But he especially regretted his decision to take the train. Soon after getting on the Q train, he fell asleep across the aisle from a homeless man sprawled out on one of the bench seats. Dylan had only meant to close his eyes for a moment, his eyes feeling dried out and the lights were too bright in the train car. But it turned out to be a long moment, and the next time he opened his eyes, he found himself by Ditmars Boulevard, deep in Astoria. He somehow managed not only to sleep through his stop at Times Square, but also every stop since then. The homeless man was also awake, staring wide-eyed at Dylan.

Feeling more than a little unnerved, Dylan got out of the subway at the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard stop. He swore to himself as he walked to the other side of the platform. He needed to take a subway south about fifteen minutes to get to Queensboro Plaza, before he could then take the 7 train home. All of this just added another variable to his algebra problem of getting home.

By the time he got home, it was well past four o'clock. _I got to wake up in an hour,_ Dylan thought numbly. Afraid of oversleeping if he got into bed, Dylan instead decided to take a nap on the recliner in the living room. He reasoned that the recliner's out-of-shape cushions meant that it would be impossible to get a good night's sleep on them.

And fortunately – or unfortunately – he was right. As he tossed and turned on the recliner, the only thing he had to look forward to in the morning was seeing Ruby. Again, he wasn't entirely sure why he needed to see her again, but he was starting to understand. It was the sun in that thought that woke him up, and all he could think about as he took a shower and slipped into his usual business attire. It was all he could think about as he poured a bowl of cereal and dumped a few heaping scoops of grounds into his hand-me-down coffeemaker.

The only time he wasn't thinking of Ruby was as he drank his coffee. As messy as he was, at least he wasn't Cody, who liked to commit the mortal sin of leaving food out to rot. Because of that, there was a constant swarm of gnats in the kitchen. As he drank his coffee, Dylan watched in morbid fascination as one of the gnats took a nosedive right into a web a spider web that was strung up between the coffeemaker and the wall. As the gnat wriggled frantically, a spider came rushing out and began wrapping the bug up in silk. In that moment, Dylan wasn't sure what to think, and that was perhaps the best reaction one could have in that situation.

It wouldn't be until a bit later that morning when he would begin to understand the emotions he felt as he watched the spider trap the gnat. But in order to get to that part of the story, Dylan first had to go to work, picking up Ruby along the way. As he left the subway stop near Ruby's hotel – he made sure this time not to fall asleep and miss his stop – he sent her a text.

Good morning – this is your wake-up call.

Almost immediately, he got a response: _wake up? look who's late to the party lol...already woke and having breakfast._

Dylan: _well I like to be fashionably late to the party...I'll be in the lobby in a few min._

Ruby: _k._

Dylan couldn't recall if he had ever walked through the East Village in the daytime. It definitely felt like a lurch through time. At night, the apartments – with their rows of windows like light shining through the bars in a jail cell – looked like pictures of New York from the 80s, a New York he had never seen outside of his old sociology textbook. He read the stories of the drug crisis, graffiti in subway cars, peep shows in Times Square, stripped cars along the roads. Even now, as he walked through the neighborhood in that gentrified morning, he felt uncomfortable, the same discomfort that came with walking through a cemetery during the day.

And as if he thought it into existence, Dylan suddenly found himself walking alongside a cemetery. In all his time living in the city, he had never seen a cemetery, which he felt must have been strange, given the millions that lived in the area. At first, he wondered if he was seeing a mirage, the sort you see before you have your second cup of coffee for the day. But as he walked past, he reached out and let his hand graze against the wrought iron fence, and it felt real enough. Through the fence, he could see massive marble columns towering over the cemetery, each adorned with a unique design at the top. Somehow, it made Dylan think of chess pieces, and if only he was cleverer, he was sure there was a deeper metaphor to that.

And still he hadn't yet understood the emotions he felt as he watched the spider trap the gnat.

The hotel was a block or two away from the cemetery. Once one of the many dilapidated apartment complexes in the area, someone had since gutted the building, thrown a few coats of paint on its skin, and called it a luxury hotel. There were some things you can't quite paint over, though – as Dylan entered the lobby of the hotel, the first thing he noticed was the bite in the air. Through an air vent nearby, he could hear an off-beat thumping from the basement, where an ancient furnace was struggling to heat the hotel.

He walked up to the service desk, about to ask the lady there where the dining room was, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Dylan looked behind him to see Ruby standing there, ready to go, a half-eaten bagel in one hand, her now-infamous purse in the other.

"Morning," Dylan said, trying to mask how tired he was.

"Good morning!" Ruby said brightly. There was no acting on her part.

"Ready to meet the folks?"

"As ready as I'll ever be!"

And how right she was. As they walked onto the floor at Palm Investments shortly afterwards, Dylan was expecting Ruby to become overwhelmed by the hustle. He had never been to South Carolina before, but he couldn't imagine life being this fast-paced down there. But to his surprise, she picked things up a little too quickly. First, they had to tackle the Manifest system, a program that kept track of each customer's investment accounts. Because of security issues, any remote access programs became automatically disabled whenever the system was accessed, and so Dylan never had the opportunity to show the program to Ruby when they did their online training. Dylan wasn't looking forward to training her on the program – it was so complicated the running joke was that it was named Manifest because that name doesn't rhyme with any awful words that could be used to describe it. Dylan could still remember when he first started with the company, someone ran out of the training class screaming about the program, and they were never heard from again. And yet, Ruby picked it up.

After spending a few hours getting lost in that hedge maze of a program, Dylan had asked Ruby, "Did you want to take a quick break and go down to the cafe in the lobby?"

"There was a café down there?" Ruby said, surprised.

"At least there was the last time I checked. Let's go find out..."

"And who do we have here?" A voice boomed behind the two of them.

Dylan recognized the voice and refused to look up, instead pretending an email he had just gotten at his computer was more interesting. He was trying to avoid his demon for the last week of work. Ruby, however, didn't know that she had to hate Wright. And that was why she turned to him and said with an outstretched hand, "Ruby, Ruby Martel. And you are...?"

Wright extended his own hand and shook. "Dustin Wright, although you can call me Dusty. That's what my friends call me anyway."

"Dusty..." Ruby's voice trailed, as she tried to place the name. Then, her eyes lit up. "That's right! We spoke by email last week. Thank you again for rolling out the red carpet for me. I really do appreciate it. If I could be born all over again, I would choose how I've been treated since arriving here last night."

Wright laughed. "That's good to hear – I was worried that this guy here was going to scare you off," he said, rumpling Dylan's hair as if he was five years old again. Dylan never wanted to punch someone more than he did right at that moment. "Who knows? Maybe all of this celebrity treatment is just your doctors telling you that you have cancer or something – you know, to soften the blow."

Ruby's eye twitched. "Well, Dylan and I were just about to go downstairs and grab a bite at some café that allegedly exists in the lobby..."

"Oh, Dylan, don't take her there!" Wright said, in mock disappointment before turning his attention back to their guest. "Ruby, we didn't fly you here in class just so you can eat at some generic little cafeteria. You should go to the Italian place across the street from here. If Dylan here says otherwise, just tell him that he's being cheap."

"Oh, no worries," Ruby said quickly, "I'm not in the mood for anything fancy anyway."

"So you're fine with room-temperature coffee and stale muffins?" Wright wondered.

Ruby smiled. "If anything, it'd remind me of home."

"Suit yourself," Wright said with a shrug. "But before you leave this week, I must insist on taking you to dinner."

"Sure! I'm game," Ruby said readily. Dylan was surprised by the sudden shot of jealousy he had felt.

"Good! Good. Well, I'll leave you two alone. Nice meeting you Ruby," Wright said warmly to her. He then turned to Dylan and said, in a voice a few degrees cooler, "Have a good rest of your day, Dylan."

"Mr. Wright."

As Wright walked off, Ruby turned to Dylan and jokingly, "Mr. Wright, eh? But I thought all of his friends called him Dusty?"

"I know. That's why I call him Mr. Wright," Dylan said as he locked his computer. He finally understood how helpless the gnat felt earlier, as the spider scurried towards it. "Ready to go?"

And that was how Dylan and Ruby found themselves in the café on the ground level of the skyscraper. Dylan was still embarrassed by what Wright had said earlier. Ruby could tell that Dylan was distracted about something, but she wasn't sure what. And so she asked, as if they had known each other for much longer than a few weeks, "What's bothering you?"

Dylan, who was picking apart the napkin he had in front of him, looked up. "Hmm? Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine."

Ruby looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "You know, speaking of professors and stories, I have one to share myself. I found myself taking a remedial math class in college because, well, because we all make mistakes. And I remember the first day of class, the professor standing up there, talking about how he was such a people person. And you know what? He was, by far, one of the most awful people I've ever met. So I learned from that class that whenever someone says they're one thing, they're actually the opposite. And calculus – I finally learned how to do calculus."

Dylan laughed a little, despite himself. "I just have a lot going on at the moment, especially this week, what with training you and...well, some other stuff."

Ruby hesitated. "You know, I don't mean to pry, but something's been nagging at me over the past few weeks. Now, if you don't want to answer, that's completely fine – I understand. But when my manager told me that we were a part of this pilot program, where I would be taking over essentially your responsibilities, we were wondering what that meant for you. Tell me that you're just getting moved to another department or something, right? Please don't tell me that they're going to give you the boot once this is all said and done?"

Before Dylan had a chance to say anything – before he had a chance to hesitate, even – Ruby's eyes opened wide. "Dear Lord, they are going to fire you. I knew, I just knew it." She shook her head in wonderment.

"I don't mind talking about it, really," Dylan said, not looking her in the eye as he said it. "It's all about to become history anyway. After this week, as long as everything goes to plan, they're going to let me go. I'm going to be a dinosaur once you're fully trained."

"I'm so sorry about all of this, really I am," Ruby said sincerely, reaching across the table and taking Dylan's hand in hers. As allergic as he was to touch, Dylan was so caught up in the intimacy of the moment that he almost patted her hands with his free hand. But he restrained himself and instead said, "I appreciate it, really. But I'm going to be fine. I actually already have another job lined up. Unfortunately, it won't start for another three weeks, but it's a job – and a fresh start at that."

Dylan regretted the lie as soon as he said it. But the look of relief that splashed across Ruby's face almost made the lie worth it. "That's good! Really, I'm glad to hear that. And not to make it about me, but it does help with some of the guilt I'm feeling right now."

"You shouldn't be feeling guilty about any of this," Dylan consoled her. "None of it's your fault."

"Let this good Christian girl have her moment of guilt," Ruby chided him. She then added with a smile, "And you said that new job won't start for a few more weeks? Well, it sounds to me like someone's about to have a much-needed vacation!"

"That's one way to spin it, that's for sure," Dylan replied.

Dylan was desperate to change the subject, but Ruby continued, saying, "Seriously, though, good for you that you aren't letting something like this get in the way of your life. I remember growing up with this one kid who was always talking about how he was going to open up a barbershop one day, just like his grandpa. He talked about it for years – he even had a spot picked out on Main Street. He talked about it up until the day the city council made some zoning changes and that block on Main Street became just for houses. Never heard him talk about that barbershop again after that, even though there were plenty of places elsewhere he could have set up shop. People get so wrapped up in an idea they don't know what way is up when that idea disappears. Am I making sense? I'm not sure if I'm making sense."

Dylan smiled weakly. "You are, don't worry. And I appreciate it, thanks."

"No, no, _thank you_. Folks these days, they're just so helpless. It's nice to see someone try something different for a change," Ruby said as her phone vibrated. She took a moment to glance at the screen, to see who had left her a text. She frowned.

"Everything okay?" Dylan asked.

"Yeah, it's just someone who doesn't know when to leave me alone, that's all."

Looking for another opening to change the topic, Dylan asked, "But enough about me though. How about you? What's your story?" Dylan then added, "Unless, of course, I don't know when to leave you alone either."

Ruby laughed. "You're fine. And me? Well, I was never any decent in English class, so I'm afraid I don't have much of a story to tell."

"What's South Carolina like?" Dylan persisted. "I've never been further south than Virginia."

This took Ruby by surprise. "Seriously? You mean to tell me I'm more worldly than a city slicker?"

Dylan was about to point out that he was born and raised deep in Pennsylvania, but he already knew his own life story – he wanted to know Ruby's now. "So you're more worldly then? Where did you visit?"

"I spent half of my childhood on road trips to Texas. My dad's family lives around Austin."

"Those trips must have been fun," Dylan said, unsure of what else to say. Growing up, he never had any family to visit, so he couldn't speak from experience.

Ruby snorted. "I don't know if I would use the word _fun_. I was crammed in a station wagon with my parents, my sister, and a week's worth of luggage for over fifteen hours. I got in so many fights with my sister, I'm surprised that one of those trips didn't end with me becoming an only child."

"What's your sister like?" Dylan asked. "I was an only child myself," he said, before adding, "but not from being stuck in a backseat with my sister for a long road trip."

Ruby laughed. "Her name's Nia. She actually just got married not too long ago, so she's that guy's problem now. I pray for him every day."

"And what about you? Do you have a guy in your life also?"

Ruby smiled coyly. "My, someone's nosy. Aren't we just about out of time anyway?"

"I'm the teacher," Dylan said, brushing off the suggestion. "We can start the training up again whenever I want to."

Ruby shrugged. "Well, I guess it gives me time to finish the rest of my coffee. But since you were asking, yes, I do have a boyfriend. His name's Martin – he works at our Aiken branch. We met this past summer at one of our big company picnics. I like to tell him that he looks like a stunt double for one of those soap opera actors who gets smacked by their woman during the scene. He looks a little beat up, but in a cute way." Ruby giggled. "I think I'll keep him."

"That's good. Good for you," Dylan said, although he could have sworn he heard a bit of hesitation in her voice, as if she didn't know that Martin was a sure thing. Or maybe Dylan was just imagining things. He wasn't even sure why he was concerned. All he knew was that their break was up about five minutes beforehand.

"I think it's time for us to head back," Dylan said, abruptly standing up, shaking off the crumbs from the burnt bagel he had.

Ruby quickly finished the rest of her coffee before saying, "Okay then. Let's go back upstairs and make a difference in our community!"

As they threw their trash in the bin, Dylan was leading the way, although he didn't feel in charge. His life falling apart around him, he felt wrong just leading someone towards the elevators down the hall. He especially felt guilty lying to Ruby, telling her that he had another job lined up when that wasn't the case. But, as much as he didn't feel nearly as independent as Ruby made him out to be, never before had he wanted so badly to be that sort of man.

8

"Hello, room service," a man answered gruffly

"Hi, this is Ruby in Room 412," Ruby said, feeling a bit nervous. It was her first time ever ordering room service. "I was hoping to order something for dinner."

"Okay, have you already seen our menu?" The man asked, sounding rushed. Ruby could hear plates clattering in the background.

"Can't say I have, no," Ruby admitted. "Do you have any clam chowder? It's soup weather out there tonight."

"We have chowder, yes. Did you want any bread to go along with that?"

"I'll have to pass on the bread. If you don't mind, though, including some crackers and butter along with the soup, I'd appreciate it."

"We can do that. Anything else? Wine? Coffee?"

"No, thanks," Ruby said, looking at the large bottle of wine she had just set down on the floor next to the bed. "But can you send up a few wine glasses please with the food?"

Years before, she had learned from her aunt that, as long as you drink wine out of a stemmed wine glass, you didn't have a drinking problem. It was only when you drank alcohol from anything else, like a paper cup or a jar, that you were in danger of becoming an alcoholic. Even though that was years ago, Ruby could still remember that her aunt was drinking wine from a coffee cup one morning as she was explaining that to her niece.

Ruby half-expected the man to ask her why she needed wine glasses if she wasn't ordering wine, but the man knew better than to ask. It wasn't the strangest order he had received that day. Instead, he asked, "Will that be it? Did you also need fresh towels, anything of the sort?"

"No, I think that'd be it, thank you."

"And you said you're in Room...412, right?" The man asked, pausing to read the room number off a notepad near the phone.

"Yup!"

"It'll be up there in the next twenty minutes," the man said. "If you need anything else, give us a ring."

"Will do, thanks!" Ruby said brightly, hanging the phone back on the receiver. She was perched on the edge of the bed, her legs dangling, when she was on the phone. All done, she stretched out on the mattress, feeling her joints crackling like dry leaves. As Ruby sprawled out on the bed, her left hand reached out and unconsciously played with the curly telephone cord. Staring up at the ceiling, Ruby distantly recognized it was a popcorn ceiling, as tired as she was, as dim as the light next to her bed was. For years, decades even, the ceiling in her bedroom back home was the same. That was, until a few months ago, when her father realized that there were asbestos fibers on the ceiling. Ruby wondered if there was asbestos in this hotel too – it certainly was old enough.

The phone rang. Ruby reached over to pluck the telephone off the nightstand before realizing that it was actually her cellphone that was ringing. Ruby looked around, confused – her phone was nowhere in sight. But the sound was muffled, and after a few more rings, she found it, buried under the covers on her bed. Her phone didn't recognize the number that was calling in. Usually, she would let unknown calls go to voicemail, but still she answered it.

"Hello?" Ruby said.

"Hey, Ruby?" A familiar voice said.

"Nia? That you?"

"My sister has been living in the big city for one day and already she's forgotten about me," Nia pouted.

"I remember you, but apparently my phone doesn't. It wasn't recognizing your number."

Nia swore. "I was at the store earlier, having one of their tech guys looking at my phone. They must have messed it up somehow. But enough about that, how's life in the city? I need details, woman!"

Ruby laughed. "Like you said, I just got here. Give me a chance to get myself into some trouble first."

"It sounds like you already did that. Mom said you got accused of stealing some lady's purse at the airport," Nia said. Ruby forgot she had texted her mother after the incident the night before.

"I got out of it, didn't I? Trouble only counts if you can't get out of it," Ruby said, trying to make a joke out of it. She could almost see Nia making the same face their mother made whenever they said something ridiculous. Ruby pressed on, saying, "I suppose it was a bit my fault too: I had the nerve to look like the black girl who stole her purse, after all."

"But I thought all white people were color-blind," Nia said. "Don't you remember that time back in high school, when they brought that speaker in? Dude who said that all white folks are color-blind?"

"Color-blind is right," Ruby said readily. "Some folks can't get their colors straight. For all I know, the chick who stole her purse could have been Samoan."

Nia snorted. "Well, I'm glad to hear you're okay. Shame, though – I thought things would be easier for us up there in the city."

"I'm sure it is," Ruby lied. It was not the only time that week she had been accused of being a criminal.

Earlier, after they were done with training for the day, Dylan had introduced Ruby to two of his co-workers, Vanessa and Brooke. Within a couple seconds of meeting the two, Ruby noticed how Vanessa was sharp, in a blunt way, like Aunt Delilah after one too many drinks. As she walked, her legs rippled with muscles beneath a pleated skirt. As Vanessa reached out to shake Ruby's hand, Ruby noticed a tattoo on the inside of Vanesa's wrist. Vanessa was churning with contradictions, but contradictions told stories. Brooke just looked and acted like a wax figurine, her body parts stiff and seemingly out-of-proportion. Ruby silently chided herself for making judgments about Brooke, as the three women made plans to go shopping after work.

But as the night wore on, Ruby realized she was onto something when she thought of Brooke as being wax. Ruby was hoping to take a walk through Central Park while it was still light outside, but Brooke insisted on going to an upscale clothing store just outside of Times Square. Ruby couldn't pronounce the name sprayed across the store's front door, but recognized it as being Italian. The storefront was narrow but deep. Ruby wondered if the store was actually smaller, and that the mirrors that were everywhere were just creating an optical illusion.

As Ruby followed the other ladies down an aisle towards the outerwear section – Vanessa said that she needed a new coat, especially since snow was in the forecast for the weekend – she stopped abruptly at a display of sandals. She figured that, since they were knee-deep in winter, that there would be a sale on sandals. She gasped a little, though, when she saw the price tags on the sandals. She hoped that someone had just put the decimal in the wrong place for the price. _But for all of the sandals, though?_ A little voice in her head asked.

Just for a laugh, Ruby plucked a pair of sandals off the display and walked over to a full-length mirror nearby. Since she wasn't wearing socks, Ruby was squeamish about sinking her feet into the sandals. Instead, she positioned the shoes parallel to the mirror. She then slipped her feet out of her high heels and hid her feet behind the sandals. As she looked in the mirror, Ruby wanted to believe the illusion that she actually had the sandals on. Of course, the shoes didn't match her outfit, but everything about her outfit seemed bold anyway. She was wearing a secondhand dress that she had borrowed from one of her cousins the week before – she borrowed it because the dress looked smart, and she needed to feel smart. She wore a short, black jacket, dark enough to bring out the red in her dress. She liked the look, but the tiled floor was cold on her feet, and so she put her heels back on. As she walked over to the display to put the sandals away, her stiletto heels thumped hard against the floor, making every footstep of hers sound deliberate.

Realizing that she had gone into the store with other people, Ruby looked around, but Dylan's co-workers had vanished. She thought she heard Brooke's laugh and peered down the aisle that she thought she heard the laughter coming from. But while she didn't see the other girls, she did see a salesperson walking towards her. The salesperson was wearing the store's trademark black shirt and red jeans, as well as a smile that was looking a little stale from being out all day. While Ruby knew it was the woman's job to smile, what she didn't know was that the woman had just found out a bit earlier in the day that her divorce was finalized.

"Welcome to..." Briel started to say. Suddenly, she paused and winced as someone shouted over her headset. Toggling down the volume on her headset, she continued, asking, "Did you need help looking for anything?"

"Well, you wouldn't by chance happen to have a sale on sandals this week, would you?" Ruby asked.

Briel looked at her curiously. "They are already on sale."

"Oh. Well, I'm good otherwise. I'm just here with some..."

"You sure you don't need help with anything?" Briel persisted. Ruby noticed Briel gave her a quick glance over as she said this. _Did she just throw shade at me?_ Ruby wondered.

"I'm fine," Ruby said, although she wasn't feeling it. "If I need anything, though, I'll let you know."

Briel left, but Ruby could still feel eyes on her. As she began looking for her acquaintances again, Ruby made the mistake of glancing at another mirror – in her defense, though, there were mirrors everywhere she turned. She lingered in front of the mirror for a long moment. It seemed that the longer she looked, the more obvious her fashion flaws became. The dress's color was beginning to fade, the hem of her skirt was fraying, the waist was too tight, her shoes too large. Everything about her suddenly seemed out-of-place. A minute ago, she felt like she could conquer things. Now, she felt like what a modest person thought a wealthy person dressed like, and she didn't belong to either world dressed like that.

Ruby was so caught up in her reflection – or rather, what the world said her reflection was – that it took a noise, like the clap of the universe beginning, to wake her up. She glanced over and saw that one of the store's employees had accidentally dropped a box on the floor. Remembering what she was supposed to do, Ruby continued on her quest to find her lost friends. As she walked through the swell of clothes, Ruby could feel that something was wrong. Just a minute before, she had felt metaphorical eyes looking at her, but now she was sure there were literal eyes looking at her. She confirmed this as she gave a quick glance over her shoulder, spotting an employee nearby looking at her. The employee, who had a finger pressed to their earpiece to hear better, quickly withdrew their hand and pretended to tidy up a display. She looked to her left – another employee was lazily stocking new merchandise. Even from across the store, Ruby knew that the employee was spying on her too.

When Ruby attended Voorhees College, she had worked for a few years in a department store in the nearby town of Denmark – that is, until corporate closed down the store due to financial losses. Even though it was years ago and counting, she could still remember the training she had received on preventing shrinkage, including shoplifting. She learned how to approach potential shoplifters, as well as how to follow them inconspicuously, much like how the store's employees were hunting her now. As she looked down at her fashion choices, she couldn't blame them for thinking that she didn't belong. She couldn't believe she thought that just then.

The employees were right to be suspicious, though – but it wasn't Ruby they needed to watch out for. Rather, it was another lady – a regular at the store, so much so that the employees knew her by her first name, Dani – who left the dressing room, wearing an absurdly expensive coat. On the bench of the dressing room, there was a clothing security tag, which the lady had snipped out of the coat. With the confidence of a runway model, the lady walked right past the cashier and out of the store without being caught or even noticed.

Ruby didn't say any of this to her sister. Instead, she asked, "How are things with Kevin? I haven't seen him in a minute."

"They're alright, I guess."

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked, hearing everything wrong in Nia's response.

"What are you talking about?"

"You ever hear Mom saying that about Dad? What's going on?" Ruby asked. She didn't feel right interrogating her sister. Then again, her sister had never held anything back from her before. Ruby could hear the hesitation in her sister's voice, like reading punctuation off a page.

