‘Luke the Builder’s buns are a work of art are they not?’ Jacie whispered theatrically as she gazed past the bar at the back of the auditorium to where Luke was busy up a ladder finishing off the repair work on the auditorium’s cornice. ‘Everything they say about men in tool belts is true,’ Jacie purred, as she helped Ruby polish the bar for the start of the LGBTQIA+ weekender in four hours.
‘Stop objectifying his arse, Jace, it’s so uncool,’ Ruby hissed, trying and failing not to glance in Luke’s direction herself.
Her scalp bristled from the memory of his fingers circling her skin that morning as he reached forward to mould the last of the filler into the cracks on the cornice.
The man was fitness personified. Seriously, it wasn’t fair. Then again, she deserved every ounce of sexual frustration she was suffering from. Maybe if she hadn’t molested him this morning after he did her a favour – two favours if you counted his miraculous ability to get her boiler working again – her hormones wouldn’t have been in a hot mess ever since.
‘Stop being such a killjoy,’ Jacie hissed back. ‘He can’t hear us, and anyway, you’ve been objectifying those buns of steel, too. I’ve seen you.’
Ruby swallowed down her retort and sprayed some more polish. Jacie wasn’t wrong, and arguing about it with her would just make her think about Luke’s buns more and she’d been thinking – and watching – them enough already.
‘Hey Ruby,’ Gerry appeared from the lobby area, juggling the large mailing box which contained the Brokeback Mountain print and the handset from the phone in the ticket office. ‘I’m just gonna take this up to Errol, you wanna check it with us?’
‘Sure,’ Ruby murmured, although she wasn’t sure watching Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar get hot and bothered in a pup tent was really going to help with her hormonal problem. ‘Why have you brought the phone in?’
‘Oh, yeah, I forgot.’ Gerry placed the parcel full of film reels on the bar. ‘There’s a lady on the phone asking for the manager of The Royale.’ He placed his hand on the mouthpiece. ‘I didn’t catch her name but she sounded important.’
‘Thanks, Gerry.’ Ruby took the phone while stifling a sigh.
Important-sounding ladies on the phone could mean one of two things, neither of them good: the bank was calling to harass her about their debit bank balance, again, or one of her suppliers wasn’t prepared to wait any longer to get their invoice paid.
‘Hello, this is Ruby Graham, I’m the manager of The Royale,’ she said into the receiver.
‘Ruby, hello, it’s so wonderful to finally speak to you at last.’ The crisp British accent echoed down the phone line. ‘I’ve been meaning to call you for days.’
‘Hi, that’s … thanks,’ Ruby said feeling overwhelmed while also completely nonplussed. ‘It’s wonderful to speak to you, too …’ I think.
Ruby’s fingers tightened on the handset.
Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t calling from the bank or Tasty Treats Gourmet Popcorn, which ought to be good. But Gerry was right, she sounded very important, so important Ruby felt intimidated. Not only that, Ruby recognized that commanding crystal-clear voice, but she couldn’t quite place it. Did she know this woman? She didn’t sound like the sort of woman you would forget.
‘There’s no call to thank me, my dear,’ the woman said with a deep throaty chuckle that sounded even more disturbingly familiar.
Good grief, was sexual frustration now messing with her cognitive skills, too?
‘In fact, I believe I am the one who should be thanking you,’ she added.
Why? Ruby wondered as the strange conversation strayed even deeper into The Twilight Zone.
‘I … I see,’ Ruby said, although she didn’t see at all. ‘Could I ask who I’m speaking to? I’m afraid my …’ She struggled for a more upmarket sounding title for Gerry than barman. ‘My colleague didn’t catch your name.’
‘Yes, of course, my dear. Silly me.’ The woman gave another smoky chuckle, that finally pierced through the fog of confusion.
Was this …? Surely, it couldn’t be? Could it?
‘My name’s Helena Devlin, darling. I’m Matty’s sister,’ she added, not that there was any need to clarify that announcement.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
I’m talking to an actual Broadway legend … And Rafael Falcone’s lover … And Luke’s mum.
‘I … Wow. Hi. It’s … it’s such an honour to be talking to you,’ Ruby stuttered, almost dropping the phone, pleased she’d managed to stop herself from saying anything completely inane out loud.
