Finally he opened his slavering mouth and I dragged him outside by the collar and clipped him to his chain.
Phew.
Inside, Dad was trying to sit down on the couch to rest after his trauma. However, his butt was encased in cardboard so he couldn’t. The prong the dog had chewed was sagging, mangled and wet.
“Elaine, I told you this costume was a bad idea,” Dad called.
Mom came in from the bedroom wearing a cardboard box with two light sockets on it. Her hair was gelled up to look like she’d been electrocuted. “Don’t be so negative, Kevin,” she said. “You’re negative all the time now. You have to get over yourself.”
“Polka ate my prong,” Dad said. “I can’t even sit down.”
“You look hot,” Mom said. “The prongs are very sexy.”
“The left one is ruined.”
“We can fix it with duct tape.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to drive when I can’t even sit.”
“You’re not driving. We’re taking public transportation.”
“I still can’t sit.”
“You can stand on the bus.” Mom stroked her electric-shock hair. “What do you think? Adds to the effect, right?”
“Can we please just wear the silly hats instead?” Dad begged.
“If you don’t like being the plug you can be the outlets,” Mom said, making as if to take off her box.
“I am not being the outlets.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just not.”
“You shouldn’t be scared of your feminine side, Kevin. Everyone has one,” said Mom glibly. “I’d be glad to wear the prongs.”
“Mom!” I cried. “Leave him alone! The dog just tried to eat his pelvis.”
She turned on me. “You stay out of this, Ruby. I already know you’re on your father’s side; you’re always on your father’s side.”
“You don’t have to be such a wench to him.”
“You know what?” said Mom angrily. “I don’t have to stand for this. Not your smart mouth or your father’s apathy. I’m going on vacation. Without either of you. Starting tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Dad look shocked.
“Juana asked me yesterday if I wanted to drive down to the Oregon coast with her women’s empowerment group, and I told her no, because I felt guilty leaving you when you’re still moping about Suzette’s death.”
“Don’t miss it on my account,” Dad said bitterly.
“And Ruby. Ruby’s being a drama queen about this thing with Noel what’shisname. The two of you are driving me crazy with all your negativity and self-involvement,” she said. “So you know what? I don’t feel guilty anymore. I don’t need to work so hard stuffing sausages and making Halloween costumes when no one appreciates anything I do. I can go to Oregon and sit in a hot spring!”
“I did appreciate the sausages,” said my dad. “I made a point of telling you I liked them.”
“Roo didn’t.”
“I’m a vegetarian!” I yelled.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning,” said my mother. “It will be a relief to get away from both of you.”
She stomped into the bedroom and emerged with her purse, furiously putting lipstick on. Then she slammed the front door and walked—awkwardly in her costume—into the fading light.
When she was out of sight, Dad took off his cardboard box, let Polka back in the house and gave him the costume. Polka chewed on it, thumping his tail heavily on the carpet.
Dad lay facedown on the floor beside the dining table and announced he was just going to rest there for a minute.
“Aren’t you going to go after Mom?”
“I gave the prongs to the dog,” he said. “There’s no way I can be forgiven unless I have prongs.”
“Are you going to let her go on vacation without us?” I said. “Is she really going to leave?”
“I don’t know,” Dad said, turning his head to rest the alternate cheek on the carpet. “Your mother pretty much does what she wants to do.”
“Are you depressed?” I asked, standing over him. It was a stupid question. Of course he was depressed. He was the king of being depressed.
“I’m just so tired.”
“Dad! You have to do something. She’s leaving us.”
“Will you answer the phone?”
“What?”
“The phone.”
Oh. It was ringing. I picked it up, thinking it would be Mom calling from her cell, but instead it was Gideon. “Hey, wakeboarder,” he said.
“Hey, wakeboarder yourself.”
“Happy Halloween.”
“Same to you.”
“What are you doing right now?”
“Trying to peel my dad off the floor.”
“Ha-ha,” said Gideon. “You want to come to a party with me?”
“I’m supposed to go to this soccer party with Nora.”
“She told me you’d rather do something else.”
“She did?”
“She said something about muffins.”
I laughed. “Yeah. Is yours a costume party?”
“Of course.”
“What are you being?”
“A bad surgeon. But I need to get fake blood. I forgot to get fake blood.”
“Use ketchup.”
“Good idea. I’m going to squirt myself with ketchup and pick you up in half an hour.”
“I’m going out, Dad,” I said when I hung up. “Are you going to be okay?”
He didn’t answer. He was asleep.
Gideon kissed me before we even got to the party. I wasn’t ready. As we got into his hybrid, he leaned over and very simply put his lips on mine—not like he was lunging at me or anything, just impulsive and sweet.
He smelled like ketchup. He was wearing a white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope. There was a rubber severed hand sticking out of his pocket.
We kissed for a minute and then he said: “I’ve been wanting to do that for like, years.”
“I was way too young for you,” I said.
“You’re too young for me now,” he said. “But you’re older than you were.”
“Maybe it’s you who’s too old for me,” I told him.
“Maybe we should be quiet and kiss a little more,” he said, leaning in.
