The Loves of Ruby Dee (13 page)

“Aw, geez,” Lonnie said, casting Will a glance that said it was all Will’s fault, while he froze midway to his seat and appeared to be ready to make a run for it.

Will considered turning and walking right back out the door. Walk out and keep on going to Texas and on to old Mexico, maybe to the beach. He knew he was thinking crazy, but it helped in that minute.

Ruby Dee came back alone, a little red in the face. “He doesn’t want to.”

With immense relief, Will sank into his chair. He wanted a meal in peace, and he wasn’t going to apologize for that. He felt it showed a lot about the state of his life that he was focusing on this meal as a starved man did on a chicken bone.

“Your daddy has eaten today, and he hasn’t complained at all about his ankle,” Ruby Dee said, as she brought the rest of the dishes to the table. She lowered herself to the edge of her chair, then sat with her back straight, her hands clenching a dishcloth. “But he is brooding somethin’ awful.”

“He’s always broodin’,” Lonnie said in a comforting tone. “That’s normal for him...
wouldn’t you say, Will?”

Will said, “Is the swelling down on his ankle? Can he use it?”

“I’m not certain. He wouldn’t let me look at it after his bath, wouldn’t let me bind it up. He hasn’t used it that I’ve seen. Other than one trip to the bathroom—and he almost fell on those crutches—he’s just stayed in that bed. Won’t talk, doesn’t read or watch television, or anything.”

A look of such despair flitted over her features that Will became concerned—for the old man, and for Ruby Dee, too. He felt he should do something, but he had no idea what.

Then she frowned thoughtfully and said, “He’s awfully tolerant of pain, but I think we would know if he was hurting a lot. And he hasn’t been deadenin’ his pain with whiskey, because his bottle is empty.”

“Maybe we should take him to the doctor tomorrow and get him checked out,” Will said, not wanting to do that at all.

“I guess that would at least get him out of broodin’ and into pure-D mad,” Ruby Dee said. “Can he read?”

The question sort of surprised Will. He was reaching for the tortillas. “Not too well,” he admitted.

“I was beginning to think that. A lot of very unhappy people can’t read very well.” Her brown eyes met his, and then her gaze shifted away. “I couldn’t read very well for a long time. It makes a person feel stupid, and so many people think you are, but you aren’t. Reading just comes easier for some people than for others. I learned to help myself by working crossword puzzles.”

Will said, “Dad had to drop out of school before the third grade,” and reached out to take the lid off the dish of tortillas. He chanced to look across and saw, to his profound amazement, that Lonnie had his head bowed. Ruby Dee did, too. For a couple of uncertain seconds, Will’s hand held the lid hovering over the tortillas. Then he set it back on the dish as quietly as he could and waited, his head partially bowed, watching the other two. He hadn’t asked a blessing since Sunday suppers at his aunt Roe’s.

When Ruby Dee’s head came up, Lonnie’s followed, as if on cue. Will again reached for the tortillas, and this time he almost dropped the lid when Ruby Dee shot up out of her chair and went to the counter. He saw after a few seconds that she was making the old man’s supper tray. He thought that he should offer to take the tray in to the old man, but he didn’t.

She took it into him, and when she came back, she didn’t tell them how he was doing. Will wasn’t about to ask, and Lonnie was too intent on Ruby Dee even to think about the old man. He was at his most charming, tossing out witty remarks and smiles like fall leaves.

“I’ll tell you, Ruby Dee,” he said, “if you have been married, you give me the name of the fool man who let a great cook like you get away. I’m sure I could sell him a Red River bridge.” Lonnie was a master at getting information without really seeming to ask questions.

She shook her head, an amused grin on her lips and lighting her dark eyes. “I haven’t been married.”

Lonnie’s eyebrows went up. “No? Huh.” He winked.
“You
may not get away from here, with cookin’ like this.” He bit into his juicy fajita and kept his twinkling eyes on Ruby Dee.

Most women her age had been married at least once, Will thought, wondering about her. She had said she could have any cowboy she wanted in Oklahoma City...
.
but she hadn’t wanted any. Maybe she was a lesbian. Then he figured he hadn’t ever been married, and he got really tired of people speculating about him. Of course, no one wondered about his sexual persuasion, since he and Georgia had carried on an affair all those years.

Lonnie said, “How did you learn to cook like this? Can we offer your mother a great big thank you?”

