Ladies of the Canyon
Ray
Jeannie appears at the guesthouse screen as Ray browns the ground turkey meat in onion, garlic, pepper, and paprika. He looks up, waves, surprised to feel a growing appreciation for her. The olive oil softly spits and crackles, calling Ray's attention back to the pan as Ruby, clad in pin-striped overalls and a navy sports bra, throws open the door, gives Jeannie an oblique smile.
"Wow, I never noticed how the passion fruit vine has really taken over that tree out there," Jeannie says, pretty in her tight but simple yellow cotton dress. She holds a proper accordion file holder, and stands there awkwardly in the middle of the small room. Ray's small ass wiggles as he stirs the meat on the fire. Ruby sits on the chair beneath the largest painting—a picture bringing to mind a pigeon's tracks in the snow.
"Did you notice the wisteria down here? It's killing what must have been a Japanese cherry blossom tree; it's near death," Ray says.
"Oh yeah?" Jeannie nods, looks at Ruby who is staring at her.
"Homicidal vine," Ray laughs, then looks at her a bit paranoid. "Well, it's suicidal too, 'cause when that tree dies so will it."
"I've had that wisteria up on the front fence for years. I love how it spills out onto the veranda," Jeannie says.
"The fence is fine, it's just the trees they'll choke out. They could pull down a house."
Jeannie looks at Ruby again, who stares so long her expression appears lurid. "Why's your face so oily, baby?" Jeannie asks.
"Sweating," Ruby says. Protectively, Ray turns to look at her.
"Oh. When she stopped taking those hormones her skin really dried up, so I washed it this morning with that nice scrub you gave me, gave her a clay mask, then used the blue astringent, and the night cream, rather than the day, because it seemed thicker," Ray says, with the confidence of a spa professional.
"I'm sweating," Ruby says.
"Just use the day cream on her in the morning and at night," Jeannie says. "I don't think she needs any more than that." She hugs the folder to her belly, bites the inside of her cheek. "Table looks nice in here," she says, nodding at it.
"Are you hungry? Making tacos," Ray says cheerfully. He wipes his hand on his stained work pants, clangs open a drawer, wrestles around for a can opener.
"Oh, no thanks," she says uncharacteristically shy.
"You and Dean going somewhere tonight?" Ray asks. "If not we'd love to have you both for dinner," he says, now pulling cheddar cheese out of the fridge.
Looking as if she might fall backward, Jeannie makes a hairpin turn with her stacked cork heel. "Oh no, I'm going to the restaurant. Dean's gone every day at the crack of dawn," she says, bug-eyed. "Sometimes he stays out there all evening with his surf buddies."
"Oh yeah?" Ray says, feeling irked with him again. "Wonder when it is he has the chance to watch the view."
"What view?" Jeannie asks.
"Nevermind," he says, flaring his nostrils. He opens up the can of refried beans.
"So how was your first week of class, Ruby?" Jeannie says, clearing her throat before the question.
"Fine," she says curtly.
"So I heard you were supposed to be making lists. Schedules and goals? Is that right?"
"Yes," Ruby says.
"Well, here," Jeannie says, handing her the folder. "It's all of our correspondence while you were in Alaska and Florida." Jeannie licks her lips that look unusually chapped. "Don't know why I didn't think to do this before," she says, her mouth now parted as if breathless. Ray stands on guard, afraid.
"Thank you," Ruby says, pulling out the e-mail printouts. With a sullen expression she begins reading.
"You don't have to look at it now," Jeannie says, but Ruby doesn't pay her any attention. Jeannie's gesture toward Ray appears as if offering herself. "I went and visited Al in jail today." She straightens her dress, then pinches the edge. "He is a reeking, stinking, gaping hole," she says, working her tongue as if she tasted it. Ray shakes his head without looking at her, scrapes the beans out of the can into the pot, then worriedly looks back at Ruby. Ruby keeps reading.
"He had the gall to ask me if I still loved him." She pulls on the top of her hair that separates on end like plumage. "He's pleading not guilty to murder," she says so quickly saliva flies. "He's claiming he never knew the vermin. That at first he was blackmailing him over only the affair, and then after, framing him for the murder."
"We know," Ray says, in a high voice. "Bring it down just a bit," he almost whispers, motioning toward Ruby. "She needs calm."
"I'm sorry," Jeannie says. "I just don't know what to do. You know? I feel like I could singe him, char him, cremate him myself."
"Why'd you go see him?" Ray asks, pulling the tortillas wrapped in foil out of the oven. He puts them on the small Formica table he bought this week. It's already set with two plates, silverware, and a single pink rose in a thin patinaed vase.
"I had to," Jeannie says. She exhales, pats hard at the middle of her chest. "Look, let me get out of your way. I just came by to give Ruby the letters. I think it's a good thing for her memory," she says, pulling herself together, approaching Ruby but reluctant to put her hand on her shoulder. Ruby doesn't look up as Jeannie walks out of the house.
