STROPHE, Chapter L: Prayer
Wednesday, May 16, 2002
The small red box Tsunami carried seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. Inside it was something he thought would be a symbol of his willingness to let go of the past and move forward with his life.
Ruby was a good girlfriend, on the most basic level. She was there for him. She could talk to him pleasantly. She was pretty. She was a good kisser. They had similar interests. She was the head cheerleader and he was the quarterback, a match made in high school heaven. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.
She came up to him in the main hallway of Anima High and wrapped her arms around his neck. He buried his face in her hair. She was wearing too much strawberry perfume, and the sweetness of the odor choked him. He backed away from her and coughed into the inside of his elbow.
“You sick?” Ruby asked. She pulled away from him, almost bouncing in place as she looked around the hall, waving to various friends. Her attention was not really fixed on him. Irene would have been rapt, fascinated.
“Nope. Something tickled my throat,” he said. His hand closed around the red box in his pocket. He got ready to slide it out. For some reason, he was more nervous about it than he thought he should be. This was Ruby, for goodness sake. It wasn’t like he had to impress her. She was already impressed by him as it was.
“Hi, Sandra!” Ruby chirped in the fake-happy tone she always used around Sandra, who was approaching.
Sandra grunted and mumbled, “Excuse me, Tsunami.” He stared at her for a few seconds, then realized he was standing right in front of her locker. 38D.
“Sorry,” he said and sidestepped out of the way. Ruby grabbed his arm. “Weren’t you about to say something to me?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah. But can we go someplace else?” he asked, glancing at Sandra out of the corner of his eye. She was digging through the mess in her locker, seemingly oblivious to anything going on around her.
“Why?” Ruby asked. “I don’t see any reason to.” She flung her arms out wide, as if to embrace the entire school and all its occupants and bring them all in on whatever secret was about to be revealed. The sleeve of her floppy blouse fell down from her shoulder, revealing a pink bra strap.
“I’m serious, Ruby. It’s important,” Tsunami said. He took her arm and tried to steer her down the hall, long enough to get away from Sandra.
A loud slam made him jump. Sandra had shut her locker in obvious frustration. Several papers flew out with the force of the slam and skidded down the hall like dry fall leaves. She bent to pick them up, just when Opal came around the corner with Lyger at her side. The two of them held hands.
Too many people. I should do this another time, but no. I need to get it over with. They need to know I’ve moved on. That I’m through living in the past.
“Hey, Nami,” Lyger said. He gave a salute and grinned. Opal didn’t meet Tsunami’s eyes. She knelt to the floor and helped Sandra pick up her scattered papers.
“What’s up, Lyger?” Tsunami asked.
Ruby bounced up and hugged Lyger, then Opal, then returned to Tsunami’s side. “Come on, babe. Tell me what you were going to tell me.”
Get it over with. It’s official. You’ve moved on, Tsunami told himself. He slid the red box from his pocket. “I bought you a present, babe.”
Avarice lit Ruby’s eyes. She was a girl who liked to be spoiled. Tsunami remembered that all Ruby’s previous boyfriends had felt pressured to lavish her with gifts and attention, and once they stopped giving and Ruby stopped getting, she broke up with them. He wondered why that had never occurred to him before.
Tsunami handed her the red box anyway. Opal and Lyger stood against the lockers, whispering together. As always, they looked absorbed in each other. The dynamic duo. Sandra shoved her papers into her bag, a scowl of anger on her reddened face. Why isn’t she walking away?
Ruby opened the box and squealed in excitement as she lifted out a genuine ruby necklace on a gold chain. “Ooh, a ruby! No one’s ever given me a real ruby before! And you think they would have, what with it being my name and all! Ooh! Thanks, Nami!” She leaped into his arms with such force that he had to actually catch her and right himself against a locker at the same time to keep from falling down. She pressed her lips against his in a loud kiss.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“Hey, you guys!” Ruby bragged as she put the necklace on. “We’re official now!”
“I’m happy for you,” Lyger said with a slight smile. Opal said nothing. Her hand was at her mouth. She was looking at Sandra, whose face was more red than it had been after one of her bouts of drinking.
“You’re a fake little bitch,” Sandra burst out, stepping up to Ruby. “You know you only want Tsunami so you can get into his pants. And so he can buy you shit. You know it. So admit it. Admit you’re fake.” She pointed an accusing finger at Ruby.
The hall grew silent. Opal’s hands reached toward Sandra as if she could grab the words she had just said and throw them away, but it was too late. The empty gesture reminded Tsunami of how Sandra had reached for Irene on that night.
Ruby’s shrill giggle echoed off the lockers. “That’s what you think, but what do you know? Nothing. You can’t keep yourself away from the bottle long enough to think straight.”
Sandra seemed to shrink into herself before springing at Ruby, but Opal took her by the arm and pulled her back.
“Let me go,” Sandra panted. “This fucking bitch—and you!” She turned toward Tsunami, her eyes fiery, the blush on her face reaching all the way down to her collarbone. “What the hell is wrong with you? How could you be so stupid? I thought—” Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but her anger seemed too great for further words.
“Get over yourself, Sandy,” Ruby said, tossing her hair and laughing again. “I always knew you were jealous. I just never knew you were that psychotic about it.” She turned to Tsunami, sliding her arm into his. “Let’s go, baby.” The change from babe signified their new relationship. Tsunami remembered Ruby whining the word to her previous boyfriends, drawing out the E sound. Bab-ee!
He didn’t move. He was too busy watching the splotchy blush move down Sandra’s neck and at the hatred written all over her face. He jerked his arm out of Ruby’s and stalked away. Over his head, the bell rang, but he ignored it.
He stomped out of the building and ran all the way down the length of the parking lot to his truck, opened the door, and slammed himself inside so hard that the truck rocked back and forth for a frightening moment.
Still hanging from the stalk of the rearview mirror was the locket he had given to Irene. It swung back and forth, the motion irritating him. He clenched a fist around it, ready to tear it down, then he remembered how Irene had ripped it from around her neck on the night before she died. A sudden sob racked his body, and his shoulders shook so hard it hurt.
Instead of taking the locket down, he opened it and saw the picture of himself and Irene inside. It was the first time he had looked at a picture of her since she passed away, and seeing her made him feel almost dizzy. I’ll never get over this. I can’t. Not when it was my fault. It’s all fake. Sandra knows it. Lyger and Opal know it. Hell, even Ruby knows it, but she’s being oblivious. But I can’t keep moping around.
He tried to bring himself to take the necklace down, but every time he tried to touch it or even close the locket, something in him told him to stop. Tsunami rested his head on the steering wheel, trying to get a grip on himself.
Tears still came. He looked out the windshield of his truck, out to the bright blue sky outside, and wondered if there was indeed a god out there who was watching him, maybe laughing at every stupid mistake he made. Was Irene with that same god now? Or was she somewhere in hell? Opal and Lyger, who had been raised Catholic, had said something about souls going to a place called purgatory, which sounded to Tsunami like a middle ground, a boring abyss of nothingness between the two extremes. What kind of god would let Irene’s soul stay in a place like that?
If you’re up there, if you really exist, if she’s up there with you, will you tell her I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
It was the first genuine prayer he had said in ages, probably since he was a small child. At Irene’s funeral, the words to any prayer he might have said would not come. Now they did. He just hoped some entity up there was listening.
Tsunami shut his eyes. When he shut them, he could still see the afterimage of the locket hanging open. He could still see Irene smiling at him.
Return to Chapter XLIX | Read ANTISTROPHE, Part I, Chapter I
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