Ruby has a house call to make today. After almost two weeks, her flyer—with the addendum of “animal communicator”—tacked to the notice board at the Country Market has hit pay dirt. Although many of her peers do this sort of thing over the phone, Ruby really wants a face-to-face, or, rather, face-to-muzzle reading. She knows, even as that sounds more authentic, it’s really because her abilities are nine tenths intuition, not second sight. She’s got to get a read not just on the cards, but on the face and hands of the client. A scrim of sweat on an upper lip, the slight vibration in a hand as a palm is turned over for her examination. Voices can be controlled, but “tells” not so much. With the dogs, the clearest messages are when the vibration she feels in the palms of her hands intensifies and the cross connection between scent and image develops in her mind’s eye. She can’t imagine being helpful without touching the dog.
With the Hitchhiker ensconced on the double bed, fresh water, and light air-conditioning making her hours of waiting for Ruby’s return quite comfortable, Ruby makes sure she’s got her tarot cards with her just in case the client decides that she needs a reading of her own, and locks the door behind her.
The van gives Ruby a moment’s hesitation before starting. “Come on, old girl, we aren’t done yet.” Ruby cranks the ignition, tickles the gas, prays to whatever goddess rules over tetchy machinery and is relieved when the engine shakes into life. Ruby has signed up for another Saturday at the Faire, not just to tweak Cynthia Mann, but because the van needs attention. If she’s to keep moving, she’s got to keep the Westie in shape and, with an ancient vehicle like this one, that doesn’t come cheap. Her son-in-law has broadly hinted that maybe it’s time to retire the van. By which he means retire herself. Well-meaning but unheeded advice.
The address of the client is Poor Farm Estates. She’s toured around the outskirts of town often enough now that she has passed Poor Farm Road and assumes that this may be some modern affordable housing development, and also thinks that the name is a tad insensitive. Driving past an ancient wreck of a house, she thinks she spots Bull Harrison. She slows down, waves. He’s outside hacking at the lilac bushes, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, wielding a pair of hedge trimmers that look like they’d been new in the nineteenth century. His dog, Boy, is in a Sphinx-pose just at the edge of the driveway. Ruby slows down, pulls over. Recognizing her car, Boy jumps to his feet to amble over, tail swinging. Rising to his hind legs, he pokes his head through the open passenger window. She gets a nice image of meat from the dog’s mind; the image is so strong, for a moment she thinks she’s smelling it, and then realizes that she is. Bull’s got something on the grill.
“Hey there, Ruby, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” Bull tosses the cigarette butt into the road in front of her van.
“I have a client in the neighborhood.” She’s already thinking that she can’t possibly charge anyone living in this neighborhood her new fancy price for having a dog read. “Poor Farm Estates?”
“Down the hill, quarter of a mile. Can’t miss it.”
“So, was there a poor farm?”
“Oh yeah. Back in the old days. Town took care of its indigent. Put ’em to work on the farm.”
“And now?”
Bull chuckles, pats Boy on the head. “You’ll see.”
The address is 259 Poor Farm Drive, and the house is absolutely the antithesis of a poor house. Talk about tone deaf. Whoever the developer was certainly had either a warped sense of irony or a mean streak. Acres once set aside for hay fields and rows of vegetables now boast two- and three-acre lawns and landscape architect–designed flower gardens, oh, and Olympic-sized swimming pools. And this. A house that looms over the landscape, not so much a part of the scenery as the focal point. Glass and half timbers, columns and gables—a hybrid between Tudor and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not a hybrid, Ruby thinks, a hydra. The garage is bigger than an average house. No doubt bigger than the original poor house.
Well, a client is a client. A reading is just a reading. She has no urge to discriminate against more money than taste. And any impulse to reduce her fee is gone, replaced by the thought that she isn’t charging enough. Sliding scale, that’s what she should charge. Slid all the way to the top of the meter in this case.
