Ruby waves to Petey as she hurries to car, anxious to get this spying business done and over with. Thankfully, Emily is already there waiting for her.
They hop in Ruby's antique wood chuck station wagon and start driving.
"Just loop around the school a few times until we see him pull out." Emily directs.
They silently circle the school once and see that he's just pulling out.
"Talk about perfect timing!" Emily exclaims.
"We are officially stalkers." Ruby argues.
"Hey, be careful. Always stay about 2 cars behind him."
They continue to follow him, undetected, down a few streets and then around the elementary they chatted at the day prior. He eventually parks in front of to an unfamiliar house. Ruby copies and pulls up across the street and they both immediately hunch over to avoid being caught.
Petey gets out of his truck and knocks on the door. It opens up even before he finishes knocking but neither of them can see who answered it.
Emily starts to unbuckle herself from the car.
"What are you doing?" Ruby squeaks.
"Come on. We're both curious."
"Well, yeah, but I'm the only one that has the right to be."
No more convincing was needed for Ruby to climb out of her car and trail behind Emily up to the house.
As she was crossing, Ruby quickly scanned the foreign street and, luckily, didn't see anyone watching their suspicious behavior. Emily looks in the lower level living room window after they walked onto the huge wrap around porch and whispers to Ruby.
"No one's down here. Move out!" Emily orders quietly.
Ruby nods confidently and opens the door slowly. It doesn't make a sound.
The room is brightly lit and immaculately kept. Their dirty sneakers leave a small trail as they cross the clean cream carpet. The furniture just screams 'I'm worth a lot' with it's plush seats and back rests attached to dark, detailed wooden spines.
There are three sets of pillows in each of the two corners of the sofa and an additional pillow on the lone arm chair.
Ruby points at the beautiful sofa.
"You could, like, buy David Hasselhoff for a day with one of these!"
Emily spots an old European style painting on the wall of a leader conquering something and comically mimics the pose. Ruby motions for her to stop but Emily is unable to take this seriously. She continues and waltzes fancily over to a huge fireplace that fills most of the living area space. She spots a box of expensive looking chocolates wrapped in gold paper and puts one in her mouth. She even shoves the paper it was wrapped in into her pocket, shamelessly.
"Who knows! This could be actual gold." Emily says.
Ruby roles her eyes and they continue across the carpet. They stay on the first floor and choose a random way to go in hopes of uncovering something. That's when it happens: the laughter.
Ruby steps forward and leads the way as they allow their ears to be a guide. They turn around a corner and see a large entry way leading into what appears to be a common kitchen area.
Much more upscale than one that Ruby's used to, this kitchen has all the fine furnishings. It's full of stainless steel appliances, brand new whisks and spatulas, granite counter tops, and a strange bowl of perfectly ripe fruit.
Her entrance into the room was so quiet at first, that neither Petey nor the girl he was in the process of undressing in front of the kitchen sink knew she was there.
The girl Petey's undressing looks like a wanna-be Paris Hilton. She has long blond hair that has no doubt been peroxided on a monthly basis since she was 4 years old. She's wearing high heels that could very well belong to a stripper and a trashy jean skirt.
Her shirt is half way off when she spots Ruby.
"Oh my god!" The girl shouts.
Petey glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the girl's parents, but instead sees Ruby.
"Holy shit! Ruby what are you doing here?"
Ruby stands stoic. Looking, and feeling, defeated, dejected, and betrayed. Her eyes start to water but she fights back the tears. Petey attempts damage control.
"I'm... uh, jeez I'm sorry."
Ruby starts to get extremely insecure and begins fidgeting with her hair and hands. She's biting her lower lip intensely. Her inner thoughts begin to analyze the situation:
'I feel like an alien. Everyone's staring at me, waiting, anxious for what I'm going to say. I'm that girl in a movie who's instantly made into a heroine for being all righteous and feminist and walking away dramatically after delivering a heart wrenching speech. So where's my heart wrenching speech?'
Petey's poor excuse snaps her back into present time. He's turned facing her completely while he talks to her, but his pants are still unbuttoned and unzipped.
"I was going to tell you..." He says quietly.
Petey runs his hands nervously through his hair.
"You, uh, you probably should have called." He finishes.
Ruby's expression changes instantly. She's now absolutely dumb founded.
"I walk in on you rounding second base with a random hussy and you tell me I should have called?" She shouts, livid.
She takes a few steps back and grabs at her hair on both sides of her head.
"You should have kept your pants on!" Ruby shouts.
The slut he was undressing decides to put her two cents in. Her voice is stereotypically high pitched and whiny.
"Um, I think you should probably leave." The slut interjects.
Ruby almost laughs at this situation. She caught her boyfriend cheating and the girl he has on the side is asking her to leave.
"Do you want me to Chris Brown you? 'Cause I'm about to beat you to a pulp, lady." Ruby says angrily.
