"Call me if you need anything."
Ruth gave a slight nod and reached for the slip of paper Wendy held out to her, avoiding eye contact. Her hand closed around empty air.
"Anything." Wendy emphasized, holding the paper out of reach until Ruth looked up at her.
"Okay." She accepted the paper and stuffed it in her pocket, fully intending to throw it out once she got home.
A set of footsteps bounded down the stairs and toward the back door. A flash of blond flew down the hall.
"Charlotte?" Wendy called.
She leaned back into the doorway. "What?"
"Are you going somewhere?"
"Yeah, just out on a friend's boat."
"Where?"
Charlotte rolled her eyes. "The middle of the desert."
"Don't be smart with me." Wendy warned.
"Don't ask dumb questions!" Charlotte mumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"Look, there's just a place on the water where some people hang out. That's all. You can't drag us here and then tell us not to have fun."
"I've heard of party cove."
Ruth wondered if she could slip out unnoticed.
"Cool. Bye."
"Wait. I've also heard about all the drinking and drugs and sex over there."
"So what? You know I don't do that stuff, are you gonna try and tell me I can't go?"
Wendy turned to Ruth. "Ruth."
"Hm?" Ruth snapped back to attention, having spaced out completely.
"Have you been to party cove?"
"No ma'm."
"Well, how would you like to go? Seems you could use to get away from home a little bit, and it sounds like so much fun."
This sounded like a punishment. Especially the way Wendy said it. Did she know about the rigged dock somehow?
"I don't think I can invite friends, Mom. It's not my boat."
"It's worth asking, isn't it? I'm sure Ruth would fit right in with the teenagers." Wendy definitely knew something.
"I run a strip club." Ruth pointed out.
"All the more reason to take a break. Charlotte, she'll meet you outside." Wendy dismissed Charlotte, who looked more frustrated than anything as she pushed through the back door.
Wendy immediately turned to Ruth and assumed a deeper, more serious voice. "Listen to me. I don't know what's going on at home or wherever, and my offer is still open if you need anything. That being said, for whatever reason my husband seems to trust you in helping move money that, if done incorrectly, could very easily and very quickly get me and my children killed. I'm not entirely sure why he trusts you, but I would like to be able to extend that trust as well. All I'm asking is that you make sure Charlotte doesn't get herself drugged or passed out in the water."
"You're asking me to babysit." Ruth folded her arms.
"I am asking, as a mother, that someone make sure we didn't survive all this shit just to lose my daughter to drugs. But I'd also like you to see it as a little break from whatever's going on… here." Wendy gestured to the bruise on Ruth's cheekbone from Russ's backhanded slap last night.
"It's babysitting. And don't act like I'm the charity case here." Ruth brushed past her, following Charlotte out the back door, and resisting the urge to flip her off.
"I appreciate it!" Wendy called after her.
Ruth caught a glimpse of Charlotte being helped into a boat at the end of the dock, and she followed.
"I'm going with." She announced, climbing onto the boat without permission.
Zack laughed. "What?"
"Fine with me." Another guy said, lowering his sunglasses at her.
Ruth shot him a scowl.
"Sorry." Charlotte told Zack. "My mom wanted me to ask if she could tag along. She won't be in the way." She refused to make eye contact with Ruth.
"No problem." Zack grinned, starting the engine and backing away from the dock. "More the merrier."
Ruth sat down, willing this to go quickly.
"So uh, you a local?" Zack asked once they were on open water.
Ruth nodded tightly.
"Still in high school?"
"Kicked out." Ruth said, trying to hint that she didn't want to talk.
"Dang." Zack laughed.
"She works at a strip club." Charlotte offered.
The other guy raised his eyebrows and grinned at Ruth.
Charlotte realized what that implied. "I mean, she works in the back."
Several guys laughed and one catcalled, gesturing to his lap.
"I run the finances." Ruth finally corrected. "And I keep a pair of hedge trimmers on my desk for any dicks that get too close."
That time they seemed to back off a little.
Several other speedboats zoomed past them, with bathing-suit clad people cheering as they neared party cove.
Zack backed his boat into the lineup and ducked below deck for a moment. "Beers?" He asked, returning with enough Labatt's for everyone, held by their necks between his fingers.
He twisted one open for Charlotte and she reluctantly accepted it, eyeing Ruth carefully.
He extended another one to Ruth, twisting the cap off for her. Without breaking eye contact she took an unopened bottle from his other hand and opened it herself.
He laughed, "Okay, no disrespect meant by it."
"She's just like that." Charlotte said, feeling she had to explain away Ruth's every move. She considered Ruth her biggest problem at this point.
"Let's go!" A few of the other guys had already hopped to the next boat over, making their way to the middle.
Zack hopped the gap and then offered his hand to Charlotte.
"One sec!" She called, stopping as she passed Ruth, who stayed in her seat and made no move to follow anyone. "Look, I've had beer before, this isn't a big deal."
"I'm not babysitting you." Ruth said.
"You gonna tell Wendy on me?"
"I don't give a flying fuck what you do, as long as you're not stupid about it, otherwise it's both our asses on the line. We clear?"
"Yeah." Charlotte relaxed a little, realizing Ruth wasn't as much of a threat as she originally thought. She walked to the edge of the boat and accepted Zack's help getting across.
From the distance, Ruth barely heard Zack ask "Your friend wanna come with?"
And Charlotte respond, "Nah, she's just gonna… relax. Headache or something."
