He clears his throat with a thick guttural cough and his eyes lock onto my birthday cake. “Happy birthday, Rubes,” he says, but doesn’t look at me.
“Thank you,” I whisper and scratch a hardened piece of mozzarella off the table.
I used to obsess about what I might say to my dad if I ever saw him again. Not for the last several years, but when I was a kid and things were really messy. I even wrote a never-to-be-delivered letter when I was ten, at the request of the school guidance counselor, who thought it would help my issues. It was four pages long, written front and back on bright pink construction paper. I can’t remember much of what was in it, and I’ll never know for sure because Beth and I microwaved the stupid letter until it caught fire so I wouldn’t have to find it again and have it upset me. But I am so totally positive I never, ever wrote thank you.
Mom flicks on the light and everything is too bright and too real. I blink a few times, half expecting my dad to disappear. “Jim,” she says in the same surprised voice reserved for when you run into a neighbor at the supermarket. I wince, hating that there’s even a hint of friendliness in her voice. “You should have called. You …” Her face fights both smiles and frowns as she struggles to finish her sentence. There are too many options.
His grip tightens around the flowers and crackles the cellophane. “Yeah. I thought about that.” Still in the doorway, he shifts his weight from dirty work boot to dirtier work boot. He’s afraid to enter the kitchen, and it’s too late to run.
All these long-buried feelings are rising up and churning around, but, thankfully, I can’t seem to hold on to a single painful thought.
Maria’s lips move silently at Katherine: I think that’s her dad.
“Who?” Katherine blurts out. Maria slaps her hand over Katherine’s mouth.
“I wanted to get you a dozen,” Dad says, ignoring my friends and sheepishly extending the bouquet in my direction. He doesn’t explain why there are only six.
Beth takes a step back from the table, like the whole scene is too intense for her to be standing so close. We lock eyes for a moment and I silently beg her to tell me what I’m supposed to do. She’s always been the one with all the answers, ready to help me through any tough time I might be having. And I need her now, more than ever before. But her face is frozen. She’s not even blinking.
Dad’s eyes finally settle on my face. Everyone is looking at me now. They all wait patiently for me to give them a cue. To see if this surprise family reunion might be my birthday wish come true. But my candles are still lit and, thankfully, I can’t even remember the last time I saw him. So I make a wish to keep on forgetting and blow them out.
“Rubes,” he says again. The bouquet sinks slightly. “These are for you.” His voice drips with expectancy. Like I owe him something. It’s almost funny. But I don’t want to laugh. I want to scream.
“THANK YOU!” I shriek at the top of my lungs, suddenly springing to life. My chair leg catches on a buckle in the floor, and I hip check the table to allow for my escape. Droplets of melted wax and ice cream splatter all across the pictures I’ve taken.
Someone gasps. Maybe everyone does. The volume of my voice even freaks me out. These are the only two words I can think of, so I repeat them over and over. “THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,” as loud as I possibly can, between gulps of air. Each word coincides with a room-shaking stomp as I stalk around the kitchen table until my dad and I are face-to-face.
Measured against him, it hits me how tall I am. And I see more of myself in his face than the gap between my teeth. The steep slant of his nose, the pale green of his eyes, a ridiculously pouty lower lip. I don’t want to notice these things. I don’t want to be like him at all.
I snatch the flowers out of his hand. A few stems break, some petals fall. We are nearly chin-to-chin. The only air I can inhale is what pours out of his partially open mouth. It smells peppery, like his cigars. It’s so potent, like he’s breathing clouds into my face.
We lock eyes and I don’t dare blink. I want to make him sorry that he’s come here.
He wipes his watery eyes with the sleeve of his flannel coat. He is just sorry.
I drop the bouquet and run out of the room.
“Ruby!” Mom calls after me.
Outside, the cold October air pricks my hot cheeks like a thousand tiny needles. My body throbs equal parts adrenaline and embarrassment. For a moment, I don’t know where to go. What I should do.
