County Line (30 page)

Clarice crossed the corridor, the others in her wake. A hollow formed in the pit of Ruby Jane’s stomach, and her earlier panic returned like a clap of thunder. In the uncertain light, Clarice’s teeth looked like jagged points. Moira stopped next to Clarice and put her hand on her hip, a pose derived from Alexis Carrington. Ashley, gleeful rubbernecker, looked on from behind.

“I have to admit, Ruby …” Clarice gestured at Gabi as if pointing out a splash of vomit on the floor. “I never pegged you for a lesbo.”

A swirl of sensations spilled through Ruby Jane. Fear, shame, despair. “I—we were talking.”

Moira’s eyebrows lifted, a jester’s sneer. “Hard to tell what someone’s saying when you have their tongue in your mouth.”

Gabi wore the expression of a stray dog cornered by neighborhood toughs: wary, hopeful, and terrified underneath it all. Ruby Jane felt her tremble, but couldn’t bring herself do more than wrap her arms around herself. The hallway felt hot, the windows seemed to go hazy with fog. Outside, other players and their families were heading to the parking lot. Ruby Jane saw the hugs, the wide eyes and mouths round with laughter, all remote and nebulous, like watching a silent movie through the rain. She bit the inside of her cheek and her mouth filled with the taste of blood.

Coach appeared behind Clarice and the others. Everyone turned toward him, startled. He stopped, clasped his hands before him. “Ladies.”

“Hi, Coach.”

Ruby Jane didn’t know who’d spoken. A stillness hung in the air, a mounting potential like a sheet of ice on a roof’s edge.

“I’m glad I caught up with you. I know you heard my speech already, but I wanted to say this to you five in particular. My starters.” He looked past them out the windows, as though he needed something inanimate to focus on. “You did me proud this year. You did yourselves proud too, despite your differences. I know it wasn’t easy for any of you.” He smiled awkwardly. “Carry on.” Before anyone could respond he moved toward the doors. Ruby Jane wondered what he’d overheard. She’d never seen him so off-kilter.

When the door shut behind him, someone let out a long breath. Then Ashley started laughing, a gibbering squeal Ruby Jane felt in her teeth. Clarice gave her a look, and drew herself to full height. “We were going to invite you to the party, but the thing is—no dykes.”

“Clarice—” She struggled to find her voice. “—why do you have to be like this?”

“I’m not the one making out with her girlfriend.”

“We weren’t making out.”

“What do lesbos call it?”

Ruby Jane’s head spun. Gabi reached out to take her hand. “Ruby, let’s go.”

The sheet of ice broke loose. She shrank away from Gabi’s touch, instantly struck by the ease with which she could compound a mistake.

“Gabi, it’s not—”

It was too late. She refused to look at Ruby Jane. Her eyes in their dark hollows were fixed on the floor. “I need to go home.”

“Wait—”

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Ruby Jane turned, but Gabi was already gone. The door clanged shut. Clarice put a hand on Ruby Jane’s arm. “Let the little dyke go.”

Ruby Jane wanted to follow Gabi, to talk to her, to find a way to make sense of what happened. She didn’t know what was holding her back. A writhing weight in her belly held her in place, a strange and desperate need to be understood.

Moira smirked. “We still know what you are.” Ashley continued to giggle, the sound a jangle of nerves.

“No.” The open space surrounded Ruby Jane like a storm cloud. She drew in a breath heavy with uncertainty and looked at Clarice. The other two didn’t matter. Yet she had nothing to say.

She fled.

- 34 -

Post-Season, April 1989

Warm air heavy with the scent of cheese and rising dough wafted toward the open door. All the tables were full, as were the stools at the counter. Madonna sang from the jukebox, the tune and timbre of her voice recognizable even if the chatter drowned out the lyrics. Ruby Jane stood in the doorway, a hot ache at her core. A tremor passed through her hands. She closed her eyes, tried to reach that centered place she could always find on the court. An amped Femzilla at the post was less intimidating.

Huck sat in the corner, jammed among a half dozen boys around a four-top, two pizza trays half-empty on the table, the blockhead core. No one worried about weight in the off-season. She knew what was in store for the night ahead. Pizza Palace, then raid the most recently stocked liquor cabinet. The party might be at a house, or out on the man-made lake next to the trailer park, or in someone’s barn. The details varied, but the general sequence was the same every weekend. Unless some outside force interrupted the routine.

Like her.

She crossed the room, the sounds of conversation parting before her like tall grass. The blockheads broke out laughing. Fart joke, she assumed. Huck looked up as she neared the table, his big grin softening.

“Huck?”

“Hey, Ruby.” He straightened up a little in his chair.

“You got a minute?”

He looked at Malo, deferring to his captain. She refused to defer to Clarice. Malo grinned at Ruby Jane, his lip curling into a leer. “What’s up, Dunks?”

