CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Ruby

December 1995–January 1996

 

“I’ll have another Seven and Seven, Sam.” Ruby slid her empty highball glass toward the bartender.

“May as well make it two.” Glenda rattled the cubes in the bottom of her drink. “How’s Daniel?” She turned to Ruby; her dangly reindeer earrings darted back and forth.

“Not good. We have another appointment with the doctor day after tomorrow. I’m not expecting much, though.”

“I don’t know how you’re coping with all this so close to Christmas.” Glenda shook her head. “But you stay strong somehow.” She tapped her Marlboro against the bar’s rough wooden surface before lighting it with a snap of her Bic. “Lord knows we’ve had our share of knocks, but we always answer the door, now, don’t we?” Glenda nudged Ruby with an elbow and laughed with a deep hack.

Ruby had recently rekindled a relationship with Glenda, who had been a girl at the home the summer before Ruby and Daniel had married. Ruby always knew Glenda had stayed local, after adopting out the child, but their lives had taken different paths. Ruby had busied herself raising her girls and seeing to her administrative duties at the home. Glenda had worked dispatch for a trucking company and barreled through two unsuccessful marriages. A few weeks ago, Ruby ran into her at the oncologist’s office, where Glenda was waiting with her first husband, who was battling lung cancer.

The door opened and Ruby shivered as eddies of cold air blew across the backs of her arms. The wintry wind rattled the silver tinsel Sam had strung along the shelf of liquor bottles. A man in a long woolen coat with a thick argyle scarf wrapped around his face and ears took the seat two stools down from Ruby. He ordered a scotch on the rocks with a splash of soda, and Ruby was instantly transported to a different time and place. It was summertime. She was young and naive and had never tasted anything as perfectly awful as scotch. Her date had laughed, until almost asthmatic, as she gasped and then licked her tongue on the back of her hand in an attempt to clear her burning palate. The fleeting memory of that summer, her summer, poked her with such a sudden stab of melancholy that she had to press a hand to her side.

“William?” she said. He was much thicker about the neck and jowls than she remembered, and his woolly hair, which had been chestnut brown, was now full silver.

It took a moment, but then his eyes sparkled and his mouth curled into a handsome smile. “Ruby,” he said, as if it were the one-word reply to a game-show question. “What’s a gem like you doing in a dump like this?” he asked, as if remembering the game’s phrase-it-as-a-question format.

“Don’t let Sam hear you talk that way about his place,” Glenda said. “He’ll cut you off.” She leaned over the bar to get a good look at him. “And I mean at the knees.”

William laughed long and hard. “I’ve had my legs go out from under me a time or two, but they always seem to show back up in the morning.” He raised his glass to the two women. “Along with a killer headache.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?” Glenda poked Ruby in the side.

“Sorry,” Ruby said. “Glenda Tippett-Mason-Pardini meet William Fraser.”

Glenda leaned across Ruby and extended her right hand out to William. Ruby couldn’t help but notice the muffin tops spilling from Glenda’s low-cut blouse.

William scooted over one seat to occupy the bar stool next to Ruby. “Tippett-Mason-Pardini? That’s a mouthful.”

From the ashtray, Glenda lifted her cigarette; an inch of ash hung precariously from its tip. “Maiden-Married-Married,” she said. “I earned ’em all and I use ’em all.” She lifted her cocktail and shook it at William. “And in case you’re interested, I’m in the market for a new one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” William said.

Ruby was reminded of the way he had so easily blended with anyone and everyone. His wool coat was expensive and the button-down pegged him as white collar, something Sam didn’t attract too much of, yet there he was mixing it up with Glenda without airs or pretensions.

William was surprised to hear about Daniel’s illness and showed genuine concern. Ruby, in turn, was sorry to hear William’s marriage had recently fallen apart. After a second scotch, William shared the story of his wife’s infidelity. Glenda, who had just recently been scamping around town with the very married chief of police, took that opportunity to powder her nose.

William ordered another scotch and turned to Ruby. “You’re lovely as ever.”

“Oh, stop. I’m old and I’m fat.”

He tilted back in his seat, taking in a full view. “You look good to me. I never did like skinny women. And what are you, fifty?”

“Not until February.”

“You see? Still just a young thing.”

Ruby shook her head. “It’s been so stressful lately. I’ve aged a hundred years.”

“Have I been gone that long?” William asked.

