under the cool side of my pillowcase, I would feel a little worse again. I was always surprised when I felt better, and I was always surprised when it didn’t last.
When I heard the door to my mom’s room close upstairs, I ripped open the letter from my dad. I unfolded the standard sheet of loose-leaf paper and found sixty dollars, which I slipped between my phone and its case.
In my dad’s all-caps handwritten scrawl, the letter, which was really more of a note, read:
HEY QUINNIE [ugh],
I’M WAITING FOR THE PEST CONTROL GUY TO COME TO MY APT. MOTHS ARE BACK IN FULL FORCE—YESTERDAY WHEN I WENT TO MAKE OATMEAL I FOUND THREE MIXED IN WITH THE OATS. PRETTY SICK. THE GUY SAID I CAN’T BE HERE WHEN HE SPRAYS SO I THOUGHT I MIGHT HEAD TO RUDY’S FOR A PANCAKE. NOT AS GOOD AS MANTEQUILLA BUT THEY’RE ALL RIGHT. SPEAKING OF—WAS THINKING I MIGHT COME TO TOWN IN A FEW WEEKS TO VISIT A COUPLE FRIENDS. MAYBE WE CAN DO SUNDAY BREAKFAST. PEST GUY’S HERE SO MORE LATER.
LOVE,
DAD
I had to laugh. My dad always wrote his letters to me mid-errand, or under some arbitrary time constraint, as if he couldn’t just stop writing partway through and return to it later, without my ever knowing he’d paused. It made his letters feel like dispatches, like he was away at sea, when really he was home in Durham with, as far as I knew, a working phone. But I didn’t mind. Letters felt old-fashioned and meaningful. Even the ones that were mostly about moths. They might not have been the most efficient way to communicate, but they did give me something to keep.
And then there was his super-casual suggestion of breakfast, as if we had seen each other more recently than a year and ten months ago (not that I was keeping track). My dad was terrified of flying, though in his words he just really, really hated it. I wondered if he was planning to drive all the way from North Carolina like last time, and if not, which friends were worth getting on an airplane for.
I sent him a text: Got your letter. Thanks for the $. Let me know when you have dates for your trip. Love you too.
* * *
—
I sat on my Triple Moon news for a few days, trying to decide how to deliver it. A text would be easier, for several reasons: one, I wouldn’t be face to face with Ruby, who seemed to get prettier and prettier every time I saw her, even though you’d think that sort of thing would have a ceiling; two, I could fine-tune my wording, thereby avoiding the possibility of sounding like an awkward freak; three, by texting her, I would set a precedent for texting as a thing we did, and maybe eventually we would text about something other than venues for her band.
But one day, at the end of Civil Liberties, just after Jamie had booked it out of the classroom, waving goodbye over her shoulder, I saw Ruby pause in the hallway to look at her phone, and I found myself walking—no, gliding—over to her, and saying her name.
She looked up, and smiled.
“Hey, Quinn,” she said.
“Hey, um,” I said. In my defense, I had not been prepared for her to greet me by name. On top of the smiling it was just too much.
“Hi…”
“Yeah, so, you know that coffee shop I told you about? I told the owners about you and they’d love to have you guys come do a show,” I said. “Or, multiple shows, I think.”
“Really?” She grabbed my arm. “That was so nice of you.”
Keep it together! I screamed in my head. Ignore the electricity coursing into your shoulders!
“Ah, well,” I said. “I’m glad they went for it.”
“Should I email…someone? Should I stop by to meet them?”
Until then, my plan, insofar as I had one, had been to simply send her Gaby’s calendar, and mediate