The silence at the other end of the line was unbearable. Just when Ruby was about to change subjects, Nia began by saying, "I would have him sleeping on the couch now if he was ever at home. That man...he's been putting in long hours, day after day, at the station. I mean, we need the money, but not that bad. Kevin's been hoping that would catch someone's attention, somewhere. You know, though, who wound up getting a promotion? Some jackass who can't tell the difference between his dick and his gun..."

"Is there a difference between a dick and a gun?" Ruby wondered.

"I'm being serious now, Ruby."

"Sorry."

"But yeah, so the guy gets himself a desk job all because his uncle is a senator, and we have to make him happy, else the uncle's going to cut the department's funding. Uncle's going to cut the funding just like he did for Newberry – remember how crime shot up the year after that happened? The hell is wrong with people," Nia spat. Ruby couldn't tell if the last sentence was a question or a statement. Before Ruby had the chance to ask, though, Nia continued, saying, "And get this: so the other day, I see in the paper how some company is hiring security guards, promising great pay and benefits. The starting salary, Ruby – the starting salary is the same as what Kevin's making right now. I break this down to him, and you know he starts acting all negative. I just want him to be safe, and all he can think about is his pride. Pride will kill that man before a junkie ever does..."

As Ruby heard all of this, she couldn't help but feel sold on the idea of never getting married. She couldn't bear to think of coming home from a long day at work, only to find an even longer evening at home with marital strife.

"Enough 'bout me, though," Nia said, suddenly switching tracks. "You don't want to hear me take an emotional dump about my man. All I'm doing really is wasting your minutes."

"No, you...well, you might be wasting my minutes a little bit," Ruby said with a laugh.

What's going on with you and Martin?"

"Me and Martin?" Ruby asked, uncomprehending for a moment.

"Yeah, Martin – you still seeing him, right?"

"Oh, right," Ruby said, guilty. Of all the people she had lied to so far about Martin, it proved to be the hardest lying to her sister Nia, given how close the two of them were. "Just got off the phone with him earlier."

"He still seeing the family for Christmas?"

Ruby winced. "He is, yup. Looking forward to it too."

She didn't like saying that. But her parents had given her an ultimatum the week before, that if Martin didn't visit the family for Christmas, then that meant Ruby was ashamed of him, in which case she should move onto someone else. So she had to keep the big lie going for just a bit longer, so that she could continue her mirage of independence. She was hoping she would think of some realistic excuse to explain away Martin's eventual absence during Christmas dinner.

Thankfully, there was enough of a lull in what Ruby was saying for Nia to step back in. What Ruby said reminded Nia of another story involving Kevin. As Ruby endured another round of stories, she thought of a lot of things. One thing she didn't think of was that, for all her feeling superior over her sister because she wasn't entangled in marital issues, at least Nia's marriage was real, something that could be felt. Meanwhile, Ruby was having trouble with a boyfriend who didn't even exist.

9

December 23

"Good evening, and welcome to Arrigo's," the waiter said, his overgrown mustache tickling his nostrils as he spoke. His nose twitched as he said, "Is this your first time dining with us?"

"For these two, yes," Wright said, gesturing towards Ruby and Dylan across the table. "For me, I'm a bit of a veteran."

"I thought you looked familiar, sir," the waiter said, not really meaning it. "May I presume then that you already know what you would like to have?"

Wright nodded. "I don't need to look at the menu to know what's good. I'll have some potato gnocchi and a glass of red wine...any recommendations?"

"We have a very good St Emilion from '85 that I highly recommend."

"I will give that a try, thank you," Wright said, as he handed his menu back to the waiter.

"Wise choices, sir," the waiter said, again not really meaning it. Dylan couldn't help but smile into his menu. He was glad to know that there was another person in the universe that hated Wright. Suddenly, Dylan didn't feel so alone.

The waiter turned and looked expectedly at Ruby. "And you, miss...?"

It was obvious that Ruby was struggling between two choices on the menu. The waiter said, "If you need a few more minutes, miss, that's..."

"Oh! I know," Ruby said, looking triumphant. "I'll have the linguini with mussels. That sounds good."

"Wise choice, ma'am," the waiter said, this time meaning it. "Coincidentally, our chef comes from a family of fishermen, and so he always enjoys preparing seafood dishes, just as much as his customers enjoy eating them. And what will you be having to drink?"

Before Ruby had a chance to say anything, Wright spoke up for her, asking, "A meal like that would go well with a Pinot Noir, wouldn't you say, sir?"

"Well, that would be a good choice, yes," the waiter said, trying to sound thoughtful, "if that is what the lady wants."

Ruby shook her head. "Sorry, but what do you have on tap?"

This caught Wright off-guard for some reason. However, the waiter took the question in stride and said, "Well, we do have a very good IPA on tap."

Ruby shook her head again. "Can't drink those – too hoppy."

"Well, we do have a Pilsner, shipped directly from a brewery in Wyoming. I'm not much of a beer drinker myself, but I'm told it is excellent."

"Great! I'll have that then."

"All wise choices," the waiter said before looking to Dylan.

But Dylan didn't look at the waiter. Instead, he looked at Wright and asked, "You said this all was going on the company card, right?"

Wright looked at him for a few moments, before saying with a strained smile, "Yes."

"Good," Dylan said before turning back to the waiter. "In that case, I'll have the seared swordfish, a side of calamari, and a vodka martini."

As Dylan handed his menu over, he was slightly disappointed that the waiter didn't congratulate him on his choices like he had for the others. But any disappointment was outweighed by the sadistic joy he felt from picking the most expensive items on the menu. He wanted Wright to have to bend over backwards to justify their dinner on his expense report. _Besides,_ Dylan reasoned to himself, _I'm going to be out of a job and homeless by this time next week. Who knows when I'm going to eat this well again._

_Who knows when you'll eat next at all?_ A little voice in the back of his head asked, taunting him.

As the waiter took their menus and left, Dylan suddenly pretended to be fascinated with the thick napkin next to his plate. He knew that if he looked up, he would have Wright trying to stare him to death. The other day, when Wright had invited Ruby out for a meal, Dylan wasn't expecting to get an invite as well. He was actually planning on just staying home that evening, enjoying a can of microwaved soup and what little time he had left with his room before he got kicked out of it. He certainly wasn't planning to spend the evening at an upscale Italian restaurant in Midtown, especially not after what had happened earlier that day.

Just earlier that morning, Dylan had been taking phone calls from Florence Bank while Ruby was listening in. Dylan had just finished one of his routine calls from Yvette, and Ruby had her hand to her mouth, struggling to stifle her laughter.

"I take it that you've worked with her before?" Dylan asked as he ended the call, pointing to the phone.

It took Ruby a few more moments to recover from her laughing. "I work at a different branch, so I've never met her in-person. I have heard her on our weekly conference calls before, though."

"Is she always this much of a pain?"

"When I was younger, I was walking across a field with this kid. The kid stopped, picked up a battery on the ground, and licked it. He then started screaming, "Ow, ow, the acid's burning!" I would rather have that kid fly an airplane I'm in than Yvette," Ruby said, sighing. "What an idiot."

Dylan was about to share one of his Yvette stories with her when he saw Wright walking up the aisle towards them. Again, he felt a wave of apprehension, but Ruby hadn't learned yet to hate Wright.

"Good morning there!" Ruby said.

"Morning, Ruby," Wright said. "I just wanted to stop by real quick to check on you, see how things are going with your training."

"They're going great."

"Good. Also, don't worry – I haven't forgotten about my invite from the other day, for us to have a quick dinner before you get back to...well, whatever it is folks do in South Carolina."

"Oh! You were serious about the dinner," Ruby said. "I wouldn't expect you to go through all of that trouble just for little old me. Seriously."

"No, no, no, I insist. It's the least we can do for you. How about dinner tonight? Unless you were planning on getting into trouble somewhere around the city."

Ruby shrugged and said, "That's fine by me."

"Great! I would talk details, but I'm about to head into a meeting...Dylan?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to need you to do me a favor," Wright said as he reached into his pocket. He took out a keychain and ticket and handed them to Dylan. "After my meeting, I'll be going to lunch. I need to pick up some clothes from my dry cleaner uptown, and I won't have time both to get my car and pick up my clothes during my lunch. So can you help me out and bring my car over for me? I should be done with my meeting by the time you bring the car out front."

"Um," Dylan said, stumbling for the words to say. It had been years since he last needed to drive a car, and for good reason too: he was absolutely petrified when it came to driving. And now his boss was asking him to drive a car through city traffic. Part of him desperately wanted to say _no_ , but the other part knew that Wright was going to hold him hostage up until the very end of the week. One wrong move, and he could give up looking for any more work. If a potential employer were to call Palm Investments, Wright would surely give Dylan a bad review over something as trivial as not picking up his car for him. Dylan knew this, and Wright definitely knew this.

"What about Ruby?" Dylan asked feebly.

"We'll have her sit with Kyle for a while...that alright with you, Kyle?"

"That's fine," Kyle's voice said over the cubicle wall.

"Well, okay then," Dylan said, the keys feeling cold in his sweaty hand.

A few minutes later, Dylan had found himself walking into the parking garage, despite himself. The parking garage was three blocks down the avenue from their work, a garage that Dylan had walked past enough times on his way to and from the subway stop. This was going to be his first time ever entering the parking garage – in fact, this was going to be his first time ever entering any parking garage, ever. As he entered the garage, he passed by a pay station and realized that he would need to pay. It wasn't until that moment that Dylan realized that Wright had "forgotten" to give him money, again. By that point, he felt as if he was trapped in the dictionary's definition of the word _extortion_.

After paying up, he found a worn flight of stairs off to the side and trudged up the third level where Wright said he had parked his car. The walls of the stairwell were thick with graffiti, and Dylan felt like he was turning pages in a book rather than walking up stairs. He thought back randomly to a geology class he took as an undergrad, where the professor taught them about the biography of the Grand Canyon. He said the steep walls of the canyon revealed layers of rock from different geological epochs. The professor compared looking at the walls to being able to read every chapter of a history book at the same time. Dylan wasn't entirely sure why he thought this – maybe the thought of him failing so hard was causing him to look back on his life, to see what had caused everything to go wrong.

Having reached the third level, Dylan began to look for Wright's car. It was true that he had seen the car before, but only once, during a company function way out on Long Island. Dylan remembered the car having a paint job that shone like streetlights as night, and how the car had a convertible top. It was definitely a classic, although Dylan wasn't much of an expert when it came to cars, so he couldn't remember for the life of him what the model was. As he wandered the level, looking for the car, a mad thought struck him. He wondered: if he stole the car, how far could he get with it before getting caught?

And suddenly, there it was, sitting away from all the other cars, so as not to risk a scratch. It was a beautiful car – Dylan only knew enough about cars to know that Wright did not deserve this one. He ran his hand along the hood – even though the car was nowhere near the sunlight that dripped into the garage, the hood was still warm to the touch. The car was so stunning, Dylan actually forgot for a moment what he was there to do. But then he remembered.

With a sigh, Dylan opened the door and sat in the driver seat. He gripped the steering wheel, letting its cushioning foam around his fingers. The blood pumping in his ears was louder than the slam of the car door, louder than the click of the seatbelt. The world outside of the windshield felt wide and threatening. And, as Dylan turned the key in the ignition, the world roared at him.

Slowly, he slid the car out of the parking spot and made a hard right, following the large arrows painted on the pavement for directing traffic. He could feel the ground beneath him beginning to slope down, and so he figured he must have been heading in the right direction. But when he made his third right turn, he hit a roadblock. Up ahead there was a meadow of orange traffic cones in the one corner of the garage, where a crew had been patching up some crumbling pavement. None of the crew was there – must have been an early lunch.

Dylan had no choice but to throw the car into reverse and take a detour through the level. And so he put his arm around the neck of the passenger seat and glanced back as he went in reverse. In a few feet, he was at an aisle that he could use to bypass the construction. But as he spun the wheel to the left, still in reverse, he heard a sickening scrape.

Dylan immediately stopped and drove the car forward until the screeching in his ear stopped. He practically fell out of the car to see what had caused the damage. He groaned when he saw what happened. He was not aware that there was a concrete column off to the side, but Wright's car was certainly aware. The driver's side of the car, towards the back, had rubbed hard against the concrete. Some of the car's paint had peeled off like an orange rind, exposing the ugly metal underneath. Dylan could only stare in awe at the devastation he had just wrought.

"How in the hell am I going to explain that?" Dylan asked no one.

The thing that got him was that he had seen the column just seconds ago, right before he had encountered the construction site. He knew that there was a column there, and it seemed so unlikely that he could have forgotten that quickly. And so he was left with only two possible theories: he was an idiot who deserved the things that were happening to him, or maybe it wasn't an accident. He didn't like either of those theories, which was why when he handed the keys to a bewildered Wright later, he claimed he found the car in that condition, and that someone must have hit it when they were trying to park.

Even then, as they were seated around the table at the Italian restaurant, Dylan wasn't sure if Wright believed his little lie from earlier. If he didn't, he certainly didn't say so. Meanwhile, Ruby – who was unaware of the parking garage incident – launched into one of her stories to break the silence at the table. As Ruby spoke, Dylan tried his damnedest to follow along. It wasn't that the story wasn't good – it was. It was just that the story was funny, and every time Ruby giggled – her hair bouncing with laughter, her smile a sun to fall asleep to and wake up to – Dylan realized that her laughter belonged to someone else. She belonged to that Martin guy down south.

No, no – that was wrong. She didn't belong to anyone but herself. She wasn't some trophy that someone puts above their fireplace. He was evolved to know that much, at least. But perhaps he didn't want her – perhaps he wanted to have what she had. He wanted to have a home that wouldn't be taken away from him. He wanted a family that loved him, and when he made mistakes, they would love him even more. He wanted a job where he felt important – hell, after the week he had, he just wanted a job, period. And, perhaps most importantly, he wanted someone to love. He wanted all those things that made Ruby smile as she told her little story to them. Never before had he needed someone like Ruby more in his life, and she was going to fly back to South Carolina the next morning...

"Doesn't that sound like something you would do, Dylan?" Wright said abruptly, laughing.

Shook out of his meditation, Dylan could only manage a confused "Huh?"

"But seriously, that does remind me of a story about Dylan..." Wright began, as Dylan stood up and pushed his chair in. Ruby looked up at him, concerned.

"I'll be back in a minute," Dylan said, trying to be reassuring. And so he left Ruby to endure one of Wright's stories, walking through the dimly lit restaurant towards the restrooms. As he entered the men's room, he was half-expecting to see a bathroom attendant in there. He felt like a restaurant this upscale must have one of those poor bastards dressed in a tuxedo and working the bathrooms. But when he entered, the only person in there was an older gentleman trying to relieve himself at the urinal.

As Dylan walked over to the line of sinks, he ignored the old man's grunts as best as he could. Dylan turned on the faucet and cupped his hands underneath it, catching some cold water. Splashing himself in the face with the water, massaging his eyes, smacking himself on the cheeks, Dylan tried to regain his composure.

"What's the matter there, kid?" A crackly voice asked. Dylan looked up in the mirror and saw the old man standing behind him, looking concerned the way a grandfather must. Dylan wouldn't know, though – he had never met either of his grandfathers before.

"Nothing," Dylan lied, washing his hands. He was not sure why he needed to wash his hands – after all, he hadn't relieved himself.

The old man took the sink next to Dylan's. "It's either a woman or work," the man said wisely, as he turned on the faucet, "and you don't take work to a nice Italian place like this." He added with a short laugh, "Unless things have changed since I've retired."

Dylan hesitated. He wasn't sure why he was about to confess to this old man who he had just met. But then again, there was no one else he could go to for advice. "There's a girl out there who I'll never deserve," Dylan said, trying his best to look at the mirror and not at the old man as he said this. "What do I do?"

"Fight for her. And I'm not talking about rescuing her from the tallest tower in the castle, either – none of that romantic bullshit. Excuse my French. I'm talking about fighting her battles alongside her."

"And what if she already has someone who's fighting for her?"

The old man stared at him. "Who the hell said that the people you love have to love you back? If you like the girl so much, you should be able to sleep at night knowing she's happy, even if she's not with you."

"Thanks," Dylan said, grateful. "You know, I guess they're right when they say _with age comes wisdom_."

"Oh, I wouldn't know about that – I've been divorced seven times."

At that, both Dylan and the old man started laughing so hard that the stranger had to grip Dylan's shoulder for support.

After a few moments that Dylan needed, the old man took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. "Well, kid, I'm about to go out there and enjoy the rest of my dinner with my eighth wife. You make of what I said however you want. You can agree or disagree – I don't give a damn. Just do something with it. None of my kids ever did."

"Will do," Dylan said as the old man shuffled out of the bathroom. "Enjoy your meal."

As the door closed behind the old man, Dylan turned and faced the mirror. The person in the mirror said, "Go out there."

"Okay, okay," Dylan said, walking away from the mirror. He took a deep breath before opening the bathroom door to head back out onto the floor. It was going to be a long night – and their food hadn't even arrived yet. As he walked towards his table, he saw everything was how he left it, with Wright telling Ruby some story. But as Dylan got closer, the scene somehow changed without changing, like a mother looking at family pictures after one of her children died.

It wasn't until he sat down that he realized what had changed: Ruby wasn't smiling. Dylan felt a hot shame as he wondered why he didn't catch it sooner. But before he had a chance to ask, their mustached waiter from earlier showed up, balancing three plates in his hands. As the swordfish was set in front of him, Dylan suddenly wasn't feeling very hungry. By the looks of it, neither was Ruby. Wright, on the other hand, was eagerly putting his napkin on his lap and grabbing ahold of his silverware. He took a bite of his meal, rolling his eyes back for dramatic effect.

"Oh my God, the gnocchi here is amazing," Wright said, his mouth somewhat muffled from the potato. "Ruby, you're going to have to try this."

"No," Ruby murmured.

"What's that?"

"No, thank you," Ruby said, idly pushing her linguini around the plate with her fork. "I'm actually not feeling too hot at the moment."

"What's wrong?" Dylan asked, worried.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Wright said, speaking for Ruby. "She's probably queasy from that damn café you keep taking her to for lunch."

Ignoring Wright, Dylan repeated his question to Ruby. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Ruby said, still looking down at her plate. "You know what, no, I'm not, actually. I'm so sorry. I think I'm going to head back to my hotel. Thank you for the meal..."

"Here, let me walk you back then," Wright said, shoveling the remaining gnocchi into his mouth.

"I'll be okay walking back..."

"It's not your decision to make," Wright said, in a voice that Dylan knew all too well. "I just need to use the men's room for a moment. Just sit tight."

Wright stood up and left, but not before taking a long drink of his red wine. Wright left a destruction of silence in his wake, as Dylan and Ruby felt frozen in place at the table. Dylan needed a few moments to figure out how to phrase the question he was about to ask.

"What did he say to you?"

Ruby took a deep breath and finally looked Dylan in the eye. "It's fine, don't worry about it."

That was all Dylan needed to hear. He took a swig of his martini, the dry vermouth sending a lurch of electricity through him, before standing up. As he pushed his chair in, he said, "I think I need to go use the men's room again."

"Again?" Ruby asked, looking blankly at him.

"Yeah, that drink I took just now, it went right through me. I'll be right back," Dylan said. The rush of emotion in him felt unreal. He felt like he had been ripped out of his body and was looking at himself from the outside. "When I get back, we'll walk to your hotel – if you want me to."

"Okay."

As Dylan walked towards the men's room, he wasn't sure what he was walking into. The only thing he could think of were the words the old man had told him minutes before, how he needed to fight for those he loved. He certainly wasn't going to fight for himself. After all, he had nothing left to lose – he was about to lose his job, his home, his future, and his integrity. In a world like this, where net-worth is self-worth, he was no longer a person – he was his student loan debt. So no, he wasn't going to fight for himself. He was going to fight for the smile that Ruby had just lost.

Still, he couldn't help but ask himself the question, "What the hell am I about to do?" But he couldn't answer that question. As he opened the bathroom door, though, and saw Wright in the corner by the urinals, he knew who could answer his question for him.

"Mr. Wright..." Dylan said, advancing towards his manager. Besides the two of them, Dylan saw that one of the stall doors was closed. That was good – he would probably need a witness.

Wright, who had just pulled down his zipper, peered over his shoulder awkwardly. "Can't you see I'm a bit busy here for face time, Dylan?"

"I know, but I want to talk."

"I can't take a piss when someone's talking to me."

"I just wanted to know something...what did you say to Ruby to get her upset?"

There was a long pause. "What did she say to you just now?" Wright asked.

"She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. I know what kind of a man you are: not much of one."

"Watch who you're talking to..."

"I know who I'm talking to. I'm talking to the guy who is going to be firing me tomorrow. I'm talking to the guy who talks up all of the girls at work, even though he has a wife and kids waiting for him at home. I'm talking to the guy who treats his employees like interns, and his interns like something even worse. I'm talking to the guy who acts like he runs the company, even though I've seen you pick your nose when you thought no one was looking. I wish I paid more attention in German class back in high school, because I'm sure there must be a German word that describes how awful of a person you are."

After Dylan finished talking, there was a thick silence in the air. Even whoever was using the stall was quiet. Then, there was the sound of urine splashing against porcelain. As he continued relieving himself, Wright said in a restrained voice, "You know, I've been wondering when I would be hearing a speech from you. I was expecting it that day back in November, when I told you I was going to fire you. Hell, I've been expecting it every day since."

"I'm sorry to disappoint."

"Well, don't be, because it gave me time to think of a response. So here's my response: haven't you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, I was doing you a favor?"

"What?"

"Kid, I've been hard on you, but this city is even harder. Manhattan eats little, entitled brats like you for breakfast and gets acid reflux from it. You're acting like I broke your action figures, but if you can survive me, then maybe you can survive being in this town. The hottest fires make the hardest steel, and kid, I've been empowering the hell out of you."

"That doesn't explain whatever you did to Ruby. Ruby isn't looking to live here, so what lesson could she possibly learn from you?"

The splash of urine stuttered again. "That's none of your goddamn business. But, you know, since you're asking nicely...am I not allowed to have a little bit of fun on the side?"

"You have a wife," Dylan said, feeling as if he was levitating on his fury. "Ruby has a boyfriend back home."

"That's just the way these things work. It's the food chain: the little fish like you get eaten, and the big fish hit on some bitch visiting from out of town..."

Dylan's right fist shoveled into Wright's face. The punch knocked Wright off-balance, and the man tumbled to the side. His shoulder connected hard with the tiled floor, and Wright cried out from an old high school football injury. As Wright laid squirming on the ground, Dylan stood over him. Dylan felt a little triumphant as he looked at Wright's khakis, the front of the slacks stained dark.

"No, you jagoff," Dylan said savagely, massaging the bruised knuckles on his hand. "You hit on her, and I hit you. That's how it works."

10

At Same Time

"Good evening, and welcome to Arrigo's," the waiter said. Ruby noticed that the waiter's mustache needed a hell of a trim. It reminded her of a biology teacher she back in high school. She was blanking on his name, but she could remember him standing at the front of the class, cream cheese from his bagel that morning still in his mustache. The worst thing was she had biology class in the afternoon, so who knew how long that cream cheese was fermenting in the whiskers.

Ruby jumped back into the conversation just as Wright asked for wine recommendations.

"We have a very good St Emilion from '85 that I highly recommend," the waiter said.

"I will give that a try, thank you," Wright said, as he handed his menu back to the waiter.

"Wise choices, sir," the waiter said dryly. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Dylan smile into his menu. Dylan could tell also that the waiter didn't mean it. Abruptly, the waiter turned to Ruby and asked, "And you, miss...?"

Ruby suddenly remembered that she was having trouble deciding before the waiter showed up. She glanced back and forth between two pages in the menu as the waiter said, "If you need a few more minutes, miss, that's..."

"Oh! I know," Ruby said, her mind set. "I'll have the linguini with mussels. That sounds good."

"Wise choice, ma'am," the waiter said. Ruby could tell the waiter meant it that time. Ruby felt a little bit of pride but she wasn't ashamed. "Coincidentally, our chef comes from a family of fishermen, and so he always enjoys preparing seafood dishes, just as much as his customers enjoy eating them. And what will you be having to drink?"

Before Ruby had a chance to say anything, Wright spoke up for her, asking, "A meal like that would go well with a Pinot Noir, wouldn't you say, sir?"

"Well, that would be a good choice, yes," the waiter said, thoughtfully, "if that is what the lady wants."

That was what Ruby had wanted actually, up to the moment that Wright had spoken up for her when she didn't ask him to. Fighting down a ball of anger in her throat, she shook her head and said, "Sorry, but what do you have on tap?"

Wright looked surprised. By now, though, Ruby knew that sometimes the only way to be independent was to catch people off-guard. However, the waiter took the question in stride and said, "Well, we do have a very good IPA on tap."