She really ought to have recognized the voice immediately. Apart from the fact that Helena Devlin was a stage legend, Ruby had seen every one of her movies, and she’d watched her debut, One Summer in Sorrento, about thirty times. It was the film the then twenty-two-year-old British ingénue had starred in opposite Rafael Falcone. The film that had kicked off their tempestuous and famously short-lived affair. The film that had effectively created Luke, Ruby realised, as her gaze tracked back to the buns of steel across the auditorium. With his earphones in as he applied the last of the plaster he was oblivious to what was going on.
Both Jacie and Gerry were staring at her expectantly, obviously wondering what had gotten her so flustered.
‘No, dear, it is I who am honoured,’ Helena Devlin announced, sounding more sincere than Halle Berry giving an Oscar acceptance speech.
‘Really?’ Ruby asked. ‘Oh? Why?’
‘Because I understand you’ve managed to persuade my son Luke to take leave of absence from his construction firm. Which, believe me, is no small feat. I’ve certainly never managed it.’
‘You … you haven’t?’
Helena laughed again, the rich throaty sound making Ruby feel as if she were the most amusing and erudite person on the planet – which seemed unlikely seeing as she was struggling to string a sentence together.
‘My dear Ruby, I can’t even manage to persuade him to stop by for a ten-minute mimosa break before curtain-up.’
Helena sounded more amused than offended by her son’s lack of attention, but Ruby still felt the sting of guilt. And the need to explain herself. ‘I really didn’t persuade him to come to London. He was sort of forced to,’ she said. ‘To complete a community service order.’
‘Really?’ It was Helena’s turn to sound incredulous. ‘A community service order?’ she added, sounding intrigued. ‘My goodness, what on earth did he do to acquire that? I’ve never met anyone more boringly law-abiding than my eldest progeny in my entire life.’
My eldest progeny?
Ruby swallowed down her own incredulity as Jacie started flaying her arms about wildly – obviously losing patience with having the identity of the mystery ‘important lady’ caller revealed.
‘Well, we got arrested, about a month ago,’ Ruby winced. ‘Which was entirely my fault. I asked for Luke’s help and, even though he told me not to do it, that it might be illegal, I wanted to do it anyway.’ The whole sorry saga began to spill out of Ruby’s month. Luke had not been to blame and she really didn’t want to get him into any more trouble, especially with his mother. ‘And, well … The Royal Parks police weren’t very impressed. Although I still think the young constable who arrested us was a bit over-enthusiastic. I mean, there was no one else about. And it had been Matty’s dying wish to have his ashes scattered at the Serpentine. And, I actually think our rendition of “Over the Rainbow” was quite tuneful, considering.’
She finally stopped to draw breath. And realised she could hear Helena chuckling down the other end of the phone line. Not a sarcastic laugh, but a genuine, heartfelt full-bodied inclusive laugh – as if Ruby were part of the joke, not the butt of it. Ruby’s anxiety faded a little.
‘My darling, that is simply priceless,’ Helena murmured. ‘I don’t know how you managed to get my Luke singing a show tune while scattering my brother’s ashes in a park and then getting him arrested but, however you managed it, I salute you. And I’m sure Matty would have adored you for it, too …’ She paused. The rich amusement in her voice had faded when she continued. ‘But then I’m sure you know that, if you knew Matty well, and it sounds as if you did.’
‘Yes, I did.’ Ruby’s throat began to clog. This was so surreal, to be talking to Matty’s sister about him. The sister he hadn’t talked to in more than thirty years. She wondered if Matty would see this conversation as a betrayal. After all, he’d had a thirty-something-year-old feud with this woman. But as soon as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. On the very few occasions Matty had mentioned Helena, or spoken about her, he had never seemed angry with his sister, more sad and disappointed. Ruby had no idea what had caused their long silence, she’d always sort of assumed Helena must have instigated it, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was some silly disagreement that they’d never had a chance to resolve.
‘I did know him. I loved your brother a great deal,’ Ruby found herself saying as the familiar tears leaked out of her eyes. ‘Matty was my best friend for a long time. And he always will be.’