"Dinner's ready, love," Ray says, carefully making room on the table for the bowls of lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes. "You want sour cream?"
She looks at him, then her eyes flit from one spot in the room to another in a disconnected fashion.
"Uh-oh," Ray says like a fifties housewife. He takes the e-mails from her, straightens them, and places them in the folder. Ruby looks at him, her composure unraveling. He picks her up swiftly in his arms, carries her through the archway to the dollhouse bedroom, and lays her down.
"Close your eyes," he says to her. "That's it." He wipes her forehead of the tiny beads of sweat.
"I told you," Ruby says, her voice sultry from the strain. "I'm just hot, that's all."
"The letters were too much. Jeannie is too much, we've got to get out of here."
"No," Ruby says, opening her eyes wide. "You don't understand how much this helps me. It's a puzzle. Most of the pieces are missing, but every day I'm here, the picture slowly forms." She swallows. He gently brushes her cheeks, her chin, her neck. Ruby tightens up a bit.
"We can't stay here forever."
"I'm hungry," she says flatly. And he helps her up, even though she clearly doesn't want him to.
Every weekday morning, they make the drive to Pasadena in Jeannie's Range Rover. They take Laurel Canyon Boulevard bumper to bumper up to its highest point on Mulholland, then down into the valley for the 101. From there, a hair-raising fraction of a second in which Ray has to get all the way over for the lane to the 134. Then it's a merciless crawl past the 5 to the 210 freeway. Ray grips the wheel for fifty minutes, pretending not to be queasy with angst.
Ruby's head trauma program, A to Zeal, is off Lake Boulevard on a quaint avenue, typical of Pasadena. It is a craftsman mansion, almost plantation-style, in a business district where oaks line the street. Wraparound porch with a dozen wicker and mission rocking chairs out front, diamond-shaped leaded-glass windows, and impeccably pruned rosebushes surrounding the house. When they pull up, Ray shakes off the perversity of smog and traffic, leading Ruby up the steps, through the doors to the meeting room, and against all rules, coddles her the entire way.
The owner, doctor of research, and head instructor, Graciela Cortez, flouts the idea of overly compassionate patience and nurturing of the brain injured. Students are allowed only one parent, lover, spouse, or friend caregiver in class, and she warns each session of her twelve students' partners about the dangers of hovering, which only encourages their loves ones to languish under their protection. Graciela is Guatemalan and lives with her husband in Hancock Park. He comes from an old Mexican family who made their money in ranching and oil. Graciela walks briskly, narrow heels clicking into the room at ten A.M. sharp; just behind her in a flurry is her moon-faced and meek assistant, Justine, holding the dreaded red three-ring binder.
Graciela is beautiful at the age of forty-eight. A very low-grade alcoholic, she keeps everything together, despising the idea of excess, even with the wealthy husband, and the appearance of her home and business, which both put on airs. The ritzy affectations would barely exist if it weren't for experiences like opening her own front door to a fourteen-year-old white boy pushing his magazine drive and asking, "Is the lady of the house home?" Being mistaken for the maid, even though her maid is Mexican, is something her psyche cannot take. Lately she has been suffering from the idea of spiritual famine—an offhand remark her husband had made. Barring all this, Graciela is formidable but approachable and cool. Her rehab center has the most consistently stellar success rate, this naturally being of the utmost importance to Ray.
"I've got a current event," the student Bill says in a lethargic tone. He is thin, scrappy, and pale with a wide, square jaw. His two siblings were killed in a car accident that left him brain injured, as well as weighted with responsibility to his young, widowed mother, who sits tentatively next to him.
"I thought we'd talk first about yesterday's incident at the end of class," Graciela says, crossing her legs in an imposing manner, inspiring most of the class to stare.
"Can't we move on?" another student's father says. "What else is there to say? The kid exposed himself, we all know that inappropriate behavior can happen with people in this condition." He puts up his hands, raising his brows as well.
"I'd like the students to speak up," Graciela says.
"I've got a current event," the student Bill repeats. His chest expands but then he retreats into his shell. He stretches his eye muscles in a twitch, the effect as if he were an actor in an old horror film.
"It's Ray's birthday," Ruby blurts out. "Mine was three weeks ago. I'm near the beginning of April, he's near the end," she says, reeling in her imagined gabby self.
"Let's try some order, shall we?" Graciela looks for a moment into each and every face. "Now, Ruby, you shouldn't interrupt, but since it's Ray's birthday, we shall sing. Afterward we'll return to the matter of yesterday, which could have been very disturbing to some of you, and so we will need to talk about it."