Ruby shook her head. The Pinot Noir would go much better with her dinner, but she resisted. "Can't drink those – too hoppy."

"Well, we do have a Pilsner, shipped directly from a brewery in Wyoming. I'm not much of a beer drinker myself, but I'm told it is excellent."

"Great!" Ruby said, relieved. "I'll have that then."

"All wise choices," the waiter said before looking to Dylan next.

Dylan was looking at his menu thoughtfully, and for a moment, Ruby thought that he too was having trouble ordering. But then Dylan looked up at Wright and asked, almost casually, "You said this all was going on the company card, right?"

Ruby saw a very interesting look pass over Wright's face, like one of those thunderstorms that spontaneously appear on a hot summer day. Wright smiled painfully, in a way that reminded Ruby of the time one of her cousins had stepped on a rusty nail and developed rictus. He simply said, "Yes."

"Good," Dylan said before turning back to the waiter. "In that case, I'll have the seared swordfish, a side of calamari, and a vodka martini."

As Dylan handed over his menu, Ruby noticed him looking intently at the waiter, almost as if he was expecting the same acknowledgment that she and Wright had received about their meals. However, the waiter didn't congratulate Dylan, instead tucking the menus under his arm. Dylan let the snub roll off him, though, shrugging as he took a sip of water. Ruby didn't consider herself literate when it came to reading people, but she could almost smell the venom stewing between Dylan and Wright. There was a contempt between the two that ran as thick as fog, and blinded the two just as much.

As the waiter took their menus and left, Ruby realized that she was getting theater with her dinner. She watched as Dylan began picking at the thick napkin next to his plate, while Wright drilled through him with a stare. What she didn't realize was that Dylan had scratched up Wright's precious car earlier, and Wright had already seen through Dylan's flimsy excuse that the car was scratched up when he found it in the parking garage. The play unfolding in front of her was so cartoonish that Ruby had to pretend to look around the restaurant, taking in the atmosphere. In reality, she was trying hard to hide the grin blossoming on her face.

In an attempt to sidetrack the blistering hatred between the two men, Ruby suddenly launched into a story. "Say," she began, "have I told either of you yet the story of the drunk customer who showed up at my branch the other week?"

Without looking up from his napkin, Dylan said, "No, I don't believe so."

Ruby laughed, which caused Dylan to glance up from his napkin for a moment. She said, "It's a heck of a story, I'll tell you what. So, like I was saying, it was a few weeks back, on a Friday I believe – yeah, a Friday, in the afternoon. One of the tellers had called out sick, and so I was filling in for her. I had just helped an elderly woman with depositing a check – I think it was for her grandson's savings account. Anyway, a customer walks in and asks if they can take a look at their safe box in our vault. The assistant manager assists him with getting into the vault and waits outside while the customer checks their box – bank policy and all that.

"So, five minutes pass, then ten minutes, then twenty. My assistant manager is wondering what's taking the customer so long and is about to check in on him. All of the sudden, this dude stumbles out of the safe box vault...and, well..." Ruby laughed again. "He was dressed completely upside-down."

"What do you mean, upside-down?" Dylan asked.

"Well, first, he was wearing – or trying to wear – his pants as a shirt. He had his head sticking through the fly and his arms in the pant legs. And he was wearing his t-shirt like a pair of pants. He had the shirt hiked up like a diaper, his legs stuck in the sleeves of the shirt, and..." she paused and smiled broadly. "He forgot to put his underwear back on."

Both Dylan and Wright raised their eyebrows at the same time. Dylan asked, "So you mean that his, um, his..."

Dylan looked embarrassed, and so Ruby gently encouraged him, saying, "It's okay, you can say it."

"So, his...his package was sticking out of the collar of the shirt then?" Dylan asked, unconsciously lowering his voice as he said it.

Ruby nodded.

"Wow," Dylan said.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say that. Let's just say that he definitely needed a haircut," Ruby said as she took a sip of water from her glass. As she drank, a little voice in the back of her head screamed at her, asking her what was she thinking, sharing such a dirty story with the bank's business partners. What if they got offended and word got back to her manager? What then? But Ruby was tired of being pinned down with what people expected of her. Over the past year, it seemed as if everyone had told her how to live her life: her parents, her sister, her grandmother, her doctors, her manager, her preacher – she'll be damned if she let her anxieties control her too. She went over so much in her mind, that she took a much longer swig from her tall glass of water than she intended.

"Look like someone's thirsty," Wright said, trying for a joke. "You getting all hot and bothered from reliving that memory?"

The joke fell flat: Ruby's smile sagged, and a hush poured over the table as if someone had knocked over a wine glass. Ruby looked over at Dylan, silently begging for his help. But Dylan had gone back to staring at his napkin, an astronaut on another world entirely.

Not wanting Wright's comment to get to her, Ruby continued briskly, "But yeah, so anyway, the guy got arrested for public indecency, even though he was wearing clothes. Turns out, there was a bottle of whiskey the guy kept in his safe box. Totally against bank policy, you know, keeping any food or drink in your safe box. But the guy wanted to celebrate not having to make alimony payments anymore. He had kept the whiskey in his safe box all these years just for that day. People."

Wright leaned over and smacked Dylan on the shoulder. With a barking laugh, Wright said, "Doesn't that sound like something you would do, Dylan?"

Startled, Dylan looked up and said, "Huh?"

"But seriously," Wright said, turning back to Ruby, "that does remind me of a story about Dylan..."

Dylan suddenly stood up and pushed his chair in. Ruby looked up at him, concerned.

"I'll be back in a minute," Dylan said. He said it in a reassuring tone, but Ruby wasn't entirely convinced. Ruby watched as Dylan made his way through the rat maze of dining tables, heading in the direction of the restrooms.

Dylan was barely out of earshot before Wright continued, "But anyway, like I was saying..."

"Should we wait for Dylan to get back before we start sharing stories about him?"

Wright waved off the suggestion. But then he looked thoughtful, or what he assumed was being thoughtful. "He's old news anyway – well, about to be old news."

Ruby was taken aback. "Excuse me for saying so, but I don't know if that's any way to be talking..."

"Do you like it here in the big city?" Wright interrupted.

"Um, well, yes," Ruby answered, unsure of where exactly Wright was going with this. "I've always wanted to visit New York City. It's always been a little dream of mine."

"How would you like to keep coming back here?"

"I would like that very much."

Wright leaned back in his chair, looking confident. "Well, depending on how this little project of mine turns out, that can be a real possibility. I don't want you thinking you're some guinea pig, that I'm doing some test on you. The management at your bank trusted you to be part of something bigger when they picked you for this pilot program. As I've looked over your qualifications, your references, your ability to pick up on the services we offer our clients, I like what I see. You're some next-generation stuff. You're innovative, and you're passionate. I think this program can work – no, it will work – and it will be thanks to you."

Ruby smiled in spite of herself. "I appreciate that, sir, I really do."

"I know you do, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to get a little greedy right now. I know this program will catch the eye of the board, which is going to take me places. And whenever I do get my promotion, I'll be in a position to offer you a job, if you want it."

Ruby was floored. "A job, here in the city?"

Wright smiled and made a flourish with his hands like a magician might. "Not just a job. You can have an apartment in Brooklyn like the people on TV, you can take clients out to the fanciest sushi restaurants and Broadway shows, travel across the country training our clients on how to service our products – you know we have partner banks in Honolulu, San Francisco, Miami? We're even in talks with a bank in New Orleans. With any luck, we will be signing the contracts down there the same week as Mardi Gras."

"Wow."

"So?" Wright asked, looking her in the eye. "What do you say?"

There was so much that Ruby wanted to say, but she couldn't. She didn't want Wright to know that she was living in tyranny back home, where her family treated her as a child. And those rare moments when she was allowed to be an adult, it felt as if she was having pretend teatime with her stuffed animals again. The thought of finally becoming her own person, even if that meant putting hundreds of miles between herself and her family, was tempting. So tempting, in fact, that a part of her should have wondered if she was making a deal with the devil. But while she didn't realize that before, she certainly did when Wright continued talking.

"I know that's asking a lot of you," Wright said. "I mean, you're young and bright and ambitious and stunning, but...have you ever lived outside of South Carolina before?"

"No."

"So you've spent a lifetime building a life there. You'd be leaving behind family and friends and...do you have a husband? Fiancé? Boyfriend?"

Ruby's face tightened. "No."

"You don't have anyone keeping you rooted down there?"

Ruby paused. "Well, I have a boyfriend, but he's no one serious."

"Good! That's good. The way I see it, all people are good for is keeping you weighted down," Wright said. He took a moment to scratch his neck – as he did this, Ruby noticed a wedding ring on his finger. "Of course, though, if you were to move up here, you'd get lonely. So I guess you might need someone around to, you know, scratch the occasional itch. So if you're looking for a solution to that little problem, I can be your silver bullet. That's all anyone is good for these days, right?"

Ruby blinked, uncomprehending for a moment. Wright noticed her confusion and gave off a smile that was confident, but then again psychopaths are also confident. He reached across the table and took Ruby's hand in his own. "It's a whole new world up here from what you're used to – let me show you what you've been missing out on. You are open-minded, aren't you?"

_You are married, aren't you?_ Ruby wanted to say. She refused to believe that the bank's business partner – and potentially her future boss at that – was suggesting they have an affair. Wright had a wife and who knew how many children waiting for him at home, and all he could think about was taking advantage of Ruby. A spam of anger lurched through her arm, and she fought down the urge to take her fork and ram it into Wright's outstretched hand. It took her a moment to realize that she was confusing anger for frustration. She finally had a chance to break free from her family's expectations for her, only to find herself in another trap. She needed someone to take her frustration out on, but all she had was the man across the table from her who may become her boss one day. Still, the urge was there to say something, anything.

Thankfully, before anything else could be said, Dylan materialized from the shadows. Ruby felt like she was wearing misery-tinted glasses, but still she could see Dylan glowing. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't running away like he was a few minutes ago. Now, he was running to them, as if he found his purpose. As Dylan sat down, his eyes briefly met Ruby's, and her eyes tried to tell him what happened, but her eyes couldn't find the words.

Just as Dylan was about to open his mouth, to ask what had happened, the waiter arrived, balancing three plates on his two arms. As hungry as Ruby was, the moment the plate of linguini was set down in front of her, she felt her stomach wring itself out like a rag. It had been years since she had last vomited, when she was a teenager at the state fair and told a state trooper she was throwing up from a ride, when really she was drinking beer with her friends behind one of the booths. She couldn't throw up here, though, not in such a beautiful restaurant, as much as Wright tried to make it ugly with what he said. She glanced at Dylan, who didn't look hungry either. Wright, meanwhile, was salivating over his meal.

"Oh my God, the gnocchi here is amazing," Wright said, his mouth stuffed with potato. "Ruby, you're going to have to try this."

"No," Ruby murmured.

"What's that?" Wright asked.

"No, thank you," Ruby repeated, a little louder this time. "I'm actually not feeling too hot at the moment."

"What's wrong?" Dylan asked her.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Wright said, between bites of his gnocchi. "She's probably queasy from that damn café you keep taking her to for lunch."

Dylan ignored Wright and asked his question again to Ruby. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Ruby managed. She refused to look up from her plate. As long as she didn't look Dylan in the eye, then he wouldn't know that she was lying. But then again, she knew that she was lying. "You know what, no, I'm not, actually. I'm so sorry. I think I'm going to head back to my hotel. Thank you for the meal..."

"Here, let me walk you back then," Wright said as he shoveled the rest of the gnocchi into his mouth.

"I'll be okay walking back..." Ruby insisted. She wanted to believe that she was still independent enough to do that, at least.

"It's not your decision to make," Wright said, which caused something deep and primordial inside Ruby to flare up. "I just need to use the men's room for a moment. Just sit tight."

Wright took a long swig of his red wine before standing up and leaving the table. Dylan and Ruby were frozen and silent like winter at the table. Finally, Ruby could see that Dylan struggle for some words to speak.

"What did he say to you?" Dylan asked.

Ruby exhaled and said, "It's fine, don't worry about it."

Ruby hoped by saying that, she could deescalate the situation. Suddenly, Dylan took a long drink from his martini and stood up. He said, in a voice that didn't sound like his own, "I think I need to go use the men's room again."

"Again?"

"Yeah, that drink I took just now, it went right through me. I'll be right back," Dylan told her. "When I get back, we'll walk to your hotel – if you want me to."

"Okay."

11

"Is everything okay with you?" Ruby asked.

Dylan looked at her, hoping that the look on his face was one of surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"You've been something else entirely since we left that restaurant."

"Let's just blame it on that martini I had. It was so stiff, it loosened me up," Dylan said, hoping to work a laugh out of Ruby. Ruby managed a chuckle, which was enough for Dylan.

They were on the subway, heading back to the East Village from the Italian restaurant. After Dylan had knocked down Wright in the bathroom, he had quickly gotten back to their table and escorted out Ruby. On their way out the door, Dylan hoped that they wouldn't be stopped by the hostess, wondering why their entire table had just evacuated. Fortunately, the hostess was busy dealing with a group of people who had just come in, celebrating some couple's fortieth wedding anniversary. As they walked down the street towards the nearest subway stop, Dylan kept looking over his shoulder, half-expecting to see Wright charging towards them. But Wright was nowhere to be seen.

Still, Dylan felt paranoid until they were safely in a subway car and the doors closed behind them. As the subway began to accelerate down the tunnel, Dylan had just started to collect his thoughts when Ruby had asked him if he was okay. And while he had written it off as him just having too much of that martini, he knew that there was something deeper he had found that evening. He had found an independence, or rather, Ruby had found it for him.

"Now, we're sitting here asking if I'm alright, when I should be asking you that question," Dylan said, swaying back and forth as the train clattered along the tracks.

And while Dylan was comfortable standing in the middle of the car, his hands in his pockets, Ruby was gripping onto the railing overhead for support. "I'm feeling a little bit better, thanks. How are you not falling over right now?"

Dylan shrugged. "I guess it comes with living in the city for too long. Mind me asking what it was that Mr. Wright said to you? If you're not comfortable sharing, it's fine."

Ruby hesitated. "Let's discuss it later."

"We don't have much of a later. I'll be taking you back to the airport tomorrow morning," Dylan pointed out.

"We'll have a later," Ruby said reassuringly. "I mean, we have a now, don't we? And you can't have a now without a later. Or something." She laughed. "I was trying too hard just then."

Just then, Dylan's phone started vibrating in his pocket. It was a rare moment when someone could get a signal while taking the subway. He didn't need to take the phone out of his pocket to see who was trying to call him – he knew. Instead, he just let it continue to vibrate on silent. He was too busy enjoying his last night with Ruby.

"So, what about this new job you'll be starting in a few weeks?" Ruby asked, changing the subject as Dylan's phone stopped vibrating. "What are you going to be doing? Not taking phone calls, I hope."

Dylan laughed a little, to cover up his panic as he tried to think of a fictional job. "It's another start-up company. This one helps high school seniors with finding college scholarships tailored for them."

"Is there really that much money to be made in that?" Ruby asked, incredulous.

"Not a lot, no," Dylan admitted. "But it gives me the chance to do some traveling, you know, meeting with different non-profits and rich folks looking to set up scholarship funds. It'll give me the chance to travel further than Virginia. I've heard that there's more to the world than the East Coast. I want to see if the rumors are true." As Dylan said this, he could feel his phone shake once, indicating that he had gotten a voicemail.

"Well, good for you! That sounds like it'll be the perfect fit for you," Ruby said, so genuine that Dylan wished that the job had actually existed. "I wish I could do some more traveling. It's so hard to get away from South Carolina. Sometimes I feel like it's the world's largest magnet – no matter how far you get away, it seems to yank you back in."

"This is our stop," Dylan said as the train began to slow down.

"Oh! I guess it is," Ruby said. "You would think I would be used to my stop by now."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it the day after you get back to South Carolina," Dylan said dryly. "Isn't that what homesickness is, really? Just getting used to a place only after you've left it?"

Ruby looked thoughtful. "I'll be testing out that theory soon enough."

As they hopped off the train and made their way towards the nearest stairwell heading to the surface, Ruby said abruptly, "I am going to miss all of this though."

"You will?" Dylan asked as they began ascending the steps.

"Yeah, it seems silly, doesn't it? I mean, I feel like you can only call a place home after you've been there long enough to have to do laundry." As if on cue, they reached the top of the steps and found themselves at the street level – the first thing Dylan saw was a laundromat. Before he had a chance to make a joke about it, Ruby continued, "But I feel like so much has been going on this week. So much stuff, I won't be able to put it all in my carry-on luggage when I leave."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be visiting again," Dylan said, words that were intended to reassure the both of them. "You are going to be the centerpiece of Mr. Wright's grand plan, after all."

Dylan immediately regretted that last sentence as he saw the pain in Ruby's eyes. It was obvious that she was still dealing with whatever it was Wright had said to her during dinner. He wanted to tell her that he had put Wright in his place, but he couldn't. The old man's words came back to haunt him – if he loved her, he couldn't make her feel obligated to him. He couldn't do that to her. Besides, the time for a knight in shining armor had long since come and past. And so he stayed quiet, as much as he wanted to say these things. As a matter of fact, as they walked quietly back to her hotel, he found himself silently mouthing the words.

It wasn't until they reached the foot of the hotel that Ruby said another word. "Well, here we are," she said, unsure of what else to say.

"Yup," Dylan said, stuffing his hands in his pant pockets, his right hand brushing against his phone. He was wondering what the message said. He said, "Your flight is leaving tomorrow at eight in the morning, right?"

"That's right."

"If you want, I can take you back over to the airport in the morning. That is, unless you're fine with taking a cab on your own. I mean, in which case..."

"Don't you still have work in the morning?" Ruby asked.

Dylan waved off the question. "I make my own schedule at work. I can show up there whenever I want." He said this, feeling pretty confident that he knew what that voicemail he had gotten earlier would say.

Ruby shrugged and said, "If you're looking for something to do in the morning, I wouldn't mind someone seeing me off, you know, wishing me a _bon voyage_ and all that."

Dylan smiled without using his mouth. "Then it's settled. I'll be here no later than 3:30 tomorrow morning. Well, have a good night then."

"Good night..." Ruby started to say, before derailing the conversation. "You know what, did you want to come upstairs for a little while?"

Dylan wasn't ready for that question. "Um, well..." He coughed into his hand. "Why's that?"

"Well, you know, I had bought a six-pack of beer yesterday that I've had sitting out in the cold on the fire escape. I'll need some help getting rid of it before my flight," Ruby said, looking expectedly at him.

He had so many thoughts going through his mind at the same time that he was thinking in tongues. Dylan knew where this line of questioning led, and for a second, he felt hungry just looking at her. But he pushed those thoughts to the side, reminding himself that she had a boyfriend back home. But the other day when she talked about the boyfriend, she was so hesitant, like she wasn't sure it was going to go anywhere with him. But that day had been full of surprises already. But what if he couldn't take any more surprises? But what if he said no, and never saw her again? But what if he said yes, and never saw her again?

Lucky for him, his mouth was not connected to his brain, because the only word that he managed to say out loud was, "Sure."

And so a few minutes and three flights of stairs later – Ruby insisted that the stairs were quicker than the hotel's elevator – they found themselves in Ruby's room. For being advertised as a luxury hotel, the rooms themselves were rather barren. The room had just a bed and a little writing desk that had a television precariously propped on it. Off to the side was a cramped bathroom that was installed as an afterthought when the building had been converted from an apartment complex to a hotel. Dylan didn't know it, but years before, all of the apartments on that floor shared a communal bathroom at the end of the hallway.

"It's not much, I know," Ruby said, as Dylan looked over the room.

"Well, you want to look at the room as just somewhere to sleep, not somewhere to live. The city is where you live."

"You know, the people at the service desk tried to sell it to me the same way when I complained to them my first day here. The city should really think about making what you just said their slogan," Ruby said, walking over to the window. She struggled for a few seconds with the rusty latches before she was able to open the window. She leaned out and dragged in a six-pack of pale ale.

As Ruby closed the window, Dylan marveled. "You like your beer."

"Well, back in my town, there's not much else to do but drink," Ruby said, handing a bottle to Dylan.

"Thanks," Dylan said before attempting to open the bottle. He quickly realized though that the cap was not the kind he could twist off. He looked up at Ruby and asked, "Do you have a bottle opener?"

Ruby snorted. "Amateur." She took the bottle from Dylan and walked over to the bathroom. Opening the door, she wedged the top of the bottle into the metal plate of the door jamb. Then, in one swift motion, she slammed the door closed and withdrew an open bottle, the head foaming out. She marched back over and handed the bottle to Dylan.

"Did you seriously just open that beer with a door?" Dylan asked, incredulous.

Ruby laughed. "To hell with the people who say that beer closes doors in life. It's the other way around – closing doors gets you beer. I need to use the restroom. Now don't go snooping through my underwear while I'm in there."

"I'll be good, I promise," Dylan said as he sat down at the desk, taking a sip of his beer.

Dylan waited until he heard the bathroom door click shut before he took out his phone. He did get a voicemail earlier, but not from whom he expected. Instead of Wright's number, the missed call was from a number he didn't recognize. Although, going by the area code and the first three digits of the number, he knew it was a call from work. And so he pressed play on the voicemail and listened:

"This message is for Dylan Hamilton. This is Terri Coburn, a human resources representative with Palm Investments. I'm calling because I had received word from your supervisor, Dustin Wright, that earlier this evening there was an altercation during which you had physically assaulted him, without any provocation, before fleeing the scene. As a result, he has filed the paperwork for your termination, effective immediately. As well, he asked me to advise you that he is filing a restraining order as of this evening. And so any attempt to enter company property or contact any employees will result in your arrest for violating a court order. If you wish to gather your belongings, you will need to contact building security in advance of your arrival, and they will meet you on the ground floor with your belongings. If you have any further questions, you will need to speak with a member of our legal team. Their extension is..."

By that point of the voicemail, though, Dylan was no longer listening. Instead, he was staring at the wall. The inside of his mind had never seemed quite so large before, as he asked himself questions he didn't have answers for. When he had punched Wright earlier, he thought he would be prepared for the consequences. But now, though, he wasn't so sure. He had spent the last month at work under the expectation that he would be ultimately let go with some sort of severance package, the consolation prize of corporate downsizing. After all, an old co-worker of his had been let go some months before, and he had been given a month's salary. But Dylan was pretty sure they didn't give severance packages to people who punched their manager in the face.

Not only that, but he wasn't sure if he could collect unemployment benefits in the event if he was fired due to misconduct. He had never been fired before – hell, he couldn't remember the last time when he didn't have a job. Dylan was trying to picture the looks he would get at the unemployment office when he would explain his situation to them. He wasn't even sure how much longer he would keep his health insurance with the company – that was, if he still had it at all anymore. By that point, the voicemail had ended, and Dylan replayed the message, in the hopes that the human resources representative had mentioned something about health insurance that he had missed before.

But as he started playing the message again, he suddenly realized that he didn't care nearly as much as he thought he would. If he had received that message a month ago, a week ago, or even earlier that day, he would have been in an overwhelming panic, yes. But none of that mattered as long as Ruby was smiling.

And, on cue, the bathroom door opened and Ruby entered the room. She was dressed in her sleep attire: a hooded sweatshirt with her alma mater's logo sprayed across the front of it, and a pair of track pants. She walked over to the six-pack that she had left on the bed and took out a bottle. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her room key, which she used for popping off the cap.

"You didn't want to use your magic trick with the door?" Dylan asked.

She shook her head. "No – I only do that to impress people. And usually when I do that, I get beer all over the floor. I'm surprised that didn't happen with your beer, to be honest."

While still sitting on the bed's edge, she leaned forward and tapped her beer bottle against Dylan's. "Cheers, by the way," she said, before taking a drink.

"Cheers, although I cannot tell a lie: I already drank some of mine."

"That's fine – you're going to be the one with bad luck, not me," Ruby said.

"Well, I can't imagine my luck getting much worse."

"And why's that?"

Dylan chose his words carefully. "Well, because...because I'm going to miss you when you go tomorrow."

"Aw, that's sweet of you," Ruby said, genuine.

"Can I write you?" Dylan asked. He realized that he was getting too serious, and that he needed to lighten the mood a bit. "I don't remember how to write a letter, but I'll look it up online. Where could I buy stamps at? Your boyfriend won't mind if you start getting a bunch of letters from me, I hope?"

When he said that last sentence, Ruby's smile unexpectedly slid off her face. Then, in one breath, she downed the rest of her bottle. As she reached for another bottle, she said slowly, "That's the reason I asked you to come up here, you know. I need a coping mechanism for what I need to do tomorrow, and you'll work just fine."

"Coping mechanism? For what?"

"I have a bit of a problem. You know how I've been talking about my boyfriend, Martin, all week?" Ruby asked nervously, opening her second bottle.

