Ruby (10 page)

Ruby’s voice went all soft and she said, “That’s why I didn’t do it. I was too scared.” She blew a long stream of air out through her teeth. “Except now I’m more scared. It would have been over, you know? Now it’s like there’s a baby in me. It is so creepy.”

Olivia realized that the girl was gulping back tears.

“And you know what? Betsy did it again. She had another abortion, and this time she got the IV, and she said it was a piece of cake and a good high and everything.” Ruby took a breath. “Of course by then, it was way too late for me.”

Olivia tried to sort through everything Ruby had said. The girl talked like a speeding train; it was hard to catch it all. There was a mention of drugs as a good thing. There was this Betsy, full of trouble and bad advice—two abortions! And she was probably only fifteen herself. And then there was Ben.

Ruby brightened quickly. “But they’ll give you drugs when you have a baby, so that you don’t feel anything. And then it’s over and I just move on.” She sat back against the pillows, satisfied. “Boy,” she said, “you get a lot of phone calls.” Ruby read from some writing on the palm of her hand. “Your mother. Amy. Winnie, twice, who wants you to know she’s in Rhinebeck in case you need anything. And your friend Janice, who said to tell you that she talked to Pete—”

“Already?” Olivia blurted.

“He’s going to call you tomorrow.”

Ruby dropped her hand and studied Olivia’s face.

“What?” Olivia said.

“Well, your husband didn’t call.”

Olivia said, “I call him right before I go to sleep. That’s our routine.”

“That’s sweet,” Ruby said.

And Olivia was sure the girl knew she was lying.

The clinic Olivia took Ruby to was thirty miles away, a dull drive on a new highway that had gobbled up all the trees and farms that had once lined the road. Ruby looked straight ahead, bored.

“Our apartment in New York,” Olivia told her, “is right in the West Village. In an old brownstone, so there’s just one apartment on each floor. We’re on the third. And in the back we have a terrace where we can barbecue and eat dinner outside. Last summer, I grew lilacs out there.” She took a breath and said, “They smelled so lovely.”

Ruby only grunted.

Olivia waited, then changed her tack. As a kid, she had taken sailing lessons, and sometimes now she found herself comparing the simple act of human communication to negotiating wind and waves: When do I head straight into the wind? When do I come at something from different sides? Ruby required a lot of tacking. Olivia thought of the girl watching those houses, writing her bad poetry or her robbery plan. With Ruby, it could be anything.

“Do you know anything about gardening?” Olivia asked Ruby. “It’s one of the most relaxing hobbies. Really. Figuring out what blooms when, where to place each plant.”

Finally, Ruby looked at her. “I swear to God,” she said, “my mother even killed cactus. Like they don’t need water or anything, right? They grow in sand, in nothing. They don’t need any attention at all, and she still managed to kill them.” Ruby stared out the window again. Olivia saw her breathe air onto it and draw something quick before it disappeared.

“It sounds like you miss her,” Olivia said, even though she couldn’t imagine missing that woman.

“Ha!” Ruby said. “Like I would go grocery shopping with her, and do you know what she bought? Everything frozen. Fish sticks and chicken nuggets and this really bad pizza that is so bad that once when I was really stoned, I actually microwaved part of the box and ate it, and I didn’t even know because it tasted just like the crappy pizza. That’s the truth. And you know what she said when I told her? I’m like, ‘Mom, I just ate a box that tasted practically better than that shit pizza you buy,’ and she goes, ‘Ruby, I smell pot. I know what pot smells like, and don’t try to lie to me.’ And I’m like, ‘Mom, this is about the junk you put into my system that you call food, okay?’” She looked at Olivia, all serious concern. “I mean, would you ever feed a kid of yours a cardboard box?”

Olivia shook her head. She thought, I would feed your baby organic baby food, the kind that costs way too much money. I would puree vegetables from the farmer’s market. I would bake my own bread. I would do whatever you want.

Ruby sighed. “A good mother bakes apples in the autumn and things like peach pie in the summer. Families need stuff like that. They say that my father was famous for his whole-wheat pizza. He used to make it from scratch. Knead it and everything.”

“You should see my family,” Olivia told her. “My mother used to weigh our food. Six ounces of chicken. Ten green beans. I was the only kid who used to visit my friends and ask for a glass of milk, because she used to give us half skim and half dry milk. She read somewhere that dairy was bad for you.”

