I went into the house, but I didn’t ask my dad. He was mumbling something about his mother into a dried-out peony plant. What I did was call Noel.
He hadn’t called me that day, or the day before. I hadn’t seen him since Thursday night.
The cell went to voice mail.
I tried again.
Again voice mail.
The third time I left a message. “Hey, it’s Ruby. You want to go get ice cream with me tonight? I have a craving for Mix. Maybe coffee with Heath bar and chocolate chips. Call me right now if you can go.”
Then I sat on my bed and waited for him to call me back.
And waited.
And he didn’t call.
I don’t know why I was surprised.
I put on a bathing suit. The Speedo my parents got me for team practice, nothing cute.
And still, I sat on my bed.
And still, the phone didn’t ring.
I put on a cotton vintage skirt and a T-shirt. Flip-flops.
I grabbed a towel.
I looked at the phone.
Noel was my boyfriend. But he wasn’t my real live boyfriend anymore.
Fine.
The water was insanely cold, and it took me five tries to get up on the wakeboard. When I did, my legs felt like jelly and the sun was in my eyes—but I was up, and light was glinting on the water, and I was cutting in and back across the wake of the boat, and I was laughing and screaming both together and it was just gorgeous. The universe seemed golden for a minute.
Then I was over my head in the bitter water, and Gideon was steering the boat around to pick me up, and he was laughing. “Don’t stick your butt out! The moment you stick your butt out it’s over.”
He reached his tan arm down and I grabbed it and he hauled me up onto the boat. “You wanna go again?”
I nodded.
So I went again.
And again.
And then it was a long time before I fell.
I drove for a while, and Gideon attempted numerous tricks, many of which failed. He was trying to get airborne, but most of the time he just crashed into the water, laughing. When he got tired, we floated for a while. I was cold and he gave me his fleece hoodie to wear. We drank Cokes from a cooler and ate these weird organic cheese puffs Gideon brought.
I thought, and not for the first time, that Gideon would make an excellent boyfriend. As I watched him driving the motorboat back toward my dock, I said to myself:
This is Gideon, whom I loved in sixth grade. This is Gideon, who doesn’t live in the Tate Universe. This is Gideon, who traveled the world for a year after high school.
This is Gideon, who plays guitar. This is Gideon, whose leg touched mine all through the movie that time. This is Gideon, who listens to what I say.
This is Gideon, straightforward and normal.
This is Gideon, who said I should call him if I didn’t have a boyfriend.
“Thanks for the waketastic adventure,” I told him.
He looked down at me. “You’re …”
“What?”
Gideon shook his head. “Different from most of Nora’s friends, that’s all.”
More deranged, I thought. “I’m not sure we’re exactly friends anymore.” Nora had been on Decatur Island with her parents since a week after the funeral, so I hadn’t seen her. I wasn’t sure what the status was.
“She said you guys made up.”
“She did?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess we did,” I said.
Gideon ate a cheese puff. “Cricket and Kim and that new one, Katarina what’shername—”
“Dolgen.”