She turns to her assistant, Justine, who scans the open page in the binder, then looks up at her boss, terrified of muffling the reminders. Graciela begins to sing "Happy Birthday," and everyone joins in, Ray feeling fallow and helpless. He reaches for Ruby's hand, though she ignores it as she concentrates on maintaining the key.
"And many moooore." Ruby is the only one to sing the last line. Her eyes are closed, trying to pin—like points on a map—every birthday she ever experienced. But this is overly ambitious, impossible, even ridiculous, causing frustration to squash in her head like a vise.
"It's okay, baby," Ray says, getting teary. He can't help attuning himself to her with every moment.
"Ruby, relax. Do you hear me?" Graciela leans forward, talking with an open, clawing hand. "You're just flooding. Breathe deeply." She leans farther. "Are you listening to me?"
Ruby nods, though her body holds the posture of pre-hyperventilation. Ray's arms around her, eyes fraught with despair.
"Let it go. It'll pass. Don't try to fight the ominous feeling that you might be losing. Let go of the judgment, just like that," Graciela says, and she snaps her finger. Her mouth is painted a deep red wine. Her eyes are clear, direct, and empathetic. Justine watches, holding onto the binder, biting her lip. Ruby finally looks up at her, her expression depleted, but also as if she doesn't care.
"I've got a current event," Bill says, now raising his hand. Graciela doesn't require this, but when he does this it works with getting his way. He doesn't remember this fact; it is like a profound discovery in human nature each time. Playing into someone else's idea of her power.
"What's your current event, Bill?" Graciela asks, anchoring her body to the chair with a temporary gaze of surrender.
"The daughter," Bill says, in a nonanimated tone. "The fucking daughter."
"What did I say about foul language?" Graciela asks, looking individually into her students' faces.
"'Remember to think about what you are saying,'" says the snowboarder, Lacey, who, after the accident and two spinal taps, is recovering from brain damage due to intracranial pressure. She is in a wheelchair and partnered with her fiance, who is shaggy and bewildered but resigned to his predicament.
"The daughter who hates her father's wife so much," Bill says, glancing at his mother quickly. "So much that she comes in one night with her key, knowing her father was out of town, and then she stabs the wife." His bottom lip remains between his teeth as if the f sound of "wife" must be held captive.
"Can you believe it?" the same father asks who spoke up about yesterday's incident. His son is quiet every day of class until Graciela forces him to contribute. The father shakes his head, then nods at Justine, the assistant. He is embarrassingly enamored of her, Ray notices.
"The daughter's husband, after finding out what she did, helped her by taking the body to a tree shredder," Bill says, still nondynamic but posed as if ready to grab some inner flicker of elation.
"Good," Graciela says, nodding to the progress in his capacity to remember and share. "What did you think about all that, Peter?" Graciela asks the verbose and infatuated father's son. He shakes his head repeatedly, maniacally, like a brat. He glares at her with a look of hatred that incites the protective nature in Ray, who tenses up. Ray doesn't always remember the expressions of the brain injured have little to do with their authentic emotions.
"I think," Ruby says, then clears her throat. "I think the father must have ignored his daughter's problems for too long." She bats her lashes, and chews once on her tongue. Her ravishing maple skin today shines with health rather than overproductive glands.
"She is on medication," Lacey says, both hands on her wheelchair armrests. "What do you expect? I would kill somebody too, if I could." Her fiance shifts his weight away from her like a first grader who shows the rest of the class he will not catch the cooties.
"I'd like to hear more from some of you guys. You can't let the only two women here speak for you," Graciela says.
"There are more than two women here," Len says, violently pointing at Graciela, then Justine, Bill's mother, the three wives, the two girlfriends, one sister, one aunt, one cousin, one best friend, a committed to philanthropy friend, and a daughter. Then he looks at Ruby and Lacey with the single vertical fold in his forehead, the long dip between his nose and mouth, the fire in his eyes. Ray feels Ruby's relief. Len had been in a coma for eighteen days, with fever and infection. He had cognitive drug cocktails poured through a stomach tube. Ruby aligns herself with him on no true grounds other than he happens to be her choice for being the worse off, which bothers Ray since she is milestones ahead.
"I mean the students," Graciela says.
"I'm having trouble with that," Ruby says. "Being a student. I don't remember ever really being a student. I mean, that wasn't me."
"How do you feel about learning here?" Graciela says.
"I feel better. I want to. I just don't have a grip on the past. I can't see clearly. You can't tell me my history. This class can't teach me that."
"Look at the stars tonight, the constellations. You'll see history there. They happened a long time ago. As you look at these stars, and witness the past there before your eyes, you won't feel like you have to have hold of them. You can't do anything about them. You have no choice but to appreciate them and let them be. Do the same with your memory of your life," Graciela says, boring a hole into Ruby with the intensity of her conviction. She wakes up out of it, looks down at Justine's notebook, and her thin, delicate, light brown finger resting on the outline of where they are.