"Yeah," Dylan said, feeling the twist of disappointment he got every time he heard her say the name.

"I have something very interesting to tell you about him. Martin...he's not real," Ruby said, before taking a long sip of her beer, looking intently over her bottle at Dylan as she did so.

"Wait, what?" Dylan said, not comprehending. "What do you mean, he's not real?"

"It doesn't get much deeper than that, really."

"Not to be rude, but I feel like it kind of has to be a bit deeper than that."

"Maybe," Ruby admitted. "See, here's the thing. For some time now – since my sister got married, actually – my family has been hounding me to get settled down, no matter who it's with. Good Lord, my grandmother's been trying to convince me to see this guy from church."

"And what's wrong with that guy?"

"Back when we were kids, I remember him eating bugs. And my grandmother wants me to kiss him, although I know where those lips have been," Ruby said, making a face.

"So you made up this Martin guy to get your folks off your back."

"Well – I didn't entirely make him up. I based him on a real person. The real Martin is a real guy, actually. I met him at a company picnic – I didn't lie when I said that. But what my grandmother doesn't know, well, it doesn't hurt her," Ruby explained. "And I know it makes me sound like a bad person, but am I really an awful person if all I want is to be left alone? Is that really too much of a thing to wish for? I guess so in this world."

"So when did this solution of yours start becoming a problem?" Dylan asked.

"Oh, a few weeks back. I spent too much time going on 'dates' when really I was just spending time at the lake nearby, alone. My parents started getting uptight, telling me that I need to start bringing around Martin, that it's not right for a man not to meet his girl's parents, that wasn't how they were raised. And it's only been getting worse. Dylan, they're telling me that if he doesn't show up for our Christmas dinner tomorrow, then he doesn't deserve me and I should dump him. Then it's back to my folks trying to decide my future for me. So, what am I supposed to do about all of this?"

Dylan leaned back in his chair, trying to process the information he just heard. After a long moment, he looked at Ruby and asked, curious, "I just want to know – why did you decide to come clean to me, of all people?"

Ruby laughed, a little bitterly. "Well, a few reasons. One, you don't know anyone in my hometown you can gossip to about this. People where I live, they like to talk."

"I thought they liked to drink."

"Let's be serious now," Ruby pouted.

"Sorry. So there's another reason why you're confessing to me then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said there were a few reasons why you were coming clean to me," Dylan persisted.

"It's going to sound stupid," Ruby said, finishing off her second bottle of beer. "It's just that I want to be like you."

"You want to be like me," Dylan repeated. He remembered the old saying, that a lie repeated enough becomes the truth. He wondered if that actually worked.

Ruby nodded. "That's right – you have a place of your own and soon you'll have a new job where you don't have that godawful manager of yours telling you what to do. You don't have a grandmother trying to play Cupid, or parents who are trying to take over your life. You're independent. You have everything I want. So what do I need to do to have what you have?"

"You want to know what I would do in your situation?" Dylan asked, changing the subject.

"Yes."

"I would keep up the lie," Dylan said. "I would drag along some guy that I met in New York and tell my folks that he's Martin."

Ruby smiled weakly. "It sounds like you already have someone in mind."

"Hey now, I'm looking for something to do over the next few weeks."

Ruby's smile disappeared. "You're insane if you think you could pull that off, and I'll tell you why: because I already told my parents that Martin's black."

Dylan shrugged. "Well, which option's worse: telling your parents that you're dating a white guy, or that you're dating a guy who doesn't exist?"

"I'll need a couple minutes to answer that question."

"Seriously? This doesn't have to be complicated: I show up for dinner, and then I leave. Anyone can keep up a lie for a couple hours – even me. Come on, what do you say?"

Ruby was looking for any reason that Dylan's idea was a bad one. "I can't possibly ask you to do that for me...plane tickets aren't cheap, you know."

"Here's the thing, though: my college roommate actually lives down in Jacksonville and has been whining about me not visiting him since he moved. So after the dinner, you can just take me to the bus stop and I can visit him while I'm down there," Dylan lied. He actually had no idea where his roommate from college lived now, but that wasn't the point. He was desperately trying to make Ruby not feel guilty, since the plan would ask a lot of him. Dylan didn't want her to feel indebted to him.

"What about your work, though?" Ruby asked.

"Tomorrow's supposed to be my last day anyway. What are they going to do if I don't show up? Fire me?" Dylan said. He added hastily, "Of course, though, this is all only if you want. So, what do you say?"

Dylan let that last sentence hang tantalizingly in the air between them. He could clearly see that Ruby was overthinking the possibilities. And as Ruby worked through the problem, it gave him time to consider what he was proposing as well. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that there was nothing to think about. Everything he thought he had in life, it was all apparently on lease – he never had a right to any of it. But that was not entirely true. He had nothing left to lose but Ruby's smile.

"Okay," Ruby announced suddenly, her decision made. "Let's do it. If you can get yourself a plane ticket, I'll parade you in front of my parents, and we'll see what happens."

"Great!" Dylan said, as he pulled out his phone. "I'll see if I can order a ticket."

"And I'll see if I can fit another beer in me," Ruby said, as she opened her third bottle of beer. Dylan couldn't tell if she was drinking in celebration or from being anxious.

12

When Ruby's mother, Chinasa, was just a child – no more than five years old – her family lived next door to a Ms. Simpson. On the lazy summer afternoons, when the temperature was the only thing that rose up, Ruby would sit on their front step and pretend to play with her dolls. In reality, she was watching Ms. Simpson tend to the hedges along her driveway. No matter how brutal the day was, Ms. Simpson was always out there, wearing a simple sundress every bit as yellow as the sun, with a matching silk scarf that barely covered her thick, black hair. And, even though she was doing yardwork, Ms. Simpson insisted on always wearing makeup. While her mother's makeup always seemed to melt and trickle down her face in the summer, Chinasa noticed that Ms. Simpson's never did.

As she worked with her hedge clippers, Ms. Simpson would look for excuses to take breaks: maybe the clippers were beginning to dull, maybe she thought she heard her phone ringing inside, maybe one of the men pursuing her would stop by in his car, which he had coincidentally just washed and waxed that morning. Whatever the reason, Ms. Simpson would always walk over to her front step, where she kept a glass of iced tea and a packet of cigarettes. At least, Chinasa thought it was iced tea – once, her mother sent her over to drop off a letter the mailman had accidentally delivered to their house instead of Ms. Simpson's, and Chinasa could smell the same vile stuff on Ms. Simpson's breath that she could smell on her daddy's, when he drank one of his adult drinks during dinner.

Ms. Simpson helped Chinasa realized just how fake her dolls were. All of Chinasa's dolls were hand-me-downs that her mother had received when a local children's hospital was boarded up. All of the dolls were white, with yarn for hair and rags for dresses. Chinasa was given the dolls as something she could grow into one day, when really she wanted to become Ms. Simpson. One day, though, she got her chance. Chinasa remembered it being the last week of summer, and Ms. Simpson was taking a break from doing yardwork. She had a lit cigarette in one hand, her drink in the other, when she heard the phone ringing inside. Almost done with the cigarette anyways, Ms. Simpson tossed it on the sidewalk, stamped it out, and stepped inside.

Chinasa realized that this was her chance, her chance to become a grown-up like Ms. Simpson, finally. She rushed over, her bare feet smarting from the blistering sidewalk, and grabbed the corpse of the cigarette. She ran back inside her house and into the kitchen. Usually, her mother was in there, but luckily she had to run down to the pharmacy on the corner. Since she was only going to be gone for a few minutes, she had left a pot of stew simmering on the stove. Chinasa was not tall enough to reach the stovetop, so she dragged a chair over to the store, clambered up, and lit the cigarette butt using the pilot light. She had just put the remains of the cigarette in her mouth when she heard the front door open – her mother was home.

Chinasa ran into a nearby broom closet and shut the door behind her. It was pitch-black inside of the closet, and the only thing that Chinasa could see was the smoldering end of the cigarette. She put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled just like they did in the movies. Chinasa immediately gagged – the taste was unlike anything she ever experienced before. As a matter of fact, she wouldn't taste something that bitter for another ten years, when she had a cup of burnt coffee her senile grandfather had made. Inconveniently, she dropped the lit cigarette into an open box of rags, which her mother had used for cleaning. Lucky for her, the house didn't burn down because of that, but her mother had beat her so hard that her bottom felt like it was on fire for weeks afterwards.

Decades later, this story was what was going through Ruby's mind. Of all the things that were going on in her life, it was this story that she found herself thinking about, and she wasn't exactly sure why. While she wasn't smoking – as a matter of fact, she hadn't had a cigarette since she was a freshman in high school – she was hiding out on the fire escape just outside of her hotel room. She was hiding on the fire escape, even though a little part of her was afraid that the rusty contraption would come tumbling down, and that she would make the papers the next morning. She was hiding, just like her mother did in the broom closet. And she did desperately want to become an adult, just like her mother with the cigarette butt. And she was afraid of what her mother would say if she saw her now, just like Chinasa was afraid of her own mother catching her smoking.

Ruby tried to clear her mind by taking in the Manhattan skyline around her, the last time she would see it before heading back to South Carolina. And even though it was almost midnight, the city was still on fire. Headlights were driving on the street below, lights were still awake and looking out the windows of the apartment building across the street. A few blocks down, Ruby could see ugly fluorescent lights were still working in the office buildings.

Ruby felt a pinch of irony as she looked up and saw nothing. At her home in South Carolina, she could look up and see the same constellations that the Greeks saw thousands of years before. Up here in the city, though, the light pollution was so intense that it blotted out the stars in the sky. She looked down, seeing a group of drunk college students walking on the sidewalk, laughing hysterically about something. They weren't upset at all about the fact they couldn't see the stars. But Ruby figured that everyone processes grief differently.

A part of her wondered if the reason she couldn't see the stars above her was because she was already living in the stars. The thought didn't just come from the blinding lights that surrounded her. Rather, it came from all of the dreams that people came to the city for, hoping to find. There were people who came to New York City in the hopes of becoming an actor on Broadway, an artist with their own exhibition, an executive with a penthouse. They were all astronauts living in the stars, and Ruby was being given the chance to launch off and join them.

She would love nothing more than to live in the city. Not only would it put her an expensive plane ride away from her family, but it would give her a chance to live a life that she thought she could never live. It wasn't even a dream of Ruby's to live in a studio in Brooklyn until Wright said it, and now it was all she could think about. She could finally have parties of her own, she could play music at all hours of the night, she could put her feet on the coffee table – anything Ruby wanted, she could do. After a lifetime of enduring awkward high school plays, Ruby was now overwhelmed with the urge to see a Broadway show. After a lifetime of eating frozen fish fillets, Ruby now had a craving for the best sushi. After a lifetime of not traveling further than Texas, Ruby now had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco and Honolulu and Boston and Chicago. It was as if the walls to her prison had toppled over all at once, and the world was calling to her.

But then Ruby reminded herself that, as enticing as the offer was, the truth of the matter was that she would simply be escaping one jail to find herself in an even larger jail. If she ever broke free from her family, the bars falling like scales from her eyes, Ruby would find herself chained to Wright and his urges. Suddenly, the rusty bars of the fire escape didn't make Ruby feel so nervous. At least if the bars fell here, she could fly.

_No,_ Ruby thought, _I can't think like that._ But the thought of bars and flying reminded her of when she was a child. One of her father's cousins – he had so many, Ruby couldn't keep track – was an ornithologist, living near a bird sanctuary in Florida. Even at the young age of seven, Ruby had trouble reconciling the cousin's love for birds with his need to keep a number of them in cages around his house. There were birds of all sizes and colors and calls: everything from a flycatcher to an owl to a kingfisher to a parrot, all squawking during the entire visit.

So it came as no surprise that, with so much noise around her, it was the quiet bird that caught Ruby's attention. It was a little squat bird, the same size and shape as Ruby's fist, which got her in trouble just the week before when she knocked down a boy who was making fun of Nia. The bird was as black and cool as the nights during the summer – Ruby noticed it was the same shade of black as her father.

Ruby could still remember what she looked like, even all of those years later. She was barely tall enough to reach a light switch, although her hair was much longer than it was now. She could still remember insisting on wearing it in a ponytail, when all of the other girls were wearing cornrows. She vaguely remembered wearing her Sunday dress, only because they had attended the cousin's church earlier that morning, and Ruby was terrified by the preacher for some reason. And she could remember her younger self pointing to the bird in the cage and asking, "What's that one?"

"That one?" The cousin said, walking over. "That's a blackbird."

"Blackbird," Ruby repeated softly. Then she asked, "Does it have a name like the others?"

The cousin shook his head. "Not yet. I just picked up that one when I was in Morocco this past winter. Besides, I don't think it has much longer. No point in naming it if it's not going to be around much longer."

"Why's that?" Ruby's father asked.

"It's not acclimating as well as I thought it might," the cousin said with a frown. He reached over and tapped hard on the cage, trying to agitate the bird. Still, the blackbird sat there, looking sleepily at the world around it, stretching its now-useless wings. It somehow reminded Ruby of the long car rides, where she would sit in the backseat, anxiously waiting for either the ride or her life to be over, whichever one came first.

In one of the cages was a peregrine falcon, with a beak like a fish hook and alert eyes. Ruby's father had just seen a television show on falconry a few weeks back, and he asked his cousin if he could have the falcon perched on his hand. And so Ruby's father put on a heavy-duty glove, built to withstand the bird's sharp talons, as his cousin unlatched the cage and carefully pulled out the falcon.

"Want to see if she can catch any of the mice in my backyard?" The cousin asked.

"I thought you'd never ask," Ruby's father said with a smile.

As the two men stepped outside, and Ruby's father launched the falcon, Ruby decided to stay inside. It was unusually cool that morning for Florida, and besides – Ruby couldn't bear the thought of watching a falcon ripping apart a mouse. As the little girl walked around the room, admiring the birds and their plumage, she could have sworn she heard something unlock. But that was impossible – her father and his cousin were both outside, and Nia and Ruby's mother were in the other end of the house with the cousin's wife. Ruby was the only person in the room.

And that was when Ruby saw an explosion of feathers. The blackbird had somehow managed to undo the latch to its cage, and it made its escape. Instead of being startled or frightened, Ruby watched with a student's fascination as the bird explored the room, desperately trying to find an open window or doorway or crack in the ceiling that it could use to make its escape. But the room was sealed tight, and the doors and windows were shut. However, the walls were thin, and the other birds were screeching as they saw one of their own making its prison escape. The ornithologist heard the commotion through the walls and peered through the window to see his prized blackbird flapping madly around the room.

The cousin threw open the sliding door and ran into the room. Wearing gloves – from handling the falcon – the ornithologist lunged up and grabbed the blackbird, just as the bird was heading towards the sliding door. His hands cupped around the bird, the cousin struggled to put the pair of flapping wings back into the cage. Ruby could vaguely remember her father angrily demanding if she had somehow opened the cage, but the sound of the blackbird's cry, as it desperately searched for an exit, still haunted the house of her memory. It terrified Ruby because she didn't understand it.

It was not until now, years later, that Ruby understood why the blackbird cry scared her. She understood now because, wherever she turned, there was a dead end – just when she escaped, she found herself in another cage. In Ruby's case, another cage meant being under Wright's lecherous eye. In the event that she accepted a potential offer, and moved to the city, how well could she tolerate him? Would she be able to tolerate the late-night texts, the dresses he would send her for company events, the flowers on her doorstep, the bottles of wine he would force-feed her with?

If this was Ruby ten years before, five years before, even a year before, she wouldn't have hesitated to punch Wright in that sweet spot on his side, just beneath the rib cage, like her cousin had taught her years back. Her parents didn't raise her to become used. Even at their most controlling, her parents would have wanted her to defend her honor, at the very least. But Ruby now knew what would happen if she said even the quietest "No." She knew that Wright was the kind of person who would remove her from the pilot program, and with it any chance of her being promoted. She knew that Wright was the kind of person who would report her to her management for some kind of imagined infraction, and that she would be punished for being no one's woman but her own. She knew that Wright was no different from quicksand: the harder she struggled, the more difficult he would try to make things for her.

But why should she choose what cage to be trapped inside? Why should she fly out of the cage built by her parents and right into the cage built by Wright? Why was she allowing anyone, or anything for that matter, write the definition of her soul? _But the money,_ the little voice in the back of her head begged her. And it was true: she would make a lot more money in her new role, and money meant that she could turn her neck in whatever direction she wanted. But then she realized that money wasn't the same as freedom – money was another thing, no different from her family or her friends or Wright. If she refused to let any of them control her future, why should she give money the same privilege? Money would be the wrong reason to take the job.

Ruby suddenly winced, the right side of her forehead tightening up, as if she was wringing out a towel at the kitchen sink. The feeling passed after a few moments, but Ruby's anxiety lingered. She had headaches a lot of times in her life, just like anyone else – but the last two times she had a headache, a seizure soon followed it. Now, every time she had a headache, Ruby couldn't tell if it was a normal occurrence, or a sign of things to come. If she was going to have a seizure later that night, then she didn't want to be alone.

And so she pulled out her phone and heavily typed a text to Dylan: _Stop by if you're looking for something to do._

Her thumb paused over the Send button, wondering if it was the right thing to let him into her life. She could have just as easily dialed Nia, and pretended that she wanted to talk. If Ruby had a seizure over the phone, Nia would know what needed to be done. Ruby could go down the street and sit in one of the fast-food places that were open at all hours – if she had a seizure there, one of the workers would call the paramedics. But then, with a mind of its own, her thumb suddenly fell on the Send button. Ruby watched numbly as the text was sent. She managed to close the phone and slide it back into her pocket before she started crying, wondering if she would ever be independent of everything.

Shaking her head, trying to exorcise herself of her demons, Ruby leaned down and wiped the tears away with the palm of her hand. She didn't give a damn that she was smudging her makeup. After a few seconds of keeping her eyes closed, Ruby reluctantly opened them. As her eyes adjusted to the light from a sign some stories below, Ruby at first thought that she still had her hand to her face, her fingers blocking her sight. But, as her vision cleared up, she realized she wasn't staring at her fingers – her hands had since fallen down to her side, clenched. No, she wasn't looking at her fingers, but rather she was looking at the bars of the fire escape's flooring, the only thing separating her from the street far below.

As thick as the bars were, light still seeped through the cracks, and settled like dust on the floor. It was a sight that should have induced vertigo – the fact that the bars were sagging under her weight didn't help – but instead, it induced life in her. There was nothing on that fire escape that she wasn't feeling elsewhere in her life. Anywhere else, she would have experienced the same need for escape, the same nausea, the same bars that looked like support to everyone else but a cage to her. She felt weak because she was trapped. She didn't realize, though, that she was growing stronger every time she smashed her fists against the walls in frustration.

She could feel her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled out her phone and looked down at it, expecting the text to be from Dylan. Instead, it was from Anteater: _hi again, haven't heard from you in past few days...everything ok?_

Ruby started to put her phone away when another text came through: _I know you been reading these... been getting read receipts...please respond...don't know what I'd do if you aren't in my life._

Ruby put her phone back into her pocket.

13

Dylan was beginning to panic as his key wouldn't turn in the lock.

For the past five minutes, he had been struggling to open the front door to his house. Ever since some kids had broken the lock the month before, they had been having issues with the door. After several calls to their landlord, the old bastard had reluctantly agreed to sending out a locksmith, who never showed up. And so Cody, with nothing else better to do except to get high, found a video online that showed how to fix broken locks. And while the video somehow worked, it worked a little too well, with the lock sticking and requiring more steps than a secret handshake to open.

And while Dylan had always had a tough time with the lock since then, he never had this much trouble. He tried turning the key to the point that he was afraid the key would break off in the lock, he tried twisting the doorknob while turning the key. He even took down a hanging flowerpot nearby and tried pressing its wiring into the lock in the hopes of tripping the tumblers inside. But no matter what, the door still stayed locked. He knocked on the door several times, but no one answered.

"This can't be happening," Dylan muttered to himself over and over again.

His evening since leaving Ruby's hotel had been going too well. First, he had been able to book a ticket on Ruby's flight back to South Carolina, and for a decent price too considering it was last-minute. Then, he had to navigate his way home, by public transportation, in the middle of the night. Usually, that meant the time between trains was a long wait, but somehow Dylan showed up on the subway platform at the exact moment a train was pulling up. His good luck repeated later when he got off the subway and walked up to his bus stop at the exact moment a bus was pulling up.

The ride home was so short that it barely gave Dylan time to process his rampage of thoughts. He knew the moment that he bought his plane ticket, requesting just one-way, that he had no intention of returning from his trip to South Carolina. It wasn't as if there was anything in New York waiting for his return. He could just as easily take a bus to Los Angeles as he could hitchhike to Denver as he could take a plane ride back to Queens. The possibilities alone would have terrified most people, but for Dylan, he had never been this excited before. Ruby didn't know it, but she was giving him a second chance at living life, and it hurt Dylan that he couldn't thank her for it without revealing the truth.

By the time he was walking up the sidewalk towards his house, his mind had turned to more material things. Since he had no intention of coming back, he had to figure out what he should pack for the rest of his life. A change of clothes and a toothbrush were obvious choices, but what else? He thought about packing his aging laptop, but he scratched that thought – he could survive with his cellphone. He thought about packing a book or two for the road. Until that moment, he had never thought of what his most favorite book was. But now he found himself arguing between either Melville's _Moby Dick_ or one of Jack London's books. All of the sudden, his diploma that he had in an expensive frame on the wall didn't seem that important. If Dylan couldn't easily shove an item into his backpack, then he didn't care that much for it.

But the thrill was long gone, replaced by the panic that Dylan now felt as he struggled to get the front door open. He looked down at his phone, to check the time: it was a quarter to midnight. He only had about two hours at his house before he had to head back to Manhattan and pick up Ruby. So he didn't have much time to waste with the door. Getting an idea, Dylan hopped over the railing of the front porch and made his way down the cramped alleyway between his house and his neighbor's. Since the streetlight in front of Dylan's house had been broken for some time, the alleyway was impossibly dark. Dylan tried lighting his way with his phone screen, but without much luck.

As he felt his way around the back corner of the house, he found himself a few inches from the window to Cody's room. The curtains were drawn but thin, so some light was seeping through. The window was high, and just barely within reach. Dylan jumped up and grabbed ahold of the windowsill. With a grunt, he managed to pull himself up until his forearm was awkwardly perched on the windowsill. His feet dangling inches off the ground, scraping against the brick wall, Dylan rapped his fist against the window.

As he knocked, he tried looking through the thin curtains into Cody's room. He had never seen the inside of his roommate's room before, Cody always keeping the door shut. Dylan had always guessed that Cody just wanted some peace and quiet. But as Dylan looked over the room, he realized that Cody must have kept the door shut out of shame. The floor was carpeted with clothes, and the desk in the room was swamped with dirty plates that were crusty with food. Dylan guessed he shouldn't have been surprised to see a lit candle sitting way too close to the curtains. Looking beyond the candle, Dylan could barely see the mattress on the floor, heavy with two silhouettes. Neither of the shadows moved. Dylan tried knocking again, and this time one of the shadows stood up.

As the shadow stumbled towards the light, Dylan could see it was Holly, Cody's girlfriend and the person who was stealing his room from him at the end of the month. And while the light dripping down the candle was dim, Dylan could see Holly's dark bounce of hair, the lake blue of her eyes – and the fact that she was wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else.

"Uhhh," Dylan could only manage. He almost lost his grip on the window ledge.

But as surprised as Dylan was, Holly wasn't fazed in the slightest. And Dylan felt that she should have been, given that there was a man peering through the window in the middle of the night. But judging by her delayed reaction, Dylan figured that she had probably just gotten high with Cody. As she stared, uncomprehending, at him, Dylan said, "I'm locked out. Can you let me in?"

She still stared at him, and so he repeated, a bit louder, "I'm locked out!"

Dylan could see her mouth the word "Oh!" As Holly sauntered out of the room, Dylan let go of the window ledge and landed awkwardly on the ground, almost falling backwards as he did so. Finding his sense of balance, Dylan made his way back down the alleyway and towards the front of the house, getting to the door just as soon as Holly opened it.

"Thank you," Dylan said, making every effort to look her in the eye and nowhere else.

"Oh sure, sure," Holly said, looking more than a little distant. As she turned to walk down the hall, she pointed at a fresh key on the key rack. "Locksmith stopped by and put in a new lock. He smelled like pizza."

'I'm sure he did," Dylan said, catching a glimpse of Holly's bare back. He didn't know she had a tattoo on her shoulder blade. "Thanks for letting me know."

"Sure thing, dude. Have a good night," she said as she continued walking down the hallway, back to Cody's room.

