It’s not like Ruby hasn’t had a date before. When Sabine was little, she refused to date, too busy trying to keep one step ahead of child protective services and poverty to pay much attention to anyone else. After Sabine went off to college and effectively never returned to the family bosom, Ruby did enjoy an evening out, a movie, a little making out. She even dated one of Sabine’s neighbors, Arthur Bean, for a little while during her brief period living with Sabine in Moose River Junction, attempting to convert herself into a stay-at-home human. Ruby is pretty sure she doesn’t have a string of broken hearts left behind her. Nor has she allowed herself to have her own heart broken apart. Another reason to keep the wheels on the pavement and the steering wheel in her hands. So she’ll go out with Dougie. They’ll meet at six at the Lakeside, her recommendation. Although there are plenty of other better restaurants in the area, the Lakeside has become something of a habit. The food is good, the view nice. And she’s bound to have an acquaintance wander in, so she can establish a certain amount of stability in a subtle fashion. If you can say hi to someone across the room, you’ve got a string or two holding you down. Just enough to bolster her case that she is a stable person, worthy of keeping the Hitchhiker, even if she can snip that string with a pair of nail scissors when she’s ready.
In the meantime, the Makers Faire is over for the day and Ruby is packing up. It’s been an unusually good day; she’s pulled in twice what she did on her last best Saturday. She’s desperate for a shower, so will head to the Dew Drop for the night. It is such a relief to be able to spend a little and not fret that it will cost her what she holds most dear. Another couple of days like this and, fingers crossed, the Westfalia doesn’t act up, she’s out of Harmony Farms.
Ravi greets Ruby with his usual grace, happy to give her a room. This one is a different room from her usual end of the complex space and lacks a little of the charming crookedness. Her moisturizer stays put where she sets it on the shelf, however the wall art is exactly the same as the other room. It both feels different and feels like home.
The Hitchhiker sniffs around, looks a little puzzled that, at least scent-wise, this isn’t her familiar digs. Then she jumps on the bed and circles three times. Burrows her nose beneath her hind leg. Sighs. Sleeps.
First date. Local tavern. Ruby pulls out her best jeans and her white button-down shirt. Another good reason to take a motel room today is that she is sure that there is no iron in Bull Harrison’s possession. Much less an ironing board. The motel room ironing board squeals in protest as Ruby sets it up. She heats the iron, presses both the jeans and the shirt, and then jumps in the shower. She almost feels decadent. Ravi’s selection of bath products is quite nice. He may run a slightly seedy motel, but he doesn’t skimp on the quality of shampoo and soap.
Refreshed, Ruby pulls out the file folder once again. Alongside it on the desk is her laptop. On television, all you have to do is look someone up on the internet and all will be revealed. She opens the laptop, boots it up. Opens up her Facebook account. Ruby scrolls down, cheered by the humorous memes and pretty travel pictures posted by the sundry “friends” she’s attracted, mostly through Sabine, and the few real friends she’s left in her wake. An ad for a special kind of dog harness pops up. Algorithms are more psychic than she is, and Ruby sometimes wonders when she’ll be automated out of a job.
The fussy air conditioner grinds out an atonal tune, shudders, rests. Ruby goes to the search bar. Types in “Estelle Williamson.” Ruby thinks that if she can just locate her that there might be a trail of breadcrumbs leading toward her mother. Predictably, there is more than one: young, old, black, white, fat, thin. Living from sea to shining sea and across the ocean. And those are just the ones with a profile picture, the rest are blank-faced silhouettes. “Where do I start?” Ruby closes the laptop. Would a woman as old as Estelle must be even have a Facebook account? A thought that gives Ruby another idea. This time she simply googles the name, adds approximate age and sits back. She’d have better luck throwing a dart blindfolded. So many like-named women in the world. The name pops up in genealogical paragraphs, obituaries, and come-ons for pseudo-scientific products. Ruby gears herself up for a prolonged hunt, reading every fragment of information available via the search engine. If she promises herself an hour a day, she should get through this in a week. Maybe two. Already she sees that fragments lead to other fragments. And then she wonders, even if she lands upon the right woman, what in these fragments will connect her to Estelle Williamson? Maybe answers aren’t to be found in genealogies or obituaries, but news articles. Holy moly!
Ruby closes the laptop, flops back on the bed, bouncing the little dog from her siesta. The Hitchhiker regroups and presses her back against Ruby’s side. In moments they are both asleep.
