“I have an opportunity for you if you’re interested.” Ruby has bumped into the milliner at the Country Market. “I know it’s short notice, but would you be interested in doing a party?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do readings at a bridal shower.”
“Sure. When?”
“Well, that’s the thing, it’s tomorrow.”
“Even better. I’ve never heard of a bridal shower on a Thursday before.”
“It was the only day we could get the restaurant.” The milliner, Rachel Bergen, flutters her fingers. “Besides, it was cheaper on a Thursday than a Saturday. This is a budget event. But we have no entertainment. I mean, we couldn’t get a, you know.” She flutters her fingers again.
Ruby takes a stab at Rachel’s meaning. “A male stripper? Kind of an odd choice at a bridal shower.”
Rachel nods. “This is kind of a combined shower and bachelorette party.”
“Sign me up.”
Birthday parties, bridal showers, baby showers, retirement parties have all been a part of Ruby’s job description over the years. When she was raising Sabine, these were her bread and butter. It’s been a few years. Ruby’s preference for being on the road has mostly precluded such events. Having been in Harmony Farms far longer than she had anticipated, and being a fixture at the Makers Faire, has allowed her to become something of a town presence. People know her. Like Rachel here, now asking for a favor. Ruby asks how many readings she might be asked to do. Rachel really has no idea, so Ruby offers her terms, guaranteeing that she’ll walk away from this Thursday-night party with nothing less than $250 and possibly more. Chipping away at the Hitchhiker’s price tag.
Ruby plugs the yellow extension cord into the Westie’s outlet, puts away her few groceries. Bull is out in the backyard tossing a tennis ball for the yellow Lab. Bull is a pretty good pitcher, and in a wave of insight, Ruby sees him as he might have been many years ago. Trim, clean, athletic. As quickly as the vision came, it dissipated, leaving the real Bull in her sight line—shaggy, stained, and puffing a little with the effort of lobbing the tennis ball.
The Hitchhiker has gone out to join in the game. Her banner tail is waving and she yips in excitement. Imagine being that enthusiastic about a tennis ball, and one that is pretty gnarly with dog spit. Bull leans over, out of breath. The dogs, sensing that the human participant in the game is done, play a little “catch me if you can” by themselves.
“I bought lemonade. Want some?”
“Wouldn’t mind.” Bull pulls himself upright and joins Ruby, who’s dragged over two sagging lawn chairs from Bull’s collection.
“You know that you should give up the cancer sticks, right? You want to be around for that dog, don’t you?”
Bull shoots Ruby a look that says this isn’t a new suggestion. “I gave up drinking.”
“That’s good. So giving up smoking should be easy.”
“They don’t arrest you if you smoke too much.”
“Fair enough.” Ruby hands Bull a glass of lemonade. They both look up as Polly’s animal control truck pulls into the yard.
“You speakin’ to her yet?”
“I was never not speaking to her, Bull, she was just doing what she’s paid to do.” Ruby pushes herself out of the lawn chair. “Besides, it’s going to work out.” This gig tomorrow night will push Ruby over the thousand mark. With no word yet from Mrs. Cross as to when to really expect the arrival of her son, Ruby is almost complacent about the fact that she can pull together much of the second thousand with another few days of busking around town. There are just enough tourists that she has a good supply of potential customers. And, God bless her, the Hitchhiker is the best shill of them all, attracting anyone who has left a dog behind while traveling. That, plus the steady stream of “pet parents” wanting Fido’s psyche read.
“Greetings all.” Polly grabs another lawn chair. Ruby hands her a glass. Bull pours the lemonade. The three of them sit quietly for a few moments, content to simply be sitting down and enjoying the lemonade. The weather today is sultry; August has arrived.
“You know who that bridal shower is for?” Polly plunges in as if they had been talking about it.
“Rachel Bergen signed me up. I figure it’s a friend of hers.”
“Her cousin, well, her cousin’s daughter. A little bit of a rush job, if you know what I mean.”
“Do people even care about that anymore?”
Polly waves a dismissive hand. “Apparently some people still do.”
Buck left her alone in the RV. Ruby dragged herself back into the shower and scrubbed herself until the water ran out. She put on clean underwear. Jeans and a T-shirt. The bloodied nightgown she left in a heap on the floor. Knees to chest, Ruby waited in the dark. It was midnight before she heard Madame Celestine open the door to the trailer.
“What’s this, then?” Madame Celestine flipped on the lamp and looks surprised to see Ruby sitting there. “Why up so late?” It was such a maternal thing to say that Ruby’s breath catches in her throat and the tears begin to run.