The thing about kissing Gideon was he was a lot more experienced than any other guy I’d kissed. I mean, there was no way he was still a virgin. He had traveled around the world for a year and then started at Evergreen College, which was full of people who still lived by the “make love, not war” slogans of the sixties. In other words, Gideon’s kissing was the kissing of a guy who knows exactly what this kind of thing can lead to, and who has long since been done with two-hour make-out sessions where everyone keeps their clothes on. The people he was used to kissing obviously had full and intimate knowledge of the nether regions and what to do if one encountered them.
It was a little slobbery for my taste, to be honest.
“You have to put the severed hand in the back,” I said after a minute or two. “It’s freaking me out.”
He threw it over his shoulder to the backseat, where it landed with a creepy squish. “I’ll kiss you some more later,” he said. “We’re late for the party.” He turned the key in the ignition.
“I’ve never kissed anyone who talked so much about kissing,” I told him.
Gideon laughed. “I like to be direct.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inscrutable and generally send mixed messages.”
“I doubt it.”
“Human interaction is not my strong point,” I told him.
“Not seriously.”
“Seriously,” I said. Thinking: There is so much about me he doesn’t know.
Gideon put his hand on my leg. “What’s your strong point, then?” he asked.
“Goats,” I told him. “I am excellent with goats.”
The party was a college party.
r />
I was out with a college guy, I suppose I should have known I was going to a college party, but I was so intent on getting away from Dad and his misery that I hadn’t really thought about where Gideon was taking me. It turned out to be a the apartment of this guy Ted Hsaio (pronounced Shaw) who’d been in Gideon’s year at Tate and was now a junior at the University of Washington.
Hsaio lived just off the Ave in the U District, in a studio apartment. As we walked down the hall, I could hear the roar of voices coming from his place, and when Gideon opened the door we saw a wall of people, all in costume, jammed up against each other and smoking, plastic cups of beer clutched in their hands. “Van Deusen!” Hsaio yelled when he saw Gideon. They fake-sparred, the way guys do when they don’t want to hug, and finally Gideon threw his bloody rubber hand at Hsaio. Hsaio was dressed as a fisherman in waders and a hat. He carried a fishing pole and had several plastic fish sticking out of his pockets. “Who’s your new girl?” he yelled at Gideon over the din.
“What?” Gideon yelled back in Hsaio’s ear.
“Who’s your girl?” said Hsaio, even louder.
“This is Ruby.”
I waved.
“Cradle robbing?” Hsaio asked Gideon.
“Shut up.”
“Dude, we’d all do it if we could.”
“Same as ever, huh, Hsaio?”
“Why change what’s working?” Hsaio laughed.
Gideon grabbed my hand and pulled me to the tiny kitchen, where a cadaver and two lady pirates were filling cups from a keg and mixing some kind of drink called a kamikaze. Two girls in slut costumes were sitting on the countertops and a guy in a gorilla suit leaned against the fridge. It smelled of sweat and booze.
Gideon handed me a cup of beer, which I didn’t want, and then grabbed a guy dressed as Jackie Onassis into a bear hug. “DuBoise!” he cried. “What the hell are you doing here?”
DuBoise.
DuBoise? I sloshed half my beer down my dress.
“Van Deusen,” the Jackie O said. He was wearing a pillbox hat and a black bouffant wig with a sweet purple vintage suit and heels.
Noel’s brother, Claude.
“Who knew you were home?” Gideon said.
“Came back last week.”
“Isn’t it the middle of the term?”
Claude nodded. His eye makeup was running and his lipstick smudged down his chin. “New York was …” He shook his head. “I came back for a while is all.”
Claude had been in Gideon’s class at Tate. That was how come I recognized him, even though he’d never been home to Seattle in all the time I’d been friends with Noel.
In high school, Claude had been golden. He’d gone out with several girls. He’d been a soccer player and a rower, a model of Young American Manhood. I knew from Noel that when Claude realized he was gay, freshman year at NYU, some of his old high school friends had been jerks about it—which was why he didn’t usually come home in the summers.
Now here he was, back in town and wearing full drag at a party full of Future Doctors of America and other kinds of prepsters from his past. As if to say, Up yours if you don’t like me. This is who I am.
Which was cool. I mean, Claude clearly wasn’t worried about becoming a roly-poly. He didn’t care what people thought anymore. He was out and proud.
He wouldn’t recognize me, I thought. Though he probably knew my name from Noel. I’d been a freshman when he, Gideon and Hsaio were seniors.
Part of me wanted to meet Claude, talk to him, find out anything I could about Noel—whom I saw at school but never spoke to anymore.
The other part wanted to run, for fear Claude would tell Noel he saw me out with Gideon.
That part won.
I pressed out of the kitchen into the main room of the apartment and squeezed through a mass of sweaty, makeup-covered bodies to a spot near an open window. I leaned my back against it, feeling the cool breeze trickle into the hot room.
Everyone was tipsy, and many people had taken off bits of their costumes in the heat. Hats and bunny ears and capes were piled on an armchair. Everyone was at least three years older than I was and they all knew each other. The guys had broad shoulders and stubble on their faces. A few people were familiar from Tate, years ago, but most were probably Hsaio’s U Dub friends. It seemed—just way more advanced than high school parties. Everyone was smoking; no one had a curfew.
