RUTHIE WOKE UP the next morning with a headache so thunderous she knew it was payback. She was now the kind of person who disgraced herself at parties. This was humiliating, but there was something pleasurable about being that person, too.
It had the quality of a dream, the lilac tree, Helen’s ghost face in the dusk, Lucas talking about painting a Peter Clay like it was a joke, a big joke, that’s what it had been, she was sure.
She took three aspirin with a tall glass of water. She opened the refrigerator and hung on the door. Then she sank to the floor.
She heard footsteps behind her. “Mom?”
“Are you talking to me again?”
“Oh. I guess so. Why are you on the floor?”
“Just wondering if we have…a drink thing with caffeine.”
Jem sank to the floor next to her. They leaned together in the refrigerator chill. “Are you okay?”
“Bad day yesterday. Bad worse worst terrible day. But I’m okay,” Ruthie said. “Oh, shit, I lied. I’m not. I was mean to someone who was trying to be nice to me.”
“Daddy?”
“No, not Daddy. Someone I used to know.”
“Well, you know what you always told me when I was a kid.”
“No.”
“If you say ‘I’m sorry’ with sorry in your heart, you’ll be okay.”
“What a sanctimonious ass.”
“What?”
“By the way, I quit yesterday. Or maybe I was fired. I’m still not sure.”
“Quit the Belfry?”
“It was a you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit scenario, I think.”
“But…you love it there. And everyone loves you.”
“Do you know what Mindy said? That I serve at the pleasure of the board. She used the word pleasure. Like she was fucking Queen Elizabeth. I mean, not literally fucking Queen Elizabeth. That’s Philip’s job. I wish I could stop cursing. Shit.”
“But what about Carole? And Helen? And…everyone! They can’t just fire you! It must be a mistake. They’ll ask you back.”
Remembering the lilac tree, Ruthie shook her head. “I think the die is cast.”
“But it will be okay, right? I mean, what are you going to do?”
“It will be okay, sweetie.” Ruthie wiped her nose on the hem of her T-shirt. “I just need some time. And coffee.”
“I’ll make you coffee.”
“You are the best of the best of the best of daughters.”
Jem sprang up. Ruthie shut the refrigerator but stayed on the floor, hugging her knees. Jem found a pod and stuck it in the coffee machine. “What does Daddy say?”
“I haven’t told him yet. He’s, uh. Kind of hard to track down these days.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jem banged down a coffee cup.
“What?” Ruthie leaned back against the fridge. Her head felt as though it was being jackhammered apart.
“Everything this summer is so weird. It’s like this house is a portal and we all walked through. Like we’re trying on being rich, and it just doesn’t fit.”
“I know,” Ruthie said. She had gone back to the main house and left the watch on top of Carole’s dresser. She couldn’t see tossing it into Verity’s box again. Yet it sat there, at the front of her brain, like an obstacle obstructing a clear view.
Next to her on the floor, Jem’s phone dinged. Ruthie glanced at the text hovering on the screen. “What’s the Mayflower thing?”
“What Mayflower thing?”
Ruthie pointed to the text. It was from Saffy.
You are going down. #mayflower
“What does that mean?” Ruthie asked as Jem snatched back the phone. “Are you guys comparing ancestors? Because Duttons didn’t come over on the Mayflower. They probably waited until there were hospitals and distilleries.”
“It’s a stupid nothing thing.”
Jem’s mouth stretched in that way that happened when she was upset.
“What is it, sweetie?” Ruthie struggled to her feet.
Jem banged down a spoon. She turned away, her shoulders shaking.
“Sweetie?” Ruthie reached out to hold Jem while the smell of coffee invaded the kitchen with a promise of something normal to come if they could just get through this moment. And the next. And a few more after that.
Jem was in her arms, her cheek flushed and wet against her. “Okay,” Ruthie said. “You’ve got to tell me whatever it is.”
“They hate me, Mommy. I have no friends.”
She rocked her, her sweet, sweet girl, murder in her heart.
“I mean, I get it, they’re awful, I shouldn’t want to be friends with them.”
“Yeah.”
“But why do I still?” Jem raised her face, teary and red.
“Because you’re buying into their story, maybe. That they’re the coolest. They’re making a reality and you’re in it. What about Annie? Isn’t she your friend?”
“Yeah, she’s been cool. And there’s this new friend…”
“A boy?”
“Sort of.”
“A sort of boy?” she asked, gentle, gentle.
“A summer person. Out of my league.”
“Nothing’s out of your league. Is he nice to you?”
“He makes me laugh.” She shrugged. “It’s not important. It’s just a thing, a flirty thing, at work. He comes by sometimes. It’s just that I miss my own room. It’s like here…it’s beautiful and everything, but I’m afraid to touch anything. It’s not home.”
“You’re right,” Ruthie said. “We’ve got to stick it out this summer. But after this year, no more moving.”
“Really?”
“Just us in our house. All year long.”
“You promise?”
Ruthie set her jaw against the pain in her head. Cue sunset, cue her shaking fist. As God was her witness. “Nobody’s taking our home ever again.”