Dylan shook his head as he closed the door behind him. "I can't get out of here fast enough," he muttered.

Dylan hustled to his room and began tearing it apart, looking for his backpack. After a few minutes, he found it, suffocated under a sandcastle of books at the foot of his closet. As he stuffed whatever valuables he could find into his bag, he wondered if he should wake up Cody, to let him know that he was leaving. Dylan laughed off the suggestion the moment he thought it. He would be all the happier if he never spoke with Cody again. Besides, he had already punched one person that night, and one was enough.

But that question made him think of another question, if he should say goodbye to his other roommate, the mythical Hwan. Since Dylan had moved into the house, he had seen Hwan a grand total of eight times – he knew it was eight because he had been keeping track. Dylan remembered, back during his roommate interview, back when things couldn't seem brighter, that Hwan had mentioned that he was working towards his doctorate in biochemistry, and that he spent all of his time studying. Dylan learned soon enough that Hwan wasn't joking – there was once a weeklong stretch where Hwan's bedroom door did not open, and it got to the point where Dylan was worried that Hwan had died. But later that night, as if to put his mind at ease, Dylan heard the sound of something being moved around in Hwan's room, as if he was dragging a desk around. _Or a body,_ Dylan had thought to himself jokingly. Still, after that, Dylan always made it a point of sleeping with his bedroom door locked.

Finally, his bag packed – Dylan was surprised to see that there was still some room left in his backpack, and yet he couldn't find anything else he wanted to put in it – he headed downstairs to the kitchen. Dylan had just remembered that he was starving. _I should have punched Wright after I had my swordfish,_ Dylan thought, _not before._ The fact that he had a couple of beers on an empty stomach didn't help.

Unfortunately, Dylan didn't have much of his own food in the kitchen, since he did not have the chance to go on a grocery store run that week. After a minute of rummaging, though, he found a pack of crackers that he was pretty sure belonged to him. Then, while going through the kitchen, he was ecstatic –more than he should have been – to find some cheddar cheese. Before he shut the refrigerator, he noticed a jar of mustard on one of the door's shelves. The mustard didn't belong to him, but he didn't care. He took the jar out and scattered his meal across the dinner table.

Before he sat down, he remembered something else. He walked over to the kitchen cabinet, the one where they kept the household cleaners they never used. Kneeling down, Dylan reached as far as he could into the cabinet, his fingers searching for something. He knocked over one or two bottles of cleaner before he found it: an elderly bottle of whiskey. The bottle was so old that none of the roommates remembered where it came from. Cody's theory was that it was from a prior renter. Hwan believed it may have been a welcome gift from their landlord when he and the original roommate Theo had first signed the lease a few years back. Whoever it was, they didn't have taste, because it was an awful bottle of whiskey – there was a reason they kept it in the same cabinet as the cleaner.

Dylan removed the cap and held the bottle to his nose. He was feeling a bit congested earlier, but one whiff of the liquor immediately cleared up his sinuses. Shaking his head, Dylan walked the bottle back to the table, where his feast awaited. A few minutes later, Dylan had already gone through a whole sleeve of crackers and most of the cheese. Next to his plate, Dylan had a tumbler with a bit of the cleaner whiskey. Normally he liked his liquor neat, but in this case, he gladly made an exception – he had dumped a few ice cubes into the drink to water down its kick. The ice was crackling loudly, as the strong whiskey was crushing the cubes with its bare hands. Dylan took a sip, wincing as he did – even the ice couldn't suck out the venom from the cheap liquor.

Once, he remembered joking that he had to drink the cleaner whiskey, because the economy was bad and he couldn't afford anything better. But now, the whiskey was something more than a joke. It was a purge that started in the pit of his stomach and rewired the veins in his body. When he drank the whiskey in the past, it felt as if his insides were dissolving. Now, it felt as if his veins were pumping steam. After taking the sip, Dylan slowly inhaled the smoke from the whiskey, feeling it paint the inside of his throat the color of charcoal. It was the closest he would get to a baptism by fire in this life.

Dylan was about to bite into another cracker when he heard a door opening somewhere in the house. He looked around, curious – the sound didn't come from the direction of Cody's room, and so that left only one possibility, as remote as it was. And sure enough, a few moments later, Hwan poked his head into the kitchen. The past few times that Dylan had seen Hwan, his roommate had kept his thick crop of black hair neatly combed back, but this time his hair was prickly and wild, the effect of spending several days in a row awake, studying for his upcoming finals. In his hands were several dirty bowls and some silverware.

"That can't be who I think it is," Dylan said, saluting Hwan with the hand that held the tumbler. "How's it going? Long time, no see."

"I am doing good, and you?" Hwan said with some hesitation. Hwan was so shy, Dylan had a hard time believing that his father was a marketing director for a car company based out of Seoul, giving presentations at conferences where hundreds were listening. He projected his fire for life into his son, insisting that he get an American education so that he could become someone, anyone. And so Hwan enrolled in the hell that was a biochemistry program, at a university a short bus ride away from the house. When Dylan heard that he was taking biochemistry, he was afraid to ask what that was about, not wanting to seem stupid. Later, when he looked up biochemistry online in an attempt to understand it, Dylan still felt stupid. Dylan remembered the next time he saw Hwan, he worked up the nerve to ask him to explain biochemistry. While Dylan was afraid of what he couldn't understand, it was obvious that Hwan got a thrill from it, a thrill that only someone jumping out of a plane could put into words.

"Things could be better," Dylan admitted. He just realized that he hadn't seen Hwan since early November, well before he found out he was losing his job. "I don't know if you've heard from Cody, but I found out late last month that I was going to be losing my job."

Hwan looked genuinely upset, sympathy that Dylan could have definitely used weeks earlier. "Oh no! I am so sorry."

"Thanks," Dylan said, taking another sip of the cleaner whiskey. A sip was all he could manage. "I guess Cody also didn't tell you that he's kicking me out and giving my room to Holly."

Hwan's mouth dropped as he tried to find the right English word to express his shock. After a few moments, he gave up and swore in Korean. Dylan didn't understand what Hwan said, and part of Dylan was too afraid to ask.

"What you going to do?" Hwan asked him.

"What I'm about to do: I'm going to leave tonight. Once I'm done with my crackers and cheese, that is."

Trying to comprehend what he had just heard, Hwan walked quietly over to the sink and set his dishes down. Then he turned around to face Dylan, with his hands propped on the counter behind him, and asked, "You leave tonight?"

"That's right."

"Where you go?"

"Well, first, I'll be going to South Carolina with a friend of mine. After that...who knows. Maybe I should retire?"

Not realizing it was a joke, Hwan pointed out, "But you're too young to retire."

This made Dylan think of their next-door neighbor, Greg Clayton, who worked as a salesperson in a department store out in Manhattan up to the ripe age of seventy-five. After retiring that past spring, he had plans to go on a Caribbean cruise, his first honest-to-God vacation in over thirty years. He died from a heart attack three days before his cruise was supposed to start.

Dylan was tempted to bring up Mr. Clayton, but decided to let the point slide. Instead, he said, "Or maybe I'll find some work with a traveling circus. Or work on a fishing boat out in Alaska. Or become a monk in one of those Buddhist temples in the mountains somewhere. I don't know where I'm going, but I am going."

Hwan stared at him in awe. Dylan tried to interpret the reaction he saw in his roommate's face. Here was a man terrified of the world outside of his textbook – at least when it came to his textbook, he could read it and take notes. But in life, he was at the mercy of tyrants all around him. There was his father back in South Korea, who saw him as more of an investment than a son, who wouldn't accept anything less than a doctorate from Hwan. And then there was Cody. The last time Dylan had spoken with Hwan, he learned that his visa was going to be expiring in a few months' time. And while Hwan was in the process of renewing it, Dylan could only imagine how convoluted the whole process was for staying in the country. One wrong move, and Hwan would be put on the next flight out to Seoul, where his ashamed father would be waiting for him. Hwan probably didn't want any trouble with Cody – if Cody could replace Dylan so easily with Holly, he could probably find a replacement for Hwan as well. Then Hwan would be out of a permanent residence, just when he needed one for the address field on his visa renewal paperwork.

Hwan confirmed Dylan's suspicions when he said, "I wish I could do that. I would like to drive across America. There is much here that we not have in Korea. I want to see the Grand Canyon. I am afraid, though."

"What are you afraid of?" Dylan asked, entertaining him.

"I need to be here, for school."

"Even the professors go on vacation sometimes," Dylan pointed out.

Hwan corrected himself. "My father wants me to be here for school."

"He's a hemisphere away," Dylan reminded him. "What he won't know won't hurt him. Just get a driver's license and rent a car for the week – see how far you can get."

"Not good idea," Hwan said, shaking his head. "That man running for president - what's his name, Bullock – does not like Koreans."

"Just avoid driving through Minnesota, and you won't have to deal with that idiot they elected governor," Dylan said, almost forgetting that there was an actual, real-life person running for President of the United States on nothing more than an anti-Korean platform.

Hwan sighed. "A lot of people like that he doesn't like Koreans. I hear it on the television. Man says we all should go back to Korea. So I would rather just see pictures of Grand Canyon in books – much safer."

Dylan felt pity for his soon-to-be former roommate. He assured him, "The election isn't for another year, almost. A lot can happen between now and then. Bullock will lose, and you'll never hear about him again."

Dylan wasn't all that convinced by what he had just said to Hwan. Like Hwan, he too did a lot of reading, and he knew that men like Bullock had whole chapters in the history books. They didn't go away – if anything, they grew like tumors. But Dylan didn't have the bedside manners to tell him this. And so he lied, to give Hwan hope – Dylan realized that he had a lot of practice with that lately.

"So you tell Cody you leave tonight?" Hwan asked, changing the subject.

"No," Dylan said, wincing his way through the rest of his glass of whiskey.

"You want me to tell him goodbye for you?"

Dylan smiled. "No, that's okay. It's probably for the best that I'll never see him again." As he said that, he saw a flicker of what looked like jealousy in Hwan's eyes. Dylan knew he wasn't the only one in the house who hated Cody.

Dylan had the last of the crackers and cheese. "Well, I guess it's time for me to go."

"Oh, okay," Hwan said, not understanding for a moment. Then, remembering himself, he stepped forward and extended his hand. "So, this is it, then?"

"It is," Dylan said, shaking Hwan's hand. "It's been real." Noticing the blank look on Hwan's face, he used another phrase, saying, "I've enjoyed being roommates."

"Me too," Hwan said sincerely.

"Did you want a drink?" Dylan said, offering the bottle of whiskey. "I know you don't drink, but usually folks have a drink during times like this."

"But if I have drink, what we use for cleaning the stove?" Hwan said. It was the first time Dylan had ever heard a joke from him. Dylan snorted with laughter.

As Dylan walked down the hallway towards the front door, he wished that he had gotten to know Hwan more during their time as roommates. But there was so much that he wanted to do in New York City, things that he kept telling himself that he would do one day. He had always wanted to spend one day taking the subway and seeing as many stops as he could around the city. He had always wanted to ride the wooden rollercoaster at Coney Island. He had always wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was one of the dangers of living in the city, telling yourself that there would always be some other time to give those things a try. And here he was, about to lose the city that he saw in the movies when he was a little kid, dreaming about one day living there. He had to remind himself though that, while he was losing his city, he was gaining the world at the same time. One of those two things was larger than the other – he was about to find out which one it was.

As Dylan walked out, locking the new door lock behind him, he looked down at his phone. It was almost one in the morning. He figured that Ruby would be trying to catch a few hours' sleep before their flight, so he just sent her a quick text: _All packed and nowhere to go for the next couple hours._

His backpack straining, Dylan readjusted the straps to make the bag more comfortable. He had just started walking down the front porch steps when his phone vibrated. Curious, he looked down to see Ruby was still awake.

Ruby: _Stop by if you're looking for something to do._

14

Charleston, South Carolina

December 24

"Ladies and gentlemen, again, good morning – or should I say good afternoon," the flight stewardess said over the intercom. "This is your flight stewardess, Michelle, speaking. Welcome to the beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina. We have just landed at Charleston International Airport. The time right now is 12:30 PM, and the temperature is 56 °F. For all of the kids out there – and the adults who never grew up –I'm being told that we should expect a white Christmas around here tomorrow. They're projecting just a dusting of snow, so you won't be making any snowmen with it. Still, there's nothing prettier than snow on Christmas Day.

"We ask that everyone remain seated until the airplane has come to a full stop and the seatbelt lights have turned off. Before leaving the airplane, please make sure you have all of your belongings. On behalf of Hawk Airlines, we hope that you've enjoyed your flight today. Have a great rest of your day and again, welcome to my hometown, Charleston!"

As Michelle turned off the intercom, the plane turned left, off Runway 21 and onto one of the taxiways heading towards the terminal. The passengers went through their post-flight rituals – some rubbing their eyes after having taken a nap, others putting away trash, others sneakily unfastening their seatbelts and grabbing their gear from the overhead compartments. And while the others were coming alive – like a chick struggling to hatch from its egg – Ruby and Dylan were sitting still, looking ahead. Dylan was taking deep breaths – he was never much of a flier, and the pilot had descended a little too quickly for his liking. Ruby, on the other hand, was also taking deep breaths, but for an entirely different reason.

"We need to start putting together a story for you," Ruby said, the first words she had said in over an hour.

"How far of a ride is it from the airport to your folks' house?"

"We've got a long drive ahead of us. It's over two hours away, just outside of Monetta."

"Two hours away?" Dylan said, surprised. "Is this seriously the closest airport to your house?"

Ruby shook her head. "No. There's an airport in Columbia that's much closer, but the person from your company who put together my trip had never been to South Carolina before, apparently. Otherwise, they would have thought to book a flight out of Columbia."

Dylan could tell that Ruby was more than a little grumpy, and he couldn't say he blamed her. Still, it hurt him seeing her like that. He offered, "Well, look at it this way. It'll give us more time to come up with a cover story, right?"

"I guess, and who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and I'll forget where I parked my car earlier in the week," Ruby said with a weak smile as the seatbelt light turned off.

Unfortunately, the parking lot wasn't that large, and so it didn't take long for them to find Ruby's car, as much as she tried. As Ruby heaved her luggage into the trunk, Dylan tossed his bookbag into the backseat. Staring at him in amazement, Ruby couldn't help it. "Are you absolutely sure you can live on a bookbag for the next couple days?" She wondered out loud. "How long are you going to be visiting your friend down in Florida after this?"

"When I was a kid, I ran away from home. You can live off a bookbag for two weeks if you stretch things out," Dylan said, closing the car door.

"You ran away from home?" Ruby asked, as both of them got into the car. "Why?"

Dylan said, "It's hard to explain. The only way I can make you understand is by inviting you to my hometown, but I couldn't do that. That would just be mean."

"How much trouble did you get in over that?" Ruby asked, forgetting about her current predicament, even though it was just for a few seconds.

"The funny thing is, whenever I had to come back home, my mom didn't even notice that I had left. It was the only time in my life where I wished I had gotten in trouble for something."

"Oh," Ruby said, not sure what to make of that. Finally, she said, "I never ran away from home. I was tempted once, when my friend next-door ran away and asked me to come with her. I turned down the offer, only because the next day was Thanksgiving and my mom always makes the most wonderful pies."

Dylan laughed before turning serious. "So, what's my cover story going to be? We need to start brainstorming."

"Oh, right – that," Ruby sighed as she turned the car on. "Too bad it's cloudy out. I was sort of hoping that you could get a tan as we drove. My parents are expecting a black boy, after all."

"Aren't there albino black people?" Dylan thought.

"There are, but we aren't doing that," Ruby said, shaking her head as she pulled out of the parking spot. "I guess we can look at it as a blessing in disguise. Hopefully, they'll be so distracted by the fact you're white that we can sneak through the fact that you're not even my boyfriend."

Dylan shrugged. "I suppose that's one way to work that angle. So what else have you told your parents about this guy – what was his name again?"

"Martin, Martin Hall. Which reminds me – you're going to be going by that name for the rest of the day. Heck, we should start practicing now. So, Martin, what else do they know about you? Let's see...well, they do know that you work at the Aiken branch at Florence Bank."

"What's my job at the branch?"

"Well, you were working as a teller at the drive-through window, but the bank recently installed ATMs at the drive-through for all of our locations. Now, you're being trained as a relationship advisor, who travels around to our different locations and advises customers on their accounts. You're really excited about it, because it meant you were able to afford some old muscle car."

"And where's my muscle car?" Dylan wondered. "Why did you have to pick me up on the way to your parent's?"

"Um, I guess because your car broke down?"

_Even in a fantasy, I don't have any luck,_ Dylan thought sourly. "What about my family?"

"You come from a big family. You're one of – how many did I tell them? You're one of five siblings, I think. Yeah, that sounds about right. No wait, let's not – that means you're going to have to remember names for your brothers and sisters. Let's keep it simple, then. You're an only child. If my folks remember otherwise, tell them they're wrong, that you're an only child. Your mom and dad are still together. If anything, they love each other as much as they did the first day they met."

"A mom and dad who love each other still? Hell, I wouldn't know what that's like," Dylan said. "I've never even met my dad."

"You never met him?" Ruby asked, feeling pity for him.

"Well, there were a couple guys in my mom's life who told me they were my dad, but I never believed them. But I'll try my best to act like I know what I'm talking about."

"Well, try your best is all...oh, I need to make a left here!" Ruby said, throwing on the turn-signal. They turned off the boulevard leading out of the airport. As Ruby got on the on-ramp for the highway, she continued, "Oh, Martin was also an accounting major in college."

"Well, I majored in finances, which is close enough. That's one thing I can fake pretty well, at least."

"Uh-huh," Ruby said, only half-paying attention. "I think I need to get off on this exit. Yeah, I do."

"Already? We just got on this road," Dylan said, as they changed lanes to the one for the exit ramp.

"If we stay on this road, it'll take us in the opposite direction," Ruby said, as they drove across an overpass and got on another highway. "As tempting as that is, going in the opposite direction. Alright, we're going to be on this road for a bit now – I'd say at least the next hour. It being Christmas Eve, there's probably going to be a bit of traffic."

"It seems to be moving at least," Dylan said, looking at the cars all around them. "So, for your family...who all is supposed to be at the house today?"

Ruby winced. "That reminds me: I was supposed to text my mom after we landed. Can you do me a favor and text her for me? My phone's in the cup holder."

Dylan picked up her phone and scrolled through her address book until he found a listing for Ruby's mother. "What did you want me to say, specifically?"

Ruby looked thoughtful. "Tell her I've landed and I'm going to be picking up Martin on my way to the house. Also, ask her what pies will she be making for dinner. That way, she knows it's me, and that someone didn't steal my phone."

As Dylan typed out the message, Ruby continued, "But yeah, it won't be a lot of people there today. Besides us, it'll be my parents, my sister, my uncle and his family, and my grandmother."

"Didn't you say your sister just got married recently?" Dylan remembered. "So her husband won't be there?"

Ruby smiled. "I did say that earlier this week, didn't I? In the spirit of Little Red Riding Hood, what a sharp mind you have, grandma. He's a police officer, and he got put on the schedule for tonight. From what I hear, he's been catching some grief over that. He had some vacation time left, but he apparently forgot what day was Christmas Eve. Mom said he's hoping to find someone to take his shift for him. We'll see how well that turns out."

"Is there anything I should be warned about?" Dylan asked. "Besides your family asking me a bunch of questions?"

Ruby replied, "My grandmother...she means well. I want you to remember that."

"She's that tough, huh?"

"She's lived through a couple wars, watched her father get lynched, had to drink from a different water fountain than the other kids, and had an alcoholic for a husband. She'll be turning ninety next month. My dad tried to put her in a nursing home after she broke her hip a few years back, but the nursing home kicked her out. She was very proud of that."

"What could she have possibly done to get kicked out?" Dylan asked. "I've never heard of anyone getting kicked out of a nursing home."

"She claimed she didn't do nothing but speak her mind. And by "speak her mind" I mean she hit one of the nurses with her walker after he tried to force her to take medicine."

Dylan couldn't help but laugh at the image going through his mind. "So I should stay out of distance of her walker then?"

"You're going to have to stay away much further than that. I should have been more specific: when she hit the nurse with her walker, she had thrown it at him from across the room," Ruby looked at Dylan to see his reaction at that. As Dylan raised his eyebrows in surprise, Ruby said, "Yeah, she can get feisty."

Ruby's phone vibrated from an incoming text.

"That's probably my mom texting me back," Ruby said. "What's the message?"

Dylan read the text out loud: "Glad to hear flight went well. Looking forward to seeing you and Martin. Made two pies. Peach and sweet potato. Don't text and drive."

Ruby laughed. "She thought I sent that text earlier when I was driving. That's funny. She doesn't know you're already with me. And yay, she's making peach pie. I love peach pie."

Dylan made a face. "I can't eat either peach or sweet potato pie. They're both awful."

"Are we about to have our first real argument in our fake relationship?" Ruby asked him.

Dylan smiled. "So where does this Martin live?"

"He's supposed to live in Aiken. When my parents had asked me where Martin lived, I said Aiken because I know they don't know anyone in Aiken. Last thing I needed was my folks asking their friends if they knew anyone named Martin Hall."

"They're that nosy, huh?" Dylan asked.

"Yeah, it gets annoying, but I guess parents are like that."

"I wouldn't really know about that," Dylan said.

***

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

Dylan felt a slap across his shoulder. He woke up hard, looking around wildly, his seatbelt hugging him. Ruby, startled, said, "Woah, calm down, calm down."

It took a few moments for Dylan's blood pressure to die down. The disorientation from his nap still lingered for a few more moments. It was one of the reasons why he hated taking afternoon naps.

Rubbing his eyes, Dylan said, a bit groggy, "What's going on?"

"You fell asleep about a half-hour ago," Ruby said. Looking out the window, Dylan saw that they had just made a turn off the main road and onto a little street. "At least, that's when I noticed you had fallen asleep. I had been talking to you for about five minutes before I realized you were out cold."

"Sorry," Dylan said, his face turning red. "I'm not used to falling asleep in the middle of the day."

"I refuse to believe that at your job, you had never fallen asleep between phone calls," Ruby laughed. Her laugh made Dylan wonder if he had slipped back into sleep. She said, "We're just about there."

"We are?" Dylan said, looking around at the houses. After spending so long living in the cramped and claustrophobic city, it was odd seeing so much space between the houses, as if the houses needed the room to stretch their arms when they woke up in the mornings. And while Dylan was used to the townhouses and apartment complexes in the city, where everything looked the same, here was a mixture of single-story and two-story, an anarchy of different paints, dogs running in one front yard and a garden growing in the next yard. The houses were as different as people. It seemed the only thing all of the houses on this little street had in common was their age: Dylan estimated that the houses were at least thirty, maybe forty years old. What he didn't know was that this one street was supposed to be a part of a much larger development. However, due to an embezzling scandal, the developer had declared bankruptcy at the time, and so only the one street was ever completed.

"Which house is yours?"

Ruby pointed straight ahead and Dylan's eyes followed her finger. About three hundred feet ahead, the street sharply climbed up a hill – if Dylan had known anything about airplanes, the sight would have made him think of the air curling behind an airplane's wings during takeoff. At the top of the hill was a little ranch house with a dilapidated barn nearby.

As they climbed the steep hill, Ruby pressing down on the gas pedal a bit more to make it happen, Dylan turned to her and asked, "Is it safe driving up and down this in the winter?"

"Sort of," Ruby admitted. "Every once in a while, we have to park at the foot of the hill if there's snow or ice in the forecast."

"I'd bet. Driving down this hill in the winter, you might as well just cut the brake lines while you're at it," Dylan said. He couldn't help but feel a wave of relief when they cleared the hill and reached the top. Already, there was a parking lot of cars by the house's garage.

"We couldn't possibly be late," Ruby said, looking for a space to park. As she did, Dylan glanced across the field at the barn, how the shingles on the roof were balding, a leprosy of vines was growing up one of the walls, and paint was blistering off. To Dylan, it looked as if the whole barn was going to fall apart at any moment.

"Does your dad do any farming?" Dylan asked.

"Hmm? Oh, _that_ ," Ruby said, with a twinge of shame. "When my dad bought the house, it came with the barn. He had plans to buy some horses, just like his grandfather did. But then, well, life happened."

Dylan thought of something and laughed. Ruby, who by now had given up on parking in the driveway and decided just to park in the grass by the house, asked, "What's so funny?"

"I have a good story about a barn," Dylan said as the front door of the house opened. "I'll have to tell you later. It looks like you're about to get tackled."

"Huh?" Ruby wondered, uncomprehending. Dylan pointed to the front door. Ruby looked in that direction and groaned. "Okay, be cool, be cool, be cool."

"I'll be okay, don't worry."