“My mama died when I was two. I just seem to have a natural talent for cooking. It is a healing talent.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is your mama the lady in that urn?”

Will saw Lonnie point his fork upward, and the black-and-brass vase Will had seen on Ruby Dee’s dresser came to mind. He didn’t think they could be talking about a dead person’s urn, no.

Then Ruby Dee said, “Oh, no, that’s Miss Edna. She was my last patient. Well, really she was my dear friend. We lived together for the past four years, and she was like the mama I never had. But Miss Edna couldn’t cook at all.”

So there was an urn filled with a dead person’s ashes on her dresser. Will was surprised, but only mildly. It was hard to be surprised by anything after forty-two years of living with the old man.

Lonnie said, “Oh. I grew up without a mama, too. She ran off when I was five, but I don’t recall her being around much before that anyway.”

Will disliked Lonnie talking about their mother that way. It was one thing for Lonnie to make those sorts of comments to Will, and another for him to spread the family’s dirty laundry around to other people. Will had socked him once for talking like that in front of a bunch of guys, and Lonnie cast him a nervous glance now, before chattering on.

“You know, after all those years of fixin’ for ourselves, it seems like Will and I would be better at it than we are. Neither one of us can cook worth beans. I did take home-ec one semester in school,” he said with a grin. “I learned to make peanut butter cookies, but what was more important, I learned which girls would make peanut butter cookies for me.”

Will took exception to the comment that he couldn’t cook. Maybe he was no chef, but he could cook quite passably. He made great over-easy eggs and real good hamburgers.

He didn’t see the need to inject any of this into the conversation, though. He was dog-tired after spending the night outside and then working all day, and he had no inclination to converse at all. Pulling inside himself was as close as he could get to going off to Mexico.

A couple of times Will’s eyes happened to meet Ruby Dee’s. He noticed her looking at the wound on his cheek. He could feel it had swollen. He imagined he did look a fright.

Lonnie was now on the subject of brothers and sisters. Ruby Dee said she had been an only child, as far as she knew.

“But I don’t guess anyone can really be certain of that, can they?” she said pointedly.

Lonnie agreed and added, “I’ve sometimes wondered about my mom and if she had more children, ones we never knew about. Haven’t you, Will?”

Will said, “Not particularly. Hand me that salsa.”

“Will likes his food hot, in case you hadn’t noticed, Ruby Dee.”

What Will noticed was that Lonnie hadn’t mentioned the children he might have fathered.

Lonnie went on to the subject of his favorite foods. His list included just about anything with sugar in it. Ruby Dee’s list showed a definite preference for Mexican food, and when Lonnie commented on this, they learned that Ruby Dee’s daddy had been Mexican.

“He was from Texas, not Mexico,” she clarified. “Still, to my mama’s family, he was Mexican, and that was it. They never did get over it.”

For a second, it seemed Lonnie was at a loss for words, but then he came out with, “That happens.”

Will didn’t think that was really saying anything at all, but it did seem to allow Lonnie to go smoothly on to less personal matters, such as Ruby Dee’s liking for the rodeo and where she had gotten her dog.

When Ruby Dee refilled Will’s coffee cup, he thanked her, then watched her breasts as she straightened. He met her gaze, and he knew she’d noticed him looking. He felt his face grow red.

He said, “You don’t have to wait on us...We didn’t hire you to be a maid.” That was the most he had said since sitting down at the table.

She shrugged, the gesture sensual, and a small, slow smile touched her lips, while her gaze lingered on his. Then her eyes shifted to his wounded cheek. She didn’t say anything, though, just turned back toward the counter.

Will’s gaze touched on her swaying earring and moved downward, following the graceful sweep of her back. When his eyes came around to Lonnie, he found his brother watching him.

The next instant Lonnie jumped up and offered to help Ruby Dee with the dishes. Will sat there for a minute, watching them, as Lonnie teased and flirted. Lonnie started to put his arm around Ruby Dee’s shoulders, but his arm stopped in midair, and then he scratched his head, as if that was what he’d been going to do all along.

Will finished his coffee, then slowly stretched his legs and rose. He guessed there wasn’t any more putting off going to speak to the old man. He didn’t expect much to come of it, but he felt ready. He got a cup from the cabinet, filled it with coffee, and, without saying a word, took it in to the old man.