Ruby brightened. “Really? That’s crazy.”

“My sister,” Olivia continued, “is a workout addict. Her entire wardrobe is Lycra. She’s thirty-four years old and she’s already had liposuction and a lip job. You know, collagen.”

“Like a movie star,” Ruby said, impressed.

“Like a crazy person. Now she’s talking about getting an eye tuck.”

“Really?” Ruby said. “That is so cool. Like fucked up and cool, you know? I heard that Cher even had ribs removed. I don’t know if I’ll do it when I’m old. Are you going to?”

Olivia glanced at Ruby. Her face was open, her eyes shiny with excitement. And Olivia sighed with relief; she’d gotten her back again.

When they got back from the clinic, Ruby announced she was going for a walk.

“I have been poked and prodded and measured too much,” she said, cranky. Her face was too pink from the heat, and she’d put her hair up in a messy knot that revealed one ear pierced from lobe to tip, each hole filled with a cheap stud: turquoise, rhinestone, silver butterfly, something baby blue and something yellow, a silver heart, a silver star—an array of bad earrings.

Olivia tried to convince Ruby to stay. She offered lemonade, iced tea, Popsicles. But Ruby refused.

“I need air,” she mumbled.

From the kitchen window, Olivia watched her walk away, head bent, her pocketbook bouncing against her hip. She walked toward the water, where the large houses sat perched above rocks, each with a shaky wooden stairway leading to a small stretch of private beach. What if the girl hurt herself? The thought made Olivia shiver. Those rocks. And the way Ruby waddled so awkwardly. What if she
wanted
to hurt herself? Olivia rubbed her arms, the flesh there covered with goose bumps at the thought. That doctor had been cold, harsh. He had shaken his head in disgust more than once. He had insisted on giving Ruby an AIDS test, tests for gonorrhea and syphilis. Embarrassed, Ruby had closed her eyes and given herself over to him. Was it what she had done with other men, closed her eyes tight and let them do what they wanted?

“Ruby!” Olivia called as she ran out the door. The girl is capable of anything, Olivia thought. And why not?

“Ruby!”

She tripped slightly as she scrambled over some rocks, imagining how difficult it had been for Ruby in her cheap flip-flops and big belly. Olivia thought of her splayed on one of those small beaches. She thought of her looking the way David had, the sheet pulled up to his chin, his expression one of confusion rather than peace. She had imagined his last thought to be something like What the hell is happening here?

Panting, Olivia was just about to call the girl again, when she caught sight of her. She was sitting on the edge of one of the dirt paths that led to the rocky cliffs, staring at the large house across the path, writing in her blue notebook. When she heard Olivia approaching, she looked up sharply.

“I said I needed air,” she said.

Olivia had to catch her breath. She inhaled once, then again, erasing that image of David. For months after he died, she would wake up from a dream in which he was alive, but his face was bluish and confused. She had to get rid of that, think of him another way, how he had looked that first time in the doorway of her shop. Olivia did that now, fixed that David in her mind before she turned her attention to Ruby.

She flopped down beside her and said, “What do you write in that thing?”

Ruby considered for a moment, then sighed and pointed to the house. It was enormous, a rambling house with weathered shingles, dark green shutters, and on one side almost all the windows faced the ocean. From here, they could see all the way to Block Island.

“A doctor lives there. Not like the doctor today, a different one. This one is a pediatrician and he loves kids, and he loves his wife, too. Marjorie. She was a debutante. Southern, you know? They have five kids and some of them already are in college, and the oldest daughter is going to get married right here, on the lawn. Under a tent.”

The house stared blankly at Olivia. “I don’t get it,” she said.

Ruby sighed. “They’re a family. At Christmas, they only put up white lights and fresh boughs of fir and these big red velvet bows. That’s it. She lay down and looked not at the house but up at the sky. “When the kids were young, the father had to leave and go take care of an emergency for one of his patients, but now the younger associates get to do that and the father stays home and makes his special eggnog and carves the turkey and everything.”

“Oh,” Olivia said softly, as she saw that what Ruby did when she watched houses was to make up families. And maybe to wish herself a spot in each one that she invented.