“None of your goddamn business.” The boys hooted, but she ignored them. “Huck, please?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Outside?”

Blockheads exchanged looks as they uncurled from around the four-top. She knew what they were thinking, but she didn’t care. Huck got to his feet, and she took his hand, pulled him after her to the door.

“Ruby? Is everything all right?”

One of the blockheads loosed a piercing whistle from the corner.

“Outside.”

The night was chilly after the crowded warmth of the Palace. She pulled him around the corner, out of view of the windows.

“What’s going on, Ruby?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me?”

Blockhead. But instead of making a remark, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his neck. She inhaled Irish Spring and pizza sauce.

“Ruby—?”

She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to explain any of it. She didn’t know how to explain any of it.
Gabi kissed
, and then
Clarice said
, and then
I wouldn’t
—How could she make sense of it to him when she couldn’t make sense of it to herself? All she knew was she felt sad and alone and scared, all for reasons she couldn’t comprehend.

“It’s been a weird year.” She spoke into the fabric of his shirt, her voice muffled.

“Tell me about it.”

“Take me home?”

He was quiet for a moment. “You need a ride?”

She hesitated, then pulled him tighter to herself as if she could squeeze courage out of him. “Not my home.”

He took a long time to respond. “Are you sure?”

She felt unmoored, incapable of certainty about anything except her need to forget herself. She let him lead her to his car. They didn’t speak during the short drive to his house on the edge of town. He parked behind the garage and said one word. “Ruby.” She put a finger to his lips, shocked by the heat of his skin. She almost turned back. But, moments later, when he shut his bedroom door behind her, she closed her eyes and imagined a girl who could desire another without restraint.

I know why I’m here
, she thought, unsurprised by how easy it was to deceive herself.

- 35 -

Interview, April 1989

“How did you know I was here?”

Mrs. Parmelee wore a pair of battered cross-trainers, old jeans, and a tatty, washed-out polo shirt. She’d pulled her hair off her forehead with a tortoiseshell band. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. An errant wisp of grey hair hung loose at her temple. A weight seemed to tug at the corners of her mouth, making her face longer than usual. Ruby Jane found herself unsettled, as though she’d come across her teacher at a graveside.

Mrs. Parmelee keyed on Ruby Jane’s unease. “I came from home.” She glanced down at herself, waved a hand dismissively. “It was a crazy day at school. If not for Mr. Unger, I think we’d have an outbreak of Lord of the Flies. He decided on an early release.”

Nothing like a little blood and bedlam to bring out everyone’s holiday spirit.

Ruby Jane sat in Grabel’s spot, as if his seat could somehow confer power. Through the closed door at her back, a rabble of voices of argued, one louder than the others. She couldn’t make out the words, but it wasn’t hard to guess the subject. Nash had dared allow a visitor to see Grabel’s prisoner. Detective Pervo wouldn’t understand that in Nash’s world, a few years out of Valley View, Mrs. Parmelee held greater authority than Grabel would ever know.

Mrs. Parmelee took the chair next to her. Ruby Jane stirred, then folded her hands and looked out the window. She imagined herself back at school, seated in Mrs. Parmelee’s classroom. Another detention. Everything in its place, Mrs. Parmelee at her desk. If she closed her eyelids to narrow slits, she could imagine Cézanne’s vision of the quarry in the unfocused haze through her lashes.

“I heard what happened.” They were both quiet for a long moment. “Clarice is saying she had you arrested.”

Ruby Jane rubbed the drying tears on her cheeks. “She wishes.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I called your mother, but she had nothing to say.”

“I’m surprised she was coherent enough to not tell you anything.”

“It was … an interesting conversation.”

“They always are.”

“I wish there was something I could do for you there.”

“You showed up here. That’s a hell of a lot more than you can say about Bella.”

Mrs. Parmelee took Ruby Jane’s hand. “I’m sorry. I really am.” Her skin was warm and smooth. Ruby Jane felt an unexpected sense of calm come over her. Through her eyelashes, sunlight climbed the quarry wall. Shadows melted like butter and flowed over the stone face. She blinked, squeezed her teacher’s hand back.

“What can you tell me?”

“It’s not about Clarice. She’s a side show.”

Behind her, the muffled voices continued their quarrel. Her eyes stung. She thought of Gabi and the onions in her kitchen. They should have skipped the banquet. Made that stir fry and watched a movie on HBO. Eaten ice cream.

Ruby Jane wanted to tell Mrs. Parmelee the whole sordid tale. But not here, not while she remained within Grabel’s grasp. The cassette recorder was quiet and dead on the table, but anyone could be listening. For all she knew, the phone on the credenza functioned as an intercom. Grabel and the chief, even Nash, might be listening to everything from the next room, their squabbling a ruse.

“It’s about your father, isn’t it?”

She flinched.
Does everyone already know?
She opened her mouth to retort, but held her tongue. Even so, Mrs. Parmelee guessed her thought.