The Same Woman (7 page)

“I don't know. Why does it?”

“It's just,” Ruby felt her mouth line with tears. She took a deep breath. “It's like she is a symbol for everything bad that ever happened, or even like a portal to badness. It's like she's magic. I see her and I can't breathe or speak, all I can do is think about how unbearable it was when Tariq was leaving me.”

“She's not magic.” Nal said softly. “She's just a person.”

“I know,” Ruby said, but she didn't mean it. “Well Ruby, I know you think I had nothing to do with the whole disaster, maybe you even think I'm being interfering, but I think we have to stick together as women. It doesn't matter if we are straight or queer, pinkos or conservatives, politicians or homeless, nuns or sex workers.” Nal reached across the bench and squeezed Ruby's hand, and it was the nicest thing Nal had ever done for her. Ruby began to slowly fill up the warm furry smell and the sweet cool wind, and the feeling of closeness.

And then Nal stood up abruptly and started to walk away from the bench, saying as she went, “Do you mind if we still get coffee? I don't have much time left before I have to be back and I will die if I don't have an espresso. I really would like to start eating bio-regionally, but the one thing I don't know how to give up is coffee, and there is no way to grow coffee in our climate...”

The coffee shop's floor slanted downwards for no apparent reason. Mothers balanced strollers against their hips to stop them from rolling
away, as they ordered muffins and fruit juice. The lavender walls were plastered with fair trade coffee statistics and panoramic posters of the Andes. There were no “hip-yups” in sight.

The woman working behind the counter was unusually beautiful. She was very tall and she had tousled curly hair, styled in an impossible combination of messy and glamourous that few human beings can achieve. Her skin glowed. She even had a beauty spot, delicately interrupting and defining the line that formed the left corner of her mouth. Ruby could not help but stare.

“Dottie,” Nal said, “This is my friend Ruby.”

“Hi Ruby, nice to meet you!” Dottie said and smiled, and Ruby thought her greeting was more mechanical than genuine. Dottie was standing by the stereo and as she reached up to press the play button, Ruby watched the hem of her t-shirt lift to display smooth, tanned skin that did not bulge over the top of her jeans. There was a scrabbling noise and then the sound system came alive with French disco. Ruby knew the song. Over poppy synthesiser hisses a woman sang about the inhumanity of the capitalist system. It was one of Tariq's favourite songs.

Is she pretty? Am I as pretty as her? Who does she think she is?
Ruby's brain asked an automatic range of questions. The questions came fast, in the blink of an eye, racing upwards from some deep cavern of terror within her.
How can you even ask questions like that? Why are you such an insecure little bitch?
The attacks on this other women were followed by attacks on herself. They followed so close behind that they could taste the heels of the hating instincts before them, close enough for a photo finish, but still too slow for Ruby to ever be as hate-free as she wanted to be.

Animals in artificial environments learn protective instincts that are just as deep-seated as the ones they are born with. The day of the week that the garbage trucks come is hardwired into the brains of raccoons, the ding of the food can on the aquarium walls triggers an involuntary response in the flippers of pet fighting fish — and some women, when faced with other women who are very much like themselves, immediately turn against them. The urgency of these responses results from the fact that space, sustenance and power for raccoons, fish and women are limited, and if we don't learn how to rush them we'll perish.

“How did that thing go last night Nal?” Dottie asked.
Stop pretending to be friends with your customers just so that you can up your sales
. Dottie reached for tins with her long lissome limbs as she made Nal's drink and listened encouragingly to the story her co-worker was telling her.
I bet you're admiring your reflection in the coffee tins.

After Tariq left Ruby for Frankie, the possibility of friendship, alliance or family with other women was destroyed, drowned out by:
would Tariq like her? Tariq would like her because she is listening to French disco. Tariq would like her because she is talking about dumpster diving. Tariq would like her because she is just like me.
She saw women not as people that she could love, but as rivals that Tariq might love.