The front door opens behind me. I turn around and see Maria emerging from my house, keys in hand. Beth comes next, holding my sweatshirt. Katherine pushes past her. I allow myself the smallest sigh of relief. We dive into Maria’s ancient orange Volvo while she turns her key a few times, pounding her foot on the clutch.
An old blue pickup truck blocks us in the driveway. As soon as the engine catches, Maria guns her car onto my front lawn and pulls around it, carving tracks into the dying grass and cakey soil. We jump the curb and the spinning tires squeal against the asphalt.
Maria’s hands strangle the steering wheel. “Oh my God! You scared the living crap out of him!”
“Screw that. You scared the living crap out of me,” Katherine mumbles, fumbling for a cigarette.
Maria checks her rearview mirror. It’s strangled with a hundred of those sickly sweet yellow air freshener trees, swishing violently from side to side. “I don’t think he’s following us,” she says, taking a turn way too fast. She slows down and allows a deep breath. “That was insane!”
I shiver off the goose bumps popping up on my bare arms. I don’t know what to say, so I press my lips together and concentrate on breathing.
Beth wraps my sweatshirt around my shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for you to have a moment like that for six years, ever since the day your dad left.”
Then it hits me. It’s over. I finally have closure — the best birthday present I could have asked for. The murkiness of my mind gives way to one clear, honest feeling that I don’t try to hide from.
I want to celebrate.
Maria makes a left onto Copley Road, Akron’s main drag. We drive for a few minutes until a three-story-high neon bowling pin sprouts out of the ground. We’re approaching Akron Pinz and I’m ready to salvage what little time is left on my birthday clock. I honestly don’t care about anything else.
Akron Pinz is a notorious weekend hangout. It has a huge parking lot, which is key for scoping out who might be there at any given time. It’s also a total dive, with few patrons to hassle us or, worse, report our antics. Best of all, the bowling alley is butted up against a large and dense park, which provides lots of natural camouflage.
The place is totally deserted tonight, except for a couple of cars cuddled together underneath the single spotlight illuminating the lot. We pull past them and come to a stop at the very edge of the park, near a small wood-chip-strewn playground erected in honor of a little kid who died of cancer two years ago. You can always find flowers tied up to the chain-link fence. I usually try not to look at them, because it’s totally depressing. But tonight, they momentarily steal my attention away from the impending birthday fun. They’re just like the ones my dad brought for me, except white.
Beth and I kick out on two creaky rubber swings, while Katherine climbs on top of the monkey bars. Maria flops onto a bench across from us, her face fuzzy in the darkness. A glimpse of purple satin underwear peeks out from her jean skirt.
“So what am I in store for tonight?” I ask Maria, pointing at the stuffed knapsack next to her. It’s partially unzipped and a few plastic bags are popping out. “Are we partying it up Dollar Store style?” I’m sure I sound suspiciously cheery.
Maria hesitates and pulls the knapsack onto her lap, like she’s not sure if it’s okay to ignore what just happened back at my house, now that the adrenaline’s worn off. But Beth leaps up from her swing, races to Maria’s side, and gives her a little nudge. With Beth’s blessing, Maria suddenly can’t fight the smirk tugging at the corner of
her mouth. She unzips the bag and pulls out an opaque green bottle of champagne. A dozen curly pink ribbon strings are wrapped around the neck.
“Whoa! Where’d you get that?” I’ve never really drunk before, except for the couple of dented cans of warm beer we smuggled out of Beth’s garage at her family’s last Fourth of July barbecue. Never something as fancy as this.
“Nothing’s too good for your Sweet Sixteen!” Beth commandeers the bottle, her tiny hands cradling the neck. The cork pops off and sails into the darkness. “And you better remember that next week, when it’s my birthday.”
Katherine grabs the bottle from her and presents it to me with some grand game-show hand gestures that make everyone laugh, even me. “Seriously though, my mom’s boss sent it to her for helping him on the weekend with some report. Lucky for us, I was the only one home when the delivery guy showed up.”
“Isn’t that cool?” Beth says, jumping up and down behind Katherine. “We should totally do this kind of stuff more often!”