“Buck…” Ruby found that she had no words to describe this thing that had happened to her.
“What about him? Is he all right?”
“He hurt me.”
Celestine glanced at the heap of nightgown on the floor. “I’m sure it was an accident.”
In the single women’s trailer, romance novels were passed around from girl to girl. Ruby had read her fair share, and it was with that vocabulary that she finally spat out what Buck had done. “He forced himself on me. He penetrated me.”
“He would not. You must have done something to make him think it was all right. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good boy. I didn’t raise him to hurt women.”
“He’s rough, all right. Look.” Ruby grabbed the nightgown off the floor, twisted it until the blood stain on the back appeared. “Tell me he didn’t hurt me.”
“You got your period. That’s all that is. Rinse it in cold water.”
“There is no more water. I used it up trying to get clean.”
The sense of power that had coursed through Ruby’s body in confronting Buck in the moments after his assault returned in that moment. It was as if she was transforming from youth to crone, limbs stretching, heart beating. Anger fueling her metamorphoses from child to adult.
Celestine abruptly turned around, wobbling a tiny bit, and Ruby realized that she was half drunk. Ruby sniffed the air and caught the scent of booze. “We’ll discuss this in the morning. Good night.” She grabbed the handrail and hoisted herself into her bedroom. The metal door clicked shut.
Ruby shook her head. No, we won’t, she thought. No, we won’t. Ignoring the breaking of her heart, Ruby stuffed her schoolbag with her belongings. She had been so happy with Madame Celestine, letting herself believe that the woman was a mother figure, someone to admire. Someone who would care for her. This new version of herself realizes that the old woman owes her. Owes her for letting her monster of a son back into the trailer. For taking his side over this girl who would love her like a daughter. Ruby’s conscience was clear as she opened the drawer with the day’s take. She’s owed it. She stuffed the bills into her pocket. As Ruby moved toward the door, she spotted something else. The beautiful hand-painted teapot. She’s going to need it to start the next chapter in her life. As carefully as if it were an infant, Ruby liberated the box containing the teapot and slipped it into her bag. Opened the door and took off.
In the years to come, that teapot would help her support the child who was both penalty and prize.
Even as she goes through the motions of daily life, Ruby is dwelling on the inconclusive nature of what she has found out. Inconclusive because she doesn’t know the why of her abandonment. Had it become too much for her mother to keep her? Had her mother wanted a fresh start? Had she been coerced into giving her up? The custodial papers offer little more than Ruby’s intake into the orphanage. Every possible scenario spins in her imagination as Ruby grooms the dog, purchases loose tea for the bridal shower readings, showers, brushes her teeth, and looks herself in the eye in the mirror and wills herself to understand. To see.
She lines up the facts. Rearranges them. There is no dot-to-dot solution. She’s even dealt herself a hand of tarot to see if, armed with this information, she can discern the truth.
Ruby wakes up Thursday morning with the dog standing on her chest, nose to nose, her round brown eyes fixed on making Ruby open hers. Barely awake, Ruby is defenseless against the dog’s thoughts. The Hitchhiker is growing impatient with Ruby’s distractedness. Ruby feels the touch of grass and the taste of a rubber ball. She isn’t quite saying: “Play.” It’s more she’s thinking that Ruby needs to stop chewing on the hard bone of her new knowledge. “It doesn’t taste good,” thinks the dog. “Give.”
“You’re right,” says Ruby. It doesn’t taste good. It tastes like the ashes of disappointment. “I wasn’t expecting anything, and yet, with all this information, I can’t get it out of my head that my mother gave me away. I worked so hard to keep Sabine. Is that because I had some latent memory of the moment my mother handed me over?” She hugs the dog to her, breathes in the doggy scent of her. “And here I am struggling to keep you.”
“Thank you. I love you. I want always to be with you.”
“Then let’s go earn some money.”
Ruby has two clients with dogs today. She won’t need a teapot or a set of tarot cards unless the owners suddenly decide to get their own fortunes read. The first is a pit bull type dog, a rescue. The second, the owner proudly mentions, is a rare breed, a Mexican Xoloitzcuintli. He spells it out and then gives Ruby a quick tutorial on pronunciation: Sho-lo-itz-QUEENT-ly. Sho lo for short. Both dogs are exhibiting depression.