Perfect, Ruth thought, leaning back and putting her feet up, feeling the sun warm her face, turned away from all the action. I have a "headache" Nobody would bother her.
~/~
By the time Charlotte and Zack made it back to his boat for more beers, Ruth was gone. And that was fine because, Charlotte realized, obviously Zack was interested in some… privacy.
When she went back up to the deck, really ready to go home, she was pissed that Ruth wasn't there anymore.
"You okay?" Zack followed her up the stairs. "More drinks?"
"No, I'm looking for Ruth."
"I didn't see her earlier but I'll help you look. You sure you're okay? You weren't lying about having done that before, were you?"
Charlotte shook her head, scanning the other boats. "No. No, I've done it before. I'm okay. Just tired, I think it's the beer."
He took an empty bottle from a cup holder and put it on the counter below deck. "I won't offer you more, then. You wanna go swimming?"
"Um, what time is it?"
"Almost five."
"Yeah, I need to drive my brother somewhere at five-thirty. I better head home, as soon as I find Ruth. You'll give me a ride back, right?"
He laughed. "Nope, you'll just have to float here all night. Hitchhike on a fishing boat, maybe." He put his arm around her shoulder, ducking his head for another kiss.
She let him, briefly, before turning again. "I should find her."
"Let's ask around."
Charlotte convinced him they should split up and meet back at his boat in fifteen minutes, so they'd have better chance of finding her. It wasn't hard to ask around for who's seen a girl with insanely curly blonde hair.
Eventually Charlotte stopped asking even that and just called it "ramen noodle hair", which seemed to work.
Several people pointed her vaguely in the direction of a larger boat with a blue rain cover, the name Collier printed across it in white.
Charlotte finally hopped onto the Collier boat, glancing around and thankfully not seeing Zack anywhere nearby. "Ruth!" She called below deck, after scanning the open deck. The boat was definitely much bigger than Zack's, with an upper deck as well. She briefly popped up the stairs and found no one.
Normally, she'd be self-conscious about snooping around someone else's seemingly empty boat. But it seemed like such a minor worry between the alcohol and some other decisions she's made today. It didn't seem like much mattered at this point except for getting home and showering. She considered jumping in the water just to wash off the feeling.
She took a few steps below deck and listened, hearing nothing. Curious about the layout of this massive boat, she was just glad nobody else was here so she could take a look around. Finally be alone for a minute.
The first room was like a living room. It even had a wall-mounted TV, though the couch cushions looked more weatherproof-material than plush. She could already tell the door off of that was a bathroom, just based on the layout. Beyond that, a bedroom with the door open. Next to it, she pushed the door open to find a smaller room with two bunk beds crammed in, little sailboats printed on the neatly-made bedding.
She nudged open the last door and nearly had a heart attack, having thought she was alone. "Sorry!" She turned quickly as the other two gasped. But it only took a second for Charlotte to realize what she'd seen, and she turned back to them. "Ruth!?"
After recognizing the unmistakable blonde, it took Charlotte another moment to actually process what she'd walked in on. A woman in a bikini, sitting on the counter of what was presumably a mini kitchen, and Ruth, standing between the woman's open legs, one hand in the bottom piece of the bikini, and her own shirt disheveled from the woman's hands reaching up the back.
Of course, they pulled apart as soon as the door opened. Far enough apart that Charlotte really picked up on how afraid Ruth was of getting caught.
Tense seconds of silence passed. A range of secondary emotions cycled over Ruth's perpetual frown. Shock, then fear, then sheepishness as if she were coming up with an excuse. But she didn't. She settled on anger.
"You ever heard of fuckin' knocking!?"
Charlotte was going to defend that it was already open, but instead she heard herself say, "We need to leave."
"I gotta go too." The woman said quickly, hopping down from the counter. She and Ruth mutually avoided eye contact, but her fingers brushed Ruth's upper arm on her way past, a soft goodbye. She slipped out past Charlotte and up the stairs.
Ruth looked lost, but kept the anger mask on. "What's the fuckin' hurry?"
"Uh." Too many different things to say, or not to say, were running through Charlotte's head. "I want to go home. Zack's taking us now."
She stood in the doorway as Ruth uncrossed her arms. "Let's go then, what are you staring at!?"
"Sorry." Charlotte had forgotten she was in the way, and turned around to lead them out.
They boat-hopped back to Zack's, not speaking or looking at each other.
"He'll be back in five minutes. We were both out looking for you."
Ruth chewed on her bottom lip, sunglasses on and facing the open water. She didn't say anything.
"Look, um. I won't tell anyone about that, if you don't tell my mom about the drinking?" She offered.
Ruth set her jaw. "How about, I don't tell your mom because I don't give a shit, and you don't tell anyone because I could cut your throat open and not feel sorry about it."
"Sounds good." Charlotte answered quickly.
There were a few minutes of silence, and Charlotte was more focused on what she'd done with Zack, deeper regret setting in the longer she thought about it. She wanted to tell Ruth what happened, and maybe ask for advice, but couldn't possibly think of how to phrase it, and figured Ruth would just threaten her anyway. She truly didn't care about Ruth's sexuality or preferences or whatever, but it was obvious from her reaction that she didn't come from the same kind of accepting family that Charlotte did.
There was a soft thud from the back as Zack jumped on. "Hey, you found her!"
"Yep. She was just… trying to find a quieter spot." Charlotte said.
Zack started up his boat. "You ready then?"
Charlotte cringed, wishing she'd said no the last time he asked that. "Yeah."
~/~