Watch it, lady!” A burly man, all chaps and chaw (and wearing one of the meanest scowls Ruby has ever seen), barrels into her at the corner of Congress and Stone and no, she’s not pleased. Her parcel falls onto the dusty boardwalk but did the lout stop? No.
“Swine!” she barks after him. “Watch where you’re going, mister!” She bends to pick up the package. “Sometimes I hate this town,” she mutters.
Divina pats Ruby’s arm. “I’d have said something stronger.”
“Ox?”
“Goddamn ox.”
Ruby snorts. “Goddamn ox!” she yells in the direction the man went. Two other men walking toward the women step off the boardwalk into the street to avoid her. Ruby wipes the package with her bare hands, her skirt now covered in dust. In contrast to Divina’s dark outfit (always a dark outfit), Ruby wears white today, top to toe, and forgoes gloves. Inside the box that clattered to the ground is another new white blouse from Madame Eaves. She can’t keep them clean, but so it goes. Three more blouses like it (in addition to another special box, something she’s saved for at the expense of, well, everything) will be delivered tomorrow morning before she and Divina head back to Jericho.
Ruby and Divina pass storefront after storefront: Sylvester W. Purgell, Attorney; Columbus Grill Room; Harry A. Drachman Shoe Co. Ruby eyes a soft red hat in the window of Bonanza General Store. It would match her red boots and red gloves perfectly. Maybe next time.
Divina whistles through her teeth. “To think you can get everything you need under one roof. We can thank the railroad for that.”
Up the steps of the opulent Santa Rita Hotel and into the lobby and Ruby whistles through her teeth. That chandelier! Ruby and Divina freshen up in their handsomely appointed room (Ruby fingers the curtains, running her hand along the lower edge, real lace, an inch or more wide, imagine) before the women head for Merchant’s Café for lunch, where, for twenty-five cents, they enjoy fried oysters and oyster bisque.
“Have you ever? Oysters?!” Divina asks, as the women slurp their soup with oversized spoons. The bustling dining room is crowded with merchants and salesmen, cowmen and rail bulls, women in pairs. Divina tips her bowl to scoop out the last of her soup.
Ruby nods, spoon mid-way to her mouth. “Sometimes I love this town.”
Divina laughs. “I know you do. Look! Take a gander at Miss High-and-Mighty over there, in that outrageous hat.”
Ruby looks over her shoulder.
“Not that way, Pip. Behind your other shoulder.”
Ruby cranes her neck the other way to see a voluptuous young woman seated near a large gilt-edged mirror. Dressed more for the theater than lunch, with a hat nearly two feet tall and sporting feathers, the woman pays more attention to her own reflection than to her suitor, who is pathetically trying to gain her attention.
“He won’t be seeing her bloomers anytime soon,” Ruby says. “Poor sod.”
“What I’d do for someone like that young buck to see my bloomers,” Divina says.
“That can be arranged,” Ruby says.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. Men do it all the time, take a woman on the side. Why not women? Take a man on the side? Now there’s an idea.”
“Wouldn’t I love to be a fly on the wall in that room. Maybe I’ll bankroll you.”
“Like you have a penny to waste. Wait, is that the new governor? I believe it’s John Henry Kibbey himself!”
A group of men escorts a portly man to a table in the center of the room. A beautiful young woman is at his side. Ruby strains her neck to see him but soon turns her attention back to the meal. When they’ve had their fill of oysters and finished gossiping about everyone in the room (and there is plenty to gossip about), Divina and Ruby walk toward the Santa Rita, still tittering.
Was that really his wife, do you think? Not in a million years! Let’s hope it was his daughter. Look at that one, will you? Which one? That one, with the bulge in his trousers. You are wicked, Divina. Mmm-hmm, don’t I know it, Pip, and you’re not far behind. They elbow each other as they stroll through the hotel lobby and then take the stairs. Divina, winded, stretches out on the bed’s white-coverlet while Ruby flips the electric light switch on and off.
“Will you quit that, Pip? I need forty winks.”