"When we take our field trip to the pottery school next week, I want you all to let go of any expectations, of any feelings you might remember having as a child when you made something out of clay. Don't do any throwing to please anybody else but yourself. And even if you aren't successful in pleasing yourself, I want you to sit back in your chair, and just listen to the music we will be playing in the class," Graciela says, looking into each individually glum face of her students. Ray observes his fellow part-ners/ caregivers all looking neglected.
"Starting on Friday, I'm going to have a private conference with every one of you, without your partners, and then I'll talk to your partners afterward."
"No more fucking pegs in the board," Lacey, the snowboarder, says.
"Excuse me," Graciela says, holding up her immaculately manicured hand. "I was talking. Think before you blurt out. Everybody, watch the cursing. Now. I should mention to you, Lacey, that two weeks ago you couldn't even remember that you were inserting pegs in the board every day. It was like a new exercise. Yesterday you were tired of it. Now that's a good thing."
"I don't like the feeling that my IQ is being tested."
"It's not," Graciela says. "This is not the point at all. It's all about coordination and problem solving. Ruby chooses to do the board sometimes with her left hand, and sometimes with her right. All of you do it differently, which is the right way for you." Graciela raises her chin. "Now, the assignment for this evening I want the partners to pay special attention to. I want the student to go to the grocery store, buy the five items you have chosen and written on a list, all by yourself."
"I can't do that," Lacey says, holding her hands up, looking down at her chair.
"Stevie can go in with you. And if the grocery store is too complicated, then go to a deli. I just want you to do the shopping on your own, best you can," Graciela says, uncrossing her legs and putting her hands on both knees. Without catching himself, Ray's eyes move from her hands down to her calves, her ankles. Graciela notices. When Ray was sixteen and kicked out by his parents for smoking pot, he slept in a lean-to not far from a thirty-year-old who drove him to Kentucky and fucked him to the wailing banjos under a blanket in the blue grass. When Ray was seventeen, and long since moved back home, he slept with the mother of a classmate he might call his best friend. Even though it was this mother's doing—she'd asked for a massage—it's not like he didn't jump at the chance. Months later, in night school, making up for the time he missed when kicked out, he and that same friend both slept with the teacher, on separate occasions. Ray married Cynthia when he was eighteen and she was thirty-two, and now he and Graciela are the same years apart. If he still claimed old patterns, Graciela would be the perfect partner in lust, as he could tell during the last conference. Still, after the first few blissful months of his relationship with Ruby, he found that it now might be impossible to be tempted by anyone. Even though, since the accident, sex is so infrequent with Ruby, and wholly without zest on her part. He continues to have an ever-deepening faith that they will make it back to their erotic heights. He realized that during the coma, whenever his faith waned, Ruby's condition seemed to worsen or complicate, but as he really turned on with his version of prayer, so did her fight to communicate again.
"Class had no order today," Ray says, walking with Ruby down the steep hill of Lookout Mountain Avenue in Laurel Canyon. The street is so narrow that cars can park only on one side, and there is no sidewalk. As he would regardless, Ray walks on the outside, clamping down on her arm whenever a car passes, which is every thirty seconds.
"You're hurting me," Ruby says, perturbed.
"I'm sorry, baby."
"I won't wander into the street."
"I know, I can't help it," he says, smashing berries under his step. He looks up at the tree, then at her face featuring a newly cranky expression. "I'm sorry about the grocery store too."
Ruby says nothing, staring at every fence that meets the curb.
"I just couldn't stand to see you panicking."
"You shouldn't have been watching," Ruby says.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but follow you in."
"Let's drop it," she says.
He takes her hand, kisses it as they walk, holds it, rubbing the knuckles.
"Man, this is a disaster waiting to happen. Can't believe the rains didn't take this entire hill down," Ray says, pointing at it. Ruby keeps clocking the fences. "Are you counting or something?"
"No."
"Here they are," Ray says, animated. Two Dalmatians hit the fence and make a ruckus. "Watch them bark and spin," he says, laughing. Ruby doesn't look. "I like the brown spots on the smaller one," he says. Ruby still doesn't turn her head as they pass.
"I'll take the blame in class tomorrow morning," Ray says. "It's all my fault. You could have done it if I'd given you time."
Ruby says nothing.
"Tomorrow, we can try again."
"Tomorrow, I can try again," Ruby says in a huff.
"Here comes that dog again. He's so crazy for you," Ray says, putting on a smile, though Ruby doesn't think to.
"We're on the same schedule," the guy says cheerfully. He is short, fiftyish, and balding with bright, devilish eyes that suggest he got his way in business and with women, and that he fancies himself hip. His girlfriend is young, strawberry blonde, and gorgeous when in makeup; she smiles with tolerance.