Because the Hitchhiker’s thoughts have been so pronounced this morning, Ruby is a bit surprised that she isn’t getting any thoughts at all from the pittie. Unlike her human clients, Ruby doesn’t want to fake it with the canines. They are sitting in the living room of the owner’s split-level house. The dog has been willing enough to let Ruby put hands on him, but all she feels is a cloud of silence. The dog does seem sad, his stubby ears cocked backward as if he wishes to hide.
The owner, a young guy with a man-bun and a full sleeve of crimson and green tattoos, waits patiently for Ruby’s diagnosis. Like any good doctor, she begins to gently question the fellow. “Any changes recently in your life?”
“Same old same old. Work, workout, go out.”
“Is he alone here a lot?”
The guy shrugs. “Maybe. I guess so.”
“How long have you had him?”
“Well, let’s see. A year, maybe a little more. My ex and I…”
As soon as he says that, Ruby gets a quick pulse of thought from the dog. “Wait. You said ‘your ex.’”
“I did.”
“How long ago, if I can ask, did you split?”
“You think that had something to do with his mood?”
“I do. Was he close to her? Does he see her?”
“Him.”
“Him. Is there any kind of contact between them?”
“No. Philip bailed and went out to Seattle.”
Ruby rests her cheek against the dog’s head, waits. There it is. A fine mist of grief. And a scintilla of anxiety.
“He’s afraid you’ll let him go too.”
The client rubs his face. “Is that what he thinks? That I let Philip go?”
“I could be interpreting it a little broadly, but in Max’s view, you didn’t tell Philip to stay. Like you should have given the command: stay.”
“What do I do?”
“Short of finding another boyfriend, try to give this guy a lot more attention. Take him with you more often. Play with him.”
The young man kneels beside the dog and wraps his arms around him. “Max, I’ll never let you go.” He looks up at Ruby. “Do you think he understands what I’m saying?”
“Not by words, my friend, by actions.”
The second dog, the Xolo, whose name is Maggie, is a marked example of beauty is in the eye of the beholder: skinny, hairless, and a mottled black and gray. But the dog has a sweet nature and seems eager to meet Ruby halfway in her quest to figure out what’s bothering her. Gingerly, Ruby places her hands on the dog, finding that the bare skin is baby soft. The dog snuffles at Ruby’s face. “What are these dogs meant to do?”
“Guards, companions.”
“And why did you choose such an unusual dog?”
“I always wanted a cool dog.” The owner is a balding middle-aged man, very typical of the men she’s seen around this upwardly mobile town. A little podgy, nice shoes. Likes status symbols like the Lexus in the driveway and the Rolex on his wrist.
Ruby strokes the dog’s naked body. It feels like a bald scalp. The dog looks into Ruby’s eyes and she sees that she isn’t sad, she’s bored out of her mind. “She’s pretty intelligent, would you say?”
“Yes. She was housebroken pretty easily, and her trainer thinks that she could do obedience.”
“So, you didn’t train her yourself?”
“Oh, I don’t have time for that.”
Except for the Turcott’s unhappy Great Dane Ruby hasn’t yet suggested re-homing a dog, but she is tempted in this case. “Do you have a family? Or anyone who takes her for walks?”
The owner shakes his head. “I see what you’re getting at.”
“Dogs aren’t accessories.”
“Is that what you think I’m using her for?” His face is growing flushed, not an attractive look.
Ruby backs down a bit. No sense pissing off a client. “She’s a sentient being who is telling me that she very much wants to be a bigger part of your life.” Ruby thinks about the Hitchhiker and how enormous her role has become in her own life. Which brings the threat of losing her to mind. She closes off that part of her brain. Ruby’s job right now is to make this unusual-looking dog happier.
“How do I do that? Make her happier?” He sounds sincere and Ruby relaxes a bit.
“Look, you’ve taken the first step, recognizing that she isn’t happy. You called me. That’s a big deal, the fact that you noticed her mood. Now talk to her, take her with you for rides to the gas station. What kind of games does she like to play? Tug, chase the ball?”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure.”
“Get some toys. Find out. Call me in a week and let me know how she’s doing.”
“I will.” The client fishes his wallet out of his back pocket, pulls out a hundred-dollar bill.
“I don’t have change for that.”
“Keep it. Please.”
Ruby has never been one to argue a customer out of a nice tip. “Thank you. Remember: play, walk, ride. Call me.”
It being too hot to let her sit in the van, the Hitchhiker is waiting for Ruby at Bull’s house. When she pulls into the yard, she spots Bull in his usual lawn chair, sucking down a Mountain Dew. The dogs are stretched out on either side of him. The Hitchhiker jumps up and runs to meet Ruby climbing out of the van. As always, her exuberant greeting makes Ruby feel like the queen of the world. Beloved. How could she stand to lose her?