Ruby pees in the new-fangled water closet and washes her hands under the faucet, hot and cold taps marked with a capital “H” and “C.” If ever! She tries to relax on the bed next to Divina, but she is too restless. She writes a hasty note, tiptoes out of the hotel room, and closes the door softly behind her. She straightens her wide-brimmed straw hat on the landing before she descends the stairs.
Few people are out in the noonday heat. Ruby leaves the downtown area and wanders through a Mexican barrio. She envies women in loose white shifts as they gather laundry off long, droopy lines, their animated chatter filling the stifling afternoon air. Ruby is tempted to duck into a Mexican tendajon, but stands instead in the shade of an acacia tree, rubbing an itch on her back against the gnarled bark.
The new University of Arizona is only a mile away, and though Ruby would like to take in the broad expanse of such a campus of learning, the walk is too far in this weather. But to think Virgil or Sam could go to university, become a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor. Is Jericho, with its riff-raff of the world, only thirty-some-odd miles away? Might as well be as far away as the moon.
Ruby avoids a streetcar on Fourth Avenue. In her haste—and not looking to her right after stepping out of the streetcar’s way—she barely dodges an automobile barreling up the street. What a waste of money! When you can have a horse!
Ruby checks her pocket watch. She wishes for a horse, so famished she is on the way back to the hotel. She walks from awning to awning to avoid the sun and dabs her forehead with a handkerchief. Although she’s tempted by the smells from a Chinese kitchen, that would never do, so in the end she decides on the Hotel San Augustine for supper. One cannot be too careful with foreign food. Some of them eat dogs and horses, after all.
Seated with Divina in the plush dining room two hours later, Ruby runs her finger down the hotel’s extravagant menu: Prime Rib Roast, Kansas City Beef au Jus, Suckling Pig with Dressing. Peach Meringue Pie. That is something Ruby can never attempt, a meringue. It would fall flat in five seconds in the Jericho heat. One day she will have an icebox. And ice. There are two ice plants in Tucson now. But how to transport it without melting? Therein lies the miracle.
The high-ceilinged dining room is full tonight—railroad men, ranchers in their Sunday best, fashionable shop owners and their more fashionable wives, courting couples. Large potted plants grace each corner of the pink-wallpapered room. Original oil paintings hang from long wires descending from crown moulding. The din of serving trays, utensils, laughter, and conversation, all this fills the room, which is cooled by two large overhead fans, their blades making lazy loops around domed lights.
Ruby orders Kansas City beef, fifty cents for the full meal, the same as she charges guests for her midday dinner. After another cup of oyster bisque and a plate of sliced tomatoes, queen olives, and spiced pickles, the entrée arrives, heaped with mashed potatoes, green beans, and baked pumpkin. Divina has ordered pork with all the side dishes, and finishes with hot mince pie and coffee. At the last moment, Ruby skips the meringue in favor of chocolate ice cream and orders café noir.
“Yes, sometimes I love this town.” Ruby pushes her chair back and wishes for a cigarette. She hasn’t had one in years, not since the carnival days, but you never lose that craving, just one …
Night slides silently over day, pitch dark now at seven o’clock, as the women walk arm-in-arm on the short block back to the Santa Rita. Two men approach on the boardwalk, one short and bandy and the other tall and stout. Ruby thinks the second one might be considered handsome, if not for a huge paunch that sags south of his belt buckle.
“Pardon me, ma’am. You wouldn’t want to share an evening with a like-minded soul?” The stouter and larger of the two directs his comment to Divina.
“Out of my sight,” Divina bellows. She waves her cane at the man and hits his sizeable paunch. “You’re not the sort I have in mind.”
The other man, undeterred, sidles up to Ruby. His hat sits askew over his pock-marked face. “Aw, c’mon. Saw you coming out of the San Augustine. For fifty cents each, you could come out even. Like we bought you dinner, but a whole lot more fun. We have rooms at …”
“You’ve come barking up the wrong tree,” Ruby says.
“Have we?” The larger man jostles Divina and she nearly loses her balance. She bats her cane at him again.