“Long enough,” Ruby said. “In the meantime, your son’s been making himself known around town. He’s all my daughter Jocelyn talks about.”

“Really.” William stroked his chin. “I’ll be darned. Well, if she’s anything like you, then I don’t blame him.”

“People say she looks just like me when I was her age.”

“Here’s to it.” William raised his glass. “Gorgeous at any age.”

Ruby turned her head from him. Lately she’d only thought of herself in terms of Daniel’s wife and the girls’ mother. She couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had complimented her. Most conversations regarding appearance began with “Jocelyn the beauty” and finished with “Jill, cute as a button.” Not that Ruby would begrudge them their time in youth’s flush; it was, rather, that more and more she could barely remember hers, short as it was.

 

 

A week later, Ruby sat at the same bar stool, her head hung low and her lashes wet with tears.

Glenda patted her on the arm. “You’ll get through this.”

Ruby lifted her head. “Daniel won’t.”

“How long did they give him?”

“A couple of months.”

Glenda stuck her bottom lip out and exhaled; her bangs lifted and then fell back into place. “What you need is another drink, a double oughta do it.” She motioned toward Sam, who promptly set another Seven and Seven in front of Ruby.

Ruby swirled the ice around the frosted glass and took a big sip. The amber liquid seared her throat and leaked a warm trail down her gullet. She had never been much of a drinker. Daniel didn’t like to keep spirits around the house; he thought it set a bad example for the girls. He was, however, uncharacteristically supportive of these nights out with Glenda, ushering her out the door with an “enjoy life while you can.” She was beginning to like the kaleidoscope effect of alcohol on objects, animate or inanimate. One tweak of the cylinder and it all shifted and resettled into new possibilities.

There was a rustle from behind and William eased himself onto the stool next to her. “Back again?” he asked.

Glenda leaned forward and spoke over Ruby. “She had a tough day. They don’t get much tougher.”

William asked about Daniel and grew ashen with the news of his prognosis. “I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do?”

“The woman just needs a few good friends right now,” Glenda said.

William bought them another round and they sat in glum solidarity for a long spell.

“What we need is the Boss,” Glenda finally said. She bounded off her seat and set off toward the jukebox. She dropped a few coins into the machine and “Born to Run” enlivened the small bar. Glenda stayed and swayed to the music, gripping the glass box with her hands. She obviously knew one or two of the bristled pool players, who catcalled their appreciation of her improvisational dance. Moments later, she was slow-dancing with a guy who hadn’t even bothered to put down his pool stick.

“You’re much too young to think about being widowed,” William said, signaling to Sam for two fresh drinks.

Ruby played with the lobe of her left ear, heavy hoops having long ago stretched her piercings into two long gashes. She looked at a spot on the wall behind William. “For all intents and purposes, I was widowed as a child. My first boyfriend, Josh.”

“I remember the story.”

“We were just kids, had our whole lives in front of us. He dropped me at my parents’, kissed me good-bye, and then next thing I knew,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I must be the kiss of death,” she said, still focusing on something behind him.

“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t let yourself think that.”

Ruby took another big gulp of her drink. “If I were you, I’d keep my distance.”

“I’m not afraid.” He patted her arm. “Not one bit.”

Glenda returned to order another drink and grab her cigarettes, advising them she had fifty bucks riding on the next game of pool.

“She’s quite a character.” William pointed to her as she rejoined the small group at the pool table.

“I guess I just needed to know there was someone like her out there.”

“Like what?”

“Someone who lives by her own rules. Someone who first and foremost lives.”

“You live.” William’s eyes always had a way of keeping Ruby, their brackish brown shading with the situation.

“Barely.”

“You need to do something about that, Ruby.” Espresso now, his eyes flicked back and forth. “The Ruby I once knew had more life in her than all of New York, the outside boroughs included.”

“Soon,” Ruby said. She looked at her watch and then over at the pool table, the surface of which still held quite a few balls. “Looks like my ride won’t be ready for a while.”

William glanced toward the game and back at Ruby. “I’ll drive you.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“No bother. I should quit now anyway. Lord knows Hester will chew my head off already. I’m a drunken mess according to her.”

“I’ll let Glenda know.”

