Kathleen Hale - No One Else Can Have You

Anyway, people were always getting Ruth’s name wrong, calling her Ruth Fried, like a fried egg. “Do you think it would help if I put some of those pronunciation symbols next to my name in the yearbook?” she asked me once. “I’m yearbook vice president, so I could probably totally do that—Wait, sorry, does it sound like I’m bragging?”

“I think you’re very conservative with your power,” I told her honestly.

I thought pronunciation symbols were an awesome idea. But none of the other people on the yearbook knew what pronunciation symbols were, and didn’t think anyone else would, either, so they wouldn’t vote yes on it.

Certain memories of her like that keep playing on repeat in my head, but others I can’t even find. Unless I sit down and look through the yearbook, I can only recall her face at certain angles, like her profile in the passenger seat of my car. There’s one other recollection that won’t quit popping up, though, who knows why: how when we were little—maybe eight or nine—we saw this thing on TV about street performance, and afterward we decided to make some money by dancing at the end of Ruth’s driveway. We didn’t realize that it was different in a city, and that no one would slow down on a rural highway to put change in our hat. We must have stood there twirling crazily for an hour before Mr. Fried came out and asked what we were doing.

Ruth was the only person I ever knew who wanted to be somewhere else as much as I did. The only one who got what I meant when I said, “Friendship as in you and me is great, but Friendship, Wisconsin, sometimes feels like a bad dream that’s too boring to be called a nightmare.”

In a place where no one else seemed to understand anything except how to gut a buck and go to church and be over-the-top nice without ever really bonding, Ruth and I made each other feel less lonely.

But that’s not the sort of thing I should write in my eulogy. Especially when everyone I’m talking to will be from the town I’m badmouthing.

I can hear Dom rustling around on the other side of the door. “Honey, Mrs. Fried’s on her way over,” he shouts pleasantly. “Finish up in there and let’s skedaddle.”

“Finish up what?” I call, wiping back tears. I want to hear Dom, who’s a trained psychologist, try to describe what exactly I’m doing in here. The way he talks, you’d think I was constipated or something.

“Sweetie, she’ll be here any minute, she’s imminent,” he pleads, and his voice is muffled in that way where I know his ear is probably pressed against the door. “It’s time to pull yourself together in bits and bobs and change out of those pajamas, okay?”

I roll my eyes. “Fine, but you have to promise you won’t make her do a trust fall or something.” Dom works as a counselor at the middle school, and is prone to some pretty touchy-feely suggestions in times of crisis.

“All right, Pickle. I promise. Can I get you anything?”

I want Ruth. As soon as I think of her, it’s like there’s a bird trapped in my chest—a vulture clawing my lungs and reaching its beak into my throat.

I can’t remember if it was like this the last time someone died on me. For some reason I didn’t expect it to physically hurt. But the pain is enough to make me want to call 911 and be like, “Listen, I have an emergency: Is this a broken heart or a heart attack?”

“I’m fine,” I say.

Ruth already got buried because of Jewish tradition. But the memorial service is tonight and Mrs. Fried is stopping by beforehand for some reason. I have no idea what she wants.

She and Dom must have spoken because she never called me. I haven’t heard from her since she texted me asking if I’d write Ruth’s eulogy. I wrote back right away saying that of course I’d do it—not thinking about how hard it might be to actually start. Now I’m supposed to address an entire crowd in just a few hours, and I haven’t written down a single thing. I keep trying and none of it is good enough.

I mean, Ruth was beautiful in a way that made you want to touch her face—she had dark, thick, curly hair, and nice skin, and big brown eyes—but that wasn’t who she was. Ruth Fried was easily annoyed by fakeness and she wasn’t afraid of feelings. She was the only person I’ve ever met who could make me feel better about losing control—encouraged it, even.

“That’s it, Kippy Bushman, get riled!” she’d say.

Or if I was all frazzled, about to cry because I wanted so badly to do well and not everything was perfect, she’d elbow me gently and say, “Listen, I think you just feel things more deeply than most people.” She could make me feel okay about basically anything.

I read in one of Dom’s psychobabble books that they can’t diagnose anyone under the age of eighteen with a mood disorder, because apparently teenagers are so selfish that no matter what it will seem like they’ve got one. And I understand that now because no matter how hard I try to write a eulogy for Ruth, I can’t come up with anything that is just about her, and not about how much I miss her.

Mrs. Fried walks in wearing all black and carrying a shoe box, and I’m so shocked at the sight of her that I start looking around the room to distract myself. Stressing about what Dom has done to our motel room is somehow easier than taking in Mrs. Fried’s unwashed hair and shaking hands.

Basically Dom covered the bedroom mirror with a bunch of towels and put a T-shirt over the one in the bathroom “just in case.” He’d read somewhere that Jewish people do that when someone dies. I didn’t know much about it, but I figured he was bastardizing some tradition, and tried to coax him out of it by telling him he was being totally weird and embarrassing, which, per usual, did nothing to stop him.

“It’s called sitting shiva,” he told me. “That’s what Mrs. Fried is doing at her house and I feel like it’s only respectful that we recognize her family’s customs.”

“Just because she’s sitting shiva doesn’t mean she has to take shiva with her everywhere,” I begged.

“Oh, Chompers—just simmer, okay?” Dom smiled sadly at me and went back to futzing with the mirror. Dom has lots of names for me: Pickle, Chompers, Cactus. Sometimes if he’s trying to be funny he’ll call me Pimple or Chocolate Butt, which is only okay because I’m acne-free and thin. Not to brag. I mean, things aren’t so great that I’ve ever gotten asked to a dance or anything.

“Well at least don’t use my bra to cover up the corner like that,” I mumbled.

“Maybe don’t leave your bras all over the floor,” he said, and used a sock instead.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because Mrs. Fried doesn’t notice any of it. She shows up clutching a shoebox, her gaze peeled on her hands. But even though she won’t look at me, I can see her eyes are so bruised and burnt from crying it looks like she’s been hit in the face with a baseball bat.

“Dominic Bushman,” she says softly, glancing at Dom. Ruth used to tell me her parents thought it was strange how when we were little everyone else was calling their parents Mommy and Daddy, and I had Dommy. I guess people think it’s weird how I call him by his first name, but it’s not like we’re progressive or anything; like everyone else in Friendship, Dom’s a true conservative. He says it’d be stupid to be from Wisconsin, needing oil the way we do in winter, and not vote Republican. When it gets below zero around Christmas, Dom will go out and start my car a half hour before I actually leave for school, just so that it’s warm when I get in it. According to Dom, Republicans are just trying to stay warm.

“Hiya, Nita Fried,” Dom says, sounding way too cheerful in my opinion. “Welcome, welcome.”