I was standing there, trying to look relaxed and as if I went to college parties every day and oh, yeah, I’m just leaning on this windowsill here because it’s so completely comfortable, I always do this at parties—when I saw Noel. He was dressed as Johnny Rotten, which I could tell because he had a Sex Pistols1 poster in his room. His blond hair was dyed electric orange and spiked up with even more than his usual amount of gel. He had on tight black cigarette jeans, a heavy black leather jacket, combat boots and an old plaid flannel shirt. He wore a fake earring in one ear and had a mole drawn on the left side of his cheek.
And he was talking to a girl. A pretty, pretty, pretty girl. Taller than me, slim, with short dark hair and makeup that said: Sexy Vampire. A tight black T-shirt, a fringed skirt and high red heels.
She was leaning in to talk to Noel.
He was leaning in to talk to her.
Ag. Ag. Ag.
I thought:
If Noel sees me here with Gideon, he’ll think for sure I cheated on him back in September and we’ll never get back together. I have to hide or leave—or something.
On the other hand, he might have a surge of jealousy and chase after me down the hallway as I’m leaving Hsiao’s. He’ll punch Gideon in the face just for taking me out to a party and declare his love. Then we can live happily ever after.
Then again, what makes me think we could ever get back together? Noel obviously doesn’t love me anymore. He doesn’t even speak to me.
He is probably going out with this sexy college vampire now. I should just forget about him.
On the other hand, if he sees me standing alone by the window, he might witness my deep and tragic loneliness and remember how much he loves me. Maybe I look melancholy and alluring.
Although more likely, he’ll see me alone and think I look pathetic and repulsive.
I should go talk to him.
No. I shouldn’t.
Noel encounters me nearly every day at school and we never say anything more than hello in the most awkward way possible. Why would it be any different here?
There isn’t really anything I can do at a Halloween party to make him love me again! Talking to him is bound to end in angst and misery. I should stay here.
No. I should run away.
As I was dithering and trying to look attractive and wondering whether Gideon would come in looking for me, Noel leaned down and kissed the sexy college vampire girl.
On the lips.
She kissed him back and I felt sick, my heart thrashing, like I was getting a panic attack standing here in Hsaio’s living room. Suddenly the most important thing was to get out of that hot, smoky room and breathe. I didn’t care who saw me or didn’t see me or anything, I just wanted out.
I pushed my way through the crowd and into the kitchen. Gideon was there, and I grabbed him by the arm. “I’m really, really sorry, but can we leave? I need to leave, at least. I can take a bus if you can’t drive me.”
“I’ll drive you.” He raised his eyebrows. “You okay?”
“Not really. Can we just go? You can come back later if you want.”
Without waiting for him, I pushed out the door and down the hall and took the stairs down to the building lobby.
Don’t panic, I told myself. You don’t need to panic.
You’re sad and jealous and embarrassed, but this is not the end of the world.
You’re healthy. You’re not having a heart attack.
There’s enough air here for you to fill your lungs.
Just breathe, Ruby.
Breathe and remember you’re okay.
>
I put a mint in my mouth and concentrated on the flavor. I breathed.
And breathed.
When Gideon arrived in the lobby I was able to smile at him. “Sorry to drag you out,” I said. “My ex-boyfriend was there and I think I’m allergic to him.”
Gideon laughed. “You said you weren’t direct.”
“Well, I’m direct about some things.”
“I was kind of looking forward to mixed messages and—what did you say? Inscrutability.”
He was so optimistic. That was the key to Gideon. As if now that we’d been out together, we were going out together a whole lot more. Like he had stuff to look forward to, stuff to do with him and me.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said.
“You’d have to work really, really hard to do that,” he said, taking my hand.
And just like that, possibly because I’m psychotic, I wanted to kiss him again. He was so hot, in his doctor’s coat with his thick dark eyebrows and his sweet ketchup smell and his ugly Birkenstocks on his feet. And I thought: Noel will never love me.
My mom is leaving us.
My dad is depressed.
All that badness, and yet here, standing in front of me, is something good.
Someone good.
Gideon Van Deusen. Shouldn’t I be thankful for what life brings me instead of wanting what I can’t have?
Yes, I should.
That must be the key to happiness, right?
And couldn’t I—as Doctor Z was always implying—couldn’t I choose happiness?
So it wasn’t psychotic to want to kiss Gideon so soon after mooning over Noel. It was mentally stable and healthy!
As we stepped out onto the street, I reached up and put my hand on Gideon’s neck. I drew his face down to mine. He wrapped his arms around me, and he was wonderfully tall, and when I put my hands on him, his waist was hard and athletic and he just seemed like a man and not a boy.
I thought: This is such a better idea than being with Noel.
And then I thought:
I wonder if Noel will walk out of the party and see me.
Don’t think that, you boy-crazy lunatic. Just kiss Gideon and feel lucky.
Yeah, but what would happen if Noel did walk out of the party and see me?
Brain, shut up. Shut UP!