“Maybe you shouldn’t come. I feel really sick. I might be contagious. I have, um . . .” I cringed. I couldn’t say it. I had to say it. It was for the greater good. I could not have Beth and Ruby meeting. My whole carefully balanced system of rules and boundaries was going to come crashing down if I didn’t do something drastic. Even if it meant totally mortifying myself. “I have diarrhea,” I squeaked into the phone.

“And it’s making you cough?” The sympathy was gone, replaced by a healthy dose of skepticism.

The doorbell rang. I held my breath, hoping Ruby wouldn’t hear it.

“Get that door, will you?” Dad yelled like that absolute moron that he was. “I keep meaning to give Beth a key, but we’re moving so soon.”

“Oh . . . yeah, sort of. I have a sore throat too. I’m in bed. I feel terrible,” I whispered into the phone.

Distracted, I opened the door with the phone cradled between my shoulder and my jaw. Sure enough, Beth was standing there with a bottle of wine.

Right next to her was Ruby.

She was wearing a paisley knee-length dress, dozens of strings of beads wrapped around her neck, and a look I hadn’t seen before but was the much angrier cousin of the one I’d seen flash across her face that day at the drive-in when I’d snapped at her.

Dad appeared and spread his arms and his smile wide.

“Ruby! I’ve been dying to meet you.”

She shifted her features into a smile and gave my dad a bunch of poofy pink flowers she was holding. Beth looked nervously between me and Ruby. Dad had no idea what was going on. My heart thumped so hard I thought it would escape. There was a distinct possibility that I would throw up right now. That wouldn’t hurt actually. I could actually get away with my lie about being sick then.

“These are from my aunt’s garden. I was going to steal one of her bottles of wine, but I didn’t know if you’d be mad about that seeing as Saoirse’s only seventeen. Didn’t want you thinking I was a bad influence.” Ruby said all this so jovially I wondered if she might not be too mad.

“Oh, I know Saoirse better than that. Thank you, Ruby,” Dad said.

“Let’s go find a vase,” Beth said, glancing at me before gripping Dad by the elbow and steering him into the kitchen. Beth had obviously heard my phone call. How long had she been out there with Ruby? What might she have said?

“You’re early,” I said, offering a tentative half smile like it was all a silly misunderstanding.

“How rude of me,” she replied. She did not smile back. Nope, definitely mad.

Silence fell like a curtain between us.