Then the Lincoln Tunnel, which cuts through the Hudson River to escape the city. Skip the worries of being trapped in that tunnel, the gush of relief at seeing the light at the end.
Skip the entirety of New Jersey.
The New York State Thruway at night even though that’s the best time to drive it.
The familiar turn to exit 19.
The traffic circle, where Ruby once got pulled over and convinced the cop not to search her and then laughed maniacally when he let her go.
We were getting closer.
The bus turned onto the first highway that led toward town and passed the spot where Ruby blew a tire and got three guys to pull over and offer to fix it, though she ended up fixing it herself, while they watched, and then let them watch her drive away. The bus turned onto the second highway, where Ruby liked to ignore all signs noting speed limits and, sometimes, if there were no trucks coming, jammed the gas and raced with headlights dark, fingertips guiding the wheel.
The bus took the left turn toward town.
There was the tattoo shop where Ruby got her eyebrow pierced, then decided she didn’t want her eyebrow pierced and instead got her nose pierced, then decided she really didn’t want anything pierced, not even her ears.
Cumby’s, open twenty-four hours a day. Even so, there was no point asking the bus to stop there, since Ruby’s car wasn’t parked out front.
The rows of storefronts, shuttered and dark, and how Ruby could walk into any one and come out with whatever thing she wanted on layaway, which to her meant getting to take it home with her and never bothering to come back and pay.
Soon, the bus was pulling up to the Village Green, the center of the town where I was born and where Ruby still lived. The bus doors were opening and I was climbing down the stairs with my bags and retrieving my suitcase. The bus doors were closing and I was left standing on the Green with my bags at my feet. The bus was pulling away.
It was a Saturday night, late June, and there was absolutely no one here.
I texted Ruby: guess where i am
No response.
I texted Ruby the answer anyway: im here
almost didnt survive bus ride
bus driver had rly small head. wondered if he cld even see road
drove us off bridge
I waited for some time, then tried again.
kidding abt bridge. u still live @ Millstream?
want me 2 go there? or u pick me up???
My phone was silent, not a beep or a buzz to let me know.
When I last lived in town, our mother had a place back behind WDST, the local radio station, but Ruby said the classic rock the deejays insisted on playing filled her head with near-total boredom, and had on occasion put her to sleep while standing, which was terribly dangerous, like when she was getting the mail at the curb and “Stairway to Heaven” came on again. So that’s why she rented her own place on the opposite end of town, near the stream—that and the fact that she couldn’t stand our mother. My school papers said I lived at my mom’s, but all my things were at Ruby’s. Or they had been.
The Millstream Apartments weren’t far from the Green, but I had my bags and my suitcase and there was that hill.
So I waited for her to pick me up. She’d be here. She knew tonight was the night. It was her idea, after all, that I come home.