“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” Ruby draws her pistol from her belt. “Maybe you’ve heard of Ruby Fortune, Girl Wonder?” She waves the pistol at the men. “No? Well, even if you haven’t, you don’t want to run into her. Might have those tiny cocks of yours shot off.” She aims the pistol below their belts.
“Sorry for the bother, ma’am,” the first rough says, his hands in the air. His friend has already slunk away into an alley.
“Like I said. Men are bastards, Pip.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Divina snores all night, so Ruby sleeps fitfully. She rises early to pack and wakes Divina at seven. After a breakfast of steak and eggs, hotcakes, hashbrowns, and coffee, Ruby checks her watch. The stage to Jericho leaves at noon.
“We best be off for Vi’s,” she says to Divina.
“Got the cake?” Divina asks.
“I do,” Ruby answers. They shuffle their bags and boxes down the narrow hotel stairs and leave their goods behind the front desk with instructions for the desk manager to be on the lookout for Ruby’s remaining deliveries. Especially the one for Virgil. “Be sure to put that one aside in a safe place,” she tells the bleary-eyed clerk. “We’ll be back at eleven and won’t have God’s one minute to waste tracking it down.”
Ruby and Divina head down Broadway toward the busy depot. Directly next door to the station, there’s a neat sign over an arched entryway: VIOLA’S BOARDING HOUSE.
“Sight for these tired eyes, you two. Come in, come in.” If Vi is a hundred pounds drenched, Ruby isn’t convinced. Vi is dressed tip to toe in black, with an impossibly tiny waist. Seventy she must be by now, or older.
She takes the cake from Ruby and sets it aside. Vi sits at the edge of a small divan, her bird-like hands animated. “Now, where should we begin?” She motions for Ruby and Divina to sit on larger davenport opposite and taps her cane on the floor three times. “Mattie! Three glasses of iced tea!”
“I’ve got more to tell you than the day has hours,” Ruby says.
“Tell me first what you’ve done here in the Old Pueblo. I don’t get out as much as I used to, damn this hip.” She pats her side.
“Wish you could have joined us at the San Augustine,” Divina says. “That pie alone was worth fifty cents.” Divina adjusts herself on the davenport, folds of fabric bunching under her.
“The San Augustine … now that would be a treat.”
“Too bad we didn’t have enough time go to out to Elysian Grove this time,” Divina says. “The gardens, the boat rides, the tea house …”
“And the ice cream,” Ruby says.
“Bring the boys next time, Ruby,” Vi says. “Virgil would love it. And Sam. The shooting gallery, the zoo, the horseraces …”
“Is it true they’re jockeyed by monkeys?” Divina asks.
Vi nods.
“What next?” Ruby marvels. “If I bring the boys, they’ll never want to leave.”
The serving girl deposits a tray on a narrow table to Vi’s left. Three tall glasses of iced tea sweat in the heat. “Anything else, ma’am?”
Vi glances at the hall clock. “It’s almost time for my usual.” Vi hands Ruby and Divina each a glass. “Care for a biscuit?” She doesn’t take one for herself. She settles deeper into the divan then, crosses her legs, and lights a thin cigarette with gnarled hands. Her frosted glass sits full on the table, drops of perspiration coursing down the sides of the glass. “And what else have you two been up to?”
Ruby doesn’t mention the roughs. “Like a buying spree?”
“Can’t help yourself?” Vi asks. Her eyebrows arch.
“Left a few hats and gloves on the shelves.” She thrusts her chest out and fingers the trim on her starched white collar. “Ordered up four of these from Madame Eaves. Cost me a small fortune. Although why I keep doing it is beyond me.” Ruby doesn’t mention that buying new blouses is straining her budget. “Can’t keep a white one clean for five minutes in Jericho. Maybe I’ll start wearing black, like you.”
Vi snorts. Ruby doesn’t know if Vi is referring to white blouses in general or Madame Eaves in particular or that Ruby wants to dress like her.
Ruby smooths her white skirt and loosens the top button of her new blouse. “How can you stand wearing black, Vi?”
“It’s expected.”