"What kind of dog is he? Looks part wolf," Ray says, petting him with his left hand. The dog looks up at Ruby, asking her to do the same.
"He is, and Alaskan husky," the guy says.
"What's his name?" Ray asks.
"Blizz," the guy says.
"Liz?"
"No, she's Liz, actually," he says, touching her shoulder with propriety. She nods, spreads her smile. "But he's B-Lizz as in 'blizzard,'" the guy says. "I'm Frank, by the way," he offers his hand.
"Ray," he shakes it firmly. "This is Ruby." She nods, takes a step back. The dog sticks his tongue out and pants.
"Are you two into jazz at all?" Frank asks. Ray pushes out his bottom lip, like not bad, and nods. Ruby looks at the tip of Frank's nose, which is sunburnt. "You should come check us out at the club tonight. The Catalina Bar and Grill. Me and this here old ugly chick work a mean percussion." He takes his girlfriend's arm and squeezes it. She cackles, startling Ruby.
"You know where it is, right?" Frank says, pointing at Ray and now walking past at the same time.
"Sure do, man," Ray lies, catching up with Ruby, who is taking off already.
"The kids are out of school," she says, walking a little faster to reach the bottom of the hill. Ray grabs onto her arm as she crosses the street to be on the same side as the children. He is baffled by her excitement, since she never seemed to care about kids or even mention a thing about them.
At the fire hydrant, there is a little girl looking anxiously up the hill at her mother who is turning the car around. Ruby notices her shoestrings dragging on the ground, so she bends down to tie them. Surprised, the girl lifts her wrist so as not to touch Ruby's head of short wild hair. Ray notices her Mickey Mouse watch, then searches the girl's face for even a smidgen of gratitude, but there is none. Then he spots the ladybug in Ruby's hair, just as the girl's mother pulls up. As Ruby stands, he delicately places his finger there for the bug to climb on so she can see it. The girl's mother, an assuming but young and not-yet-brittle actress, says thank you to Ruby, as the girl gets in the car. Ruby doesn't even turn around, and neither does Ray, as they look at the ladybug together on his finger, Ray's arm circling Ruby in a grateful embrace. He fights back the tears that Ruby is alive and all his.
When the security gate buzzer sounds, Ruby runs through the hall of the main house, pushes in the button, and bursts out the front door. Ray is right behind her. He is slightly miffed that Abbie can elicit the kind of feeling he hasn't seen in Ruby since the accident.
"Hey, girl!" Abbie calls from the window of her rental car. At first she pulls up to the garage door, then she backs up, jerking herself. "Am I blocking anyone in if I park here?" Ruby makes a visor of her hand, stopping at the end of the walkway. Satisfied to see Abbie's face, she crosses her arms. Ray watches her mood quickly morph from great excitement to blandness.
"Back up just a little more," Ray says, pointing her to the right. "Jeannie's still home."
Abbie gets out of the car, trying to pull her panties out of her butt, though she wears baby blue pedal pushers.
"You sure you're okay to drive?" Ray asks, taking her in his arms for a bear hug. Ruby stands stiffly where she is.
"Didn't Ruby tell you? I can see fine with this eye." She steps back from Ray, points to the left one. "My depth perception's a little off, right? But that's okay." She wrinkles her nose, pushes her hair, now cut in bangs, off her forehead. "Aren't you gonna give me a hug too?" she asks, approaching Ruby. She throws her arms around her neck, Ruby holds her at her waist with a dormant expression.
"Look at you," Abbie says, inches from her face. Ruby's eyes twinkle. "You're my father, totally stoic." She squeezes her hand then lets go. "Oh, I forgot—I've got a couple bags of goodies in the car." She doubles back, but Ray stops her, opens the door, and grabs the pink bags. Ray screws his brows together at the Hustler name.
"You're so prude, Ray. I had to fit in here, right?" Abbie says, opening her mouth to show her tongue. Ray gives her a look that says keep your voice down.
Chattering the whole way, she follows Ruby through the door. Ray had forgotten how sweetly she sometimes reminds him of his mother.
"Wow, this is amazing," she says. "So much more austere than I imagined. Everybody knows how hippydippy Laurel Canyon's sposed to be, like my hood in Marin, right? But inside here feels nothing like it. Though this is very L.A., I guess." Surveying, Abbie stops in the center of the living room, Ray giving her that look again. Ruby stands near the long olive couch, until Abbie suddenly rushes her, pushes her down, then sits on her like a ballast. Abbie laughs hysterically and claps her hands; Ruby pushes her off so that she goes thump on the floor. Abbie keeps laughing. Ray shakes his head.
"What's all this racket?" Jeannie jokes, coming down the stairs with the sweaty sheen of a rigorous workout. She wipes her palms on her gym shorts. "And is this the illustrious Abigail?" Jeannie asks. With a radically charming grin she holds out her hand.