Ruby gets to the restaurant a little before the first guests are meant to arrive. She wants to scope out the space, see where best to hold her little readings. The wait staff are finishing up the cheese station and two young women in cocktail dresses are arranging centerpieces. Ruby guesses that they are the bridesmaids, doing the best that they can on such short notice.
Ruby joins them. “It looks beautiful.”
“Thanks. Thank God for Pinterest.” The blonder of the pair smiles, but Ruby can see the tension, the pressure to make this event a happy one. “You must be a sister.” No one has told her the bride has a sister, but Ruby is certain that this thirtysomething is.
“I am. And you must be the fortune-teller.”
“I am.”
They agree on a spot to the left of the head table. A little discreet but not out of sight. Part of the success of the entertainment will be attracting the nervous to partake. Not unlike getting the reluctant to join in Karaoke. Suddenly it looks like fun.
Ruby unpacks the tools of her trade, the wooden box with the set of tarot cards. The tiny teacups. The teapot. She gives it a perfunctory wipe with the soft cloth she keeps it wrapped in.
The guests have begun to arrive. Gifts are piling up on the gift table. The signature drink is being dispensed, something pinkish and sweet and Ruby isn’t remotely tempted. She doesn’t mingle, but circulates, listens, an intelligence-gathering exercise. That one is complaining about a husband, the other one her kids. Someone else is talking about a sick mother. A new job. Finally Rachel Bergen shows up and spots Ruby. They agree that she’ll start doing readings after the toasts. Ruby thinks that’s perfect, they’ll all be loosened up with that pink drink and ready for fun.
Not a guest, Ruby takes herself to the bar of the restaurant and orders dinner. She’ll earn back the cost of the pricey burger in her first reading. She gives the party an hour before she ducks into the ladies’ room and changes into her caftan. Undoes her hair and shakes it out. Puts on a redder lipstick. Adds a bit more mascara and eye shadow. Voilà—everyone’s idea of a fortune-teller. A few minutes after she hears the last toast, Ruby steps through the kitchen door and asks for a carafe of hot water so she can begin brewing the tea.
Rachel makes the announcement that Ruby Heartwood, Psychic and Seer, is open for business. As usual, it takes one brave soul to venture over and within a few minutes, a line has formed. The girls, for they are mostly young women, queue up with drinks in hand and blatantly listen in on one another’s readings. Ruby fashions her insights for the maximum of entertainment for the crowd. In an hour and a half, she’s promised fortune, fun, and romance to a couple dozen now fairly inebriated girls and soothed the mother-of-the-bride’s qualms about her choice of dress for the wedding. And then there are two left. The bride and her future mother-in-law.
As Ruby taps the deck of tarot cards into alignment, she feels a shiver run from the nape of her neck to her waist. Not the kind of shiver that suggests the air-conditioning is set too high; it is the kind that old wives used to say was the result of a goose walking over your grave. A portent of things to come. She splits the deck and shuffles the large cards again. The frisson dissipates.
Everyone has decided that the bride must go last. So it’s the future mother-in-law who is forced into the chair next. Cynthia Mann.
The shiver down Ruby’s spine suddenly makes sense.
The first thing Ruby notices is that Cynthia, unlike the rest of her guests, is not the least bit softened up by the signature drink. Indeed, it looks to Ruby like Cynthia has been abstaining. She files away that bit of intel. The second thing that Ruby perceives is that Cynthia, far from being a good sport about this, is seething. And her most belligerent glance is not at Ruby, but the soon-to-be-daughter-in-law. Who is giving it right back. Okay, add a touch of family divisiveness to the blend. Sweet. The third thing Ruby gleans in the fifteen seconds before Cynthia turns her scathing attitude toward Ruby, is that Cynthia doesn’t wear any jewelry except for a tiny pair of diamonds in her ears. For her this is no celebration, but a wake.
“Well, hello, Cynthia. Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.” Might as well poke the tiger, get it over with, thinks Ruby Heartwood.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cynthia hisses.
Ruby leans over, whispers, “Don’t worry, we both know this is just for show. You don’t want to go down in family history as the mother-in-law from hell, do you?”
“I don’t think it matters.”
“I think it does. You want to keep your son close, be nice to his wife.”
“Is that your idea of a fortune?”
