Shine (Short Story) Read online

She let go of Maia abruptly and walked away from her, her back to the rest of the class, which had gone absolutely silent watching the show.

  Mr. Yorkey grasped her arm firmly. “Ruth,” he said, “would you like to go sit down and control your emotions?”

  She faced the gym teacher. “No,” Ruth said honestly, because what she really wanted to do was smack Maia. What she really wanted to do was go back in time ten minutes to the moment before Maia had said anything. Or maybe further—say, two months—before she had ever set foot in this school.

  “Go to the program director’s office,” Mr. Yorkey said tightly. “Now.”

  —

  The director of First Program at Dalton was a very thin woman named Mrs. Grau-Lerner, who smelled of mothballs and peppermint. Ruth, who had never been sent to the principal’s office in her life, was shivering.

  “Do you know what you did wrong, Ruth?” Mrs. Grau-Lerner asked.

  Ruth shook her head. She hadn’t hit Maia, although she had wanted to, so why was she being punished?

  “Not only were you involved in an altercation…you also were rude to Mr. Yorkey.”

  Ruth looked up at her. She thought Mr. Yorkey had been asking her a question. She didn’t realize it was actually a test.

  If Mr. Yorkey had wanted her to sit down and cool off, he should have told her so. Had it been Mama, for example, she would have said, Do your homework. No wiggle room there, just a direct order. Instead, Mr. Yorkey had given Ruth a choice, and now she was being disciplined for taking it.

  “Mrs. Grau-Lerner, Maia said—”

  The woman held up her hand. “Ruth,” she replied, “we don’t blame others at Dalton. We take responsibility for our own actions.”

  Ruth looked into her lap. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the director’s office door, and a secretary opened it. “Ms. Brooks is here,” she said, and through the slice that was opened Ruth could see Mama still in her uniform, crackling with questions.

  “Why don’t you wait in Ms. Thomas’s room while I speak with your mother?” Mrs. Grau-Lerner said.

  Ruth slipped out of the office and past her mama with her eyes cast down. She knew there would be a reckoning in private. She walked to the classroom, which was empty because all the other students in Ms. Thomas’s class were still getting tested in the gymnasium. She sat down at her desk, and then stood up and walked toward the front of the classroom.

  She picked up the chalk and wrote her name on the board, underneath that night’s homework assignment. Then she erased it, so that you couldn’t see the letters. Just a ghost that let you know something had been there.

  —

  Mama was mad, all right, but not at Ruth. “Social difficulties, my foot,” she muttered under her breath, as they boarded the bus together. “More like they’re the ones who are having trouble adjusting. Can’t deal with the climate, what does that even mean?”

  Ruth was afraid to speak. If she did, then she would have to tell Mama about Maia and what she’d said, and she didn’t want to do that. But the bus stopped at the spot where they should have gotten off to go to Ms. Mina’s, and they stayed on. It wasn’t following the uptown route to Harlem. Ruth had no idea where they were headed.

  Maybe Mama was so angry she had forgotten to get off the bus.

  “Mama,” Ruth asked in a small voice. “Where we going?”

  In response, Mama pushed the cord for the next stop and took Ruth’s hand. They got off the bus, belched into the frenetic hurry of Forty-second Street. Ruth huddled closer to Mama, avoiding tourists who were pointing at the lighted billboards and the girls in too little clothes and too much makeup who checked their reflections in the windows of fancy restaurants.

  “Here we go,” Mama announced, walking into a small store that sold gloves and barrettes and scarves and any other accessory you could think of. Maybe Ms. Mina had been sending Mama on an errand when she got diverted to the school. Ruth trailed her fingers along a display of hanging earrings that were made of feathers and tiny woven dream catchers.

  “Ruth,” Mama called, and she turned around. “Is this what you were talking about?”

  She was pointing to a case of glittering rhinestone headbands, each brighter than the next. On their blue velvet field, they looked like constellations.

  Sirius, Ruth thought.

  “Pick one,” Mama said.

  Ruth blinked, shocked. Of all the outcomes she could have imagined, being rewarded for getting sent to the program director’s office was not one of them. “Mama,” she said, “I don’t need it…”

  “Oh yes you do,” she said. She pointed to one that looked like a string of daisies, made of crystals. “That’s pretty.”

  Ruth nodded.

  “You know how I wear a uniform? It’s so Ms. Mina and Mr. Sam and everyone else in that building recognizes who I am. This is your uniform.” Her mama picked up the daisy band and settled it gently on Ruth’s head, like she was being crowned. “If this is what it takes to make them see you,” she said, “then so be it.”

  —

  Although Ruth knew she wasn’t allowed out on the fire escape because Mama thought it was unsafe, she waited until everyone was asleep and then crawled outside. She lay on her back, careful not to get too close to the edge, and stared up at the stars. It was easy to find Sirius, as Ms. Thomas had said. It was by far the brightest, shining even through the smog and the clouds and the ambient light of the city.

  Ruth reached up and touched her rhinestone headband. She thought about the bright beam that had left Sirius eight and a half years ago. It was reaching her fire escape and Christina’s home and Dalton all at once. No matter where you stood, you’d be underneath the same light.

  BY JODI PICOULT

  Small Great Things

  Leaving Time

  The Storyteller

  Lone Wolf

  Sing You Home

  House Rules

  Handle with Care

  Change of Heart

  Nineteen Minutes

  The Tenth Circle

  Vanishing Acts

  My Sister’s Keeper

  Second Glance

  Perfect Match

  Salem Falls

  Plain Truth

  Keeping Faith

  The Pact

  Mercy

  Picture Perfect

  Harvesting the Heart

  Songs of the Humpback Whale

  Short Stories

  Where There’s Smoke

  Larger Than Life

  Shine

  For Young Adults

  Off the Page

  Between the Lines

  And for the Stage

  Over the Moon: An Original Musical for Teens

  About the Author

  JODI PICOULT is the author of twenty-three novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Between the Lines, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper. She lives with her husband and three children.

  JodiPicoult.com

  Facebook.com/​JodiPicoult

  Twitter: @jodipicoult

  Instagram: @jodipicoult

  If you enjoyed meeting Ruth in Shine…you won’t want to miss her appearance in Jodi Picoult’s new novel

  Small Great Things

  Coming in hardcover and ebook October 2016

  Ruth

  The miracle happened on West Seventy-fourth Street, in the home where Mama worked. It was a big brownstone encircled by a wrought-iron fence, and overlooking either side of the ornate door were gargoyles, their granite faces carved from my nightmares. They terrified me, so I didn’t mind the fact that we always entered through the less-impressive side door, whose keys Mama kept on a ribbon in her purse.

  Mama had been working for Sam Hallowell and his family since before my sister and I were born. You may not have recognized his name, but you would have known him the minute he said