I sat on a prime bench in the center of the diamond that made up the Green and took it all in: these trees, that sidewalk, this place imprinted on every surface with thoughts of Ruby as if she’d gotten her greasy hands all over everything and trampled the lawn and dirtied up the benches with her muddy boots.
Only, it was too quiet. I’d never seen the Green empty in warm weather, not once, not in my life. On summer nights, there was always someone out: a random townie tripping too hard to operate a motor vehicle; some tie-dyed tourist who hitched here all the way from burning things up at Burning Man to camp in our shrubs; a few kids from the Catholic high school the next town over who never got invited to our parties but still came here hoping; or that guy Dov Everywhere who lived somewhere out in the woods, no one knew where. He took care of the town’s stray dogs, collected sticks to walk with, and always gave fair warning when it was about to rain. He also barked for no reason and threw his sticks at cars, so you had to be careful on what night you caught him.
Not even Dov was there on the Green that night.
I would have thought time had stopped completely, leaving the town untouched since I’d left it—if the wind didn’t snatch the stub of the bus ticket out of my hand and shoot it across the Green, plastering it against the window of the empty pizza place, then flip it back down the stairs to flutter and gasp at my feet.
The wind would have stopped, if time had. Time would have had to stop for Ruby not to come meet my bus. So where was she?
My suitcase rolled itself too fast down the hill that led to the Millstream, and I had to run to keep up. I knew where to find Ruby’s key, as she tended to use the one hidden on the windowsill more than the one on her key ring, but when I got the door to her apartment open, I saw an empty room with takeout menus for the Wok ’n’ Roll and the Indian buffet scattered over the floor. The windows had no curtains and the sink had no dirty dishes. There was a mattress left behind in her bedroom, but it had no sheets.
It was like a home abandoned before the floodgates opened and the water came spilling in. She’d gone away and wasn’t coming back. She’d gone away, and she didn’t tell me where to find her.
I saw the few things she must have forgotten: an orange zip-up sweater bunched up on a hook behind a door; a toe ring in the sink drain; a book of matches blotted with the dark pressed smudge of her lips, one full row of matches left to burn.
Dusky impressions on the carpet showed where her furniture had been. This here a table, that there a couch. The air was stale, unbreathed. The refrigerator had been pulled from the wall, fat black cord dangling. Inside the fridge was a perfectly preserved plum, petrified around the marks of her teeth to show where she’d taken one small bite, then let the plum be, like it might get sweeter in a day or two. She often sampled fruit this way, even in the supermarket.
“Ruby?” I called out. Her name echoed through the empty apartment, bouncing back at me from the ceiling, and when I looked up, I saw her scrawl:
Ruby
Like anyone could forget she’d once lived here.
That’s when I heard the screech of tires outside. A car had come to a sharp stop in the parking lot below. I stepped to the edge of the second-floor walkway outside Ruby’s apartment, my heart beating fast, but the car wasn’t an old rusted Buick on its last legs; it wasn’t even white and she wasn’t in it. Then I recognized the person lurching out of the driver’s side door bellowing my name.
The guy was one of Ruby’s ex-boyfriends, and there were many. This one, Pete, had shaggy hair, a scraggly chin, and wore a pitted Pixies T-shirt so old I could see through to the sweat shining on his skin. Years ago, Ruby had dumped him as she’d dumped all the others, but he never did seem to get the hint and go away.
“She said to look for you here if you weren’t on the Green,” he was saying. “She said to drop you at the party and she’ll meet you there.”
“Ruby sent you?” Still, I started down the stairs.
“Thanks,” he said once I reached him, “thanks a lot.”