I spend a second translating the label before I remember that I barely passed French my freshman year. I take a deep, celebratory sip. The crisp, appley bubbles swill and expand in my mouth, more than I expect them to. Some overflow dribbles down the front of my white T-shirt.
“Nice one,” Katherine snarks, shielding a freshly lit match from the wind with cupped hands.
I am ordered to sit and drink while my friends set up a total old-school park birthday party, the kind little kids have in the springtime. My mind tries to wander back to my house, to think about what might be going on there between my mom and dad, but I don’t let it. Instead, I lock onto the details around me. Maria hangs streamers from low branches. Katherine strings up a star-shaped piñata from the monkey bars. Beth duct-tapes Pin the Tail on the Donkey to a big gnarly oak. I wish I hadn’t left my camera at home. I want to make sure this is what I remember about tonight.
“I can’t believe you guys went to all this trouble for me,” I say, taking another sip. The bottle is nearly half empty. I guess I should slow down.
“I can’t believe you still feel like celebrating,” Maria says in a quiet voice, and chucks a roll of streamers over a low branch. “Not like I know the history or anything, but what was that all about?”
“No clue,” I say, and pull my arms inside my sweatshirt.
Beth rips off a piece of duct tape with gritted teeth. “All guys are the same. It’s like they’ve got special radar and, when they sense you’re completely over them, they show up again just for the sake of messing with your head.” She pauses to take a sip from my bottle. “Pete Southern did the same thing about a month after he dumped me. But it was beyond too late for any apologies. Right, Ruby?”
Pete was Beth’s first and only boyfriend. They dated for about two months last year and their unexpected breakup was really hard on her. I guess there are a few similarities. The tip of my nose feels icy, so I pull my head down into my T-shirt like a turtle to warm it up. I can make out Beth’s shape through the thin cotton.
She takes a step toward me. “Ruby, you know there isn’t an I’m sorry big enough in the entire world to ever make up for how he bailed on you and your mom.”
It’s true. My dad is a total loser and not at all worth any of my waning birthday hours. But I don’t want to start some big discussion about this. I pop my head out and walk back over to sit down on a swing.
“It just seems so random,” Maria says. “I think —”
Beth interrupts her with a heavy sigh. “Listen, the worst thing we could do is let him ruin Ruby’s birthday.”
“I totally agree,” I say, pumping my legs and picking up some speed. “It’s a nonissue. It’s over. So let’s quit talking about it, okay?”
Katherine picks a scab off her elbow. “Why’d your dad leave in the first place?”
Beth sticks her finger up in the air. “Okay. Wait up. If we’re going to talk about this, no one can refer to him as Ruby’s dad. Because he’s not. He’s essentially a stranger.”
It’s weird to hear someone say that about your dad. But Beth’s right. He hasn’t been that for a long, long time, and I’ve got to keep reminding myself of it.
Katherine rolls her eyes. “Well, what should we call him then? What’s his name?”
“It’s Jim,” I say.
“Fine. Then why’d Jim leave in the first place?”
Maria’s head perks up.
There’s no way to hide the pissy tone in my voice, so I don’t even try. “I don’t know, Katherine. I guess he fell out of love with my mom.” What a stupid question.
“He doesn’t pay child support, does he?” Maria drags a stick through the dirt.
“Not really.” I think we used to get money orders every so often. But not for a long time. That’s why Mom is always at the hospital, picking up extra shifts.
“Maybe this will help your mom finally move on.” Maria crosses, then uncrosses her legs. “’Cause, I mean, she’s totally hot. And she doesn’t ever date. Right?”
The party scene whirls past my eyes as I swing higher and higher. “Right. She doesn’t.” I make my voice sound as flat as possible, so Maria and Katherine will get the hint already and remember that this is my party, not a therapy session. Maria shoots me an apologetic smile and returns to streamer duty.