"I wasn't talking to you," Ruby said as she got out of the car, shutting the door behind her.

Dylan imagined that in thirty years, Ruby would look exactly like the woman who was running towards her. The woman's hair was just a shade darker and an inch longer, but both of them had the same almond-colored eyes and the same living smile. Dylan could only hope that he could see Ruby become her – a thought he had to push back down. Now wasn't the time for that.

Rooted to his seat in the car, Dylan watched as the woman hugged Ruby, talking to her excitedly. Since the car doors were shut, their voices were muffled, and Dylan was barely fluent enough to read lips. He did notice that while the older woman's lips were open and flowing with consonants, Ruby's lips were tightly drawn together. Suddenly, Dylan was aware that both of the women were looking at him, the older woman looking confused. It was a very particular confusion, and one that Dylan knew all too well. It reminded him of a few years back, when a childhood friend who he hadn't spoken to in ten years randomly invited him to his wedding. Dylan went to the wedding only to find out that he was actually the best man and that he needed to give a toast in front of over a hundred people. So Dylan knew the look.

Ruby's look was impatient, and it was at that moment that Dylan realized that he was still sitting in the car. Feeling a bit sheepish, Dylan got out of the car and approached the two of them. He extended his hand.

"Hi, I'm Martin," Dylan said, trying to sound confident.

"Are you sure?" The woman asked, shaking his hand hesitantly.

"You can check my driver's license if you want," Dylan offered, before realizing that he didn't have a driver's license with that name on it. Ruby, who was standing behind the woman, winced.

Luckily, the woman didn't take Dylan up on his offer. Instead, she said, "Well, I'm Ruby's mom, Chinasa. You can call me that – only my dentist calls me Mrs. Martel." She clapped her hands together. "Well, here, enough of the small talk. Ruby, when was last time you ate?"

"I had a bag of pretzels on the plane," Ruby said, as she walked over to the car trunk to get her luggage. "I'm fine at the moment, really."

"Nonsense, you must be hungry. It's only three o'clock, and you've already had a long day. Come inside to get something to eat before we have dinner," Chinasa said. That was perhaps the most motherly thing that Dylan ever heard someone say.

As they walked into the house, an incredulous Ruby turned to Dylan and mouthed the words "Driver's license?"

Dylan could only shrug helplessly.

As they entered the house, Dylan had suddenly realized how long it had been since he had been inside of a well-kept house. The furniture may have needed some updating – it looked as if the couch was old enough to start drinking. But the windows were polished, and the afternoon sun streamed in like ribbons. And the furniture, still white after all of these years, was like the filament inside of a lightbulb, making the room glow. Along the wall near the door was a bookcase stuffed with what looked like thick training manuals. As Dylan looked curiously at the books, he asked Chinasa, "So, what is it that you do for a living?"

"Oh, those aren't my books – they belong to Jon. He's the engineer in the family. I just work as a salesperson at the car dealership down the road," Chinasa said. "Speaking of cars, what happened to yours? Ruby here was just telling us a few weeks ago that you bought a new car. Jon was looking forward to seeing it today."

"As luck would have it, my car broke down yesterday," Dylan said. "I guess that's one way to break in a car is to have it break down. Good thing I was on Ruby's way home from the airport, so it wasn't too much trouble for her to pick me up." He said this, of course not realizing just how far out of the way Aiken was.

"Which road did you take?" Chinasa asked Ruby.

"I drove up 78."

"Wouldn't 4 have been faster?" Chinasa wondered.

"Let's talk about more important things," Ruby said, guiding her mother by the arm towards the kitchen. "Are the pies ready?"

"The peach is ready. The sweet potato pie still has another twenty minutes in the oven," Chinasa said as mother and daughter disappeared into the kitchen, leaving behind Dylan. He exhaled deeply and walked over to the bookcase. As he looked over the titles – books on calculus, internal combustion engines, aerodynamics, the history of flight, a comprehensive guide to fighter planes from World War Two, among others – he couldn't help but be fascinated. He wasn't expecting to find books like this in a farmhouse deep in South Carolina. In the kitchen, he could faintly hear Ruby ask her mom where her sister was, since her car was in the driveway.

"Yes, those books are real," a booming voice said across the living room, startling Dylan. "They're not just there for decoration."

Dylan turned and saw a towering man walking across the living room. He sported a fade and a salty beard, looking just like one of the professors that Dylan had back in college. But while that professor had soft, marshmallow eyes, this man's eyes were hard and cracked as glass. Even from across the room, Dylan could see he had bloodshot eyes.

"I was thinking how random it was to find books on aeronautics in a farmhouse," Dylan said.

"What's so odd about that?" The man rumbled.

"Well, because..." Dylan thought for a moment, then confessed, "Because I have my stupid moments, I guess."

The man's laugh was the gun's thunder. Dylan was afraid of cracking another joke – he was sure he would develop heart arrhythmia the next time the man laughed. The man reached out and grabbed Dylan by the hand. "Name's Jon. I take it you're Martin?"

"I am, yes," Dylan said. He was uncomfortable with the fact that he was getting too used to lying. "So, I was just hearing that you're an engineer, is that right?"

"Guilty," Jon grunted as he moved past Dylan and looked at the books on the shelves. "I used to work at the airport over in Columbia. I would spend day and night repairing planes in one of the hangars there. The money was good, but only if you worked overtime. So I got an engineering degree a few years back and found a job with a company nearby that does contract work for NASA."

"That's a good deal," was all Dylan could think to say.

Jon shook his head. "No, it was hard work. It was a lot of days where I didn't see my wife and children. A lot of months where we had to stretch our money. A lot of times where I found myself staring at equations in class and not knowing how I would ever solve them." He paused. "So, you work for the bank too, right?"

"That's right," Dylan said, his neck hurting from having to look up at Jon. "Training right now to be a relationship advisor." He then joked weakly, "It's no engineer, unfortunately."

"Hey now, you're helping people save their money. In a world like this, you're a hero," Jon said, putting his arm around Dylan's shoulder and leading him down the hallway. At first, Dylan thought that he was being led into the kitchen, but then they walked past the kitchen. Up ahead, Dylan could see a study with its door open.

"Dinner won't be for a little while longer. Let's talk. You won't mind if we talk, right?"

"No, of course not," Dylan said meekly.

The study was cramped, although that may have been because of the fireplace in the room. The light in the room was turned off, the curtains drawn shut, but in the glow from the fireplace was just enough. As the two of them entered the room, Dylan could see the shadows – which were dancing from the firelight – scurrying into their hiding-places around the room. Some of the shadows hid under the desk tucked into the corner, others hid behind a cardboard box brimming with papers, others in the deer head on display over the fireplace.

"Go ahead, and sit down," Jon said, motioning towards an overstuffed chair in front of the desk. "The space in here is a bit tight. Now you know why I keep my books out in the living room."

As Jon walked around the desk to sit at his office chair, Dylan pointed up at the deer head. "Do you do much hunting?" Dylan asked.

Jon shook his head as he sat down in his chair with a grunt. He reached over and turned on his desk lamp. "No, that belonged to the prior owner. This house has some history to it, believe it or not. Guess when it was built?"

"The fifties?" Dylan guessed.

"Close – 1947. Back two hundred years ago, this whole development was a cotton plantation, and the owner's house was about twenty feet to the west of where we're sitting right now. That plantation survived the Civil War, the whole way up to the 1920s, as a matter of fact. It survived up to the moment that some Klan bastards got tired of the farmer competing with their own farms, and they spread a rumor that the farmer was sleeping with a black woman – they said that like it was a bad thing.

"Anyway, so one night, a mob shows up and torches the farmer's house that had been in his family for generations, burn down his fields, shoots his prizewinning horses. They drag the farmer out of his burning house, they get a rope, and...did you see the tree at the bottom of the hill? Just to the right of the driveway?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they lynched him from that tree. The newspaper records at the time say that although it was in the middle of the night, the fire in the fields was so bright that it woke up the neighbors, who thought it was morning and started making breakfast. When they heard what was going on, they came over to watch their neighbor be hanged. Some even brought food and blankets and treated the whole thing like a picnic."

Jon paused and looked down at his desk, tapping his fingers against the wood finish. Dylan looked revolted. "That's horrible."

"It is, isn't it? I didn't know any of this until after we bought the house and I was doing research on the area. When I found out that the tree I put a tire swing on for my girls had been used for a lynching, I thought I was going to be sick. I went out that night and cut the tire swing down. It broke my girls' hearts. I never told them why I did it though."

"Then why are you telling me?" Dylan asked.

Jon looked thoughtful. "You know, that's a good question. To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm sharing this with you. I guess since the farmer died just because people thought he was in love with a black woman. And when I looked out my window a few minutes ago and saw you and my daughter drive in, it made me think of that story."

"This isn't the 1920s," Dylan pointed out. "You're talking about something that happened almost a century ago."

"You're right. But like my granddaddy once told me, the times change, but people never do, and that scares them. Folks thought racism was over when they banned slavery. Hell, we fought a war over it – you think it'd have been settled. But it still pushed on. Folks thought racism was over when King marched on Washington. Folks thought racism was over when we elected our first black president. And yet you still got idiots out there, ruining perfectly good bedsheets by cutting eyeholes in them. The fact that America's looks are changing has got them scared for some reason or another. I've never been able to understand the fear myself. And I don't know if there's Klan around where you live in Aiken, but I've seen them around here once or twice myself. I've never been afraid of them, myself. Hell, I keep a revolver in the house, and if anyone of them ever tried to hurt my family, I will show them what an angry black man actually looks like. But when I saw y'all pull into the driveway, I got scared for the first time in a long time, not just for Ruby but for you also."

A silence settled over the room like snow. Jon leaned back in his chair and waited for an answer from Dylan. But Dylan felt like he needed time to process what he had just heard. Any nervousness that he had felt around Jon minutes ago had evaporated, replaced by appreciation. Dylan also felt a stab of guilt – Jon was worried about his daughter being harassed for being in an interracial relationship. But he couldn't tell Jon not to worry without revealing the fact that Martin was fictional.

But after a few seconds, Dylan found the words. He spoke the truth, but not about Martin Hall. He spoke a deeper truth. "You know, when I first started dating your daughter, I was also afraid of what my relationship with her meant. I didn't understand it, because I've never met anyone like your daughter before. But I've learned with her, and I want to continue learning with her."

There was so much more he wanted to say at that moment. He wanted to say that he learned love wasn't the two-way street like it was in the movies. It wasn't a system of giving or taking favors, filled with expectations. It wasn't a living, breathing pre-nuptial. It could be something as simple as a man so deeply in love with a woman that he would punch his boss for her. A man so deeply in love with a woman, that he lied about becoming unemployed so that she wouldn't feel guilty about replacing him. A man so deeply in love with a woman, he didn't make a move on her after she said she was seeing someone, out of respect. A man so deeply in love with a woman, he didn't make a move on her after she said that the person she was seeing wasn't real. He reasoned that if someone went as far as to conjure up a fake boyfriend, then they just really wanted to be left alone. Dylan had suffered so beautifully since he had met her, but she could never know. He couldn't make her feel indebted to him, not when she just wanted to be independent. After dinner, Ruby would drop Dylan off at the bus stop, thinking he was going to visit a friend in Florida when really he was going to disappear. And she could never know, because he wanted to see her smile up until the very end.

And so Dylan said none of this to Jon, as much as he wanted to confess it to someone, anyone. Instead, he continued, saying, "Those people out there, the ones who are afraid of us, it's because they don't understand us as well. But they'll learn, just like I've learned. And if they don't want to learn, I'll make them, because I want to share my happiness with the whole damn world. Or something like that," Dylan said. "I hope that makes sense."

It was obvious that Jon didn't smile much, because when he smiled at that moment, he seemed to be surprised by it. He stood up and said, "I think it's time to join the ladies in the kitchen. I don't know about you, but I can go for a piece of my wife's sweet potato pie. What say you?"

"I would love some sweet potato pie," Dylan said, back to his lying again.

15

At Same Time

"Mom, how many people will be eating?"

Chinasa, who was checking the cornbread in the oven, said, "Let's see – there's you, your friend, your dad and I, your Uncle Adam and Aunt Delilah, your cousin Dion, your sister, and your grandmother. So that's what, nine people? And don't you dare touch that pie."

Ruby was pulling some plates out of the cupboard when she saw the hot peach pie on the counter nearby. She was just wondering if she could sneak off with a slice of the pie before dinner when her mother warned her. As Ruby began setting plates on the table, she asked, "How'd you know I was eyeing up that pie? Was I thinking too loud?"

As Chinasa closed the oven door, she looked over her shoulder and looked with a raised eyebrow. "I'm your mother. I know you got a love for peach pie that's downright pathological."

Ruby laughed. Her mother suddenly yelped, "I forgot to put on the tablecloth! Hold on."

As Chinasa rooted through the pantry, where she kept the tablecloths, Ruby pleaded, "Come on, mom, can't I just get a little piece? It won't spoil my dinner."

Chinasa shook her head as she took out her favorite tablecloth, one as red as lipstick. Chinasa wasn't going to make the mistake of setting out a white tablecloth again, not after the last dinner when a tipsy Aunt Delilah knocked over her glass of red wine. "Pick up the plates you already set down," she instructed her daughter.

As Chinasa opened the cloth and spread it across the table, Ruby tried another approach. "You know," Ruby began, "I feel like I deserve a reward for..."

"When was the last time I beat you?" Her mother asked suddenly.

Ruby paused, unsure of how to respond. Chinasa continued in a stern voice, although her eyes were laughing, "I still have the wooden spoon that I used to beat you with, you know. It's in the drawer over there, next to the stove."

"I thought you broke that spoon over Nia that one time?" Ruby asked. Nia was always the troublemaker of the two.

"You're thinking of that straining spoon my grandma gave me when your daddy and I bought this house," Chinasa said, before adding, almost wistfully, "I loved that spoon. Broke my heart when I snapped it in two over your sister's behind."

Ruby couldn't help but laugh. "I seem to remember you getting another spoon and beating her with that one, for making you break that spoon. But haven't you ever had hot peach pie before?"

"No," Chinasa said, as she straightened out the tablecloth, smoothing away the wrinkles, "because nothing teaches you patience like a pie fresh out of the oven. Good things come to those who wait, and that pie smells good."

"But it tastes best when it's hot."

"Well, you better hope it tastes great hot, because if you try it before dinner, it'll be the last thing you ever taste," her mother said, taking a step back, looking with satisfaction at the tablecloth. "Looks good – I'm glad we were able to get that gravy stain out of the fabric."

"Why would it be the last thing I ever taste, mom?" Ruby asked. "Because it'd burn my taste buds off?"

"No, Ruby Sierra Martel, it's because I'll kill you. I won't even bother to make it look like an accident."

Hopeful to change the subject, Ruby continued setting plates on the table as she asked, "So you said that Grandma is eating with us?"

"That's right," her mother said as she checked on her honey baked ham.

"That's a change of pace for her," Ruby said as she began putting down napkins next to each of the plates. "Did the TV in her room break again?"

Ruby's grandmother usually never bothered to attend any of the family dinners. It wasn't as if she had an excuse – she lived with them, her bedroom barely thirty feet away from the dining room. She spent most of her evenings sprawled out on her lumpy bed, eating her dinner off a serving tray, watching reruns of her old soap operas that she recorded onto video cassettes. Ruby couldn't bring herself to call her grandmother anti-social – if Ruby spent almost a century having to deal with people day after day, she would want to have dinner alone too. At least you could mute the people on the television screen when you didn't like what you were hearing.

Chinasa sighed. "You know how your grandma is – she's..." Chinasa paused as she tried to find the right words to explain Ruby's grandmother, her mother. "She's a very independent woman. She can do whatever she wants, because she's earned it."

"What about me?" Ruby asked. "I have a good job, I pay my taxes, I do my own laundry. Why do I still have to eat dinner with everyone else?"

Ruby meant it as a joke, but her mother didn't interpret it that way. Instead, Chinasa frowned and said, "Once you live through Jim Crow and survive a husband who beat you and your two daughters, you can eat wherever you damn well please."

Ruby was somewhat taken aback – it wasn't too often that she heard her mother curse. Then again, talk of Grandpa always made Chinasa upset. But before Ruby had a chance to apologize for making light of the matter, Chinasa switched up topics.

"So, I didn't want to say this, not with Martin listening in," her mother said in a low voice, "but your grandma ran into Anthony the other day at the supermarket. He gave her flowers to give to you. They're on the dresser in your bedroom. They're pretty."

"I'm sure they are," Ruby said flatly.

Chinasa frowned. "You sound disappointed that so many folks care for you. You should text him to say thanks."

"I'll do that," Ruby lied.

Then, taking the loaf of cornbread out of the oven, Chinasa barreled right into the conversation that Ruby had been sweating over for weeks now.

"So this Martin guy..." Chinasa began as her daughter took out some silverware and set the table.

"Yes?" Ruby asked, hoping she didn't sound nervous.

"He seems...nice," Chinasa said, clearly struggling for an adjective. Ruby broke out laughing, despite everything that was going on.

"What's so funny?" Ruby's mother demanded.

"I'm sorry, really. It's just that...well, isn't that one of those words you use when the silence gets too awkward?" Ruby said, quoting one of her favorite authors.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, when you're in the checkout line at the grocery store, you talk with the grocery clerk about how _nice_ the weather is. It's either that, or you got to listen to him ring up a week's worth of groceries."

"Well, I still think he's nice – he is, right?"

"He is," Ruby said stiffly.

"It's just that...well..." Chinasa took a moment to peer out into the living room, to see if Ruby's boyfriend was in earshot. But he wasn't – by then, Jon had already kidnapped him and was talking with the boy in his office down the hallway.

"Mom, you can say it."

"He's so, well, white," Chinasa finally managed to say. She added quickly, "Not that there's anything wrong with that, obviously. It's just that we raised you better than this...no, I didn't mean it like that."

Ruby had never seen her mother that flustered before. A salesperson at the local car dealership – as a matter of fact, the top performer seven months in a row now – Chinasa usually had a better command of her words. Ruby couldn't help but feel a little bit impressed of herself, that her mother was at a loss for words because of her.

Chinasa collected herself. "There is nothing wrong with you bringing home a white boy. I want you to know that."

"I know..." Ruby began.

"Well, apparently you don't, because you've been seeing Martin for how long now? And you're just now introducing him to us? And that's only after we've been hounding you to introduce us to him. It's almost like you've been ashamed of him, of what you have with him. Am I right or wrong in thinking all that?"

Ruby took a moment. She hated the thought of lying to her mother, not because it was hard to do, but because it was easy. It was simply easier to tell her mother she was afraid of her boyfriend being judged for being white, when the truth was her boyfriend was invisible. Ruby wanted to be brave and make things difficult for herself, by admitting that she had staged a relationship to stop her family from trying to find a boyfriend for her. Maybe if the truth came out, her parents would realize just how much they had been oppressing their daughter all this time, just how much they had been crowding her when really she just wanted to be left alone. Maybe things would be different then.

But of course, things would be different – and that would be the problem. She would finally be independent, yes, but a revolution isn't possible without losing trust first. Ruby had no idea how her family would respond to her keeping up such a big lie this entire time, but she suspected they wouldn't take it very well. And, as much as she needed to be independent, the simple fact was that, with her illness, she needed more than that. She needed someone to care for her. Just thinking that made Ruby wish that she was driving or swimming or riding a bike when she had suffered her first seizure – it seemed like only the dead were free around where she lived.

Ruby thought all of this within the space of just a few seconds. She then said, "Yeah, you're right. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how you'd react."

"How I'd react," Chinasa repeated, trying not to sound indignant. "I'll try not to feel too insulted, even though your grandma fought like the devil so that your Aunt Delilah and me could be the first black students at our grade school. Even though your grandma made us write letters to the governor every week, asking him to stop flying that shameful Confederate flag at the State House. Even though your grandma pushed us to do our darnedest in school and to be in the front pew at church every Sunday. Even though your grandma believed in her children so much that she became a mother and father to the both of them, because her husband was drunk in a bar somewhere. Your grandma – my mother – loved us so much, in her own way. Matter of fact, she loved us so much that she wanted to prove to the world that her children were just as perfect and God-fearing as anyone else. My mother didn't raise me like that so that I'd go around disrespecting other folks' kids. And I'm certainly not going to start now by insulting Martin. Now, come over here and put the greens on the table, please."

"Yes, Mom," Ruby said tightly as she walked the bowl of collard greens over to the table. She felt so stiff, she was afraid that she would just shatter at any moment. Ruby wasn't upset that her grandmother saw how beautiful Chinasa was before the world did. She was proud of what her grandmother did to make the world accept her daughters. Because of that, she pushed the little county they lived in to be better. Because of that, her history was the same as the county's history. A local civil rights chapter had actually honored her grandmother a few years back for her contributions, and her grandmother spent her entire speech talking about nothing but her daughters.

But the truth was that her grandmother had made Chinasa and Delilah, in more ways than one. She had carried each of her daughters for a very pregnant nine months, and then she continued to carry them for the rest of their lives. Every major life decision Chinasa had ever made, she first consulted her mother. When Ruby's father proposed to her, Chinasa actually held off on her response until she had a chance to talk with her mother. Her family still laughed about that incident to this day, and Ruby figured it was because they didn't want to take it seriously.

Really, Ruby's grandmother treated her daughters as little more than her little shadow, laying on the porch as she sat on her rocking chair, reading a book. They were simply extensions of her: gloves to make her seem daintier, heels to make her seem taller, makeup to make her seem younger, pearls to make her seem richer. And who could blame her for seeing her daughters as a second chance to live her life? After spending a childhood drinking from a separate water fountain, her grandmother wanted her daughters to be able to play with other kids in the park. After being denied loan after loan, her grandmother wanted her daughters to be able to buy a car without needing a man as a co-signer. After having to drop out of high school at fifteen years old to get a job at the grocery store, her grandmother wanted her daughters to go to college and get themselves a decent job.

But how different would the world have been if Chinasa and Delilah were made of granite instead of clay? How different would things have been if the two looked in the mirrors and were able to see themselves instead of a portrait of their mother? Where would Ruby's mother be today if she was allowed to follow her dream? In the mornings, when Ruby's mother took a shower, she would leave the bathroom door open just a crack to let the steam out. From the other side of the house, Ruby would wake up to the sound of her mother singing gospel songs, enough to break your heart and build something even more beautiful with the broken pieces. What could her mother have done with that voice if she hadn't been forced to go to college to learn marketing?

Lily may have spent a lifetime of building up her two daughters to be their own women, but they weren't. If anything, Chinasa was a younger Lily – Ruby had seen the photo albums, noticing how similar the two women looked. At first, she thought that the similarities were only skin deep. But over the past year, she wondered if the similarities between the two generations went deeper than skin, deeper than genetics even. Ever since Ruby's first seizure, she noticed just how controlling her mother could become. Ruby knew that her mother meant well, of course. Still, the obsession for control was always there. It was no wonder that, wherever Ruby went, whatever she achieved, she felt that she was in a prison. Ruby's prison wasn't made of bricks – it didn't have a barbed wire fence or a tunnel one of the prisoners was carving out. No, her prison was worse, because it moved with her wherever she ran to. She felt just as controlled in Manhattan as she did in her little hometown in South Carolina, and that terrified her.

So much was going through Ruby's mind that it was impossible to keep it hidden away. Chinasa saw the emotions boiling in her daughter's face, and she set down the meat thermometer that she was about to use to check the honey baked ham. Then, she walked over and, to Ruby's surprise, reached out and took her daughter's hand in her own. Squeezing her hand ever so slightly, Chinasa said, "I know this past year hasn't been good to you. We just want to see you happy. If you're happy with Martin, then your dad and I are happy. And I'm not just saying that because I want to be a grandmother."

Ruby managed a tiny laugh as Chinasa continued. "But seriously, who knows? Maybe this Martin is a new direction for you. We've all been lost in the wilderness at one time or another, and we got to look for a compass wherever we can get it, right? Least, that's what the preacher said last Sunday."

Once more, Ruby gave two answers. There was the answer she wanted to give, that she wanted to be lost for a little bit longer. She knew that if she was given a new direction, it would only be because someone had spun her in that direction. Lily had passed down control to her daughter Chinasa, and now Chinasa wanted to pass down that same control to Ruby. But Ruby wanted to break this tradition that was like a family heirloom. She wanted to be her own person, lost and all.

And then there was the answer that Ruby actually said out loud: "Right."

Desperate to change the conversation, Ruby held up one of the forks that she was setting on the table. "This one's dirty."

"It is?" Chinasa said, her eyes widening. "And you just pulled that out of the dishwasher, didn't you?"

"Yes. The dishes in there were clean, right?"

"They were..." Chinasa's voice trailed off as she hurried over to the dishwasher, opened it, and peered inside. She groaned and said, "The soap dispenser didn't open again."