“They’re a nice family,” Ruby added. “Good people.”

Since Ruby had arrived, Olivia had stopped answering her phone. Instead, she watched as the counter on the answering machine accumulated messages—three, then six, then eight. It rang and rang as Ruby watched for Olivia to pick it up. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to explain Ruby to any of them. Not yet. It would be more important to explain later, after everything with the baby was settled.

But after their slow, silent walk home from the large weathered shingled house, when the phone started to ring, Olivia simply picked it up. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t, but it was too late. There was a man on the other end, sounding relieved to hear her curt hello.

“Well, good,” the man said, instead of hello. “Now I can tell Janice you’re okay. When I told her I’d left you three messages and hadn’t heard back, she said that was impossible. She said you hate to go out.” The man lowered his voice. “To tell you the truth, she was worried sick.”

“Excuse me,” Olivia said as she watched Ruby gulp orange juice straight from the container. “Who are you?”

The man chuckled. “Oops. I was so excited to find you alive, and, well, I forgot the appropriate introductions. Pete Lancelotta. Carl’s friend.”

Olivia almost groaned out loud.

Now Ruby was watching her.

“I’m sort of busy right now,” Olivia said.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Pete said. He chuckled again. “I swore two things to Janice. One: If I found you, I’d let her know you were okay. And B: I would buy you dinner tonight. At Spain. We’ll share a paella and some sangria and call it a night.”

One and B? Olivia thought, and groaned.

“Not tonight,” she said. It was supposed to be Ruby’s last night here. Unless Olivia convinced her to stay until the baby came. Unless she convinced her to
give
her the baby.

Ruby had a way of staring at Olivia that was almost creepy. Olivia turned her back to Ruby, but she still felt her eyes on her.

Another chuckle. Olivia couldn’t stand chuckling. A nervous habit, maybe, but still.

“This is not optional,” Pete was saying. “I promised Janice.” Then he added, “Look, if we can’t stand each other, then at least our duty to Janice is done. Right?”

Olivia wanted to tell him she had no duty to Janice. The day she walked in front of three hundred people as a bridesmaid in emerald green taffeta with French curls that rivaled Marie Antoinette’s was the day she’d paid off any debt to Janice.

But Pete said, “See you at seven,” and hung up before she could argue.

There was Ruby, waiting. Olivia had planned a seduction of sorts—dinner out, a movie, an effort at camaraderie that would make it impossible for the girl to refuse Olivia’s offer: stay here until you have the baby. Then let me adopt the baby. She would make her strongest pitch of all: I am a good person, too. I will give this baby a family.

But now Pete Lancelotta was coming at seven and there was no time for Olivia’s grand plans.

“Going somewhere?” Ruby said, raising her eyebrows.

“No. Yes.” Olivia took a breath. “Look,” she said, “I want you to stay here. I’ll do all the things you need, make you good food and make sure you’re comfortable. Whatever it is you need. I want you to stay until you have the baby.”

They both knew how long that was: The doctor had told them Ruby was twenty-eight weeks pregnant. “I’d estimate your due date at”—he’d swung a little dial around, matching up lines and numbers, then looked up, grinning—“Labor Day. Ironic, huh?”

Olivia took a deep breath. “And if you’re going to stay here for three months, we’ve got to come clean with each other. About Ben. And everything.” Asking for the baby was harder than she’d imagined. How do you ask someone for something like that?

Ruby leaned against the wall. Olivia thought, If it wasn’t for her stomach being so big, she’d look cocky standing there like that—head tilted up, shoulders pushed back, legs apart.

“Okay,” Ruby said. “You go first.”

It’s best to just say it, Olivia decided, and did. “My husband,” she began. The words were scratchy in her throat, like broken glass, like threads of fiberglass. “He’s not away,” she said. “He’s dead. He died.”

“So your husband is dead,” Ruby said flatly, “and you want my baby.”

This startled Olivia. It was true; she did want that baby. But wouldn’t a person who thought David was in New York on business say something else? Wouldn’t a person be surprised he was, in fact, dead?

Ruby’s eyes flickered, just for an instant, toward the wall covered with fragments of Olivia’s life. How long has she known? Olivia wondered. And she realized that she could not toy with this girl. Ruby was too smart. Maybe smarter than Olivia.