For a second, I feel bad. I know Maria has a lot of questions about my family situation. Maybe it’s weird that we’ve never really talked about it before, even though I consider her a close friend. The thing is, I don’t have any details to give. Dad left, Mom’s heart was broken, she completely shut down, and I went a little bit crazy dealing with everything on my own. But I eventually learned how to handle it, with Beth’s help. The whole story ended tonight with me walking out that door. The beginning doesn’t matter anymore.
My swing creaks back, blowing my hair across my face. At the apex, Katherine materializes dead center before me. I rush forward and grind the toes of my Converses into the wood chips to keep myself from plowing into her. The world catches up to me in three-second swirling delay.
I’m pretty tipsy.
Katherine’s forehead creases with deep thought. “But what about you, Ruby?”
I use my sneaker to smooth the splayed wood chips around me. My hands feel clammy around the cool metal chains. “What about me?”
“He fell out of love with your mom. I get that. But why’d your dad leave you?”
Katherine might as well have kicked me in the chest. I can’t seem to catch my breath.
“Not cool, Katherine,” Maria says, and rolls her eyes.
“Seriously,” Beth says.
Katherine puffs up. “What? That’s a valid question! Lots of people get divorced, but still stay close to their kids. I mean, that’s why my dad’s getting an apartment across town.”
Beth runs over and stands next to me. “Katherine, your situation is completely —” she begins, but then her cell phone rings. She fishes it out of her pocket and holds the screen up to my face.
My home number.
I shake my head, unable to push words out of my mouth. She hands the phone to Maria, who answers it and drifts away toward the fence.
“Listen. None of this is about Ruby,” Beth says. “Jim’s having some stupid midlife crisis. He’s trying to make himself feel better so he can go on with his life somewhere else.”
“Sure,” Katherine says quietly, before tipping her head back and taking a huge sip of champagne. “I guess that could be it.”
“That is it,” Beth insists. “And the best part is that Ruby didn’t let him off the hook.” She pats me on the back. “Tonight was the best thing that could have happened for you, Ruby. Trust me.”
Maria returns, pushing aside a clump of dangling streamers. She forces a smile.
“What did her mom say?” Beth asks.
“She wanted to make sure Ruby is okay. And that we’d have her home by midnight. She sounded totally normal. Not crying or anything.”
&n
bsp; I’m not surprised. Mom doesn’t cry in front of me. She’s definitely not going to be all blubbery to Maria. Still, seeing Dad had to be hard for her. “Was he there?” I ask, suddenly finding my voice. Because seeing him leave us again would be even worse.
Beth cocks her head to the side. “Do you want him to be there?”
Something about the way Beth asks this question makes me think it’s a trick. I feel like the answer tattooed on my heart is maybe. Or maybe even yes. But I focus on the good-for-me answer, the one my brain is screaming, the one I know is right. “No. I don’t.”
Beth rewards me with a hug.
“Well, she didn’t say either way,” Maria tells me. Then she adds, “Sorry, Ruby. I should have asked her that.”
I guess I look pretty pathetic, all glum and hunched over, clinging to the swing like a little kid. Beth steps on the toes of my sneakers. She takes my hands and shakes out my arms. Then, tipping her weight back, she pulls me up off the swing. “I’d be a pretty terrible friend if we didn’t have some fun tonight. So let’s get to it already and put all this behind you for good.”
We make the best of our final hour. We freeze-dance in the headlights while Katherine mans the car stereo. We prank everyone in Maria’s phone. Gifts are given. Beth has knitted me a skinny, gray wool scarf with butter-yellow ribbons laced through the stitches. It’s instantly the prettiest thing I own. Maria has bought me an old Cooper Rubber T-shirt from Revival, our town’s vintage resale store. Katherine is presentless, but writes me an IOU for a CD of my choice on a napkin she finds in the Volvo’s glove compartment. After the last few sips of my champagne, I cheat at Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but lose anyway. Everyone takes a swing at the piñata with a splintered tree branch. Katherine finally cracks it with a tire iron she finds in Maria’s trunk. We wrestle on the ground for the candy necklaces, plastic bracelets, and super bouncy rubber balls that rain down.