Ruby also had high cheekbones, straight teeth, a sharp jaw. All the desirable adjectives, correctly applied. Back in freshman year, the unconfirmed rumor (circulated thanks to Alexis) was that her bra size was 32E. I hadn’t known such a size existed.
I was for sure staring, I realized. I returned my attention to the front of the room, but the problem was that nothing there was hot or interesting. Slowly my eyes crept back. While I was sure my newfound singleness was as visibly disfiguring as a horn growing out of my forehead, Ruby looked refreshed, light, happy. For her, anyway. She wasn’t a big smiler, so it was hard to say. Maybe I was reading too much into nothing because of what Alexis had told us. Maybe it wasn’t even true. But every time I looked at Ruby during class (and it was a lot of times), I felt a tiny but inarguable fluttering in my chest.
The first time she caught me staring at her I looked away quickly, giving the notes scrawled on the whiteboard an unfocused once-over. My chest burned, and I felt Jamie’s presence behind me, mocking me. You’re kidding, right? I heard her say. You stood a better chance with Ms. Urlacher.
But what, romantically speaking, did I have left to lose? Not one thing. So the second time Ruby caught me, I kept looking. She held my gaze for two full seconds, which—in every bad lesbian movie I’ve seen, anyway—is usually all it takes.
When the bell rang, everyone leapt from their seats, and I grabbed Jamie by the backpack before she could escape down the hall. I pulled her close enough to hear me whisper, ignoring the flip in my stomach, “You should tell her about Triple Moon.”
“What, now?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“I mean, so many reasons…”
“I’ll go with you.”
Jamie threw her arms up in the air. “Oh, well, then.”
“If you won’t, I will.” I gave her a second to reconsider, and when she didn’t, I booked it out the door, searching the hallway for the back of Ruby’s head. I found it ducking into the restroom I’d hidden in before class, and, as casually as possible, I followed her inside. Two of the three stalls were occupied, and Ruby walked into the third, a favored graffiti spot so thick with layer upon layer of rust-colored paint the door barely shut.
I washed my hands until I heard a flush, and when the person that joined me at the sinks wasn’t Ruby, I kept washing. My heart pounded in my chest, but I couldn’t just walk out. I couldn’t have needlessly washed my hands all that time for nothing. Somehow I’d committed myself entirely to a bathroom ambush, and I wouldn’t leave until I did what I went in there to do.
When Ruby emerged, I pounced, casually.
“Hey,” I said.
This was the second time we’d ever spoken. The first was sophomore year, in 2-D Art, when I leaned over to ask if I could borrow her eraser. She’d handed it to me wordlessly.
“Hey.” She looked neither especially happy to see me nor confused as to why I was talking to her, which I took as a win.
“This is kinda random,” I continued, “but I heard you might be looking for a new space for shows.”
Ruby frowned, shaking her hands dry over the sink. “That’s a thing people are talking about?”
“Well, your fans are concerned.”
She smirked. “Is that so?”
“Anyway, I only mention it because I know a cool place that might be into having you guys. It’s called Triple Moon?”
“Isn’t that a bookstore?”
“It’s more of a coffee shop, but they sell some books, yeah.”
“They do live music?”
“Sometimes.” Please don’t ask me for examples, I thought.
“Huh. Cool. Guess I’ll look into it.”
“I know the owners, if you want me to put you in touch.” I held back a grimace. Surely there was a cooler way to say what I’d just said.
Ruby hesitated, and for a long, terrible moment I worried she’d say something devastating, like no thanks, or that’s okay.
“Um, sure,” she said. “Should I give you my number, or email, or…?”
Both, I wanted to say. All of it.
“Number works,” I said.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to her, and just a few seconds later, I had Ruby’s number. It was crazy, and a little terrifying, how quickly things could change. For almost a year I’d been Jamie’s girlfriend and then one day I wasn’t. For a full month I’d been sad and lonely and absolutely without-a-doubt certain I’d never feel good again. And while what I felt in that moment didn’t quite qualify as good, exactly, it was something in the vicinity. A little spark of hope, maybe, for the first time in what felt like forever.
“I gotta get going, but talk to you later,” said Ruby.
“Yeah,” I said. “Later.” I hung back for a minute after she left, and then I sprinted for the locker room, barely suppressing a full-blown grin.
* * *
—
That night after soccer practice I got a text from Jamie.
Soooo…did you talk to Ruby
I stared at the screen for two minutes before texting her back: Yep.
I watched the three little typing dots flicker and disappear and flicker again. I waited.
Two minutes later: And?
I could have kissed my phone. So rarely was I the one making someone else wait around for my response. Especially with Jamie. For more than two years every text I got from her had felt like a ticking time bomb I could only defuse by replying within seconds. I’d been desperate to give her the go-ahead to text me again. Desperate and Pathetic: The Quinn Ryan Story.
I took my time tapping out a response, imagining Jamie on the other end, forced to watch my infuriating bubble. I hit send, and heard the whoosh, and I thought, This is what drugs must feel like. I wrote: Well, I have her number now. A masterpiece. My finest work.
Then the dots appeared, and I held my breath, and then they disappeared, and I let out an aggravated sigh. There I was, waiting for Jamie’s words again. The bubble reappeared and I inhaled. It was a reflex I’d have to unlearn. At a later date.
Wow, she wrote. #1 straight girl. Congrats.
You didn’t have to know Jamie as well as I did to know that congrats followed by a period was essentially equivalent to how embarrassing for you. But I did know Jamie that well, and I could tell that congrats was a front, and that I’d gotten to her. And that made it pinch a little less.
I didn’t say I was trying to date her, I wrote, regretting it instantly. Defensive. Not good.