The Loves of Ruby Dee (18 page)

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Authors: Curtiss Ann Matlock

Tags: #Women's Fiction/Contemporary Romance

BOOK: The Loves of Ruby Dee
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But Woody’s music was real music, yes, sir, guitar to be understood as a guitar and harmonica to be understood as a harmonica. And words that could be understood, that told how it was to live when people had to work for a living.

The gal came swaying into his room. “I brought you some tomato juice, Mr. Starr. It’s red, not green."

“Where’d you get that...
those songs of Guthrie’s?” he demanded. “What in the hell do you know about Woody Guthrie?” It did not seem right for her, young and fresh like she was, to be playing Woody Guthrie.

“Why, I imagine every Oklahoman knows somethin’ about Woody Guthrie,” she said. “A friend of mine, Miss Edna, told me all about him. She knew him.”

“Huh...probably half the old farts in the state say they knew Woody Guthrie.”

“Did you?” she asked, her eyes fully on him.

“Yeah, I did. Weren’t so many people around back then. Folks knew folks.”

She went swaying back out of the room and then she reappeared, bringing a black portable stereo. Without asking him, she left Woody Guthrie singing beside the bed.

Hardy lay there listening to the craggy voice sing about the land blowing away and people blowing with it. “Dust Pneumonia Blues.” “Dust Storm Disaster.” “Vigilante Man.” “Blowing Down This Road.” The sawdusty voice singing about desperate, dusty days to tunes picked on a plain old guitar and blown on a plain old harmonica.

Woody Guthrie sang about how it was for them, and he made a name and a living for himself doing it, too. He did it mostly out in California, while the rest of them were still blowing away back in Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas. But they had his songs to sing, and that helped.

It was hearing all those old songs from his virile youth, when he still had hopes and dreams, that started something cracking inside Hardy, the same as hard, dry ground yielded to the power of moist green sprouts.

“Mr. Starr, would you like me to give you a shave?”

The gal stood leaning against the doorjamb, a hand on one of her slim hips, her left leg forward just enough for her dress to outline her thighs.

Hardy said, “I reckon you won’t be satisfied until you get your hands on me.” His voice was thick.

A grin swept her full lips and lit her entire face like a sunbeam. “I’ve been after you all the time,” she said in her smoky voice.

In that moment, she was Jooney. And he accepted it.

* * * *

When Will saw the old man stretched out in the old green Lazy-boy and Ruby Dee hovering over him, his heart went into his throat. He thought maybe the old man was dying. It did occur to him, though, to wonder about the recliner being in the old man’s room, crowded up against the bed. It belonged in the living room, in the corner.

Then Ruby Dee laughed. “Oh, Hardy Starr, who was the Queen of Sheba, anyway?”

She straightened and Will saw the razor—a straight razor, no less—in her hand. His heart jumped. He saw shaving cream coating the old man’s face.

Ruby Dee was shaving the old man.

The old man growled, “Ain’t you ever read your Bible, gal?”

Will took it all in, his gaze moving from the old man, back to the razor, and then to the bowl of water in which Ruby Dee rinsed the blade.

The two of them saw Will. The old man slowly looked away.

Ruby Dee said, “I’ll be a little late with dinner, ‘cause I’m givin’ your daddy a shave.”

Will nodded. “Okay.”

He watched her bend over the old man again. Her earrings dangled against her cheek, and the neckline of her dress hung low.

He turned and walked away. Halfway through the dining room, he stopped, hesitated, then went back, walking softly. He peered furtively around the door, not wanting them to see him. Ruby Dee was again bending over the old man, talking softly to him. Too softly for Will to hear.

Will went back to the kitchen.

“What’s Ruby Dee makin’ for lunch?” Lonnie asked. He had his head in the refrigerator. “She hasn’t started anything yet.” He came out of the refrigerator, bottle of Red Dog in his hand and a puzzled look on his face.

“I don’t know,” Will said and slipped in and got himself a beer.

“What’s she doin’?” Lonnie craned his neck, looking toward the back hall.

“Givin’ the old man a shave.” Will gave the bottle cap a hard twist. He threw it across the room into the sink, strode to his office and shut the door behind him.