"So good to meet you," Abbie says, blushing. She pushes up her glasses, looks at Ruby, whose expression hasn't changed.
"When'd you get here?" Jeannie asks, pulling the band tighter on her pert little ponytail. Then she puts her hands on her hips, legs apart, ready for drill team.
"Late last night," Abbie says, yanking up the sleeves of her thin, white cotton cardigan. "Flight's longer than I thought. I get crazy in that stagnant air of the plane. Thought I might cut myself open with the plastic knife."
"You should have medicated," Jeannie says, cocking her head like she's crazy not to think of it. "Where are you staying?"
"Chateau Marmont. I always wanted to. It's beautiful and old, which I love. This morning I hopelessly waited in the lounge for Keanu Reeves, right?"
"Why don't you come stay here, there are five empty bedrooms." Jeannie holds up her hand, spreading her fingers for emphasis. "There's just Dean and me, when he's around, that is," Jeannie says, now joining the ladies on the long, plush couch. Ray reclines in the black leather chair. Feeling outnumbered, he plays piano on the armrest.
"Jean and Dean," Abbie giggles, then girlishly covers her mouth. "I love being so close to the Sunset Strip, you know? All the shops, oh my God, on the way here, just at the beginning of Sunset Plaza Drive, I could have died staring at those Herve Leger dresses in the window. I pulled over, not far enough, 'cause people were honking."
"I know. Wicked," Jeannie says in a British accent, then flips her hand. "So come on, it would be fun. Ruby would love it, wouldn't you?" Jeannie says, turning toward her but afraid to focus, as if her face were grotesquely burned. Ruby renders something close to a loving gaze at Abbie. Ray sits, the toes of his work boots fondling each other. He looks at them from beneath heavy brows. He can't stand his own impatience and possessiveness.
"Oh, I don't know, that's so kind of you, but I hate putting anybody out," Abbie says, smoothing out the couch as if she'd ruffled it. Jeannie squints her eyes at her, Ray now feeling protective of Abigail, but what he doesn't know is that Jeannie is sizing her up as a personal assistant.
"Can I get you something to drink? We've probably still got some coffee on," Jeannie says, heading for the kitchen. "Would you like some?" she calls from there.
"No thank you, I had breakfast a little while ago. Did you all feel that tremor this morning?" Abbie says with a serious expression. She squeezes Ruby's knee.
"Yes, I did," Ruby says.
"I was thinking, great, first day I get to L.A. the building's gonna crumble down on top of me. Very fitting."
"It could happen in Alaska," Ray says.
"Or at home, where I'm going after this, by the way," Abbie says, proudly smiling.
"You don't get earthquakes in Florida, only sinkholes, but they can swallow a whole house. Of course there are the hurricanes. You can't escape what Mother Nature's got in store."
"That's right," Jeannie says, making a little fun of Ray, he shoots a look that gives her a little shit back. She sighs, holding on tightly to the glass of water in her hand. She had popped two Advils in the kitchen. She quickly massages her own forehead. "I gotta get over to the restaurant soon. Abbie, it was nice to meet you," she nods, sticks her nose under her armpit. "I'm heading for the shower." She adorably scrunches up her nose, shrugs, kicks up one leg behind her like a dancer, then takes off.
"She's much prettier in real life," Abbie whispers to Ruby, then looks at Ray, waiting for agreement.
"I wouldn't know, I've only seen her in real life."
"But you saw the E! True Hollywood Story," Abbie says dramatically, then laughs in silly trickles.
"After the fact," Ray says, getting up. "Would you keep it down, Abigail?"
Ruby gets up too.
"I want to show you where I live," Ruby says, Ray watching her and feeling hurt that she said "I" instead of "we."
She walks without looking to see if they're following. Ray grabs the bags, looks at Abbie, waiting to see how bad off she thinks Ruby is.
"There's an ebb and flow to everything," Abbie says. "As you might say, Ray." She nods to him like an officer to a lieutenant.
All the way down the path, Abbie coos at the forest and the gardens Ray has started. At the front door, Ruby thinks to use her key, which is something she has forgotten to do ever since the accident. Ray leans over her shoulder to tell her how proud he is of her, and she bites her bottom lip without acknowledging him. He still can't get used to her embarrassment when he calls out her every new accomplishment.
"I'll have to get used to this new glib Ruby," Abbie says, knocking her chin. "I rather like it. Right? I always wanted the courage to be rude," she laughs. "And you never wrote me, you bitch," she says.
"You bitch," Ruby says to her, sitting down at the little table.