The old man was in bed, just as he had been that morning, except the bed was now made and his clothes were clean. He was rumpled, though, and his hair stood on end worse than usual. Looking at him, a sense of helplessness swept Will. The old man appeared to be withering away.

Will said, “I brought you a cup of coffee, Dad.”

The old man looked at him but didn’t move.

Will drew a deep breath and stepped over to set the coffee mug on the nightstand.

Then he drew the chair from the wall, eased his dirty jeans and sat. His joints creaked. He and the old man looked at each other.

“How are you feelin’, Dad?”

The old man said, “Leave me be. I’m dyin’, and pretty soon you can have this place, just like you want.”

“Aww, geez, Dad. What are you tryin’ to do— punish me? For what? Because I want somebody in here to take care of you? Because I’m tired of being treated like some kid hand?” He pushed to his feet, raking a hand through his hair. “Why is it like this between you and me? Huh? I come in here and ask a nice, civil question, and you gotta dig at me.”

He stopped then, his words getting all jammed up in his throat. The old man just looked at him. Baiting him, Will thought.

Will said, “I’m glad to see you feel strong enough to irritate me,” and walked out.

In the hallway, he patted his pockets for a cigarette, which he didn’t have, of course. He continued on through the kitchen, past Lonnie and Ruby Dee, standing side by side, who turned to look at him. Letting the screen door slam behind him, he stalked out into the dwindling light of evening.

Impatiently, he tugged his shirt from inside his jeans and let it fall loose. His body had cooled, but his shirt was stiff from dried sweat, and he itched.

At his pickup, he got two cigarettes, lit one and walked down to the high-fenced pasture to see the mustang. The little border collie appeared and walked along beside him, which came as a surprise. The only time he had ever spoken to the dog had been that morning, and he’d done nothing more than pass a hand over its head. He guessed dogs were a lot different than people. It didn’t take much to impress a dog.

The roan colt stood in the middle of the pasture and eyed Will. Will leaned against the fence and enjoyed his smoke. The little collie sat at his foot, and together all three of them watched the red sun disappear and lights come on in the windows of the house. Will could see Ruby Dee and Lonnie pass in front of the window above the sink. Once it looked like they were dancing again.

Will resented Lonnie highly during those minutes. And he resented Ruby Dee, too. Both of them having a good time, no matter that Will was dog tired and the old man was set on dying.

He resented Lonnie and resented being the older brother and the son of a woman who’d run off and the son of an obnoxious old man. He resented the hard-rock place he found himself in, wanting to leave and yet feeling his insides tearing at the thought of doing it.

As Will saw it, he was in his middle years and had very little to show for his living. All the guys he had grown up with had families and places of their own. Keith Clarke had four children by a second wife and a big spread with his brother and was selling bull semen for twelve thousand a pop. Red Markham had married Kathy, and they were teaching school and raising three boys, doing Little League and scouts and all that stuff. Jon Leedy was building houses down in Amarillo, was on wife number four and had about seven kids, which made him pretty messed-up, but at least he had something to show for the past twenty-plus years.

Looking out across the fenced pastures and the lengthening shadows, Will thought how he might have been married and had kids out there now, playing in the evening, if he could have gotten past the old man.

Will couldn’t say he had ever been in love, but he’d been close with Georgia. He guessed one of his big problems was that he couldn’t forget what had happened to his dad when his mom had walked out.

He’d been in the hallway that morning, had heard the final words that passed between his parents.

The old man had said, “Don’t go, Lila...
I love you."

And his mother, in a tired, sad voice, answered, “Love don’t water roses, Hardy. I’m witherin’, and I just can’t stand bein’ dry no more.”

Will knew very well that his mother was speaking of their bed being dry. Hearing that cut a pain through him the same as a double-bladed knife would.

Will tossed his cigarette butt into the dirt and rubbed his eyes. They were tired after the day in the bright, hot sun.

He thought then how his life wasn’t the old man’s fault, any more than his eyes burning was the sun’s fault. Every man made his own life as a result of his decisions. Will didn’t like sunglasses sliding down his nose, so he wouldn’t wear them. And it had been his own decision all along to be a stand-in dad for Lonnie and to stay and try to help the old man. It had been his own decision all along to cling to a place he’d always felt was his by right and virtue of his work. His decision, for a thousand and one reasons, to stay on at this dead-end place and to take what the old man gave.