Ruby looked back at the table. "The only stuff I pulled out of the dishwasher was the silverware. We can wash it by hand."

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Ruby's mother inhaled deeply. "And there's the family."

"Go answer the door," Ruby said, grabbing the dirty silverware off the table. "I'll clean up real quick."

"Thanks, hon," Chinasa said, giving Ruby a quick peck on the top of her head. As she left the room, she called back to her daughter, "You should switch shampoos. I have a mint shampoo in my shower that you should try – it smells amazing."

"Okay," Ruby said listlessly, as she began scrubbing the silverware in the sink.

16

"So, who's going to say grace?" Jon wondered as they all sat down together for dinner. He turned to his brother-in-law Adam and asked, "Adam, would you do us the honor like always?"

"Won't be a problem," Adam said, as he pulled himself in closer to the table. With bags under his eyes and ripples of wrinkles across his cheeks, it was obvious that he had some practice saying grace over the years. Against his wife's wishes, he had tried growing out a beard, since that was what all of the young guys did these days. But what little mustache he could grow was greying and only made him look even older.

As Adam clasped his hands together and put his head down in prayer, Chinasa suddenly said, "Why don't we have our special guest lead us in saying grace?"

Ruby's mother looked expectedly at Dylan as she said this. Alarmed, Dylan said, "Well, I would love to, but isn't Adam here a pastor? I feel something like that is best left up to the professionals."

"I'm sure you'd do just fine," Chinasa said soothingly.

"What if I forget to bless someone's car and they get a flat or something?" Dylan asked. Ruby, who was taking a sip of her drink, choked on her water.

"You'll be fine," Chinasa repeated.

Dylan looked helplessly at the other people around the dinner table, but there was no rescue. Dylan hadn't been to church since he was a little kid, back before his mom's weekend casino trips started to stretch into the week, back before his mom's heart started to pump vodka. Now, he felt no more Catholic than a wafer the priest forgot to bless for Communion. But now, he had to fake it, since Ruby had told them before that he went to church on a weekly basis. He remembered hearing a rhyme before – was it on a TV show? – that could be said for grace. _No, that wouldn't be right,_ Dylan thought. He wondered if people still used the words _thee_ and _thy_ for their dinner prayers.

And that was when Dylan knew what to do. He put his hands together and bent his head forward, and the others around the table followed suit. But if they were expecting to hear him say a prayer, they were about to become disappointed. All Dylan did was continue to sit there quietly, his head to his hands, for a few long moments. He didn't need to look up to know that everyone was staring at him.

"Did you need any help with saying the...?" He heard Ruby begin to say.

"Amen," Dylan said abruptly. "Can someone pass the collard greens over, please?"

The people at the table were caught off-guard. "That was it?" Adam asked. "That was the grace?"

There was only one verse that Dylan could remember, and it wasn't Genesis 1:1 or John 3:16 or Matthew 28:19. It was Matthew 6:5-6: "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

It was with that in mind that Dylan said with a ready smile, "God heard what I said. That's all that matters."

Adam looked confused – then thoughtful – as he passed Dylan the collard greens. In a peaceful quiet, they began working through their meal of honey baked ham, cornbread, collard greens, and potato salad. After a few minutes, Delilah – Adam's wife and Chinasa's sister, who had a beautiful firecracker of dark, frizzy hair – asked, "So, Nia, where's Kevin at? Don't tell me you divorced him already. The wedding wasn't that long ago."

Ruby's sister shook her head. "Unfortunately, he couldn't get someone to cover his shift tonight. He said he worked like the devil to convince them, but that they were too Christian to help out a devil," Ruby said, smiling humorlessly, the dimples in her cheeks flexing. Her long hair was hanging over her shoulder, and she threw it back before leaning down to get a bite of potato salad. "He's got me all worried."

"Well, that's expected," Delilah said. "He is a cop, after all."

"I'm always worried about that, Aunt Delilah. But I'm especially worried tonight. I was listening to the radio on my way over. That snowstorm down by the coast, it's supposed to be heading this way tonight."

"The stewardess was talking about that on my way in," Ruby said. "She said it wasn't nothing to worry about."

"That's what I was hearing too, this morning. But I guess it's gotten worse since then. They're calling for at least a couple of inches of snow now, and some freezing rain too for good measure. They said there's already been some accidents around Charleston from the ice."

"From the ice," Jon snorted. "That's folks from Charleston for you. They could skid on ice in the middle of August."

Nia looked sour. "And Kevin's been having trouble with the brakes on his car in the past week. He keeps telling them, but they've been giving him the runaround. Kevin thinks the department's having a bigger budget crunch than what they've been saying in the news."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Chinasa said, patting her daughter's hand.

As Nia talked about her husband and the weather, Dylan was only half-paying attention. In his defense, he found himself distracted by the burning glare he was getting. Ruby's notorious grandmother, Lily, was seated directly across the table, with a poisonous look on her face. As elderly as she was, she hardly had a wrinkle on her face, her skin just as tightly drawn now as it was decades ago. Her cocoa skin contrasted sharply with her shock of white hair that she kept neat from weekly visits to the nearby salon. To Dylan, she was proof that no one aged evenly, but instead at different rates. While her hair may have aged the quickest, her eyes aged the slowest. They were still as sharp as the day she was born, and she was drilling those same eyes into Dylan.

Feeling self-conscious, Dylan tried to focus on the slab of ham he had on his plate. Earlier, Ruby had told him that it was rare when her grandmother ate at the table with the others, instead preferring to eat in her room. She didn't have the patience for small talk, and after everything she had been through in her life, Dylan couldn't blame her. The fact that she was suddenly eager to eat at the table surprised everyone in the family, but Dylan wasn't surprised. He had a feeling that Ruby's no-nonsense grandmother wanted to size him up, to see what kind of a man he was. What did surprise Dylan was that she had not yet interrogated him. As a matter of fact, Dylan was so expecting a question from Lily that he was caught off-guard when it was Dion, Adam's son and the spitting image of his father when he was younger, who asked him a question.

"So, Martin," Dion began, "I assume you've been following what's been going on over in Aiken?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?" Dylan asked.

"That string of kidnappings that have been going on there." Dion looked confused. "You live in Aiken, right?"

"Oh, yeah...yeah, yeah, that's right," Dylan said, taking a sip of water. "I don't know if I can put it into words."

"One of the teachers at the school I teach at, they're from the Aiken area. They said that one kid was snatched up when their parents turned away for one moment. I forget the name of the park where it happened. What's its name again...?" Dion asked.

"Um..."

"I guess the name doesn't matter. Anyway, it's terrifying, the world we're giving our kids. I mean, I don't have any of my own..."

"We know," his mother, Delilah, said bitterly.

"But I'm afraid for my students. Their parents have been following the news too, and so they've started driving their kids to school. The buses are practically empty in the mornings, because folks are afraid of leaving their children at the bus stop." Dion then turned back to Dylan and asked, "Have you heard any new developments? Do the cops over there have any leads?"

"I've got to admit, I have no clue. Sorry," Dylan said, perhaps the most honest thing he had said so far that day.

"Speaking of crazy," Ruby said, catching Dylan's attention. When Dylan looked over, he could tell that she was desperate to change the subject. "You said earlier that you had a crazy story about a barn. Wasn't that right, Martin?"

"Um, yeah, that's right," Dylan said, recalling what he had mentioned earlier, as the two of them had pulled into the driveway.

"I'd love to hear it," Ruby said. "It might give Daddy some ideas about what to do with his barn."

"Well, I don't think anyone should get inspiration from it. It doesn't end well, especially for the barn," Dylan said.

"Let's hear it," Chinasa said, giving a sideways look at her husband. It was obvious that the rotting barn in the backyard was a source of some arguments in the house.

"Well," Dylan began, "Growing up, my grandfather was one of ten kids, and they all lived on this farm just across the state lines in Georgia. His father kept a couple of cows in there for about ten, fifteen years, but after the cows died, his father sort of forgot about the barn. So, fast-forward some years later: my granddad and all his siblings are grown up, and their father had died a few months before. They made the decision that their mom would live with one of my granddad's sisters, and they would sell off the house. But no one would buy the house because of the barn that was falling apart out back.

"My granddad and all of his brothers and sisters argued over what to do. Some wanted to tear it down, while others wanted to renovate it. Eventually, they decided to tear it down, but no one wanted to get their hands dirty. Finally, my granddad got impatient and decided one Saturday he was going to take care of it himself."

"By himself?" Jon asked.

Dylan nodded. He could feel Lily's stare without having to look at her. "By himself. He didn't have the money to hire the crew to do it for him. He figured though that it couldn't be that difficult. So, he drives over with some tools and pokes his head inside of the barn. Remember, by this point, the barn hadn't been used in years, and Lord knows when someone last looked in there. Well, my granddad looks in and he sees snakes, just snakes everywhere..." Dylan said. He enjoyed the reaction that showed on some of their faces as he said this. "Obviously, my granddad wasn't about to tear down a barn that was crawling with snakes. And that's when he got a bright idea. For some reason or another, he was always afraid of running out of gas, and so he kept a can of gas in the trunk of his car at all times..."

"I see where this story is going," Adam groaned.

Dylan smiled. "And so he walked back to his car, got the can of gas, and splashed it on the walls of the barn. He then lit a match and threw it at the wall before walking away, like he was in an action movie or something. Needless to say, the barn went up in flames after just a couple minutes. Unfortunately, my granddad did a little too good of a job, because after the barn collapsed, the flames started to spread, heading towards his childhood house. He had to run and dial 911. About half of the firehouses in the county had to respond to put out the flames. My granddad got cited over that, but there was no more barn, so he felt like he won in the end."

The people at the table laughed hard at the story, all except for Lily. "Your grandfather sounds like quite the character," Chinasa said.

"He was," Dylan said. That story was true, all of it except for the part about the barn being in Georgia – the barn was actually in Pennsylvania. If he had the time, Dylan would have thought about how funny it was: he had never met his grandfather, and yet he had heard so many stories about him over the years. "Thank God I didn't pick that up from him. It's just too bad I'm not much of a writer. Otherwise I could make some good money off the things he did over the years."

"How about you?" Lily asked, in a surprisingly strong and electric voice. Her three words threw off the rhythm of the conversation, as the others looked at her in surprise.

Dylan's mouth went dry for some reason. He coughed. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is do you have any stories of your own?" Lily said.

Dylan forced a laugh. The gears were grinding in his brain as he overthought the meaning behind Lily's question. "Well, like I said, I'm afraid I'm not nearly that interesting."

"Well, try us," Lily said. "You've always lived in Aiken?"

"Born and raised, yes, ma'am," Dylan said, repeating his alibi.

"What's your family like?"

"I was an only child."

"Your mom and dad still together?" Lily asked, trying to dig deeper.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Your mother and father, what do they do?"

"My dad's a plumber. My mom works at a daycare," Dylan said. It actually hurt him to say that. He wished he could say his parents were still together, let alone working. Last he heard from his mother, she had called him asking for a loan of a couple hundred dollars – that was after about four months of him not hearing from her. But that was a story that Ruby and her family didn't need to hear.

"So they taught you that you need to work for every dollar then?" Lily asked.

"That's right...ma'am," Dylan said, almost forgetting who he was talking to.

"And where did you go to school?"

"I went to Georgia," Dylan said. University of Georgia was the first name that came to mind. He struggled for a moment to remember what Ruby said Martin had majored in. "I majored in accounting. Graduated _magna cum laude_ , as a matter of fact."

"Did you do anything during college?"

Dylan was confused. "Like extracurricular? Sports?" He then tried for a joke. "Well, I graduated _magna cum laude_ , so I didn't have much of a chance to do anything else but classwork."

Lily shook her head, her white hair bouncing. "No, I meant like drugs or sex..."

"Mom!" Chinasa said, shocked. The rest of the table was just as stunned. Chinasa turned to Dylan and said, "I'm sorry, Martin..."

Lily looked fiercely at her daughter. "I can ask him whatever questions I want. I'm making sure my granddaughter isn't making the same mistakes I made when I fell in love with your daddy." She turned back to Dylan. He saw that Lily's hands were tremoring. She started to repeat her question, "Now, did you do..."

"No, I did not," Dylan interrupted her gently. "Again, I'm afraid I'm not that interesting."

Dylan was so terrified of Ruby's family poking holes in his charade of being Martin, he had misinterpreted Lily's questions. Up until then in the conversation, he wrongly assumed that Lily was prying into his past, when the reality was she was much more concerned about his future with her granddaughter. And after what Ruby had told him earlier about her, how Lily had suffered so much in the past near-century, watching so many around her die, trying to find meaning where there was none, Dylan couldn't blame her for being protective over what she had left. Dylan figured that everyone at the table was thinking Lily was out-of-line, when the truth was Dylan was in the wrong. This Martin persona that he had adopted, it was everything that Dylan was not. He only truly noticed the gulf between his life and Martin's at that moment. Martin came from a household so stable it might as well have been made from rock. Dylan had grown up with an alcoholic gambler for a mother and that was it. Martin had gone to college and graduated with honors. Dylan had struggled his whole way through college, even being on academic probation at one point.

And Martin was in love with Ruby, and Ruby was in love with him. And Dylan – well, it hurt him too much to think of how he compared to Martin in that regard. He couldn't bring himself to think about how he had lied to everyone at that table. He had lied to Ruby's family about him being Martin, and he had lied to Ruby about being independent and strong when he wasn't. He forced the words down his throat like back when he was a kid eating Brussel sprouts: Martin was strong, and he was weak; Martin was brave, and he was a coward. Lily didn't need to tell him that he didn't deserve Ruby – he already knew that.

Dylan suddenly had a mad thought, to tell everyone at the table the truth about himself. He felt like he could have too easily done that, if Lily had asked him one more question. But ironically, Lily did not ask him any more questions, although all of the answers he had given were lies, and if only she had asked one more question she would have gotten the truth. Instead, Lily somehow seemed more exhausted from the interrogation than Dylan was. She said to the people at the table, "You know, I'm feeling tired. Ruby, can you help me to my bed?"

"Yes, Grandma," Ruby offered, standing up.

"Thank you, dear," Lily said, as she took one more drink of water. The table sat in silence as Ruby helped Lily to her room. Even after grandmother and granddaughter had left the room, the awkward silence lingered in the air for a few more moments.

It turned out to be Chinasa who was strong enough to break the hush. She asked Dylan, "So, Martin, did you want any more cornbread?"

"I didn't even know there was cornbread. Yes, I'll take some please, thank you," Dylan said quietly, taking the basket from Chinasa's hands. As he did, he looked out the window just over Chinasa's shoulder. While it was dark outside, someone had forgotten to turn off the porch light. In the glow of the light, Dylan could see little snowflakes, falling like ash.

17

As Ruby helped her grandmother to her room, she tried to remember the last time her headstrong grandmother let Ruby help her. _Matter of fact,_ she wondered, _when was the last time her grandmother let anyone help her?_ Her grandmother was stubborn in her independence, and anyone around her didn't realize this until it was too late. Ruby remembered the story she had told Dylan earlier in the day, when she casually mentioned how her grandmother had attacked a nurse at the nursing home she was staying at. There was much more to the story that Ruby didn't feel right sharing. After all, she had only heard the details after eavesdropping on a conversation her parents were having one night.

The story went something like this: one morning, a few years back, Ruby's grandmother Lily had slipped and fallen while getting a shower, breaking her hip. While Chinasa immediately offered to look after her mother, Jon wasn't sure they could commit to the around-the-clock care that she would need. In a rare moment of going against her mother's wishes, Chinasa agreed with her husband. Since Uncle Adam and Aunt Delilah couldn't afford to care for her – as a preacher, Uncle Adam barely made enough to support his own family – the family had no choice but to put Lily in a local nursing home. Ruby could still remember the day that the family helped move Lily into the nursing home and her father made the mistake of saying, "Lily, how do you like your new apartment?"

"You're going to regret this," was all that Lily said.

Ruby's father came to regret his words exactly twenty-five days later. The fracture in Lily's hip wasn't as bad as they had initially feared, and Lily was confident that she could start walking again. The nursing home staff had a different opinion, though, and they wanted Lily to remain on bed rest for the foreseeable future. Although Ruby wasn't much of a conspiracy theorist, she found herself agreeing with her grandmother's claim that the nursing home wanted her to remain there solely because they knew about how much money she had in her account at the bank. No one else believe what Lily said, but she never let something like that stop her. And so, at night, when there was just a skeleton staff available at the nursing home, Lily would pull herself off her bed and march around her room, as stiff-legged as a soldier.

She continued her physical therapy – all by herself, as she reminded everyone afterwards – for several weeks before the incident had occurred. Lily was so proud of herself for walking on her own that she made it a point of telling the residents around her. Because of her pride, word got back to the nursing home administration, and one of the nurses decided to do something about this. Paul Harrison, a nurse who was actually in his thirties but looked like he was in his fifties at least, was worried that the corporation that owned the nursing home would sell it off to the lowest bidder, since the place was bleeding money from its veins. Thinking the nursing home was inches away from failure, and that he wouldn't find another job like this one in the area, Paul decided to do something about it. The fact that Lily irritated the nurses to no end with her constant demands certainly helped.

In the week leading up to the incident, Paul had called the company that footed Lily's life insurance policy and convinced the customer service representative – it was her first day on the job – to initiate the process of adding Paul as a beneficiary. When the representative asked Paul how he was related to Lily, Paul simply said "I'm her son," which was apparently good enough for the representative. Even Paul couldn't believe his luck.

Then, the night of the incident, after most of the staff had gone home, Paul drank all the whiskey that he had snuck in earlier that day in his insulated cup. Once he was sure that all of the residents were sound asleep, Paul crept into the room where Lily's bed was. As he slipped into the room, Paul noticed that the only noise in the room besides his heavy footsteps was Lily's heartbeat monitor. A few days back, Lily had developed a mild case of pneumonia, which the nursing home took as an opportunity to give her more treatments and squeeze her for every dollar that she had. And while the other nurses had jokingly wondered if they could squeeze a few more dollars out of her pension if her pneumonia worsened, Paul wondered if he could defraud Lily's life insurance company of a quarter of a million dollars.

As Paul moved closer to Lily, his hands were shaking with the pill bottle he held, ironic given what the medication was. The bottle was brimming with muscle relaxants, which they used daily on a patient down the hall, whose muscle spasms made life difficult for the nurses – and difficult for that patient too, they guessed. As Paul hovered over Lily, he took the bottled water he was squeezing between his side and the crook of his elbow and set the water on the nightstand. Then, he unscrewed the cap off the bottle and poured out its contents into his palm. Paul reached down and pried open Lily's lips and began to pour the pills down her throat.

That was when Lily's eyes suddenly opened. Startled, Paul froze for a second, and this was all the time that Lily needed. With a surprising strength, she snatched Paul's hand, the one that held the dozens of pills, and she slapped his mouth with that hand. Paul reeled back, retching, but it was too late – at least a couple of the pills had gone down his own throat. Knowing what would happen if he overdosed on those pills – after all, he was trying to kill Lily with the medicine – Paul stumbled to the nearby sink. Operating now on reflexes in an attempt to save himself, he leaned into the sink and stuck his fingers down his throat.

Paul was so busy trying to vomit up the medication, he never noticed Lily pulling herself up from her sheets and grabbing the walker next to her bed. He never noticed the walker flying through the air. But he did notice the walker cracking him in the back of the head. Paul crumpled, hitting his head on the porcelain sink on the way down.

Paul spent the night in the emergency room at the hospital, being treated both for his concussion and to have his stomach pumped. And while Lily insisted on her side of the story, the police investigation into the nursing home was eventually closed, with no attempted murder charges being filed. The police believed the nurse's side of the story, that he was simply making his rounds and was trying to give Lily her medication when the incident happened. The fact that the nursing home made a large annual contribution to the local police charity was just a coincidence, Lily sarcastically insisted to anyone that would listen. By then, though, Lily was living at her daughter Chinasa's home, now just feet away from her less-than-thrilled son-in-law Jon. The fact that someone had tried to silence her to death only made her more talkative instead of less, which Jon somehow did not appreciate.

Lily wasn't a person – she was a force of nature. When Ruby was a child and would sit with her grandma on the porch at night, she would point out the stars moving across the sky. With a serious face, Lily would tell her granddaughter, "Those stars up in the sky, they're revolving around me." It wasn't until a year or two later that Ruby found out that the universe didn't revolve around the Earth, much less her grandmother. To this day, Ruby was never quite sure if her grandmother was joking or not about believing that the universe revolved around her.

The door to Lily's bedroom was closed – Ruby never understood why her grandmother insisted on closing doors behind her as she walked around the house. As Ruby opened the door, she smelled a thick perfume waft from the room. Lily kept a large vase of potpourri in her room – Ruby could faintly smell the cinnamon and lavender, but her grandmother used too much mint which overpowered the other scents.

Every time Ruby entered her grandmother's room, she felt as if she was time-traveling. Virtually all of the furniture in the room was decades old, some of it going as far back as the 1950s. Ruby's parents had offered to get more updated furniture for Lily, but she resisted. Even when they were moving furniture out of Lily's old house and found that one of the dressers was being chewed apart by termites, Lily simply had them set the dresser outside for a few days, saying that sunlight was the cure for everything, especially termites. For wallpaper, Lily chose to have dozens of frame pictures hanging from the walls, pictures from her childhood in the 30s, her honeymoon with Ruby's grandfather in the Florida Keys in 1953, Ruby's mother and Aunt Delilah in their early years, a newspaper clipping of the March on Washington where Lily could barely be seen in the picture of the crowd. One thing that Ruby had always noticed about the pictures was that her grandmother was never smiling in them, with the exception of one. There was a picture that she had hanging on the wall behind her bed, of her posing with one of her most favorite actors. It was sometime in the late 70s, and the actor was filming a movie in the area. Lily heard about it and stalked the movie set until she was able to ambush the actor for a picture. Her grandmother looked so happy in that picture, Ruby had a hard time believing it was actually her.

As Ruby walked her grandmother across the freezing, hardwood floor to the attached bathroom, she noticed another thing about the pictures: her grandfather wasn't in any of the pictures. Even the picture of their honeymoon – her grandfather was behind the camera, taking pictures of Lily as they walked along the beach.

What Ruby didn't realize was that her grandfather was in every one of those pictures.

There was a fear in her grandmother's eyes, of accidentally burning dinner one more time and being kicked off her husband's health insurance for it – "Lily, if you don't care for me, I won't care for you, simple as that."

There was a shame in the little steps that Lily took, which came from her husband saying that she weighed so much, she'd "break any branch that they try to lynch you from."

There was a weight on Lily's shoulders, that came when Lily's family tried to save her, and her husband took her and the girls out of state. He forbade Lily from ever talking to her parents, her brother, her three sisters ever again – "I know what's best for you."

There was a hesitation in her grandmother's hands, that came from the one time when she managed to flag down a cop passing by, saying that her husband was beating her and the kids. But the cop believed her husband's story instead, that she was just faking for the attention. Afterwards, her husband beat her for "lying to that cop."

But in some of the later pictures, there was also a little snarl in Lily's upper lip, that came from one night when her husband – in a drunken rage – threatened to "break" their daughters. By the next morning, he had vanished, never to be seen again. The official story was that he fled back to his hometown in Jamaica to escape the taxman. As much as Ruby didn't believe that story, she was afraid to prove it wrong.

"Did you need help getting ready for bed, Grandma?" Ruby asked, already knowing the answer, but feeling compelled to ask out of good manners.

Predictably, her grandmother became indignant. "Now Ruby, I can take care of myself – I'm not a little kid anymore. I'm a grown woman."

"Okay. I'll leave you be then. Have a good night..."

"Stick around. I want to talk to you for a few minutes. Close the bedroom door, would you?"

As Lily shuffled into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, Ruby walked over to the bedroom door and closed it as she was ordered. Feeling trapped, Ruby figured she had no choice but to make herself comfortable. She walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. For her grandmother being such a hard person, her bed was soft. With some hesitation in her voice, Ruby said, "Grandma?"

"Yes?" Lily said through the thin bathroom door.

"Listen, I know you don't care much for Martin, but please give him another chance. He's a genuine, decent person – I know that's hard to believe these days..."

"You got that right," Ruby's grandmother interrupted. Ruby could hear the sink running in the bathroom.

"But it's the truth," Ruby insisted.

"What's that? I can't hear you over the sink."

"I was just saying, it's the truth," Ruby repeated, this time a little louder. "Martin, he grew up in a solid family, so he appreciates a house built on rock. In a world like this, that's probably the most you can ask for. Sad to say, I know. But this boy's different. That goes without saying, I know – he probably doesn't look anyone like who you were expecting me to bring home. But different can be a good thing. And this thing I have with him, Grandma – this is a good thing."