"Look what I brought for you, bitch," Abbie says. There is the sound of the toilet flushing, then Ray reappears. She pulls out two art books from the bag and a stack of comic books. "There's nothing from Hustler for you, in here," she teasingly swings her head on her neck side-to-side. "But this is the Agnes Martin book I was telling you about," Abbie says, putting it in her lap. Ruby opens the pages, slowly goes through them; Abbie watches her, then looks at the painting on the walls around them.
"And now, here's one with all the black stars—Chris Ofili, Fred Wilson, Kara Walker—"
"I love Kara Walker," Ruby interrupts, taking the book to flip through for the silhouettes. "Brilliant."
"You remember her?"
"Yeah. Yeah," Ruby says, looking up at Abbie, then back at the page.
"You're doing some beautiful work here, girl," Abbie says, nodding slowly now. She seems to have forgotten that Ray is watching, he's consciously made himself invisible. "I feel almost silly having brought these," she says, patting the comic books. "You've gone in such a totally different direction."
"Let me see," Ruby says, hungrily. Ray doesn't take his eyes off her.
"My brother sent me these, okay? I'd told him all about you, and because he worships your entire world, he got so excited, he said he'd send a stack of stuff for you to have. And he did. First time I've talked to him in what seems like years, okay? This is the one who was always trying to kill me. So you've brought me and my brother back together, right?"
"Martha Washington Goes to War," Ruby reads the cover of the first graphic novel. She stares at the fierce brown face, the "flesh-colored" Band-Aid on her forehead, the machine gun in her hand. The peace sign in her ear.
"Of course he sent a black superhero," Abbie says shyly. "And here's the Silver Surfer," Abbie says, covering up the other, "a few Love and Rockets, which are so classic." Ruby puts Martha back on the top of the stack.
"You know that saying, 'Lose a son, gain a daughter,' or however it goes? That's totally my brother. He's forgotten about all of us, though his wife checks in with my mom every once in a while. How can men be so consumed by their sexuality? Tell us, Ray," Abbie says, folding her arms.
"Don't know what you're talking about," Ray says, sitting on the floor, resting his back against the tub.
"Admit it. Sex rules your world. Well, when was the last time you talked to your family?" Abbie asks, gloating to put him on the spot.
"Um," Ray says, his voice shaky. "Let me see." He looks at the floor, chews on his bottom lip.
"Just as I thought," she says, holding up a finger. "Ruby, you gotta see that this man checks in every once in a while with his people," she says in her best stern, manly voice.
"Fuck you," Ruby says, then pops Abbie's thigh.
"Fuck you," Abbie says, pops her back.
"Don't mess with this good man," Ruby says, looking up at him. Ray gets teary, not only over the sentiment but also over the fact that she goes from childlike to astute more swiftly, more frequently. "Think of what a lonely business this has been. I'm a one-way need street," Ruby says, frowning though she doesn't mean to.
"You get better every day, it's incredible," Ray says, sniffling.
"That's why I'm here, right? To witness the speed, and toughen you both up," Abbie says, getting up to her feet and stretching. Ray playfully rolls his eyes. "What you got in these cupboards? I got a mean sweet tooth," she says, winking.
"Which reminds me," Ray says, following her, "I got you some near-beer."
"Ugh," she says.
"It's Bucklers. Try it. I'm getting into it myself."
"Why when you don't have to?"
"I just want to watch myself now," he says, pursing his lips again. He flips off the cap. Abbie takes a swig, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and opens the cupboard. A moth flies out.
"Eeeew," she says, stepping back. Ruby looks up with a blank stare again.
"What's so nasty about a moth?" Ray asks, digging around until two others fly out. "Uh-oh," he says, opening up the flour. He makes a slurping sound, as if he'd watched someone get sliced. "Just what I thought."
"EEEEE-ewww, you're infested!!!" Abbie squeals. Ray quickly folds up the flour full of mealy moths and throws it in the garbage. He then begins the long and tedious job of opening all the items, sorry to find them writhing in most every unsealed product. "And I thought I kept a messy house," Abbie laughs, stepping back to sit next to Ruby. Ray holds up his middle finger.
Nagging at Ray are Abbie's words about men and family. This would be the farthest worry in mind if he knew that the teeth of his victim, Arnie Watson, just turned up in the swamp. Too intimidated to call his dad, he calls his oldest sister, Sonya, whom he hasn't spoken to in well over a year.
"Rinky Ba-Ba! How are you?" she says too loudly into the phone when she hears his voice. Ray puts an inch between his ear and the receiver.
"I'm fine, So. How are you? How are the kids?"
"We're all right," she says, trying to make little of a lot more.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, Ba-Ba. So I hear from Sadie that you were in Alaska, and you're divorced now, and . . ."
"Yeah. That was a blip."
"I know what you mean, baby."
"But, I've been involved with this woman, Ruby. I'm in love, Sonya. I'm so in love. Like never ever before. You know?"
"I'm so happy for you. You sound like you mean it."
