“Awesome,” Pete said, though as far as he knew it was a pill of lint.
Ruby pulled the fist close to her ribs as if considering keeping whatever it was for herself. But then she smiled.
“All right, Pete. Here you go.”
He opened his mouth and dangled a flabby pink tongue. Ruby, ever so careful not to touch the tongue, dropped the pill onto it and told him to close his mouth. He did, and swallowed. Then he hacked up lung for a minute and swallowed some more.
He was so trusting, so simple when it came to my sister. He’d do whatever she wanted, always had. Pete was the only one here acting like himself.
“Tastes sort of . . . chalky,” he said once he got it down. “What was that?”
“You’ll see,” Ruby chimed out. “Go over there, Petey”—she was pointing at a rusted bulldozer parked away from the fire, so far off that the flickering light barely reached—“put your head back and close your eyes. Wait a while. Think happy thoughts. Open your eyes. Then you’ll see.”
“Sweet,” Pete said, and stumbled off into the dark to follow her instructions.
Ruby sighed. “Sometimes I have to distract him.”
I motioned at the bulldozer. “Think he’ll be all right?”
“Do we care?” Ruby said.
“No,” I admitted. “Not really. But what’d you give him?”
She pulled it out of her tiny pocket: the leftover rind from a roll of foil-wrapped Tums. “For desperate situations,” she said, “and dire emergencies.”
And we laughed, knowing Pete was exiled at the bulldozer, eyes sealed shut, waiting for a thrill ride he wouldn’t get on any antacid. Laughed, seeing the deep night filled with fireflies and fire smoke. Knowing it was our night, and I was back now where I belonged, we laughed and kept laughing.
I didn’t know why I was laughing, but I couldn’t stop.
We laughed at everyone down in the gravel pit. Laughed that the keg was already empty. Laughed at the whole show Ruby had arranged for my first night home. Laughed the way we used to, for no reason and every possible reason, Ruby and me.
It was here that I realized someone else was still with us, and she wasn’t making a sound. London wasn’t laughing or even smiling, but she drifted at the edge of our small circle, like she wanted us to make some room so she could come in.
She was the hot center spot in a lightbulb; when looked at directly, she burned. And even when I turned away, I couldn’t not-see her. She was etched onto the backs of my eyelids, there undeniably if I could face it or not.
Ruby was talking to her, asking if she was tired, asking if she wanted to go home.
And all at once London was yawning, as if on command, lifting a hand to cover her gaping mouth. “What time is it?” she mumbled.
“Late,” Ruby said. “Really, really late.” She said this without checking the time on her cell phone. In reality, I think it was only ten o’clock. It was like she wanted London to leave and, simply by wanting it, she was well on the way to making it occur.
London’s eyes drooped closed. I wondered what would happen if she went to sleep right here, in the gravel at our feet, if she’d ever wake again. Maybe only one of us was dreaming, and the one who got to wake up would see the truth come morning.
“You should go home then,” I told London, my eyes on the toes poking out of her sandals instead of on her face, “if you’re so tired, I mean.”
“I . . . I will.”
The night shut up for a beat. The fire stopped its crackling. The kids beside it stopped talking. The wind stopped spitting up gravel and howling at the trees. You heard ground crunch under your shoes if you couldn’t keep your feet from moving, but other than that you heard nothing. Then, breaking up the absolute stillness, you heard a breath in and a breath out. You heard her.
London, alive and breathing: Ruby’s inexplicable gift to me.