Emily intervenes at this point, coming out from behind the wall. She grabs Ruby's lower arm and coaxes her toward the door. The slut sees Emily and puts one hand on her hip.
"Oh look, Lassy came to the rescue. How cute." The slut says.
"You... You are disgusting. You're a waste of human DNA. I bet your parents would be really proud if they saw you right now and weren't off on some Caribbean cruise." Ruby retorts.
Ruby and Emily leave the room and head for the exit. The slut shouts after them.
"God, they're in Boca you loser!" The slut says, flipping her hair.
After leaving the scene of the crime, Emily and Ruby are seated side by side on benches at the local park. Ruby's picking at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Emily finds absolution in taping her nose up so that it also lifts her upper lip area and resembles a pig. During the conversation she takes it off in order to be taken more seriously.
Random children are running around.
"No, I don't want to play this game. I hate this game." Ruby says, exhausted.
"Come on! You're killing my buzz!" Emily argues.
"It hasn't even been a full hour period since I walked in on my lousy ex-boyfriend playing a rousing game of tonsil hockey with another girl, which may or may not have been going on for months now."
"You know what they say: the best way to get over one guy, is to get under another." Emily suggests slyly.
"No that's what you say. And you're a slut."
Emily ignores this snide comment and forges ahead with her intended plan.
"So what do you think of Stoicho? He'd be a decent one to lose it to." Emily asks, genuinely interested.
"He's three years younger than I am. He's such a guppy, I'd feel like his mom."
"Ok, what about Allen? Wasn't he interested in you for practically four millenia?"
"Yeah but he seems like the type of guy who still collects pokemon cards."
"Taylor?" Emily looks hopeful.
"His face looks like the folds in Clint Eastwood's neck."
"Ian?"
"Didn't he beat up his last girlfriend?" Ruby sighs, giving up.
"It's all allegations at this point. And beggars can't be choosers."
"Don't bother wasting cliches on me. I'm not that desperate."
"Yet. Do you even want to lose your virginity?"
Ruby goes inside her own thoughts:
'I hate when people say they "lost" their virginity. Like virginity is something they just accidentally misplaced. Like hedge clippers or fluoride toothpaste.'
"Stop phrasing it like that." Ruby finally manages to say.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"Fine. So what exactly are you looking for in a guy then?" Emily questions.
"Do you ever just give up? This whole interrogation thing is brutal."
"Well aren't we megamoody today. Just give me a couple qualities." Emily begs.
"I don't know... I mean, basically anyone would be milk and honey compared to Petey."
"Obviously you want someone who will give you an automatic girl boner when you see them."
"That's not really my primary concern, Emily."
"What is then?"
"I just want to be, like, turned inside out whenever I look at him, you know?"
"Uh, no. That sounds painful, actually."
Ruby silently surveys the park when her eyes meet a familiar shape. She keeps facing towards him and inclines her head as an indicator for Emily.
"I know that guy!"
Emily tries to follow her eyes.
"What guy?"
"Tall, dark topped brute at your 3 o'clock."
Emily scrutinizes Shia with her eyes and looks unimpressed.
"Oh." Emily says indifferently.
To the surprise of both girls, Shia starts walking towards them. Fear turns to embarrassment as Ruby wonders if he saw them staring.
"Do you think he saw us looking? He probably things we're pedophiles or something."
"Don't be alarmed. He's looks oddly cheerful and very uncreeped out."
"Yeah, I guess we'd need a white, unmarked van and a steady stream of candy in order to be classified as a pedophile."
Shia approaches them and stands right in front of Ruby who's gazing up at him straight faced. No words are spoken at first but then Shia quietly greets Ruby.
"Hey." He says awkwardly.
Ruby smiles a little but doesn't verbally respond. Instead, she opts to introduce her friend, who is being oddly unresponsive and is apparently bored. Ruby nods toward Emily with her head.
"This is Emily."
Shia has his hand in his pockets and simply acknowledges her with a head nod as well but quickly turns his attention back to Ruby.
"You're introducing me to your friend, but I don't know your name." Shia complains.
"Well, I don't know yours either so I guess we're even." Ruby says smugly.
He smiles as everyone is quiet for a moment and Emily rolls her eyes and stands up to leave.
"Well, kitty cats, this has been fun but I have to go."
Ruby looks at Emily and then back to Shia as she plans to make her departure too.
"Yeah, I should probably hit the dusty trail too. I have to go get ready for my half cousin thrice removed's bar mitzvah. It's at the Cloverdale and her parents have a flimsy set of rules so I should be able to sneak a few."
"Sounds like a fun time." Shia says, grinning.
Ruby responds sarcastically.
"Oh, definitely the highlight of my entire week."
Ruby stands up and follows Emily out of the park.
Shia stares at her curiously as she walks away and puts the hood of her coat up.