The massive front door resembles what the door to the Magic Kingdom would look like if the Magic Kingdom had a front door. Predictably, and it didn’t take special powers to do so, the doorbell rings with the distinctive notes of Big Ben. Ruby has to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. It’s so trite. This is going to be fun.
The lady of the house herself opens the door. “Ruby, hello, thank you for coming.” Her client is Jane Turcott and her dog is a pale fawn-colored Great Dane. Said Great Dane is in the kitchen, in a crate the size of a playpen, which would be intrusive if the kitchen hadn’t been the size of an airport hangar. Ruby doesn’t even have to try; this dog is thinking right at her. “Let me out!”
“Does he have aggression problems?”
“Oh, no. He’s as sweet as can be with everyone.”
“Then let him out. I need to touch him to get a good reading.”
Jane does, and Gulliver eases himself out of the crate. Stretches, walks up to Ruby who, sitting straight in her chair, can look the dog in the eye without having to lean down. “He’s a big one, isn’t he?” She takes the dog’s muzzle in her hands, ignoring the drool. “Tell me again why you called me.” This to Jane, although she’s pretty sure she’ll get the real answer from the dog.
“He has started pulling on the leash and he’s never pulled before, not even when he was a puppy and in training. And he,” a pause for proper terminology, “pooped where he shouldn’t.”
“In the house?”
“Oh, no. Outside, but not where he should.”
“Have you consulted his trainer?” Ruby is certain that the trainer is probably on retainer.
“Of course. And we went through a refresher course. But the minute the trainer is gone, it starts up again.”
“Why’d you call me?” Ruby thinks that Jane isn’t a likely candidate for reaching out to a psychic to figure out her dog problem. She looks more like a woman who would trade the dog in for a better-behaved model.
“My housekeeper saw your poster. She’s a dear, and I didn’t want to discourage her wanting to be of help so, in all honesty, against my better judgment, I called you.”
Ruby gets a better picture now: Mrs. Turcott wants to keep her housekeeper happy, and surely it’s the housekeeper who’s doing all the doggie cleanup. What’s that phrase? Good help is hard to find.
Jane slides onto one of the high-backed counter stools, rests her elbows on the high-gloss slab of Carrara marble. She looks a little embarrassed, a little tired. “I never wanted a dog. My husband, Mr. Turcott, said that a house like this should have a good-sized dog.”
“As ornament?”
“As guard dog, but, as you can see, Gully is anything but fierce.”
Ruby thinks, no, that’s not what Mr. Turcott intended. Big house, big dog. Probably has a big car. Freud, anyone?
“Play with me,” Gulliver thinks, and Ruby hears it loud and clear. Images of ropes and balls.
“Do you ever play with him? Say, tug of war?” The Hitchhiker loves nothing better than to tug on her rope toy with Ruby on the other end.
“He’s too big, he’ll pull me down.”
Fear. Probably not an unreasonable reaction given that this dog certainly outweighs his mistress. “Will he fetch?”
“Chase the ball. Chase the ball,” thinks the dog. Ruby can practically taste the bright red scent of a rubber ball.
“I don’t know. I don’t let him loose. I’m afraid…”
“That he won’t come back?”
“That he’ll wreck the gardens.”
“You’ve got how many acres here? Surely there’s enough area for the dog to run, get some exercise, be a dog.”
“I thought you were going to read him, that he’ll tell you what the matter is. Why he’s being so naughty.”
“He is telling me. He wants to get out of that crate, to play, to run. He’s not a bibelot you take out to show off and then put back in its box.”
Jane stands up, huffy now. “He told you that?”
“Not in so many words,”—especially bibelot—“but in images. He wants to run. He’s a big athletic dog.”
“You’re just putting your own spin on it.” Act II in the play. Doubt and accusation.
“What do you think?” Turnabout.