Ruby startles awake. The dog is standing on the edge of the bed, looking at the air conditioner, which is spurting water all over the floor.
Ravi, all full of apologies, cannot move Ruby to another room as the Dew Drop Inn is full for once. He mops up the water. Offers to bring her a fan. Ruby waves off his offer of a refund; he’s already giving her the friends and family discount, plus honoring her AAA membership; she can’t expect him to do more. She knows a shoestring operation when she sees it and a desk fan will be enough to cool her off. After all, her van only offers open windows and a battery-operated fan, so she’s used to roughing it.
It’s nearly five-thirty, so Ruby pulls on her freshly ironed clothes, does her hair in a neat twist, and dabs on a little makeup. Nothing like her fortune-teller persona. This is the conservative Ruby. She adds the little hoop earrings that the kids gave her for Christmas a couple of years ago, a pair that says its wearer is a regular gal.
Ruby looks at herself in the mirror, smiles. Her distinctive little freckle winks back at her. Presentable.
The sun is setting prettily over the lake when Ruby takes her seat at the outside table for two where Dougie Cross waits for her. He is all gentleman as he stands and offers Ruby the seat with the best view. It puts the lowering sun right in her eyes, so she shifts a quarter turn to the right so that they are now adjacent instead of opposite. Fortunately, the table for two is big enough to manage a certain comfort zone between adjacent nominal strangers. They chit, they chat, they pore over the menu, listen to the recitation of specials, order a glass of wine each. Choose the same entrée, buttermilk fried chicken with garlic mashed potatoes, and seasonal vegetables that both of them will leave on their respective plates. They will not order dessert, but both will have another glass of wine.
Ruby guides the conversation with the skill of a fortune-teller, easing from Doug the salient facts of his life without planning on giving away too many of her own. But Doug is not without conversational skills of his own and applies his training as a school counselor to good use, easing Ruby’s reserve. With half the chicken gone, too much really for one meal, they settle into a conversation more typical of a third or fourth date. Ruby knows that Doug is Dougie because he is a junior. He’s in this part of the state because he went to college in Boston, and didn’t want to go back to Western Mass. And, as she intuited about him at first sight, he does indeed coach high school sports. Baseball in the spring and basketball in the winter.
“Did you play as a kid?”
“Sure did.”
“And you went to college on a sports scholarship?”
“Yes.” Doug smiles at her. “Are you doing your psychic thing?”
“Not without permission. But let me guess—you found education as rewarding as the trophies.”
“Got a nice one for debate club. Yeah. That and the fact that I tore my ACL and put an end to any serious hopes for a future in professional baseball.”
“That’s awful.”
“I would have made an okay fielder for a triple A team, but I’m a great counselor.”
“Things happen for a reason.”
“I’ve heard that said before, but my own philosophy is that you have to make lemonade out of oranges.” Doug laughs at his own joke and Ruby kind of likes that.
“What about you? Any broken dreams?”
Where to start? Ruby knows that her particular story lends itself to pathos. Runaway teen, teenage mother, homeless, making a living reading tea leaves and palms. Yuck. Usually she just tells a sanitized version: “Independent” at an early age. Romance of the road. That sort of thing. But there is something about Doug that pushes a desire to tell a more complete version of her story. Maybe it’s that all this recent interest in locating her origins has cracked open a door in her reserve that she’s kept shut. She’s on a new journey toward finding out her history; the old journey, away from it, has come to an end.
“I was left in a Canadian orphanage when I was a newborn. I guess you could say that my only dream was to be retrieved, but that dream never came about. I’m not sure it qualifies as ‘broken,’ but it has certainly impacted my life.”
“Jeez.”
“When the nuns took aim at my, um, unusual skills, I ran away. I hooked up with a carnival, learned how to use those skills to make a living.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.” Ruby pauses, chews a piece of chicken. Sips from her water glass. She likes that Doug waits, doesn’t immediately pepper her with questions she may not answer. “I was raped and ran away again, this time pregnant.”
“Sweet Mother of God.”
“She didn’t listen to my prayers, I can tell you that.”
“What happened?”
“I have a daughter, a most beautiful daughter, who has two of the most beautiful children. Sometimes dreams come to you before you’re ready but end up all right. It wasn’t easy, and I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve had to do, but it worked out. So, Doug, I don’t look back on what I might have hoped for. I got it. A life I enjoy, a nice family when I need them, and now, thanks to you, a really wonderful companion.”