* * * *

Three days after he’d put his foot through the rotten flooring, the swelling on Hardy’s Starr’s ankle was completely gone. By the fourth day, he was eating heartily, bathing without a fight and had given up his overalls in favor of jeans or slacks and a shirt. But by the end of the week, he still wasn’t on his feet. Ruby Dee figured he would get up when he got more tired of lying around than of annoying his sons, but Hardy thought of something better. On Saturday, he had Lonnie bring the wheelchair in from the shop.

Well, that didn’t do Will Starr any good at all. He already felt like his daddy’s injury was his fault, and when he came in at noon and saw his daddy sitting there in the kitchen in that chair, he demanded, “What in the hell is this?”

“It oughta make you happy. You been tryin’ to get me into this chair for a year.”

“I ain’t never tried to get you into that chair.” When Will Starr got mad, his tone and speech became very rustic.

“Then why’d you buy it...
and nag me ‘bout usin’ it?”

“Aw, geez, Dad.” Will Starr got all red in the face, then pointed his finger at his daddy. “If your leg is all that bad, by God, you’re goin’ down to the doctor on Monday.” Then he turned around and stormed out.

Ruby Dee was drying a bowl as she peered out the window, watching him walk down the drive. She dried the bowl so hard, she polished it. Setting it aside with a clunk and not saying even an excuse me to Hardy or Lonnie, she went out the back door.

She knew Will went straight to that roan mustang any time he and his daddy got into it, which was at least once a day. He would get a cigarette from his pickup truck if he didn’t have one in his shirt pocket, and go down and smoke it in the shade of a dying cottonwood at the corner of the tall fence corral.

When she reached him, she didn’t bother to make small talk. It was too hot to strain herself. She did pet the colt, who stuck his nose over the fence at her. “There is not a thing wrong with your daddy’s legs,” she said. “He could walk if he wanted to.”

“What makes you so certain of that?” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and raked a hand through his hair.

“How do you know when this colt is feeling cooperative or is wantin’ to run off?” Ruby Dee rubbed the colt’s forehead. “You just know; you feel it. Well, I just know there is nothin’ wrong with your daddy’s leg. Oh, he has aches and pains in it, just like he has for years. But the reason he doesn’t walk is that he doesn’t want to.”

His steely eyes studied her for a long second, then doubt flickered across his face. “I’ve been thinkin’ the same thing. But he’s had that wheelchair for a year and refused to use it. He was too dang proud to use it. Now he suddenly gives in?” He shook his head and threw the cigarette butt in the dirt.

“You and your daddy are cut from the same cloth, Will Starr.” Exasperation rose up and took hold of her. “You told him you were leavin’ when he got on his feet again. He’s not gonna get on his feet, because he doesn’t want you to leave, but he sure doesn’t want to have to ask you to stay, either. I don’t think this is anything it takes an Einstein to figure out. Now, if you want to get your daddy out of that chair, you just go in there and tell him you are not leavin’.”

Will stared at her, his steely-blue eyes brilliant and his jaw tight as petrified stone. “I can’t do that.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

He gazed off into the distance and said, “I guess it doesn’t make much difference which one it is.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does,” Ruby Dee said after a few seconds.

In the past few days she had come to learn that Will Starr was not one to spare himself. He wasn’t one to place blame on anyone besides himself, or spend a lot of time with “if-onlys.” He tried to see things as they were and go with them. She had come to admire that about him.

The colt got tired of being ignored and began to nibble the grass. Ruby Dee gazed off in the same direction as Will, seeing the white pipe fencing, the sunburned grass, grazing horses.

“You know, I never had a place to call home, not like you have here, a place where you grew up with your family and everything. I always wanted a place like this.”

“This is Dad’s place,” he said. “I want a place of my own."

Ruby Dee could understand it, a little.

He propped his boot on the bottom rail and leaned his forearms on the top one, intertwining his fingers. “Here I’m always standing in the old man’s shadow, having to do things his way or answer for it. Here I’m just a hired hand—a foreman, but a hired one all the same. Dad thinks I want to take it away from him, but I don’t.” He turned to Ruby Dee. “It isn’t about takin’ from him. It’s about what I need. I need my own place.”

Ruby Dee turned and leaned her back against the fence rails. She thought about how Will’s leaving would affect Hardy, but she didn’t speak of it. Instead she said, “What about this place? Hardy can’t run it on his own, even when he’s back on his feet again.”