‘I know that feeling, my dear,’ Helena said, her voice rough with sympathy and understanding. ‘He was my best friend, too … once. And I’ve missed him more than you can imagine over the last thirty-one years. What fools we both were not to bury that hatchet a long time ago. And now I will never have that chance. I feel devastated about that. I’m so glad that, while I was foolishly holding on to my pride, he had someone like you to look after him.’
‘I didn’t look after him,’ Ruby said, her voice broke as the tears she thought she’d finally gotten a handle on over the last few weeks started to strangle her again. ‘He looked after me.’
The strange Twilight Zone conversation continued, but the ball of grief that had made Ruby feel wretched for so long, didn’t feel quite so wretched as Helena spoke to her about her brother. Ruby could hear the raw edge of grief in the actress’s rich resonant voice – a voice that had entertained kings and presidents and seduced a movie icon – and Ruby realised for the first time she was speaking to someone who understood the full extent of how hard her life was going to be without Matty.
Every morning when she woke up, for a split-second, she would believe Matty was still alive, but then the truth would slam into her again, and shove her into the deep bottomless pit which she would have to drag herself out of to function.
And no one else truly understood how deep and black and all-consuming that pit was. Because no one else had ever depended on Matty or loved him, or enjoyed his cheesy taste in movies or his daft exploits or his ridiculous sense of humour as much as she had.
But as Helena spoke, Ruby realised even if Helena hadn’t talked to her brother in over thirty years, Helena understood about that bottomless pit, how cold and black and ugly and unforgiving it was, because she had been in it a great deal longer.
Ruby sniffed and chuckled weakly, turning her back on Jacie and Gerry who now both looked appalled, while clinging to Helena’s voice and the distinctive rasp of emotion in it she recognized from One Summer in Sorrento. The tears flowed freely down her cheeks, as she listened to a wonderful anecdote about Matty from forty years ago.
Helena Devlin knew. Helena Devlin understood.
And for the first time in months, Ruby felt less alone.
***
Luke pressed the last of the plaster into the damaged moulding with his fingertips while The Strokes banged out ‘Last Night’ on his ear buds. The raw angry lyrics fit his mood as he wiped his fingers on his overalls and reached round to pluck the moist piece of cloth from his tool belt. Plastering of this sort was hard sweaty precision work, but The Royale deserved the care he was giving it. He’d never seen such intricate moulding in a building of this sort. And concentrating on the plasterwork and The Strokes’ date night disaster song was keeping his mind off Ruby and their boiler date that wasn’t from a couple of hours ago.
But as he stretched to wipe the last of the residue, a tug on his overalls startled him so much he almost toppled off the ladder. He whipped out an ear bud to find Jacie the theatre’s assistant manager standing below him. The troubled look in her usually lively brown eyes had him swallowing down the swear word about to bounce off his tongue.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, because something was clearly up. From the few interactions he’d had with Jacie he knew she liked checking out his butt and didn’t make any secret of it, that she was nosey and more than willing to hold a grudge against him for not stepping in to fund the theatre. But he also knew she was Ruby’s fiercest defender.
‘It’s Ruby,’ she said without any preamble. ‘I think she’s having a breakdown talking to your mother.’
‘Huh?’ The tension in his gut he always got when his mother was mentioned had him tightening his grip on the ladder.
‘Helena Devlin, your mother,’ Jacie said, as if she were talking to a dumb toddler. ‘She’s on the phone to Ruby right now and Ruby’s in floods of tears. I’ve never seen her so weepy. Not even at the hospital when they told us Matty was gone.’
‘Fuck!’ Luke jumped off the ladder, ignoring the wobble in his knees and marched across the auditorium towards the woman he’d been trying to ignore for the last two hours. Jacie scrambled after him.
Ruby stood with her back to them both, her shoulders hunched and trembling. Gerry sat next to her on a bar stool looking even more troubled than Jacie.
Ruby had changed into a pair of skinny jeans and a Pride in London T-shirt, Luke noted. The heat pulsed in his abdomen, as it did every time he got within a few feet of her, but he ignored that, too.
So not the damn time.
What was his mom playing at? What the hell was she saying to Ruby to make her cry? And how the heck had she gotten this number? The only two people he’d told his true whereabouts to were Gwen and his kid sister Becca, who he’d given the information to in case of a family emergency. And Gwen was a rock.