Ruby felt a little wobbly as she walked through the icy parking lot. Just as he always had, William knew just when to step in with a handrail of a right arm. He eased her into a Cadillac with a front seat so expansive you could bowl a frame or two across it. Daniel had been driving secondhand station wagons for the past twenty years. What they lacked in style, they made up for in affordability and passenger capacity. Ruby looked out to the frozen landscape as William turned onto the county road that led to the McCloud Home.

“Some days I wish I’d never shown up that summer when Hester and Daniel were engaged.” He broke the stillness of the ride with the foggy exhalation of his words.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I wish I’d just waited for the wedding. I’ve always wondered if my presence, my interest in you, wasn’t the catalyst Daniel needed. Maybe had I waited, he’d have been too far down the aisle.”

“I don’t believe in what-ifs,” Ruby said. “I don’t like to think about them, anyway.”

“I like to,” he said. “They can be fun. Take you somewhere you didn’t get to go.”

Ruby leaned her head against the frosty window. The cornfield to her right was shorn to a ragged patch of snow-covered stubs. “There’re lots of places I didn’t get to go.”

“Ruby.” He turned his head to her. “You’re not the one who’s terminal.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to be okay.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

William pulled to the shoulder of the road and put the car in park. He scooted over toward Ruby. “Come here.” He pulled her into an embrace.

Ruby stiffened, remembering a scene so painfully familiar she felt something within her detach from time and place itself, and hurry back across the years to be, once again, young and vital.

Four weeks later, Ruby and Glenda sat at the bar. Tuesday night had become Ruby’s favorite. Not only were well drinks a buck, but she and William had established a pattern. Ruby was careful to arrive with Glenda and depart with Glenda, but she and William had found a little tryst in the trees. William called it his Ruby Tuesday. Ruby had even caught herself humming the tune as she went about duties—formerly Daniel’s—while he lay weak and moaning, or in those moments when the crush of worries about continuing without him were too much to bear. One time—through a spasm of pain—he’d asked what she was singing. “The Stones, I heard them on the radio,” she’d replied, after which Daniel had commented how the music brought back “memories.” At that last remark, Ruby had blushed and hurried out of the room.

 

“Is something wrong?” Ruby asked Glenda, who was unusually quiet.

“Is he coming?”

“You mean William?”

“Of course, William.”

“He’s coming,” Ruby said. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Glenda said.

William arrived, and as was custom, Glenda slid down a stool so he could sit between them. His eyes were already bloodshot, a sure sign he’d started without them.

“You’re a little late,” Ruby said. She had started to worry he wouldn’t come.

“Hester.” He gagged on the word. “She’s on my case day and night.”

“Why are you still staying with her, then?” Glenda asked.

“Because I’m broke and broken,” he said. “Hester may be hell-dog mean, but at least she’s putting a roof over my head.”

“You’re a lawyer,” Glenda said. “Get yourself a job. Get yourself a place of your own.” She paused and then continued, her tone more serious, “Get yourself a life of your own.”

William sat back and exhaled. “Point taken.”

In need of the facilities, Ruby stood and excused herself. It gave her a moment to compose herself. Glenda coming down hard on William like that was uncalled for. The last thing Ruby needed was more heaviness in her life. She had plenty of that at home. William, at least, understood this. No pressure. No burden. Just an overall lightness of being. When guilt squirmed in her belly like a coiled snake, he charmed it away. When she felt herself fading, he was bellows to her smoldering ashes.

Moreover, she was helping William, too. By his own admission, he’d lost interest in his career, lost self-confidence, lost his battle with the bottle, but was now—thanks to her—finding himself. Despite all that, Glenda’s rebuke weighed on her.

When she returned from the bathroom, Glenda was alone and wiping her eyes with a tissue. Sam stood at the other end of the bar with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face.

“I hope you’re happy,” Glenda said.

“Why?” Ruby looked around for William.

“Hester was just here. She gave William a public drumming you wouldn’t believe. Called him a no-good drunk, lazyass loser, and a whoremonger.”

“What?” Ruby sank onto the stool.

“The last comment was directed at me.” Glenda blew her nose with a big gander of a honk. “Said she heard he’d been slumming down here with the local trash.”

“But—”

“I’d already heard the rumors,” Glenda said. “My name’s been joined so tightly with his lately, we may as well be Siamese.”

“Glenda, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“You’re just lucky you timed your pit stop so perfectly. Hester wasn’t letting anyone off lightly. Told Sam this place was a blight on the town.”

“Oh God,” Ruby said.