Suddenly, the bathroom door opened, and Lily stood there, dressed in her thick bathrobe. As she inched towards the bed, she said, "It's cold in here. Your father – bless his heart – he's cheap as all hell, not turning up the thermostat. He knows it's the middle of winter, right?"

"Yes, Grandma," Ruby said, not expecting the change of topic.

"Slow as I move, I'm afraid my feet will freeze to the floor."

"Did you want me to turn up the thermostat?" Ruby offered, a little desperate to get out of the room. "I can do that."

Ruby started to walk towards the door when Lily abruptly said, "I don't' trust Martin."

Ruby, her hand on the doorknob, turned and asked, "Why's that, Grandma? You don't believe the answers he gave you during dinner?"

"I'm not sure," Lily said as she got into bed, pulling the sheets over her. "There's something he's hiding. I don't know if he's hiding it out of shame or fear, but he's hiding it all the same."

"He's not hiding anything from me," Ruby said, trying her best not to sound disrespectful to her elder. "The two of us – we share everything..." And that was when she hesitated, only because she had momentarily forgotten that she was not dating Martin, that she had asked her friend Dylan to play the part. She was starting to believe in her own lie.

Ruby hesitated just long enough for her grandmother to slip in a sentence. "I wouldn't be too sure about that if I was you. Now, Anthony from church – he's one of the good ones. I know for a fact that he doesn't have anything shameful he needs to hide. I also know that he'd be perfect for you."

"Why would he be perfect for me?" Ruby asked. She was glad her grandmother didn't try to invite Anthony to dinner – not realizing that she had actually tried, but Anthony had already made plans to visit family out-of-town.

"Because he's a God-fearing boy with a good job that will take him places. Shouldn't that be enough for any girl? If you can ask for anything more in a husband, you'd sound greedy. He's as perfect as they come."

"I'm not looking for a man who is great – I'm looking for a man who will be good," Ruby said, finding it harder and harder not to sound incredulous. She couldn't believe the words from her grandmother's lips. This was the same woman who had spent her entire life fighting to have a voice of her own, to have no one control her future but herself. And her she was, controlling her own granddaughter. For the first time in her life, Ruby found herself questioning the image of her grandmother as an independent woman. After all, those who were most controlling had the least control over their own lives. She thought back to the poor white people who protested outside the school when her mother and Aunt Delilah first began attending. The poor white people flung racial slurs and rotten food at them, before going home to find no food in the icebox and foreclosure notices from the bank in the mailbox. And still they protested Ruby's mother and aunt, even though the two girls didn't close the factories, the two girls didn't increase the interest rates, the two girls didn't vote to cut the welfare programs.

Ruby wanted to ask her grandmother just how much control she felt she had over her own life. But before she could, Lily asked, "So, what exactly is it that you see in Martin? What makes him good?"

Ruby paused. She wasn't expecting this question. Then, before she had a chance to think over the question, she said in a voice that she felt didn't belong to her, "It's the boring conversations."

"The boring conversations?" Lily repeated. "What kind of an answer is that?"

"He's someone I can see myself filing taxes with one day, and not just because I would get more of a standard deduction if I file jointly with him, instead of on my own," Ruby said with a little smile. Again, she had forgotten that Martin was just Dylan in disguise. She was finding it more difficult to distinguish between Martin – the man she was allegedly in love with – and Dylan. But she was starting to find that she didn't care about the differences.

"That reminds me," Ruby's grandmother said, switching topics again. "I've been thinking a lot recently about my retirement account."

"Oh?" Ruby said. At least this was a topic she had some experience with. She figured that maybe her grandmother was going to ask her about what companies to invest in, given her new job at the bank.

Instead, Lily took another route. She said, "I called my lawyer the other day. I scheduled some time with him next week to get my will revised, in light of, um, recent circumstances."

Lily stopped talking, and she let the last sentence linger in the air for a few moments. At first, Ruby didn't understand the significance of what she was implying, but then it hit her.

"Grandma, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Me not wanting to go out with Anthony, is that part of the recent circumstances?" Ruby asked. She refused to believe the contagious thought that was growing in her mind, that her grandmother would actually cut her out of her will, all because she didn't want to see Anthony.

"Oh – no, no, nothing like that," Lily said. Ruby knew immediately that Lily was lying. Her grandmother had been so honest for so long, she didn't know the first thing about lying, and it showed in her face. Lily continued, saying, "You really should go out with Anthony sometime soon, though. You're already seeing Martin – I get that. Just...just go out with Anthony as friends sometime. You know, go to the movies, or the mall – something. Just give him a chance, and he'll win you over just like he won me over."

"No," Ruby said quietly.

"No?"

"I can't do that to Martin – I care for him too much."

It was the first time she had ever said "no" to her grandmother. As small as the word "no" was, every revolution was born with that word, and this one was no different. Ruby could tell from the silence that followed that both women were surprised by what she had said.

At the same time, Ruby could feel one of her headaches begin to flare up.

18

"Are you sure you don't want to take me up on my offer?" Jon asked.

"I appreciate it," Dylan said, grateful, "but I don't want to inconvenience you."

"It won't be a problem – Chinasa can get a pillow and blankets for you. I've fallen asleep enough times on that couch while watching football, so I know it's comfortable."

Dylan smiled. It was amazing, the transformation in how he had come to see Ruby's father. Just a few hours earlier, Dylan was absolutely terrified of the towering man with his booming voice. Now, Dylan had come to see him like the father he never had, almost. Almost. Since Dylan never knew his father, he didn't know what a father was supposed to be like.

The reason Jon was extending the offer – to sleep on the couch for the night – was because the weather was bad and only getting worse. The storm had come much sooner than anyone had expected, and it was dumping much more snow than anyone had expected. The snow wasn't falling so much in flakes as it was falling in sheets. Dylan had an image float through his head, of the rare times when he bothered with making his bed. He thought of how, whenever he threw the bedsheets across the mattress, they seemed to hang in the air for a moment, suspended, before reluctantly falling down. But as he shivered under the bedsheets of snow, he realized how ridiculous the image was.

"I don't live too far away," Dylan said, trying to reassure Jon. "We'll be okay."

"It's still further than anyone else has to drive," Jon grumbled. "Adam and his family, they live about five minutes down the road. Nia lives even closer."

"I'm not going to lie, it's a bit slippy out of here. I guess it'll be up to our driver," Dylan said, looking past Jon. In the light of the open front door, he could see Ruby hugging her sister goodbye before she left.

Jon, catching Dylan's gaze, turned and saw Ruby stepping out. "Ruby, you aren't seriously thinking of going out in this weather, are you?" Jon demanded. "Especially in your condition?"

_Condition?_ Dylan wondered, not understanding what Jon was implying.

"Ugh!" Ruby said, shivering in the cold. As she walked towards them, zippering up her jacket, she said, "I'll be fine. I've driven in worse."

"When?"

"Remember when we were looking at schools in Tennessee, and I was driving so you could take a nap?" Ruby asked him. "And then you woke up to find that we were in the middle of a blizzard?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I drove through that," Ruby pointed out, as she unlocked the car. "And that was worse than this storm will be."

"But Ruby..."

"Trust me," Ruby said briskly, getting in the car. "This is South Carolina. The only thing I'll die from around here is boredom."

"At least let me drive him home," Jon said, in a voice that was almost pleading.

"Dad, I'll be fine," Ruby said in a stern voice, channeling her grandmother.

Taken aback, Jon said, "Well, if I'm not awake by the time you get home, good night. Drive safe."

"Night," Ruby said, before slamming her door shut.

Jon sighed and turned to Dylan. "Well, it was nice finally meeting you after all of this time," Jon said, as the two of them shook hands. "Have a good night. We'll see you soon I'm sure."

"Have a good night," Dylan said before getting into the car. He was about to close the door when Jon gripped the top of the door, holding it in place.

"Make sure this one drives safe," Jon said, pointing to Ruby in the driver's seat.

"Dad!" Ruby exclaimed, exasperated. "The longer we stay here, the worse the weather's going to get."

Jon frowned. "Okay, okay."

Jon released his grip on the door to allow Dylan to close it. As Dylan buckled his seatbelt, Ruby put the car in reverse and glanced backwards. As Ruby made a three-point turn, Dylan was tempted to ask how she felt about driving down the steep hill in the snow. But as he looked at how upset Ruby was, Dylan made the wise choice not to say anything.

As Ruby drove down the hill between her house and the rest of the development, Dylan tried to occupy his mind. He wondered what it was that could have made Ruby so irritated. She seemed fine enough during dinner, even when Lily began questioning Dylan. He did notice a change, though, after she had come back from walking her grandmother to her room. The look on Ruby's face was as if she was never going to smile again, which put Dylan into a panic. He couldn't leave her like this, not without seeing her smile just one more time.

Ruby managed the hill better than Dylan imagined. Even though the street was slick with wet snow, she coasted the whole way down, only having to tap the brake once or twice towards the bottom. As the road levelled out, Dylan finally worked up the courage to say something. "I looked it up on my phone earlier – there's a bus stop just outside of Columbia."

"I know where it is," Ruby said shortly.

"Okay," Dylan said, feeling small.

It wasn't long after they left the development that Dylan found the silence to be unbearable. And so he reached over and turned on the radio. As he twisted the knob and went through the stations, he half-expected Ruby to say something. But she just kept her eyes on the road, not saying a word. The static was like the snow: heavy, white in a dark way, like the heart of the sun. He twisted the knob almost three times over before he found a station. There was a man speaking, his voice scratchy – at first Dylan thought it was the static again, until he realized it was just the DJ's voice, tired after a long shift.

"Earlier in the program, we had received unconfirmed reports of a road rage incident just outside of Charleston, on I-26. I'm sorry to say that we have now confirmed the report, that there was an incident, and that the victim has just been pronounced dead. The reports are still sketchy, but eyewitnesses report that a pickup truck had slammed into a minivan that was slowing down due to traffic from the storm. When the two parties had pulled over to the side, words were exchanged, and the situation had quickly escalated. Several witnesses had pulled over and tried to intervene, but it was too late, as the pickup truck driver had pulled out a pistol and shot the minivan driver, an Asian-American female, several times, point-blank. Eyewitnesses also report that the shooter had yelled an ethnic slur at the woman as he shot her. Witnesses were able to pin the shooter and hold him until police arrived. The woman had been taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. There were also reports of children being in the minivan at the time of the accident, but we are still waiting for confirmation of that." There was a pause, and the DJ cleared his throat. "God, what a mess..."

"I wonder if the shooter had 'Bullock for President' bumper stickers on his truck," Dylan wondered bitterly. "Don't tell me this is the new normal now."

Dylan looked at Ruby and asked, "Who does something like that?"

Finally, he got an answer out of Ruby, but not the one he expected. She said, "I need to listen to the station with the local traffic. Turn to that one please."

"What's the station?" Dylan asked, listless.

"I forget, but I have it saved under favorites – it should be the second one."

After fumbling through the radio menu, Dylan found the station, which had an automated voice making a series of announcements:

"...use caution. Please be advised, Interstate 20 between Route 178 and Columbia has been closed to all eastbound traffic due to an accident. All traffic being detoured north to Route 1. Due to weather conditions, please exercise..."

Ruby swore. They were already on Route 178, heading towards I-20. "I was wondering why there was so much traffic heading north," she said, pointing in the distance, where there was parade of headlights heading in the opposite direction. She turned down the volume knob for the radio. "There's a fork in the road right here. We're going to have to make a U-turn. Hang onto something."

That last sentence frightened Dylan. He asked, "Are we about to die?"

Ruby's response was swerving into the left lane, in front of a tractor-trailer. Dylan inhaled sharply and gripped the ceiling handle that people use for dry cleaning and moments like this one. It was so close, that Dylan couldn't tell if the roar in his ears was from the blood pumping like mad or from the truck driver blaring his horn at them. It took a few moments for Dylan to realize that he had his eyes closed. Slowly opening them, he saw that they were in a turn lane between a fork in the road.

"Sorry," Ruby said, patiently waiting for an opportunity to jump into the traffic heading north. "I could've done that better."

"I just saw my life flash before my eyes."

"Did you like what you saw when that happened?"

Dylan shook his head. "It flashed by in just a second, and even then it still bored me."

Ruby gave him a short laugh. As they began heading north, Dylan said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"I guess."

"You've been upset since we left your folks' house. Why's that?"

Ruby was quiet, and at first, Dylan thought that they were back to the awkward silence. But after a few seconds, she said, "I'm upset, but not at you. So don't worry about it."

"Did you want to talk about it?" Dylan asked.

"I said it didn't concern you, so why do you want to talk about it?" Ruby asked, exasperated.

"Okay, okay, never mind," Dylan said, looking back out the window.

"Well, since you want to know..."

"I said never mind."

Ruby sighed. "You're going to be the only person who will have any clue what I'm talking about. There's no one else I can bitch to about this. I've – I've been having some issues lately."

"What sort of issues?" Dylan asked, concerned.

"Issues serious enough that my family is trying to take over my life, make all of my decisions for me. They're treating me like some kid who got sent home from school after throwing up. They keep forgetting that I'm a grown-up, and I have a God-given right to go out there and make mistakes just like anyone else."

"Of course," Dylan said. "I actually think that's in the Constitution somewhere."

"Please, no jokes."

"Sorry," Dylan said, his ears red. "So I take it that your grandma was trying to boss you around before we left?"

Ruby nodded. "She was telling me that you're not good enough for me, that I should go out with some boy from church. I think I told you about him, as a matter of fact."

"The one who used to eat bugs?"

"That's the one. I'm just so tired of dealing with this nonsense, I really am. I was hoping that when I took on some more responsibilities at work, they would start to respect me more. But I guess that was just wishful thinking."

"I thought you said I wasn't involved in this," Dylan said. Ruby glanced away from the road for a moment to look at him, confused. So he continued, "You said your grandma told you not to date me."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "She was talking about Martin – not you. Your life isn't always about you, you know. Turn the radio back up, please. I want to hear if there's any more accidents."

Dylan turned up the radio while it was halfway through the next traffic announcement: "...advised to detour via Highway 391."

"Damn it," Ruby said. Dylan felt like he was seeing a whole other side to Ruby on this drive.

"What's...?"

"Shush!" Ruby said. "They're repeating the announcement."

"Please be advised, Route 1 between Leesville and Lexington has been closed in both directions due to an accident. All traffic, be advised to detour via Highway 391."

"Just like I was afraid of," Ruby groaned. "That message was for us."

"So...are we about to die again?" Dylan asked. Up ahead, he could see an intersection with gas stations crowded around it.

"Save the eight lives you have left for another time. We just need to go straight up here. Oh good, the light just turned green."

They breezed through the intersection, past the gas stations and stores that closed hours before but still kept their lights humming. As the car tires thumped over a series of railroad tracks, Dylan suggested, "You know, maybe this is Mother Nature's way of telling us to go back to your place. There's always tomorrow."

Ruby scoffed. "Everyone else is telling me what to do with my life. I'll be go to Hell if I let some snow tell me what to do."

"Well, I'm just saying...it seems like we're running out of roads."

"There's another road," Ruby said. "Up about ten or so minutes, we'll take Highway 378. From there, it's about a half-hour drive into the city. And lucky you, it's the scenic route too. You can't leave South Carolina without getting the tour."

"In a way, I feel like I've already gotten one of those," Dylan said. "Although I don't know if I'll be able to see much on this tour. It looks like the snow's getting worse. Can you even see anything?"

"I can see enough."

Dylan wasn't sure whether he found that soothing or not. He tried to distract himself by saying, "Before I forget, I wanted to say thank you for inviting me over for dinner. I haven't had a dinner that nice in a long time."

"Thank me? I should be thanking you. You've kept my lie about Martin going a little longer, until I can figure some stuff out. You've already done more than some of my friends would have for me, and you've only known me for a month."

"So I'm not a friend then?" Dylan asked, reading too much into what she said.

"Oh no, I didn't mean it like that. You're not so much a friend as you are a...what would you call us?"

Dylan hesitated. Finally, he said, "Why put a label on it?"

"You're right! You're absolutely right. You make me happy, and I make you happy. Why give it a name like we just discovered a new species of salamander or something?"

It was at that moment that Dylan felt an overwhelming desire to tell her that he loved her. He didn't need to hear her saying the same to him, but he wanted to say the phrase "I love you" to her regardless. He wrestled with the thought for a few minutes, perhaps a few minutes too long. Because, before he had a chance to say it, Ruby changed the subject, saying, "Now, I'll be a very bad tour guide if I didn't tell you a bit about Lake Murray."

As Ruby made a right onto Highway 378, Dylan asked, "What's so special about Lake Murray?"

"Well, about a hundred years ago, the lake didn't even exist. Back then, only the Saluda River ran through here. Then, sometime in the 1920s, they realized that they could dam the river and use the electricity to power a lot of the towns in the area. And so they went and built the largest dam in the world at that time. That dam alone powers Lord knows how many houses in the area."

Before Dylan had a chance to come up with a stupid pun about dams, Ruby continued, "When we learned about that in elementary school, I remember being real interested in the subject. Not because of how they built the dam or how it powers houses, but in the real estate issues."

"Real estate?" Dylan wondered.

Ruby nodded. "Well, the problem they ran into when they chose where to build the dam was that there were already people living in the area – a lot of people. I can't remember the exact number, but it was a couple thousand, at least. So obviously, they had to go and buy all of that land before they could even start."

"Obviously."

"In the end, they managed to move everyone out, and so they were able to flood the area. But think about it: down at the bottom of that lake – I can't recall how deep it is, but it's deep – there are houses down there. Houses – hell, there's whole towns down there. Can you imagine a ghost town that's underwater? I don't care what my fourth grade teacher thought – I found that part real interesting. I still find it interesting."

Dylan couldn't have been more bored about this talk of how Lake Murray came to be. But, it made Ruby happy just talking about it, and so Dylan listened politely.

"It's funny, whenever I was younger, my dad would take me and Nia to the lake to go fishing." She pointed to the left, into the darkness. "You can't see it, but that's where we would launch Dad's little rowboat that he had. One time, I caught a...a..."

Ruby's voice trailed off as Dylan looked at her, confused. For a second or two, he wasn't comprehending what he was seeing. Ruby's head was turning to the left, as if an unseen hand was tugging hard on her face. Dylan couldn't see it in the dim light off the dashboard, but Ruby's eyes were rolling back. Dylan did see though that her hand on the steering wheel was convulsing rhythmically, causing the car to swerve in and out of the lane.

"Ruby...!" Dylan began to shout, as he reached out to take control of the steering wheel.

He was too late, though. Abruptly, Ruby's hand on the steering wheel lurched upwards. The car veered to the right, heading towards a strip of trees, beyond which was the lake. As the car launched off the road, Dylan yelped as his head cracked the window, leaving him dazed. The hit to the head was so vicious, it made Dylan feel as if he had just been ripped out of his own body. From a distance, Dylan could only watch as the car smashed through the guardrail and plummeted into the wooded bank of the lake.

In the chaos that followed, all he could see was what could only be described as marbles of light, bouncing off one another and creating new colors. All he could hear was a high-pitch screeching, clattering, banging, all before there was a thunderclap and he went blind. For a moment, he wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. But then he heard sloshing, and the primordial part of his brain reasoned that he wasn't dead, but being reborn. The liquid darkness reminded him of being in the womb, memories that he could not have possibly remembered.

But he couldn't be back in the womb. The liquid was cold, freezing even, and it was tugging on his feet, like it was trying to wake him up. But he was already awake. _Then why is everything dark?_ He put his hand to his eyes and felt something slimy in his hands. Slowly, he reached down and scooped up the freezing water pooling around his feet. He splashed the water on his face, and the scales of blood – seeping from his nasty head wound – fell from his eyes.

He could see again, although a lot of good that did. As he looked around, still not quite able to shake off the confusion, he vaguely realized that he was still in the car. The car's engine was still rumbling, but making an odd gurgling sound – a few seconds later, the engine died entirely from being underwater. Although there were no lights in the car, the marina down the shore was lit up, just bright enough to cast the car in a dreamy glow. As dim as the light was, Dylan still blinked a couple of times to allow his eyes to get used to the lighting.

Then, for a moment, his brain stopped being blurred. Realizing what had happened, he looked quickly to his left, to check on Ruby. He saw her body laying across the deployed airbag as if she was back at home sleeping on clean bedsheets. She wasn't moving. He was about to reach over and try to shake her awake when she suddenly began moaning softly, coming to, drool dripping from her bloody mouth. Her fingers clawing across the airbag, she tried to push herself upwards. However, the second she tried, she cried out and fell forward. Dylan reached over to help her, noticing her right hand was limp and bent at an odd angle, having been hit and broken by the airbag as it deployed.

As best as he could, still being pinned down by his seatbelt, Dylan tried to help Ruby up. As he did, he noticed that her nose was broken as well from the airbag. It wasn't until he saw the tears streaking across her cheeks, her eyes terrified, that Dylan himself started to feel fear.

"What...?" Ruby asked, confused.

"Are you okay?" Dylan asked. "Besides your nose and hand?"

"Ah!" Ruby yelped, clutching her chest with her good hand.

"What's the matter?"

"Hurts...I breathe," Ruby managed to say, gritting her teeth, still in a daze. "My ribs, my ribs." She had moved her seat too far forward, she had tilted the steering wheel column at the wrong angle, and so the airbag hit her like a boxer, breaking some of her ribs.

"Oh, God," Dylan said, glancing around, wondering if there was anyone nearby who may have heard the accident. But while the marina was lit, there wouldn't be anyone there, not in this weather. He thought he could see the lights of some houses, but they were too far away for anyone to have heard the accident.

Just then, he caught the reflection of headlights in the rearview mirror. He struggled to turn around in his seat, just in time to watch a car drive past on the road. Dylan and Ruby couldn't have been more than mere feet away from the main road, but the snow was falling so thickly now that it would be impossible for anyone to see them from the road. As a disappointed Dylan watched the car drive into the distance, Ruby suddenly started hacking. In the pale light from the marina, Dylan saw flecks of blood spray across the white airbag. Ruby saw it too, and she stared numbly at the blood.

It was at that moment that Dylan realized that no one was coming to rescue them, that he needed to save both of them. He fought with his seatbelt for a few moments, his weak fingers having trouble undoing the clasp. When he finally unbuckled himself, he unexpectedly lurched forward. The bank was a bit steep, and so the car was already sitting precariously, like a picture taken of a swimmer just before they jumped off the diving board. Dylan falling forward gave the car just the little bit of extra momentum it needed to slide further into the lake. The icy water was around his knees now. It was so cold, Dylan actually thought his heart stopped for a second.

Now panicking, Dylan tried to open the car door. As he tried to open it, though, it came to a sudden stop. Dylan pushed against the door several times, but each time it wouldn't budge – there had to be something blocking it on the other side. He peered through the window and groaned. As luck would have it, they had landed in the water right next to a massive dead tree, one so large it could have been used as pier. But while the tree was dead, its branches were still strong, and they kept the door glued shut.

He turned back to Ruby, who was staring at him with a mildly curious look. He said, "The door's jammed from the outside."

Next, he tried to break the window. He rapped it hard with the bottom of his fist, he tried elbowing it, but nothing worked. The window was too strong, and he was too weak from the freezing water and his concussion. And as if he willed it back into existence, just the thought caused the confusion to start seeping back into his mind.

When he looked back at Ruby, he could tell that the cold was getting to her too. To make matters worse, the car had landed into the water at a bit of an angle, favoring the driver's side more. He could see now, for the first time, that the driver's side door was facing down into the shore. There was no way they could open that door either, not without the door getting jammed in the ground. Not only that, but the water was much deeper on Ruby's side – while the water was only up to Dylan's knees, it was almost up to Ruby's waist now.

Ruby was shaking, and at first Dylan thought it was from the cold, but then she said, her voice quivering, "We're...we're going to...die, aren't we?

"You know, it's not too late, for us to head back to the house," Dylan said, managing to keep his voice steady somehow.

At that, Ruby started laughing. It was a laugh that was genuine and beautiful – Dylan almost cried hearing it, because he realized that would be the last time he would ever hear her laugh. But instead, it was Ruby who burst into tears.

"I'm...I'm so sorry," she said.

"Don't be."

"But you're...you're going to die...because of me..." Ruby struggled to say.

It wouldn't be long now. They only had seconds together, if that. Dylan didn't have the time to think of what his last words should be. But he didn't need time to make the words beautiful.

"Only after I lived because of you," Dylan said.

It was then that the coldness seemed to slip away. The darkness was warm now, like night on the sun. And through the darkness, he heard a clear voice whisper, "I love you." By then, he was so confused that he couldn't tell if it was Ruby or him that said that. But it didn't matter who said it, as long as it was said.