Jane Turcott moves a vase of freshly cut lilies from one side of the marble counter to the other, adjusts the positioning of the three blooms so that they are displayed to perfection. A light orange dust of lily pollen sprinkles onto the black surface. Jane stares at it. “I cannot get that gardener to remember to cut the stamens.” Ruby notes the nonanswer to her question.
Gulliver leaves Ruby and marches over to his mistress. He cocks his head, which sports cropped ears, giving him less of an aggressive appearance than one of mistreatment. He whines softly. Jane doesn’t acknowledge his presence until she points. “Go to bed.”
The big dog is a portrait of despondence as he does what she says.
“Don’t lock it.”
“He can’t roam free. I mean, what if he does make a mistake in the house?”
“Then find a new home for him or he’ll continue to be a problem, maybe even develop worse behaviors.” Ruby has no idea what she’s talking about, but she knows that this dog deserves better than what he’s got.
“He was a very expensive dog. We can’t just give him away.”
“Sure, you can.” It would be a far better thing for this giant dog to live in a two-room hut with a loving family than in a crate in this ostentatious house. Ruby stands up, gathers her bag. Gives Jane a moment to realize that this isn’t a social call. “Ahem.”
“That was it?” Jane’s face is a mask of civility. She won’t let her annoyance show. But Ruby sees it, feels it.
“I’ve read him, given you the results and that’s what constitutes a session. One hundred twenty dollars, if you please.” Twice what she planned on asking.
“Fine.” Jane finds her purse, hands Ruby the cash. “You can go out through the garage.” Ruby has the sense that Jane is hustling her out. She thought she’d heard a car door slam a moment ago.
Predictably, there is a giant Hummer in one of the three car bays. Ruby bets that Mr. Turcott also smokes Cuban cigars.
As Ruby comes out of the garage, she spots Jane’s visitor. Cynthia Mann. Jane perhaps didn’t want Cynthia to see that she’d employed a psychic, an animal communicator, especially one who has stuck in Cynthia’s craw. “Hello, Cynthia. Lovely day, isn’t it?” Ruby twiddles her fingers in Cynthia’s direction and climbs into her van. Cynthia waves a flaccid, queenly hand.
It’s a darn good thing that Ruby charged the delightful Mrs. Turcott double the price for her poor dog’s reading because the Westfalia has chosen to take a break. The dodgy starter can no longer be charmed into turning over. As a professional road warrior, Ruby has never been without AAA. She watches as the van is ignominiously hauled onto the back of a flatbed and she fights the urge to wave goodbye. Of necessity, with her mobile home in the shop, Ruby has booked another few days at the motel.
Ravi stands beside her. He has taken a slightly filial tone with her, consoling and at the ready to help her find alternate transportation. “I have the number of our local taxicab company. I would be more than happy to make a call for you.”
“My daughter would tell me to download the Uber app.” Ruby has on her Skechers and is planning on a walk to town. Once she gets past the sidewalk-less industrial area, it’s only a mile or so into Harmony Farms proper. Besides, the Hitchhiker is up for a nice walk. The day is seasonably warm, the sky a tad overcast.
It’s amazing how different things look on a casual walk; Ruby notices things otherwise invisible as they are sped past in a car. An otherwise nondescript white vinyl-sided house has a charming picket fence against which old-fashioned roses climb; a stone cherub appears to bless the blooms. A black and white cat sits on a porch step, eyeing their progress with disdain. The Hitchhiker stares but makes no hostile move. Ruby pauses long enough to see if the cat says anything to her, but without the tactile element, she gets nothing more than what anybody would expect a cat to think, and she moves on.
The proletarian outskirts of Harmony Farms quickly become patrician as the houses go from shabby mid-century to historic antiques restored to within an inch of their lives. Gardens are designed and driveways paved with smooth blacktop, delineated in granite blocks. Most are Federal style; all are white. Probably some arcane rule against individual style, Ruby thinks. Another block and she’s downtown.
“Is that you, Ruby?” a female voice calls out from a white truck. It’s Polly Schaeffer on her rounds.