“Yeah, well, if I were you, I’d get outta here. And I’d be careful.”

Ruby drove around for a while, too agitated by what Glenda had said to go home. Twice she missed the unmarked turnoff from the blacktop, but she needed to see William and there was only one place where she could think to go. She had never driven her own car down the property’s narrow interior dirt road, the only access to the cabin. She feared her old wagon would mire in the snow and mud, and she’d just as soon die there before she’d call attention to the hideaway. Hester was onto them, she was sure of it. Simply using Glenda as a lure for Ruby, the bigger fish. Her temples were pounding and her heartbeat ragged when she pulled in front of the cabin. She was overcome with relief to see smoke curling up the chimney and a suffused interior light spilling onto the inky-black ground.

“I’m so glad to see you.” William rushed to her as she opened the door. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” He held her in an embrace.

“I had to see you after I heard about the scene at the bar.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Hester had no right to insult Glenda like that.”

She pulled away. “I didn’t know about the rumors.”

William held her hand and directed her to the small table and mismatched chairs, the cabin being much too practical for anything like a sofa. “There’s more. Hester has booked me into an alcohol treatment facility.”

They gripped hands over the rough wooden surface of the table and it wobbled unsteadily. “What? Rehab? But that’s not her decision to make.”

“She’s got me over a barrel on this one. If I refuse, I’m gone, and so is Keith.”

“What does Keith have to do with it?”

“Nothing. Just a bargaining chip.”

“She still can’t force you to go.”

“Keith’s her only heir,” William said. “If I don’t do this, she’s threatening to change her will.”

“It’s a bluff,” Ruby said. “Even she wouldn’t be that mean.”

William raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Is your drinking really a problem?”

William removed his hand and rubbed both his hands up and down his thighs. “The divorce petition mentions my drinking.”

“I didn’t know,” Ruby said, chewing at the side of her cheek. “Then, Hester’s right. You should go.”

“It will just be for a few weeks.”

She stood, turning from him and flattening a palm over the icicle-laced windowpane. Its crystalline perspective was lovely and dazzling, but ultimately obscured.

“It’s for the best,” she said. “Daniel needs me more than ever. We’ve been wrong. This is wrong.”

William sprang to his feet, knocking the chair to the floor. “Don’t say that.”

“What if Hester had found you with me instead of Glenda?”

“To hell with Hester.”

“It’s not Hester I’m worried about. It’s not you either. I couldn’t live with myself if Daniel found out. If I did anything to hurt him.”

“Okay. Okay,” he said, grabbing her still-turned shoulder. “You’re right. The timing is all wrong. I’ll get sober while you take care of Daniel. A temporary separation.”

Ruby pulled her coat over her shoulders. Temporary, she remembered, was the word the school counselor had used the day she’d placed the pamphlet for the McCloud Home for Wayward Girls in Ruby’s hand.

“It’s not temporary, William. You won’t come back.”

“How can you say that? Of course I will.”

“You won’t.” She threaded her arm through her purse strap. “But I can’t think about that right now.”

She was out the door and running to her car before he could respond. The cold winter air was so brittle its shards tinkled as she gasped for air. And, later, she would remember nothing of the drive home.

“Ruby, is that you?”

She’d hoped to find Daniel sleeping, though nights were his most difficult, pain and discomfort supplanting sleep.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” She removed a bracelet, placing it on a dresser-top tray.

“You didn’t. I was up,” he said through a groan. “How was your evening?”

“It was okay.” Earrings joined the bracelet.

“And Glenda?”

“Oh, you know Glenda.”

“What’s wrong? You sound sad. These nights out are supposed to be a break.”

“I don’t need a break. Glenda and I won’t be going out anymore. I’m needed here.”

Daniel scrambled to a sitting position and switched on the bedside lamp, the effort leaving him winded. “I want you to know, Ruby, that I understand. Glen-da”—he pulled on the first syllable, altering the word into something almost unrecognizable—“is a distraction, a diversion, a bit of cheer in bleak times.”

“No she’s not. I mean ... I don’t need to be distracted. I’m fine.”

“I want you to be, Ruby. No matter what, I want you to be fine.”

“How could I?” she asked, dropping next to him on his side of the bed.

“Because I’m asking you to be,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.

That he was giving her permission, begging her no less, to be fine, given what and who she had just come from, brought her to tears.