“No. Just a little advice from a fellow mother-in-law.” What Ruby doesn’t say is that she happens to be the mother of a daughter, who happens to also adore her son-in-law. No point in mentioning that. “They could be married a long time, and once kids come, you don’t want to be on the outside.”
“I think it’s a little too late for that.”
Both women sit back. The few girls still lingering around the fortune-teller’s table pause in their chatter, all eyes on the psychic, wondering what she will say, what she might reveal about this woman they all understand to be against this marriage.
“Tea leaves or tarot?” Ruby still has a little hot water left in the carafe. “It’s Earl Grey.”
Cynthia shrugs with a delicate gesture, signifying her utter disdain. “Tea. I suppose. Why not? But please don’t expect me to swallow your hogwash.”
“Not in the least.”
Ruby goes through the ritual as if she was entertaining the queen. A spoonful of tea, hot water, gentle swirl to ensure the leaves are spread, pour with care into the teacup. She hands the fragile cup to Cynthia, asks her to take a sip. Cynthia looks as if she’s been asked to drink last year’s Beaujolais. She comes away with a flake of tea on her upper lip. She seems unaware of it and Ruby doesn’t point it out. With a frigid hauteur, Cynthia puts the cup down and slides it to Ruby.
Ruby studies the scrim of tea leaves plastered to the bottom and sides of the tiny cup. She is perfectly willing to make up a palatable plate of prognostication for this woman, but something else happens. “May I ask a couple of questions?”
“Do I have to answer? Isn’t that how you glean enough information to make a prediction?”
“When you go to your doctor, do you answer his questions so that he can make a proper diagnosis?”
“She. And of course.”
“Same here.”
A voice from the peanut gallery: “Oh, come on, Ms. Mann, play along.”
Cynthia doesn’t take her eyes off of Ruby’s face, doesn’t deign to respond to the soused bridesmaid in the circle.
Ruby notices that the bride herself is standing at a distance. She’s got a lei of ribbons around her neck, the bows from her gifts. She looks to be falling down exhausted, less enthusiastic about her party than her friends, probably because she’s had to abstain from the pink drink. Ruby will give her a generic fortune and send her on her way, confident that she’s going to be all right, that her mother-in-law won’t always hate her. Although that won’t exactly be accurate.
“Let’s get this over with. I’d like to get out of here.”
Ruby studies the tea leaves, and a wash of magic floats through her. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s like a jolt of adrenaline straight to the heart. “You’ve decided something recently.”
“Everyone makes decisions.”
“I see a long quiet period in your life.”
“When? I could almost look forward to that. I’m so busy. It’s wearing me out.”
Mindful of the gathering around them, Ruby leans across the table and whispers into Cynthia’s ear, “You’ve decided not to run for reelection.”
Cynthia blinks, sits back, says, “I haven’t told anyone that,” thus confirming Ruby’s intuition.
“You’ve had a lot on your plate in the past year or so.”
“It’s been harder than I thought.” Cynthia looks away, says, almost to herself, “I don’t think I could get reelected.”
“For all its sophistication, this is really a small town and I get why you might think that you wouldn’t have the support you once enjoyed.”
“I’ve said no too many times.”
Ruby nods. She’s heard from her townie friends that Cynthia is known as the Queen of No, voting down pretty much everything brought to the board. It hasn’t endeared her to those who would like to see a little less gentrification and a little more affordable housing. But there is something else that the constituents of Harmony Farms aren’t keen on, the fact that her husband, albeit now ex, was convicted of animal abuse. In some minds, Cynthia is tainted by association. Particularly with her antipathy toward the animal control department, holding that tiny department responsible for the upheaval in her life.
Ruby dribbles a little more water into the teacup. Just enough to float the dregs so that she can take another read on Cynthia’s fortunes, but the magic has passed.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” This is a different Cynthia.
“No. Like with your doctor, this conversation is confidential.”
The bride has been pushed toward Ruby by her sister. “One more, Madame Ruby!”
Abruptly, Cynthia regains her hauteur, stands up and flicks back her hair. “Ridiculous. All for show.” She looks at the few guests still lingering around the bride then back at Ruby. “You, like all your kind, are a fake.”
“You make yourself sound almost racist when you put it that way. All my kind?”
“Charlatans, frauds, preying upon the naïve and ignorant. The vulnerable.”
“I don’t see you as the least bit vulnerable, ignorant, or naïve, Cynthia. But you are clearly taking me too seriously.”
Cynthia turns away from the round table. As she does, her hip hits the edge and the beautiful purloined little teapot hits the floor, smashing to bits.