Ruby feels like a townie as she leans an elbow on the open truck window. “Catch anything?”
“Actually, I’m on the hunt for a missing dog.” Polly chews the inside of her cheek for a moment. Ruby can tell that she’s debating whether or not to ask Ruby for help. Weighing the outlandish novelty of recruiting the help of an animal communicator versus what her boss might think. Her boss, being, of course, the Town of Harmony Farms and, by extension, Cynthia Mann, selectperson.
Ruby helps her out. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Got time now?”
“Sure.”
“Hop in.”
As they pull away from the curb, Ruby reminds Polly that she has only ever communicated with dogs through touch. She’s not sure she can pinpoint a missing dog via telepathy, but she’s willing to try. Other pet psychics do and with professed success. “I’ll need to start where it was last seen.”
As they pass Bull Harrison’s unkempt house, Ruby has a genuine flash. “This isn’t that poor Great Dane, is it? The Turcotts’ dog?”
“Ruby, you really are a wonder. Yes. What told you that?”
“I read him the other day and the poor animal is miserable. I’m glad he got away.”
“Well, I can’t not look for him. It’s my job.”
Yes, Ruby thinks, and that Selectperson Cynthia, buddy of Mrs. Turcott, would not take kindly to such a failure.
As if she’s fallen into a dream, Ruby gets an absolutely clear image of the animal’s whereabouts. He’s found a family, near the lake. Probably vacationers. Probably won’t keep him but will turn him in when they leave. She startles out of the vivid vision. “Let him be. You’ll be getting a call in a day or two and he’ll be turned in. For right now, he’s having a good time. He’s being loved. Don’t take that away from him.”
Polly gives Ruby a slight nod of agreement, of compliance.
After a stop for a quick cup of tea, Polly drops Ruby and the Hitchhiker off at the Dew Drop Inn with a wave and a thank-you for Ruby’s help. Ruby waves back, smiling, thinking that it has been a long time since she felt a kinship with another person beyond Sabine and her family. Rootlessness has a cost, and even when they spent a school year in one place, Ruby wasn’t inclined to develop friendships, knowing that friends have to share histories or forever remain at arm’s length. She has left behind a whole host of arms-length acquaintances. Only fellow carnies ever came close to becoming friends, and that relied on a tacit agreement to keep personal histories vague. The other problem with friends is that they expect that they can persuade change in you. See a flaw—transience, for example—and they have a solution. Even Sabine, with her firm offer of a garage apartment, thought that she, of all people, could affect a change in her mother.
Polly is different. She’s a bit like a dog herself, very much living in the present. She speaks of what’s in front of her, not behind. Ruby likes that, and it’s easy to lose an hour chatting about town doings and pet owners following best practices. Polly’s aura is warm and caring, but there is a definite haze of something underlying it. It’s an unusual shade of lilac, suggesting that Polly fights every day to avoid something she really wants.
When Ruby lived in the convent orphanage, she and her friends all had one desire in common. Each of them told a version of her own history, some more accurate than others, but they all had a common hope for their future: to be embraced by a family. The girls who had arrived at an early age, under two, had no words for this desire. This convent life was all they knew. But a day would come when their imaginations flickered into life. A Sister might read them a story featuring an intact and loving family and a little girl would feel that longing take hold of her heart, growing like an unrelieved pain. Another might catch sight of a friend leaving the building with an aunt and uncle or with a childless couple whose life was now fulfilled with the addition of a little girl. It wasn’t an empty desire but a solid burden on the heart. Not being wanted.
The older girls made up stories about inevitably being reclaimed by parents who were on the stage, or spies, or traveling through Europe; surely, they were misplaced princesses. No one made up stories of death or illness or despondency or carnal mistakes. Someone, somewhere, they all said, loved and remembered them and would be back. “When my parents come…” Words whispered in the gloaming of the dormitory.