Becca? You didn’t? You’re a dead woman.
He tried to dial down on his fury with his kid sister. He of all people knew how hard his mom’s probing was to resist when she went the full Spanish Inquisition on your ass. But as he touched Ruby’s shoulder, she glanced round, and the fury lanced through him again.
Nope, Becca was definitely going to have to die.
The freckles on Ruby’s cheeks were raw, her eyes dazed with sadness.
‘Hey, what’s up, are you okay?’ he said, even though the question seemed kind of redundant, because she was clearly not okay.
Despite all the damning evidence to the contrary, she bobbed her head, still clinging to the handset. ‘I’m … yes … I’m talking to Helena.’ A wobbly smile lifted her lips that only made him madder. ‘I mean, I’m talking to your mother about Matty.’
It was all the evidence he needed. Resting his hand on her shoulder, in a vain attempt to relieve her trembling, he lifted the phone out of her fingers. ‘Can I speak to her?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Ruby handed over the phone, the flash of colour backlighting the moisture on her cheeks.
Becca wasn’t the only one who was going to die now.
‘Mom?’ he barked into the mouthpiece.
‘Luke, my darling, it’s so wonderful to hear your—’
The fury surged. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he interrupted the effusive greeting. Did she really think he was going to let her get away with this? ‘But don’t you dare call this number again or there will be consequences. Do you understand?’
‘Luke? What are you—’
He dropped the phone and clicked off the handset. Then clicked it on again to block any return calls. He knew his mom: consequences – especially unspecified ones not written in blood – weren’t an effective deterrent. And getting a busy signal when she was intent on contacting someone was the one thing guaranteed to drive her nuts.
Deal with it, Mom. While I deal with the fallout from your latest emo-bomb.
He dumped the handset on the bar.
‘Luke!’ Ruby’s waterlogged eyes had gone wide with shock. ‘Why did you speak to your mother like that?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s how we roll,’ he said, cutting off that line of conversation, because the last thing he wanted to do was discuss his dysfunctional relationship with his mom, or give the woman who had put that sad look in Ruby’s eyes a single extra ounce of attention.
Ruby wasn’t a crier – she was tough and tenacious and brave. She didn’t do fake emotions. But his mother made a living out of them. And Ruby was a babe in the woods when it came to dealing with his mother’s particular brand of emotional manipulation.
Keeping his hand on her shoulder, he leaned past her to grab a couple of paper napkins out of the dispenser on top of the bar. He dabbed her cheeks. ‘Now, tell me the truth – are you okay?’
A new wave of tears flooded over her lids and she gave a little hiccup. Then she shook her head.
‘I guess not. I’m sorry, it’s silly, really,’ she said, taking the wad of napkins from him and scrubbing her own cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean to make such a scene,’ she added, tangling the damp tissue in her fingers. ‘It’s just so hard sometimes. I miss him so much. But it was nice to talk about Matty with your Mum, really it was. I think she’s the only person who misses him as much as I do.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded back, struggling to sound sympathetic while the fury choked him.
So his mom had called the theatre to share reminiscences with Ruby about a guy she hadn’t contacted in thirty-one years? Like hell. He had no idea what his mom’s true motives were, but he wasn’t buying the let’s-share-our-pain one for a second. He’d have to deal with that melodrama another time though, because first he had to take the devastation out of Ruby’s eyes.
‘Could you use a hug?’
The flash of shock at his offer made him feel like an asshole.
It was true, he wasn’t a natural-born hugger, but he did make important exceptions. Like when Becca’s hamster had been eaten by the ginger tom his mom was starring opposite during the shoot of a low-budget kids comedy in Spain, or when his brother Jack’s dad Bill – who they had all adored – had died tragically during a storm at sea off the coast of Maine ten years back, or when his mom had won her second Tony a year ago. Although he really wished he hadn’t made an exception on that occasion when the stolen shot of the two of them backstage had been juxtaposed with clinch shots of his mom and Falcone in their only movie together and gone viral as a creepy, vaguely incestuous meme with the tagline ‘Helena Devlin: Being only as old as the man you feel’.
