That’s what it sounded like.
14. Noel (but it was just a rumor.)
My mom decided to go on tour with her one-woman show.1 The producer said she could still book it, even though the Seattle run had ended in October, so
“You can’t leave Roo.”
“Oh, she’s a big girl.”
“She’s a
“Dad, I’m standing right here.”
“Will you miss me, Roo?” asked my mom.
“She will!” cried my dad. “Even if she won’t admit it.”
“Not that much,” I said. “You should go.”
“She can come with me, Kevin. After finals.”
There was no way I was spending the summer watching
“Elaine.”
“Kevin.”
“Elaine.”
“What? It’ll be good for her. She’s never been anywhere except summer camp.”
“Didn’t we go over this before?” sighed my dad. “We decided you wouldn’t go on tour unless I could go with you, and Roo could stay with Grandma Suzette.” (Grandma Suzette, my father’s mother, lives nearby. But she was scheduled for foot surgery, so I couldn’t stay with her.)
“I changed my mind,” snapped my mom. “I refuse to stay here and watch you greenhouse every weekend when gay men all across the nation are clamoring to see my show. They even have Elaine Oliver T-shirts in San Francisco; some fans sent me a photograph.”
“That was three years ago.”
“Which is why it’s time to go back.”
“Dad,” I whispered, loud enough for Mom to hear. “When she’s gone, we can eat anything we want.”
“Two months is a long time,” he said. “Let me think about it.”
“It’s done,” snapped my mother. “Ricki booked it yesterday.”
My dad stormed out and spent the rest of the evening hammering away on the greenhouse.
I had no interest in going on tour with my mother. Zero. None. To my way of thinking, it would be a complete waste; she’d be yapping in my ear all the time, feeding me tofu, demanding that I bond with her and never listening to a word I say. I’d have to see her show every night, and have theater managers pinch my cheeks and say, “Oh, Ruby! I’ve heard all about you. It seems like only yesterday your mother was doing that bit about your first menstrual period!” We’d sit in hotel rooms, night after night, watching television, when we could be sitting on the dock in the warm air. I’d miss swimming in the lake, and biking across town, and Meghan had said something about taking me out in her family’s motorboat. I’d miss the painting class I’d signed up for. I’d even miss seeing my father’s garden bloom, and the bumblebees that practically surround our houseboat every summer.
But then, one afternoon, I was coming out of Mr. Wallace’s office after meeting with him about my final H&P paper. I had stopped in the hallway to put my stuff in my backpack, and a voice I recognized said, “Ruby Oliver. Long time.”
It was Gideon Van Deusen. Him with his lovely hairy eyebrows. Back from his cross-country tour.
He was wearing a peace sign T-shirt and a beaded belt. Sunglasses. His hair was longer than last time I’d seen him. He sat down on the bench next to me. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“What, no ‘Nice to see you, Gideon’? No, ‘How you been, Gideon?’ Just ‘What are you doing here?’ That’s no kind of greeting.”
“Oh. Um. Sorry, I—” How could I be such a jerk?
“I’m teasing you, Ruby,” he said, laughing. “I need an extra recommendation for Evergreen from Mr. Wallace. There’s this advanced-level history class I want to take and they’re making me get one.”
“When did you get back?”
“Last week. Didn’t Nora tell you?”
I looked down at the floor.
“Or are you two still in a snit?” Gideon smiled.
“Me and almost everyone, actually.”
“She wrote me something like that in an e-mail. But Nora misses you. I know she does.”
“I doubt it.”
“She didn’t say anything directly,” Gideon admitted. “She’s just home a lot, lounging around. Messing with her