“Price of being a woman,” Divina says. “Corsets, camisoles, chemises, bloomers, petticoats, stockings …”
“And that’s before you add what God and all can see,” Vi says. “Blouses, like your new one there, skirts, belts, vests, jackets, hats, boots. It’s a racket, women’s wear. Twice as expensive as men’s wear. Why? Because they can get away with it. Look at Mexican women. Simple white shifts and sandals. They’ve got it right.”
“Or your girls, wandering around in lingerie,” Ruby says.
“And you wonder why I chose this line of work?” Vi asks.
“I thought it was …”
“The lingerie, Ruby, the lingerie.”
“And I ordered three new pair just yesterday. French fashion.”
Vi’s eyebrows arch again.
“Speaking of, have I got a story for you. But first, I want to know about that girl of yours,” Ruby says.
“What of her?”
“So I go to meet the stage on the day you said, and boy, am I hot under the collar, Vi. Land agents, fancy men, drummers, they all get off and there’s not a girl in sight. And not a one of the others come calling to help with the sheets.”
“What the hell? No girl?” Vi throws her hands in the air. “Saw her off on the stage myself. Gave her a bundle of cash, too, to get back on the right foot.”
Now Ruby snorts. “That was your first mistake.”
“My first? Damn it. Should have learned a few hundred mistakes ago I can’t trust a soul.” Vi shakes her head. “I’ll send another girl up, Ruby. Even if I have to deliver her myself. Now what is it you were going to tell me? Something about lingerie?”
Ruby recounts the tale of Wink’s find in the desert. “And the sheriff had the gall to ask who had been in my bedroom.”
“No one has the right to ask you that, least of all a man.”
“Goddamn right about that. I told him so, in so many words. Although I wouldn’t mind him in my bedroom, just once.”
“Just once?” Divina asks, stifling a snort.
Mattie returns with three short glasses, an amber ewer, and a teaspoon. She places the tray on a low table between the divan and the davenport.
“Just what the doctor ordered.” Vi pours a generous amount of liqueur into three glasses. She picks one up and swills the golden liquid. Ruby thinks of laudanum. “Honey, vinegar, and whiskey,” Vi says. “Good for what ails you.” Vi hands a glass to Ruby and to Divina before taking hers down in a single gulp.
“Damn, that’s good,” Vi says. “I’ll take whiskey over a man any day.” Vi pats the spot next to her on the divan. “Come sit by me, will you, Ruby? But watch my hip, it’s acting up on me.”
Ruby squeezes in next to Vi.
“So tell me about the boys,” Vi says.
“Proud of Virgil, I am. He runs that post office so well the postmaster just stops in twice a day. I’ll bet my hat Virgil takes over before he’s twenty.”
“And Sam? That boy talking yet?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I blame myself for that. But he’s learning sign language. It’s like a secret code between us.” She signs “I love you.”
“What’s that you say?”
“I love you.”
“Show me.”
Ruby bends Vi’s gnarled third and fourth fingers down.
“Well, I’ll be. I love you, too, Ruby, God knows. But don’t you go blaming yourself for every damn thing. Gets you nowhere.” Vi pokes at Ruby’s midsection. “You’re awfully skinny.”
“Who’s talking?”
“If Skinny here had her eyes in straight, she’d take up with that sheriff,” Divina says. She turns to Vi and puts her hand to her mouth as if she’s whispering. “The one Ruby mentioned earlier she wouldn’t mind having in her bedroom.” Divina clucks her tongue. “Bet that one doesn’t disappoint beneath the trousers.”
Ruby slugs her whiskey concoction in one swallow, like Vi. Then she picks up Divina’s glass and slugs that one, too.
“Speaking of trousers,” Vi says, “send my regards to that old German sonofabitch up at the way station. Tell him I miss him.” She pats Ruby’s knee absentmindedly, her fragile fingers bony and translucent. “It’s so good to see you, Ruby. Doesn’t matter how many girls pass through these doors, God as my witness, I miss your momma the most.” She bends her third and fourth fingers into the warm air, eyes misty.