His mom, of course, had adored that meme. ‘I do love to be current.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Ruby said, clearly concerned she would be taking advantage of him again.
And he wanted to kick his own ass for making her scared to touch him that morning.
‘Nope,’ he said, spreading his arms wide and tugging her into his body.
She stepped into his embrace, tucked her head under his chin and ran her own arms around his waist to hug him back. Her fingers trembled as she clung to him. The silent shudders while the last of the storm battered her, had his heart rising into his throat. He rubbed her back and racked his brain for something to say, that might alleviate at least a little of her grief.
But really what was there to say? Her loss was huge. She hadn’t just lost her best friend, she was about to lose her job and her home. Not for the first time, the thought of loaning her the money she would need for the debt skimmed through his consciousness. But he forced himself to let it pass by and land back in the box marked Bad Ideas.
He was entangled enough in this situation already. And loaning her the money might solve the immediate problem, but it would only create more problems down the line. He was going to be gone in four weeks at the most – after checking the repairs that needed doing, he’d decided to extend his stay through the end of May – but come June 20th, Ruby was still going to have a stark choice.
He couldn’t replace his uncle as her guardian angel, he just wasn’t cut out for the job.
The shuddering finally stopped as the storm passed. Ruby’s deep sigh against Luke’s neck sent a cloud of her scent – floral sin and rose shampoo – into his nostrils. His hands tightened on her lush curves, before he forced himself to let her go and step back.
She looked at him through tear-gilded lashes. ‘Thank you, I think I needed that,’ she said, the embarrassed heat in her face, and the honesty and integrity in her gaze only making her more luminous.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘You want to take a break for the rest of the day?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure me and the rest of the crew can handle the clear up.’
‘No, I’m good. Really, I am,’ she said, sounding much more sure now. She glanced around the auditorium. ‘And I love seeing this place get the care it deserves.’
He dismissed the guilty pang that wrapped around his ribs.
‘Why don’t we start watching Brokeback Mountain?’ Gerry said, holding up a reel of film. ‘Errol can thread it up in no time. Do you want to join us, Luke?’
Luke frowned. Was the guy serious? Wasn’t that movie a tragedy? Didn’t the cowboys die at the end?
But before he could say anything, Ruby had pasted a brave smile on her face. ‘You know, Gerry, I think that would be an excellent idea. Matty adored that movie, even though he said it was a gay movie for straight people, it always made him cry. And I’d love to have a chance to clean out my sinuses over a sad movie for a change.’
As Jacie stepped up to give her a hard hug, Luke stepped away.
‘Luke, if you want to stay, we’d love to have you,’ Ruby said.
‘Sure,’ he said.
She was being kind to Gerry by humouring his asinine suggestion. She couldn’t really want to watch a movie about lovelorn cowboys while she was feeling like shit. So he’d stay and watch it with her. Make sure she didn’t get too shaky again.
It was the least he could do – after his mom had played fast and loose with her grief. And later today, after he’d let his mom stew in her own juices for a while, he was going to call her back, and give her hell for screwing with Ruby’s karma. And his own.
***
‘Mom, seriously, what the hell were you thinking?’ Luke kept his voice low and even.
He had finally relented and called his mother’s cell from the phone in his house in Chepstow Villas after he’d order in some take out and eaten it. It was close to eight p.m. UK time so he’d left her stewing for over six hours, it still didn’t feel long enough.
‘Darling, I don’t know what you mean.’ Yeah, right.
‘Ruby Graham is grieving, she scattered her best friend’s ashes barely two months ago,’ Luke added, his voice rising as the memory of Ruby’s tear-streaked cheeks blasted back into his memory and made him mad all over again. ‘Her emotions are shaky at best, she does not need you calling her out of the blue, playing the heartbroken sister and driving her emotions off a cliff.’
He’d been forced to sit through one of the most tragic films ever made to keep an eye on Ruby that afternoon. To her credit, she’d been a rock during the three-plus-hour endurance test as they watched Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger act their asses off. But he’d been watching her like a hawk before he’d headed out, for any signs of a wobble, and he’d seen her chin tremble more than enough times to know Ruby’s tough-it-out routine had been an act.
