I took the curving streets slowly the closer I got, not wanting to be too exactly on time, but when I pulled up to Ruby’s house she was sitting on the front step already, waiting. I waved, and she started the long journey down the driveway to my truck.
“Nice house,” I said when she opened the door.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I know….”
She gave me a look. “It was a joke.”
“Oh. Right. Ha.”
“Thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem.”
We were quiet as we wound our way back to the highway, Ruby looking out the window while I tried my best to look at Ruby and the road at the same time. She was wearing jean shorts and high-top Chucks and a giant Nirvana T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. If an outfit could have a sexuality, I thought, hers would be bi at least.
After another five seconds the silence started seeming weird, and ominous, like if I didn’t say something right now she might realize where she was and who she was with and ask me to turn the car around.
“So how come you’re not playing at your normal place anymore?”
(I pretended not to know the name.)
“Because my ex is a baby moron.”
I laughed in surprise, and after a moment she did too.
“Is that, like, only slightly a moron?”
“Major moron, major baby,” she clarified.
“Got it.” My hands felt sweaty on the steering wheel. I hadn’t expected for us to land on this topic so quickly. I couldn’t blow it. I couldn’t say have you thought about dating a girl instead, for instance. “Is it nosy of me to ask what happened?”
I looked her way once, and then again. Finally she looked back, eyebrows arched in mock offense taken.
“It’s super nosy.”
“Okay, just checking.” I waited a beat. “What happened?”
Ruby laughed. “I dunno. We were fighting a lot. We’ve broken up, like, six times.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, at least.”
“Do you think this one’s for good?”
“Do you care?” she asked.
I looked at her. She wasn’t mad—she was teasing me. Maybe. I turned up the music a little, worried she could hear my heartbeat. “I’m a concerned citizen.”
“Right.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Yes, I think it’s really over. I hope so, anyway.”
“Well, good thing you have a say in the matter.”
“So people keep telling me.”
I realized I wasn’t sure who the people she referred to might be. Excluding her three bandmates, Ruby didn’t seem to have a lot of friends, at least not that went to our school. And yet she was considered cool by everyone—even, I was sure, by the also-rich, boring-beautiful, too-tan, water polo–playing popular crowd, though they pretended to be above admiring anyone.
I was disappointed when, a minute later, Triple Moon came into view through my windshield. Our conversation was just getting somewhere, and I knew it would deflate as soon as we opened the truck’s doors.
We parked and went inside to find the shop overheated and completely empty except for Dee, who was wearing a bandanna and fanning herself with a newspaper. When she saw me she waved. “AC’s broken,” she explained.
“It’s like ninety degrees out,” I said.
“I realize that, thank you.”
I could see her noticing Ruby behind me, assessing the situation, so I cut her off before she could say something embarrassing.
“Dee, this is Ruby,” I said. “She’s in that band that’s going to do a show here?”
“Of course. Nice to meet you. The AC will be fixed by then.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried,” said Ruby.
“I was,” I said. “Can I get an iced…coffee?” Around Ruby, suddenly, a drink with flavored syrup in it seemed childish.
Dee gave me a look but filled a glass with ice without saying anything about my usual order, thank God. “Ruby, can I get you anything?”
“Iced tea is great, thank you.”
I watched Ruby take a lap around the shop, presumably inspecting it for music-person concerns I wouldn’t understand. Dee set our drinks on the counter, and when I picked them up she gave me a look that I knew meant something like You’re in trouble with this one. Which of course I knew.
Dee yelled for Gaby, and a moment later she emerged from the back.
“This is Ruby, from Sweets, that band,” I said.
“Oh, hi! I’m Gaby. I’ll give you a proper tour.”
I trailed along after them as Gaby showed Ruby where they usually set up the stage, and where they could plug in their amps, and explained how the sound system worked. They talked through Dee’s proposed cover charge, and Ruby agreed that five dollars a head (two for the band and three for the shop) seemed fair. Then Gaby started giving Ruby a mini lecture on women-centered safe spaces, and I started to worry we were losing her. “Our doors are open to all identities at Triple Moon, but cis men are sort of…low on the priority list,” she said. “I hope the young men in your band will be respectful of the fact that they’re only here because you’re here, and because I trust Quinn’s judgment. Their voices are secondary.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Ruby. “I never let them forget that.”
Gaby smiled, which made me beam. I had nothing to worry about. Ruby fit in here, just like I knew she would.
The show date was set for two Saturdays away, and when Ruby and I got back in my truck we were giddy and triumphant.
“Two dollars a head!” I exclaimed. “If fifty people come, that’s a hundred bucks!”
Ruby smiled patiently. “And divide that by four…”
“Oh, yeah. Well, it’s not about the money, really. Right?”
“Right,” said Ruby. “That part can wait.”
Oh no, I worried inwardly. Does she think Sweets is going to, like…make it big?
“So you think you guys’ll stay together after graduation?”
She shrugged. “I hope so. I feel like we’ve finally figured out our sound—”