“He can get a foreman to do the same things I do, and I’ll still look in,” Will said, looking down at his folded hands. “I don’t mean I won’t check in and be here to help out.”

It crossed Ruby Dee’s mind that neither of them had mentioned Lonnie. Lonnie kept himself unattached.

His brilliant gaze came up to her. “I never thought you’d be here a week. I sure appreciate you stickin’ it out.”

She chuckled. “I told you I would stay, Will Starr.” She liked to say his name.

“Yes...you did, Ruby Dee.”

He said her name hesitantly, like a boy stealing a feel. And a hint of a smile touched his lips and lit his eyes. His eyes searched hers, and she felt the heat deep inside. She had the urge to put her hand on his cheek, to touch the lingering scab on the wound, to soothe him. And to know him, inch by inch.

It was there between them, a knowing and wanting, but neither of them spoke of it. What was there to say?

“It can’t be easy, bein’ a woman in our household. I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done for the old man...and for me and Lonnie, too.” He shifted and shoved a hand into his jeans pocket, looking embarrassed.

“Well, I’d like to pretend it’s all been terribly hard,” she said. Turning, she fingered the peeling paint on the top rail. “But it hasn’t been so much. Oh, Hardy gave me a tussle, but he’s come around. And I’ll tell you, Will Starr, this job is easy compared to those when I have to be at a deathbed, helping the patient over and trying to keep the family from losin’ their minds to heartbreak, or bein’ called on to tend not only the sick but all the puny, selfish relatives.

“Here I get to have a lot of time to myself and to nap, while I’m gettin’ paid, and believe me—I need the rest and the money."

There was an awkward pause, then Ruby Dee said, “I’ve had a hard time over losin’ Miss Edna. She was my mama and my best friend in one. And goin’ through those last weeks with her was hard enough, without all the strain of the bills pilin’ up. Miss Edna had cancer off and on for six years, and it didn’t only eat her up, but it ate up what little savings she had, insurance, everything. Her medicine bills alone rivaled the national debt. Oh, yes, there was Medicare, only Medicare forgets that people
have to eat, if they manage to stay alive. I make good money—as you know—but there just never seemed enough, and I didn’t work at all the last month, except for caring for Miss Edna. Medicare owes me for that.”

She looked at him then. “We all like to pretend that the consideration of money comes second, after the life of a person, but it doesn’t and it can’t, because you’ve got to have money to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, plain and simple. Right now, I’m so glad that it’s you havin’ to think of that and not me.”

He gazed down at her. “It makes me feel better,” he said, his voice low and heavy, “to know we could offer you somethin’ more than headaches.”

His steely-blue eyes were on her, straight and strong. And Ruby Dee felt something shift deep inside and set her off balance.

Suddenly nervous, she pushed away from the fence. “I’d better get back, or you’re gonna be havin’ your dinner at suppertime. I’ll set it out in fifteen minutes.”

She walked quickly, only vaguely realizing she was doing so, keeping her face straight ahead, while all the time her mind was back there beneath the cottonwood tree with Will Starr and looking up into his intense, brilliant eyes. And wanting to touch him, too.

Entering the kitchen, she found Lonnie gone and Hardy, still in his wheelchair, slamming cabinet doors and cursing. He glared up at her.

She went to the top shelf of the corner cabinet and pulled out the amber pint bottle. “Is this what you are lookin’ for?” She gave it
to him.

He looked at her in surprise, but she just went about getting the meal on the table. He swiveled his wheelchair and went off to his bedroom. The wheelchair was electric and took some getting used to. He bumped into the door frame going through, and she heard him hit the one into the hallway, too.

Ruby Dee squeezed her eyes closed and prayed to God that she had done the right thing, that Hardy Starr wouldn’t end up drinking himself into an early grave. How would she explain her actions, should that happen? Could Will Starr possibly understand that she felt Hardy’s pride and dignity were far more important than her own or anyone else’s judgment about how he should live his life?

Thankfully, though she smelled whiskey on Hardy’s breath on occasion, he did not get drunk. She told him a few days later, “It’s a good thing you aren’t gettin’ drunk, because you can’t drive that wheelchair even when you’re sober.”

And one quiet evening after Will Starr had eaten a big supper topped off by two pieces of apple pie, she explained what she’d done. He didn’t say anything, only nodded.

* * * *

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