Ruby was still shaky, still devastated, still way too close to the cliff-edge for his liking. And he planned to get it through his mom’s skull that she was not to contact Ruby and freak her out again.
‘But I am the heartbroken sister,’ his mother replied. ‘And all I did was talk to her about Matty. It was good for us both. You may find it easy to close off your emotions, but not everyone else can do that,’ she finished, sounding hurt.
Yeah, he wasn’t buying that either.
As usual his mother was avoiding the actual problem to take a detour into yet another conversation about his ‘withholding issues.’
‘And how was it good for you, Mom?’ he asked, changing the subject right back again. He was pretty good at playing the deflect-and-rule game, after all, he’d learned how from a master. ‘You actually want me to buy you gave a crap about Matthew Devlin when you had refused to speak to him for over thirty years?’
‘I didn’t refuse to speak to him, he refused to speak to me,’ she said, still sounding hurt. ‘For a very good reason. I did something unforgiveable.’
So what else is new, Mom?
‘Whatever,’ he said, already bored. The details of his mom’s feud with his uncle had jack shit to do with him. And while it was super rare for his mother to admit culpability for anything, he still wasn’t buying the contrite routine. ‘Just don’t call her again.’
‘But I wanted to visit The Royale when I’m in town,’ she said. ‘I’d love to meet Ruby. She sounds adorable. And I wanted to talk to you both about—’
‘Wait up. Wait a damn minute,’ Luke cut in as every one of his freak-out vibes freaked out. ‘Did you just say you’re coming to London?’
Hell, no. This could not be happening. He thrust his fingers through his hair, the mild headache caused by the emo-fest this afternoon morphing into an all-out migraine.
‘I’m going to be in London next week,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my one-woman show at the National in June for a limited run. They had an unexpected gap in their schedule. I found out about it, made the suggestion to my agent, he talked to Gypsy’s Broadway producer, and the general manager at the National. It just seemed so fortuitous. I’m celebrating thirty-five years in the business this year and I wanted to come back to my home town during our break on Broadway. Especially when I discovered my first-born was in town, too. We start rehearsals in a couple of weeks.’
No. No. No.
Luke could feel his break – which had already gotten more confusing than he would have liked – turning into the massive fuck-mageddon he’d been trying to avoid.
‘You’re not visiting The Royale, or meeting Ruby.’
‘But I wanted to talk to you both about …’ she began again.
‘You’re not listening to me, mom, I’m not kidding, if you show up at the movie theatre, I will cut you out of my life for good.’ It was extreme, but then extreme was the only language his mom understood.
His palms were starting to sweat, his heart punching his rib cage. He wasn’t even sure why he was so dead set against Ruby and his mom getting together. He just knew it would not be good. For all of her self-absorption, his mom could be pretty damn intuitive, and he didn’t want her intuiting anything about his friendship with Ruby.
‘Luke, you don’t sound well, are the anxiety attacks back?’
‘Not yet,’ he growled. But they soon would be if she didn’t listen to him. He didn’t want her here. He could feel the box he’d spent his childhood trying to escape folding in around him.
Holding his hand over the mouthpiece he forced himself to breathe. And count. The way the CBT therapist had trained him to do as a fourteen-year-old when these dumb attacks had started.
In. One, two, three. Out. One, two, three.
‘If you really don’t want me coming to The Royale, I won’t come,’ she said.
‘Good.’ In. One, two, three. ‘Don’t.’ Out. One, two, three …
‘But I wanted to tell you about something. You and Ruby. It’s about Matty. And me. And your father.’
In. One, two, three. ‘You’re not meeting Ruby.’ She doesn’t need this shit any more than I do. Out. One, two, three …
Whatever nonsense his mother had to impart, he was not dragging Ruby into the drama. She had enough drama in her life already.
‘Okay, just you then. I suppose you can tell Ruby. Perhaps you could come to my hotel for lunch next Friday …’ She paused then added. ‘Assuming you’re sure you don’t want me to pop into The Royale, instead?’
The counted breathing had slowed his pulse down to frigid. ‘That’s blackmail, Mom.’
‘I know, dear,’ his mother said without an ounce of remorse. ‘But how else am I supposed to get you to come see me?’