Everyone made these claims, except the girl who would become Ruby Heartwood.
The seasonably warm, slightly overcast morning, has settled into a thick humid summer day. Ruby sits down at the small business desk squeezed in between the dresser and the mini-fridge. The window air conditioner hums with an occasional rumble of protest as Ruby pulls out her tarot cards and shuffles them. It was, perhaps, cowardice, seeking guidance from a well-used set of cards. Procrastination certainly. Even as she shuffles, Ruby knows that she will not get an answer to a question she is having a hard time forming.
The Hitchhiker jumps down off the bed and sits beside Ruby. She puts both forepaws on Ruby’s leg, sets her black-tipped nose between them. She has little spots on her eyebrows, just the color of a woolly bear caterpillar’s brown parts. They give her face with its bandit’s mask of black a curiously human expression. Ruby doesn’t need to touch the dog to know that the Hitchhiker is thinking she should just put down the cards and … and what?
The dog drops back to the floor, then rises on her hind legs to touch the edge of the motel desk with her forepaws. With utter conviction, the Hitchhiker sniffs the closed laptop that Ruby has shoved aside to give herself room for the cards. Ruby’s mind is filled with the odor of earth, of molecules rising and leading. She sees a trail, but it isn’t a path, more like the cartoon wafting of the scent of apple pie. “Follow the scent. Seek.” The dog drops to the floor again, shakes herself vigorously, and jumps back onto the bed where she curls herself up into a tight ball. She opens one eye, blinks, and settles into an instant nap, satisfied that her instructions will be followed.
Ruby gently taps the deck of tarot cards back into shape, slides them into their wooden box. Snaps the closure. Opens her laptop and recovers the Sacred Heart website. Contact info. Ask the question, Ruby.
“Dear Mother Superior.…” Now what? If they knew nothing about her origins back then, what could possibly have changed in the intervening forty years? Should she be apologizing for running away?
“I was an infant placed in the care of Sacred Heart…”
“I was an orphan placed…”
“I was an inmate … resident … student … child…”
“I wonder if you know where my mother is? Who my mother is? Was?”
Ruby closes the lid of the laptop gently. Pushes the computer aside. Reaches for her cards. Sets them aside. The Hitchhiker, fresh from her nap, nudges Ruby, asking to get into her lap. She buries her nose in the dog’s neck, letting go of her tension. “Why am I suddenly thinking about these things?”
“You want to remember. You want to know what makes you.” None of this in words, only the stimuli of scent and grayscale images. The look on the dog’s face.
Vividly, Ruby remembers the moment she knew that she needed to leave, to run away. The feel of the wooden heart beneath her hand, the certainty that remaining would lead to a most difficult consequence, although Ruby couldn’t imagine what the Monsignor might do to her. Something more than rap her knuckles, that was for sure. Isolation was just going to be the beginning. What next? Exorcism? Hanging? “Go,” the Sacred Heart had said, and go she had. And forty years later she is still moving.
Her heart was pumping hard as Ruby emptied her book bag of school materials and loaded it with underwear and socks, her toothbrush, and her only cardigan. She took her almost-too-small coat from its hook in the coatroom. She ate the dinner that was brought to her in the sickroom. A slice of boiled ham, a baked potato, and a helping of canned peaches. The nun, a novitiate, handed her the tray as if she was afraid that Ruby would cast a spell on her. Backed out the door, closed it gently. Other girls had run off. Some had returned, others vanished forever. Sometimes Ruby thought that it was divine inspiration to name herself Ruby Heartwood, taking her first name from the color of the garish red paint on the statue, and her last from the statue itself. In the middle of the night, Ruby slung her book bag over her shoulder and unlocked the window of the sickroom. If the intention was to punish her by putting her in this room, the Monsignor had inadvertently given her a gift. A fire escape.
