Page 81 of Betting on the Best Friend
“Change of plans,” he continues. “Madison had an emergency, so she tagged me in as the only other person who could truly do justice to our friend, Ruby.”
There’s applause and one feminine shout of, “Yes with that orange sweater, girl!”
I pretend to brush off a sleeve, my face both prissy and coy, earning more laughs. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to make anyone else wish they weren’t either. Four more minutes and Charlie and I can both blow this joint.
“Ruby is . . .” Charlie trails off, looking at the slide. Madison titled it, “Ruby R is Pure Gold,” and posted four pictures around it. One of me doing a story time, one of me chopping vegetables in my parents’ kitchen, one of me in the pastel floral bridesmaid’s dress from my brother Leo’s wedding, and one of me petting a pygmy goat.
Charlie’s forehead furrows, and he advances the slide. She’s done them in ruby red lettering on a pastel blue background, and this one has the word “Smart” centered in a cursive font. On the left, there’s a picture of me in cap and gown and holding my diploma from UT. On the right, a photo I didn’t know she snapped when I was doing my Benoit Blanc-style reveal of my Joey-and-Ava sche—uh, strategizing last year.
“Hold on a minute, friends,” he says. “We’ve got a technical problem.”
He flips through the remaining three slides, which are organized around the wordskind,generous, anddependable.
He looks back at the audience. “Technically, these slides are correct, but they’re incomplete. Gentlemen, here’s what you really need to know in three minutes or less.”
He goes back to the first slide. “Ruby is a librarian.” He pauses for the cheers. You can count on a decent part of any mixed crowd to have big, good feelings about libraries. “When she does story time, she does all the voices, never worries about looking silly, and only cares about the kids having a good experience. She does cook well, but she only wants to be in the kitchen if that’s where her people are, so she can hear about what everyone is up to. She will enjoy their stories and threaten their enemies. Probably with the vegetable knife if she gets too heated on your behalf.”
He points toward the bridesmaid dress photo. “She doesn’t wear pastels unless forced to, like she was for this wedding where she was a bridesmaid but also backed down the bride’soverbearing mother without causing a generational family feud. As for that goat . . .”
He looks at me askance. “I think Madison was trying to paint you as wifey material. All this domestic stuff, plus nice with animals, but I’m telling them the truth about that goat.”
I nod. “Do what you have to do.”
“That goat was a lady-goat humping menace, and Ruby kept him in a corner of that pen the whole time we were in there and told him to behave himself so the girl goats would get a break.”
There are more cheers from the audience.
He flips to the next slide, the one that saysSmart. “Smart is underselling it. That’s from her undergrad, but she also got her master’s in library science while working full time, so add hardworking. Also, if she says she knows a thing, she knows it. Don’t bother arguing with her. It’s not that she has to win. It’s that she’s not going to state anything she doesn’t know for a fact. And she will call you on stuff if you try to bluff. If you’re fragile, move on. She reads a lot. She knows a lot. She’s not a showoff, but she’ll share when she knows something relevant.”
Lots of the women cheer. A couple of the guys squirm, but most of them are smiling or grinning.
Charlie continues through the slides, turning the genteel Southern woman Madison had apparently meant to showcase on those slides into something else. Intome.By the time he’s wrapping up, he’s presented me as a funny, low-key control freak who loves adventure and spontaneity but not chaos, a bookish genius who likes to have a good time, a mischief maker, and a ride-or-die bestie.
But then he gets to the last slide, “dependable,” where one of the pictures Madison included shows me giving Joey a noogie.
He studies it for a second before he says, “Now for the bad news in which I reveal one of Ruby’s deepest secrets.”
“Uh, what? Excuse me,” I call to the moderator, “is there a clause that says they’re not allowed to do that?”
“Nope,” she calls back, and the audience laughs.
“Then lucky for me and all of them, we get to find out about my own deepest secret together, because I wasn’t aware I had one.”
More laughs.
Charlie points to the noogie picture. “That is Ruby with her brother, Joey. He’s the one closest in age to her, but also the youngest of her four older brothers. Four.” He holds up the appropriate number of fingers. “Brothers. Older brothers.” He wiggles them. “So do Ruby wrong and . . .” He turns the finger wiggling into a wave goodbye to more laughter.
“When Ruby tries to tell you that Joey is her least-favorite brother”—he gives me the side eye before saying loudly and straight into the mic—“she’s lying. Big time. He’s her favorite. She even fixed him up with her best friend.”
“Only because I hoped it would make him less annoying,” I say.
Charlie doesn’t even look at me. “Lies. And there you have it, gentlemen. Ruby R., liar, goddess, imp.”
Applause breaks out, and my cheeks are hot. I never want to be pitched again to a room of people as someone to date for as long as I live. But listening to someone who knows you, faults and all, talk about how great you are? That part is pretty good.
I don’t think even Ava sees me more clearly, to be honest, and I smile at Charlie, putting all my thanks into it, as he nods once and touches his hand to his heart.
“Why aren’t you datinghim?” One of the ladies calls.
