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“What’s there to do in Wyoming besides preach the Bible and herd cows?”
“What!? What are you talking about? I’m from Wyoming, and I’ve never done either of those things.”
He stood from the couch and stretched. “You know what I mean.”
Before, I was upset, and not necessarily with him. But now, I was angry, and most certainly with him. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”
He cocked his head to the side and looked at me with a condescending frown. “Wyoming? Cow country? Really? Could you really see me there?”
My mouth was agape. Isn’t this almost word for word what Lincoln said to me? ‘New York? Rat city? Really? Could you really see me there?
“I’m a big city guy,” said Aiden, “with big ideas, big dreams. I’m not going out to the middle of nowhere, sit on a porch and whittle driftwood crafts while talking about the good old days with a toothless rancher.” He slipped out of the cramped living room—and calling it a living room is a stretch: a couch against a wall facing the other wall four feet in front of it, a small window to the right, and an open kitchen cove to the left.
I could feel the anger boiling in me. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen Aiden being closed-minded and dismissive, but it was probably the worst time. I was already angry for the way he belittled my home state (even though I, admittingly, had started by apologizing for it). I was angry at myself for that and for thinking his opinion mattered. I was angry at myself for worrying about what my friends and family would say when I returned home and angry at the air conditioner for making that constant buzzing noise.
“Why are you asking me about Wyoming?” said Aiden from the kitchen as he was filling a cup from the sink.
I shook my head. “Never mind. It was a mistake.”
He downed a cup of water then slammed the cup on the counter, pointed at me, and smiled. “This weekend, we’re going to the beach. Coney Island. It’ll be crowded, but I’ve got to get in the water before I melt from this heat.”
I didn’t answer. I just stared at him. This is not my life. This is not what I signed up for.
Aiden walked over to me. He put his hand softly against my cheek. “What’s wrong, Ruby?” He planted a kiss on my head like I was one of the rescue dogs that had been dropped off at his shelter. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind. What is it?”
“I can’t go to Coney Island with you this weekend. I’m going back to Wyoming.”
1
Ruby
None of it was real.
Not the flight from New York to Cheyenne. Not the bus ride to Magnolia. Not the walk down the town’s streets with my suitcase in tow. It couldn’t have been real. It didn’t feel real.
It felt like some bizarre projection, like I was still back in New York dreaming or suffering a delirium brought on by heatstroke. I wasn’t walking down the wide country lanes with the mountains sprawled out in the distance, the clear wide sky, the fresh air.
‘Maybe New York was a dream,’ I thought, ‘a premonition warning me not to go.’
I looked down at the suitcase I was dragging behind me. If New York was a dream, then why am I towing a suitcase?
It didn’t take long for me to understand the odd sensations I was experiencing. It felt so unreal because I was in the same environment I had spent nearly my whole life in, but I had changed so much in those eighteen months in New York that everything around me looked and felt off.
“Good afternoon.” A man passed me, smiled, and touched the brim of his hat.
I had seen that man before, probably. I had seen him when I was a little girl leaving the general store with an ice cream cone in hand; I had smiled and said ‘good afternoon’ back. I had seen him when I was a high school senior in my cheerleading outfit, walking past the shops in the town’s main square with my squad hoping the schoolboys would notice me.
But seeing him then almost made me laugh. How out of place he would be in New York! Saying good afternoon to a stranger! What a weirdo.
Yet hadn’t I had the same thought walking down the sidewalks of New York? Passing a businessman in a suit and tie speed-walking while barking orders into his cellphone? Passing a hipster in Brooklyn pretending he was above what others thought of him but going out of his way to stand out, to be seen.
As I turned the corner and saw my childhood home come into view, I thought to myself, what is this place? And who are these actors walking around it? Who am I? Do they know I’m an actor, too? Or maybe they think I really did grow up here, that I do belong. But maybe that’s just the part they’re supposed to be playing.’
