“It was okay. Finn’s been in a super-crappy mood lately, so that’s not fun. But he’s been asking about—” She stops as she looks up behind me. “Um, hi?”
I turn around to find my brother standing there.
“Oh, hey,” I say.
He nods awkwardly, and the two of us don’t say anything further, until Ruby extends her hand. “I’m Ruby,” she says.
“Charlie McCullough,” Charlie says, shaking her hand back. “Parker’s brother.”
I wait for Ruby’s face to register who he is, the subsequent face-fall of sympathy, but she brightly smiles, squeezing his hand instead.
“If you’re half as cool as your sister, I like you already.”
Charlie blushes.
That I did not expect.
“Well, I’ll see you at home,” I start to say to him, but Ruby’s a step ahead of me.
“Are you eating by yourself?”
“Getting takeout,” Charlie says.
“Why don’t you join us? That’s okay with you, right, Parker?” She turns to me, her smile as big as it was the night I met her.
I frown. I don’t want to disappoint Ruby, but considering Charlie’s and my exchanges of late have been downright nuclear, the last thing I want to do right now is hang out with him.
But Charlie’s got this look on his face that I haven’t seen in a while—he actually seems nervous I’ll say no.
He wants to join us.
“Yeah, okay,” I say, and it takes approximately two seconds for him to slide into the booth next to me.
Charlie smells sweaty and he’s taking up too much space, and I immediately regret my decision. He leans over and grabs a huge handful of the oyster crackers from my bowl.
The waitress comes by again. “Something for you, too, hon?”
“A Five-Way, please,” Charlie says to her.
She nods and heads back to the kitchen area.
Charlie starts his ritual of intricately dripping hot sauce into a partially cracked oyster cracker and then eating it.
“Do you go to our high school?” Ruby asks him.
Charlie swallows. “I’m going to be a senior next year. You?”
“Junior. But I’m ‘young for my class,’?” she says, making ironic finger quotes. “I’m taking my driver’s license test at the end of the summer.”
“Well, when the time comes, I hope you’re a better driver than Parker,” Charlie says.
“Why? What happened?” Ruby asks, looking between us.
Oh, for God’s sake. “Our parents are terrible teachers. And learning on a stick is impossible,” I say, indignation making my voice louder than I want.
“She’s not good at not being good at something,” Charlie whispers to Ruby, who giggles.
I scowl.
“After she applied the clutch too hard one too many times, our dad took the keys and left her in the car because Parker was making him carsick. And our mom, who’s a teacher, mind you, said she never met anyone who was worse at learning something,” Charlie says.
“Dad was being a jerk and Mom kept yelling at me. That’s not a productive learning environment.”
“It sounds hard for everyone,” Ruby says diplomatically.
“Meanwhile, I learned in about five minutes and passed the test a full month and a half before her,” Charlie says. “I’m clearly a natural.”
“Wait a minute. Why did you take yours at the same time?” Ruby asks.
“Twins,” I say, making room on the table as the waitress brings us our food.
“No way,” Ruby says, looking rapidly from me to Charlie and back again.
“She got the brains. I got the looks,” Charlie says, and Ruby giggles.
I realize with a shock that Charlie is flirting. I’ve never seen him flirt before. It’s totally irritating and gross.
But the chili smells delicious, so I twirl a big mess of spaghetti and cheese and meat sauce around my fork, trying to ignore Charlie.
All three of us are happily eating, when Ruby stops, Cheese Coney in hand. “Wait. If you’re twins, how come you’re a senior but Parker graduated?”
I swallow quickly, not wanting Charlie to have to explain, but he gets to it first. “I got sick last fall and I missed a lot of school, so they held me back. It was going to be just a half year, but it took longer than we thought for the treatment to work.”
“Sick?” Ruby asks.
My whole body tenses, and Charlie gives a terse nod.
“Leukemia,” he says.
“Whoa. That stinks,” Ruby says.
“I’m better now, though,” Charlie adds quickly.
Ruby’s sprinkling oyster crackers on top of her Cheese Coney, and I can see Charlie stiffen, waiting for her response. Finally, she looks up. “It’d be cool to be friends with a senior next year. If you see me in the halls, you won’t pretend you don’t know me, will you?”
Charlie’s smile is genuine. “I don’t think I could forget you,” he says.
“Well, that’s good news,” she replies matter-of-factly, but underneath all her cool, she’s beaming as hard as Charlie.
Even though I’m totally irritated with everything Charlie-related right now, I have to stop myself from hugging Ruby Collie right then and there. I haven’t seen him like this in ages.
“So, do you want to be a doctor like Parker?” she asks Charlie.
“God, no!” he says. I’m surprised by how vehement he is. “I’ve had enough of hospitals to last me the rest of my life. I don’t know how she can stand that internship.”
Ruby shoots an uncertain look at me, and I subtly shake my head. She recovers quickly. “What do you want to do, then?”
Charlie opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Baseball,” I say. “Charlie’s a phenomenal pitcher.”
“Not anymore. I’m too out of practice for the recruitment camps this summer.”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t still get on a team next year—” I start, but Charlie interrupts me.
“I don’t know if I want to do that anymore.”
“What?” I ask. “But it’s what you’ve always wanted to do!”
“Where was all this support last summer, Parker? I didn’t really have an option in my future then, did I?” Charlie asks, and I look away, my face flushing.
“Well, maybe it’s time to make it an option again,” Ruby says.
My stomach does a little somersault.
Charlie scoffs. “It’s not that simple.”
“It totally is,” she replies.
I give her a warning glance, but she’s not watching me. Instead, she’s using the last bit of her bun to soak up the chili grease on her plate.
Charlie shakes his head, but Ruby jumps in before he gets a chance to say anything more.
“Did you know that in Spanish, the future tense also works to express possibility in the now?”
I slowly shake my head, and Charlie looks confused.
“It works like our future tense, like Trabajaré este sábado—‘I will work this Saturday.’ But you can also use it to wonder now—?Quién será el? ‘I wonder who he could be.’
“I like thinking of time that way—that it’s a little more fluid in Spanish. Like maybe to start thinking about the future, you need to think about the possibility in the right now, you know?” Ruby looks first to Charlie for a reaction, then to me, but Charlie’s face is skeptical, and I’m sure I look equally flummoxed.
Ruby immediately deflates, her whole body cringing. “Oh God, sorry. I’m doing that thing I do.”
“What’s that?” Charlie asks.
“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget I brought up the Spanish stuff. I’m sorry.”
“Ruby,” I say.
Her eyes meet mine. “I know I’m too much for people sometimes. Even my mom says so.” She tries to smile, like it’s not a totally terrible thing for a mom to say to her kid, then sucks in her breath and straightens. “Anyway, subject change, like I was saying earlier, Finn’s been asking all about—”
“Hey—” Charlie starts to say, but the look on Ruby’s face is desperate. She wants to change the subject.
I bite. “What was he asking about?”
She lets out a grateful little sigh. “You.”
“Who’s Finn?” Charlie asks.
“No one,” I say too quickly.
Charlie perks up, smirking, and I mentally curse myself. “Doesn’t sound like no one,” he says.
“He works in the kitchen at the Float,” Ruby says. “You probably know him. Finn Casper?”
I hold my breath, hoping he doesn’t remember.
“Finn Casper?” Charlie says, shooting me a disbelieving look. “The one who broke your wrist?”
Rats.