Lock and Key(59)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Don’t I know it,” I said, remembering my mom with her clipboard, on so many front stoops. “My mom used to say that.”

“Empathy works,” Olivia replied. “And it’s not like she’s wrong. I mean, it is expensive. But we make the bulk of our money on concessions, and she’s sneaking in food for all those rug rats. So it all comes out even, really.”

I looked over my shoulder back into the lobby, where the woman was now leading her brood to a theater. “You think? ”

“Did you see that purse? Please.” She reached over, taking a piece of popcorn from my bag, which I hadn’t even touched. Apparently she’d noticed, next saying, “What? Too much butter?”

I shook my head, looking down at it. “No, it’s fine.”

“I was about to say. Don’t get picky on me now.”

The minivans were deboarding now, people emptying car seats and sliding open back doors. Olivia sighed, checking her watch. “I didn’t really come here for the popcorn,” I said. “I wanted . . . I just wanted to thank you.”

“You already did,” she said.

“No,” I corrected her, “I tried—twice—but you wouldn’t let me. Which, frankly, I just don’t understand.”

She reached for the popcorn again, taking out a handful. “Honestly,” she said as another pack of parents and kids approached, “it’s not that complicated. You did something for me, I did something for you. We’re even. Let it go already.”

This was easier said than done, though, something I considered as she sold a bunch of tickets, endured more kvetching about the prices, and directed one woman with a very unhappy toddler in the direction of the bathroom. By the time things had calmed down, fifteen minutes had passed, and I’d worked my way halfway through the popcorn bag.

“Look,” I said, “all I’m saying is that I just . . . I want you to know I’m not like that.”

“Like what? ” she said, arranging some bills in the register.

“Like someone who ditches school to get drunk. I was just having a really bad day, and—”

“Ruby.” Her voice was sharp, getting my attention. “You don’t have to explain, okay? I get it.”

“You do?”

“Switching schools totally sucked for me,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “I missed everything about my life at Jackson. I still do—so much so that even now, after a year, I haven’t really bothered to get settled at Perkins. I don’t even have any friends there.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” she said. “You have Nate Cross.”

“We’re not really friends,” I told her.

She raised her eyebrows. “The boy drove fifteen miles to pick you up out of the woods.”

“Only because you told him to,” I said.

“No,” she said pointedly. “All I did was let him know where you were.”

“Same thing.”

“Actually, it isn’t,” she said, reaching over and taking another piece of popcorn. “There’s a big difference between information and action. I gave him the facts, mostly because I felt responsible about leaving you there with that loser in the first place. But going there? That was all him. So I hope you were sufficiently grateful.”

“I wasn’t,” I said quietly.

“No?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Well . . .” she said, drawing the word out. “Why not?”

I looked down at my popcorn, already feeling that butter-and-salt hangover beginning to hit. “I’m not very good at accepting help,” I said. “It’s an issue.”

“I can understand that,” she said.

“Yeah? ”

She shrugged. “It’s not the easiest thing for me, either, especially when I think I don’t need it.”

“Exactly.”

“But,” she continued, not letting me off the hook, “you were passed out in the woods. I mean, you clearly needed help, so you’re lucky he realized it, even if you didn’t.”

There was a big crowd approaching now, lots of kids and parents. We could see them coming at us from across the parking lot like a wide, very disorganized wave.

“I want to try to make it up to him,” I said to Olivia. “To change, you know? But it’s not so easy to do.”

“Yeah,” she said, taking another handful of popcorn and tossing it into her mouth as the crowd closed in. “Don’t I know it.”

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise. For some people, it’s love. Others, money or alcohol. Mine was even worse: calculus.

I was convinced it was the reason I would not go to college. Not my checkered background, or that I was getting my applications together months after everyone else, or even the fact that up until recently, I hadn’t even been sure I wanted to go at all. Instead, in my mind, it would all come down to one class and its respective rules and theorems, dragging down my GPA and me with it.

I always started studying with the best of intentions, telling myself that today just might be the day it all fell into place, and everything would be different. More often than not, though, after a couple of pages of practice problems, I’d find myself spiraling into an all-out depression. When it was really bad, I’d put my head down on my book and contemplate alternate options for my future.

“Whoa,” I heard a voice say. It was muffled slightly by my hair, and my arm, which I locked around my head in an effort to keep my brain from seeping out. “You okay?”

I lifted myself up, expecting to see Jamie. Instead, it was Nate, standing in the kitchen doorway, a stack of dry-cleaning over one shoulder. Roscoe was at his feet, sniffing excitedly.

“No,” I told him as he turned and walked out to the foyer, opening the closet there. With Jamie hard at work on the new ad campaign, and Cora backlogged in cases, they’d been outsourcing more and more of their errands to Rest Assured, although this Saturday morning was the first time Nate had shown up when I was home. Now I heard some banging around as he hung up the cleaning. “I was just thinking about my future.”

“That bad, huh?” he said, crouching down to pet Roscoe, who leaped up, licking his face.

“Only if I fail calculus,” I said. “Which seems increasingly likely.”