“And now? Do you have anything you dream about?”
Ruby sits back, folds her napkin. The sun has slipped behind the hills and the afterglow of sunset is radiant in golds and reds. “I want to find my mother.”
Doug lays his hand on hers where it lies on the edge of the table. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t press to find out what she’s done so far, what she’s planning on doing to accomplish this needle-in-the-haystack quest. The feel of his large hand gently encompassing hers gives Ruby a curious sense of calm. She looks to read Doug’s aura and sees only the sunset.
“Crazy, huh?”
“No. Not at all.” He lifts her hand away from the edge of the table and holds it gently, as if it were a small pet. “When he was a young man my father discovered that the man he thought was his grandfather wasn’t. It was a revelation of a deeply held family secret, something so embarrassing, as only family secrets were in those days, that of course no one would tell him the truth. His mother claimed she had no information; his grandmother was dead. His aunts and uncles maintained radio silence on the subject. So, he embarked on a quest of his own.”
“Did he have a starting place?”
“He did. Letters with vague references, neighbors who could be encouraged to talk.”
“I’ve no starting place except a document assigning custody of me to the convent and a Baptismal certificate giving me nuns and a janitor for godparents.”
“That’s a paper trail.”
“It’s more of a dead end.” Ruby extricates her hand from Doug’s, excuses herself to use the ladies’ room. This is quite enough of soul baring for her.
When she gets back to the table, Doug has settled the bill. He stands at her approach and now is the moment of extending this pleasant sojourn or calling it a night. Ruby has had a good time and wishes she could suggest a walk around the lake, but it really has grown too dark. Instead, Doug suggests, as they haven’t indulged in the Lakeside Tavern’s signature molten chocolate cake, that they head into town to find some ice cream.
“Capital idea.” Ruby gathers her purse.
“Could I ask an indulgence?”
“Of course.”
“Would you be willing to drive? I’ve always wanted a ride in one of these.” He points to the Westie, waiting in the parking lot like a faithful cow pony outside the saloon.
“Sure, but I have to warn you, there’s nothing smooth about it. It’s a bit like riding in a washing machine.”
Doug hauls himself into the passenger’s seat. Ruby figures that a man whose mother raises dogs wouldn’t care about a bit of loose dog hair on his clothes, so she makes no apologies for what the Hitchhiker has left on the seat.
As they reach the main road, Ruby shifts into third, asks, “So, in the end, did your father find out the secret?”
“He did. Kind of a sweet story in its own way. Apparently Great-grandma got herself in a little trouble with a charming scoundrel and Great-grandpa stepped up to the plate and married her.”
“Your great-grandfather sounds like a decent, kind man.” Ruby signals to turn onto Main Street. “I suspect you take after him. I mean, philosophically.”
“I’d like to think so.”
Ruby insists on paying for their cones, hers maple walnut, his butter pecan. They stroll along Main Street like tourists, window shopping and admiring the street art. Carrie Farr drives by, toots her horn, and Ruby waves. Emily Hippy Chick comes out of the Country Market and asks Ruby if she’s planning on doing the Faire this weekend. “If I can have the same space, yes. I think I’ll stick around.” That potentially less-than-perfect spot had proven to be quite perfect.
“I know that you consider yourself a wayfarer,” Doug says around a mouthful of butter pecan, “but you sure seem to have made friends here.”
“You can make friends and still move on.”
“Is that so?”
Ruby waits for the inevitable pitch to stay put. She’s heard it often enough that she can recite the lines from memory. It is one of the gravest dangers in making friends. They don’t cotton to abandonment. But Doug just finishes his cone. Subject dropped.
“I should be getting back. The Hitchhiker will need her evening potty break.”
They head back to the Lakeside Tavern to collect Doug’s car. There is a space beside it and Ruby slots the van into it. Handshake or peck on the cheek? Ruby wonders. “I’ve had a lovely time, Doug. Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you. Thank you for taking pity on this guy and saying yes to a date.”
“I usually don’t. Almost never.”
“Then I consider myself very lucky.” Doug presses a hand to his chest with a dramatic flourish.
“How much Irish do you have in you?”
“None that I know of, why?”
“You seem to have the gift of blarney.”
“Well, maybe that charming scoundrel who seduced my great-grandmother was Irish.”
“Maybe you should get one of those DNA tests done.”
And in that moment, it strikes Ruby that she should take a DNA test.