All of this feels as fresh to Ruby at this moment as it did forty years ago. She tastes the fear on her tongue, she feels her heart rate go up; she tastes the peaches. The Hitchhiker reaches up and licks Ruby’s nose. “That’s done with. Be present. Be with me.”
Where do you go when there is no place to go? Into the presence of strangers. Moving away from Sacred Heart as fast as she could, Ruby hitched her way south toward the U.S. border into New York State, her instincts—or her second sight—keeping her out of danger, as she knew when to accept a ride and when to refuse one after reading the negative aura of the driver. Once over the border, she found shelter in the company of other transients, learning from them how to find the local soup kitchens and Salvation Army shelters. For a week or so, she might join a pair of teenage runaway girls. Inevitably one or the other would find an easy way of making money and Ruby would split, wanting no part of prostitution, even if it meant a warm bed and a meal. Most often she’d befriend an older woman, one willing to act as if Ruby was with her, keeping the authorities from recognizing that she was a solitary runaway. She begged for coins. She lied to everyone: She was waiting for her dad, or her mother. She just needed the change to make a phone call, let them know where she was. They’d be here in a moment. No, she wasn’t a minor, she’d just left her purse at home so she couldn’t prove it. She was on a school trip. The transit police saw right through her, and more than once Ruby had to slip out of the grip of a well-meaning officer’s hand.
Maggie Dean spotted Ruby huddling in an alcove, warming herself over a vent. “You need to eat?”
Ruby nodded. “I can’t pay.”
“No need. They don’t ask for anything but a contribution, and if you ain’t got one, they don’t make a fuss.” Maggie, hobbled by arthritic feet, asked Ruby to take her arm and led the way to a church basement. In the past six months Ruby had gotten over avoiding churches. It wasn’t like there was an ecclesiastical network of orphan chasers. Ruby had come to believe that, on this side of the border, no one was looking for her. Likely no one was on the other side either. It should have made her feel free, but it just made a lonely existence lonelier.
The room was warm and funky with the gathering of the unwashed and unwanted. Mostly men. Mostly bearing the damage of their lives on their faces. Maggie pointed out a few of the regulars, muttered “Served in ’Nam” or “Alcky” under her breath. “What do you call yourself, girl?”
“Ruby.”
They stood in line, each with a plastic tray. The scent of soup and bread teased at the hunger deep in her belly. Ruby couldn’t remember what she’d had to eat since arriving a day ago in this town. An apple picked out of the trash? Water from a dripping spigot? The server gave Ruby extra bread. “Come back if you want more,” she said.
Ruby smiled and thanked her. “Your daughter will be fine.” It came out, and the woman behind the counter tilted her head.
“Maggie, what did you tell this kid?”
“Nothing. What would I tell?”
“How does she know?” The server looked from Maggie to Ruby. “What do you know about my daughter?”
Ruby felt herself break out in a sweat, chilling her beneath her thin sweater. “I’m sorry. I just got the sense that your daughter is in trouble and I wanted to tell you that things will be all right.” Ruby knew that, once again, her second sight was calling attention to her, and it would probably end poorly. She set her tray down, grabbed the bread, and made a dash for the door. Except that, for a crippled-up old woman, Maggie Dean was pretty strong and the grip on Ruby’s donation bin jacket relentless.
“Sit down and eat.”
“You were a teacher? Weren’t you? And then you couldn’t be anymore.” Ruby could see the old woman’s past as if it was her own. A scandal. A child. A rejection so painful that it altered her physical self.
“And you’ve got a gift. I can help you make the most of it.”
Ruby set down her tray of soup and bread. “I don’t. It’s not true.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It can maybe save your life.” Maggie Dean took Ruby’s hand, tugged it until the girl sat. “You’re right about her daughter; she’s running with a bad crowd.” Maggie sniffed at the soup on her spoon. “Uck. Vegetable soup again.”
“And you? I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Close enough. I was a teacher and that’s all I’ll say.”
Those with secrets are the best at keeping them. The currency of trust between outcasts.