"It's been almost a year that we've been together. She doesn't want to get married yet, which I totally respect, but this is the one. This is really the one I want to spend the rest of my life with."
"I am happy for you, Ray. I really am. That's why I feel like a heel telling you I'm getting a divorce now too."
"No," he says thoughtfully.
"Yes. It's time. You know, the kids are almost out of the house, and we've been holding onto nothing, really."
"What's he done to you?" Ray asks, getting excited.
"Nothing! Really. It's totally amicable. We just haven't had a marriage in years, is all. And it's better to do something about that while there's still time to get on with your life, you know?"
"I always thought it was so hard for us, all three of us, to find anything to measure up to what Mom and Dad had," Ray says, sounding like a little boy.
"Mom? She was miserable," Sonya says, exhaling loudly into the phone.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, sure she loved Dad, but she was exhausted. I mean, it wasn't like he was the easiest person on earth, and then she had us, and she had the farm, and she had work, and, I just don't think she was satisfied as a woman."
"It was hard at times, yeah, but they were so in love. Come on, So!"
"You're not listening to me," she says in a singsong. "Look. I don't want to burst your bubble or anything. But that's what ate her up alive. You know, she was having an affair on Dad. You didn't realize that, 'cause you were a baby. But I saw the fireworks. I felt it, you can be sure of that."
Ray's jaw drops open.
"Oh yeah. I shouldn't even tell you who it was. But my point is, you always had this kind of fifties picture-perfect image of everything, especially of all of us, and I never got it. You know? But you're such a dreamer. I love you, little brother. I really hope you found the one this time. It's hell wasting away with somebody you know is not the one after a while. That's what Mom was doing. She loved Dad when she married him, but she didn't have that passion for him after that."
"Passion?"
"Passion," Sonya says, getting firm.
"I had no idea. No idea," Ray says, not having blinked for longer than he realizes.
Ray finishes up the conversation without telling her everything that has happened during these past intense months, and though it is a myriad of turbulent thoughts shuffling all logic in his head, he still feels relieved to have connected with her, and to hear the proof in the sound of his own voice, his undying love for Ruby.
When he leaves the guesthouse he finds Ruby and Abbie in the pool. Abbie moved into the main house the day before, and already she looks like she's lived here forever.
"This is so macabre," Abbie says, stopping in the middle of her breaststroke in the shallow of the pool, where Ruby wades in her turquoise bikini. Abbie looks up at Ray, nodding to her own comment. Wet and without her glasses, she could be mistaken for a teen. Ruby's body is too curved and voluptuous to be taken for the same.
Ray shakes his head at Abbie, like don't remind her.
"It's not, though," Ruby says, lying on her back to float. Ray peels off his clothes to get in, afraid that she might panic. "I don't remember everything that happened, it's true. Just fragments. When I heard you ask Ray about the skull, I could see Caspar, like I couldn't see him before. The actual photographs brought back nothing. For some reason. I get flashes, but they are so abstract. They are like paintings. And I try to capture them. It doesn't work, but it feels good to try. I like being here for the images. Pieces of my past."
"What about your parents' house?" Abbie asks, her arms stretched out over the water.
"Same thing. But it's not a challenge. When I'm with my sister, my past feels clear, even if it isn't. But she's so frustrated at the sight of me. My parents are too, that's why I could never take any of them as a partner at rehab. Jeannie is frustrated too, but at least she knows how to get around it. Hannah can't take it."
"That makes sense."
"Sometimes the paintings seem ugly to me. Or too simple. I'm beginning to crave depth. Complexity."
"You should come with me up north. We should do the drive together, right? Santa Barbara, San Simeon, Big Sur, Carmel, San Francisco, Marin, hell, we could keep on going. Stop in the redwood forest, hug some trees! Go buy us a little winery in Mendocino; you could write hit graphic novels while I run the business 'til we're ready to retire."
"She's got graduation yet," Ray says. "And you're not taking her out of my sight," he says, crouching in the shallow end instead of doing the laps he needs to.
"Would you want to, Ruby?"
"Yes."
"When are you leaving, Abbie?" Ray asks.
"I could wait for her graduation."
"That's in three months," Ray says, getting worked up. "You planning on using Jeannie that long?"
"Are you?"
"No, I'm planning to get us the fuck out of here. I haven't been able to get a job while Ruby's in class, but I can the minute it's over, and Ruby feels ready."
"I'm feeling ready, now, Ray. Ready for you to do what you want," she says, flipping onto her feet from her back. She nods at him, he takes her in his arms and kisses her on the mouth. She seems to want to return it, but then she pulls away, as if entrapped. Abbie swims to the deep end. Ray looks Ruby in the eye, a surge of fear in his chest. This is the first time he's felt, since the accident, that she's coming back into her own, but that this new self just may not include him.