I nod, relieved. Ringo too seems to collect himself. He takes a deep breath and puts his hands on both my shoulders. He lowers his head to look straight into my eyes. “Just…wait here, all right?” He tilts his chin to gesture at the couch next to his mom. “Five minutes. Promise. I just…I need to put some shoes on and—” He pinches the flimsy white undershirt he’s wearing. I blush. “Get dressed.” Then he mouths “Five” and holds up one hand, fingers spread wide while he backs away. “Promise!” he calls as he disappears down a dark hallway.
I swallow, uneasy, then sink carefully down onto the sofa cushion next to Ringo’s mother, worried that in my attempt to escape one suffocating atmosphere, I might have jumped right into another.
“Hi,” I say. “Your, um, apartment, it’s lovely.” Not a word. Ringo’s mother has a pooch of fat above the waistline of her pants on which crumbs have gathered, giving the impression that she doesn’t move from here often, but she is quite pretty, her face smooth, with high-arched eyebrows and dark eyes. “Have you lived here long?”
She unwraps the plastic from a Twinkie and stuffs one end of it into her mouth. “I can’t hear my soaps,” she says. A few cake morsels fall into her lap, where she leaves them.
My jaw clamps closed. I don’t even dare utter the words of an apology. Instead, I resort to the coping mechanism of awkward people everywhere and pull my phone out from my pocket.
Up until now, I’ve been too scared to check ChatterJaw, an app that lets kids in a particular social circle post anonymously. I usually check into our school’s ChatterJaw at least once a day, more during the school year, when I feel like idly checking out whatever gossip is sweeping St. Theresa’s or if I’ve forgotten the night’s assignments for a particular class that I don’t share with Will or Penny.
But for the past week, I’ve been consciously avoiding the application because, well, I already know what the gossip of the day will be. I haven’t been immune to the pull of seeing it firsthand, though. So, maybe just a peek now. While I won’t have time to think about it. Perhaps it won’t hurt. Much.
I click on the icon and wait while the loading spiral swirls and swirls. I sneak a look at Ringo’s mom. She’s taken another bite of her Twinkie and set it down in favor of the giant soda cup.
The app loads. My fingers are sweaty with anticipation. I don’t have to scroll to find evidence that news of our car accident has reached the St. Theresa’s crowd. The thread R.I.P. Will Bryan & Penny Hightower has been upvoted 137 times, so it appears at the top. I tap the thread and the screen populates with dozens of anonymous messages. I scan through a few:
Only the good die young
Will and Penny, your lives were taken too soon. I will see you in every butterfly, every springtime flower, every rainbow. Rest in Peace
Really makes you appreciate the small things…
Be real, guys, they thought they were better than everyone else
Ass
Has anyone talked to Lake?
I heard she was in the car too. She’s not listed as a fatality so…there’s that
The messages are basically what I’d expect—some that wax poetic, others that are mean, plenty that are just curious. I wish I could stop there, because I can handle those messages, but it’s the next thread that grabs me by the throat and strangles the air out of me.
Virtual Bookie: Over/under—who will Lake choose?
“Damn,” I mutter.
“Hush,” Ringo’s mom snaps and I shrink closer to the armrest on my side of the couch.
The first message in the thread is:
Lake turns 18 this month. Who wants to take bets on her resurrection choice. Serious takers only. We’ll go private to exchange the $$
“Going private” refers to the private-message feature through which ChatterJaw members can send each other messages only visible to a single other member in their social circle.
Despite my conscience screaming at me not to, I read the messages that follow:
Will—$20
Will—$45
Will—$15
Will—$155
You guys are crazy. #Teampenny all the way! Penny—$40 #hoesbeforebros
Will—$60 #teamwill
Penny—$120 #teampenny
Lake’s not resurrecting Will. No way. Haven’t you checked out the Spilled thread? #Doyourresearchbitches #troubleinparadise #teampenny $200
I read the last message again. What is the poster talking about? “Trouble in paradise?” What “research”?
“You ready?”
I jump and jam my finger into the lock button on my phone. My screen goes instantly dark. “Huh?”
Ringo is standing in front of me, dressed in a pair of gray shorts and a navy polo. “Keys, phone, wallet.” He touches his pockets. “Yep, good to go.”
I realize I’m meeting him with only a dumb stare. I’d nearly forgotten where I was. He looks at me quizzically, the stained patch of his face wrinkling. “Um, yeah, yeah—” I shudder, shaking the cruel messages away as best I can. “Where are we going?”
“Coffee shop. Down the street. We can walk.” He says this like he knows it will be a relief.
He offers me his hand and pulls me out of the crater I leave on the flimsy sofa cushion.
“Nice to meet you,” I call to Ringo’s mother before I hurry after him, out of the cramped apartment. Ringo’s walking quickly and I have to trot to catch up. He’s leading me across the vast parking spaces and back through the white iron gates. “I…thought you said your mom was a professor?” I ask in my best innocent voice.
When we’re out of the gates, Ringo’s pace slows and he adopts the easy, relaxed posture that I admired when we last met. “Was,” he says. “She’s retired.” He puts that in air quotes.
“Are you two in some sort of argument?” I think of my own family, where we’re literally battling over promises of life and death, but it’s still not as awkward as it was between Ringo and his mom.
“We had a falling out. About a year ago, give or take,” he says.
“It’s been like that for a year?”
We walk along the steaming road in the direction of a strip mall, which is drawing nearer by the second.
“Pretty much.”
“Oh.” Ringo seems like he’s finished talking about his mother. Our steps fall in sync and we walk along the road in silence.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” he says. “I like to keep my worlds separate. At home and, well, basically everything else.”
“Me too,” I say, and mean it.
“Your life is cosmically unfair,” he says, and I catch him looking sidelong at me with a crooked smirk creeping the curve of his mouth up. “Total balls.”