Outside a new car pulled into an open spot, swinging out of the driving lane and into the parking lane foolishly fast. Two people in crisp, professional clothing got out of the car, both chattering into cell phones, in what could have been a caricature of fast-paced urban life. They pushed through the swinging glass door together, talking too loud in suave, self-assured voices. Dottie waited at the cash register to greet them. They stopped in front of her, thumb and forefinger cupping hip, hands running through expensively cut hair. She said hello to them, but they carried on their conversations and ignored her. “Well don't hate the player,” one of them was saying to his phone, “hate the game.” Dottie stared at her thumbs on the counter. They humiliated Dottie by behaving as if she wasn't there.

The phone operators stood back to back, cascading conversation into their machines. Dottie slid forward across the counter on her forearms, so that her head was just in between their shoulders and said, “You're talking to each other, aren't you?”

Ruby was surprised to realise that Dottie had a heavy voice. It demanded to be heard. The operators gaped at her. “It's okay,” she said, “I won't tell anyone.”

Dottie didn't have the thin, evaporating voice that beautiful women are expected to have. Her voice thickly asserted the strength of her personality, wanting so badly for you to notice what you could not see about her, rather than what you could see — the personality that she had made herself, rather than the appearance that had been bestowed on her.

Ruby laughed out loud in solidarity.

Dottie told old-fashioned jokes, with the corny humour of a physics teacher. “Geez Nal, you're two minutes late today,” she said, “What's going on? We usually tell the time by you.” She turned to a stout middle-aged man measuring out half a teaspoon of cream into his coffee. “You can take more cream, you know, we won't think you're girly.”

The bitter fog in Ruby's brain cleared. Her heart unclenched. Dottie smiled at Ruby, and Ruby allowed herself to see that this smile was genuine. There is enough love to go around, she thought, why do I always think there isn't?

“Nal, you've been here longer than three minutes. You must be running late!”

“That's true!” Nal cried, half joking and half serious. She linked arms with Ruby and hustled her out the front door.

As they walked back Nal made small talk.

“How have you been keeping yourself occupied?”

“Uhh...” Ruby faltered a bit. She was embarrassed by her lack of productivity. There is a belief that productivity is proof of a person's value, and that the more things you write down in your day-timer, the more you have the right to exist. Ruby felt the bizarre and common urge to make achievements up.

“Are you still thinking about becoming a midwife?”

“Well yes. I do want to go back to school in the fall. But I haven't worked for months. I think right now I just need to make a lot of money fast. I'm thinking about going back to bartending.”

“Oh no,” Nal said.

“I would obviously rather do the kind of work you do.” Ruby said fast, and though she was being defensive it was true. She had bartended her way through school and the thought of going back to the grimy bar and grimy gazes was unpleasant. “But it's a good way to make a lot of money quickly.”

“Hm,” Nal said. “My cousin works at one of those horrible bars downtown.”

“Really?” Ruby said. She didn't think that Nal had connections to anyone outside of her sector.

“Yes, it's called the Squat, ridiculously enough. I could speak to him.”

“The Squat?” Ruby knew the Squat very well. It was where Frankie worked. Did Nal not know that? Was this a test?

“Yes, the Squat.” Nal shuddered. If Nal knew, she showed no signs of it. It was possible that she didn't know. Ruby had only figured out where Frankie worked by listening carefully and stealthily to snippets of coffee shop conversation.

“It would be no problem for me to give him a call — ” Nal cut herself off in mid-sentence as they reached her building, like the building was a bus and Nal had to run and catch it with no time to spare for finishing sentences.

“Well,” Nal said, “I'm glad we got to see each other.” Ruby hesitated, trying to figure out if she should shake Nal's hand, squeeze her arm, hug her, or not touch her at all. They settled on an awkward hug, chests in and bums out. Nal bumped her chin against Ruby's collar bone. Ruby watched Nal walk away, rubbing her wounded face.

It would've been a good day, if Ruby hadn't forgotten her keys. She sat on Octavia's front step and carefully emptied out her bag, producing a neat pile of thread, coins, tiny shreds of receipts, orange mini pencils that she had stolen from a library, crunched up bills, an unread book, a to-do notebook, a music player, and a tattered wallet, but no keys. She craned her neck to see over the banister of Octavia's porch, and looked down the street at the coffee shop in the distance. Octavia was at work, along with a set of keys. Ruby hadn't been back to the coffee shop in almost a week.

She stood up and stared at the building down the street with dread. The possibility of seeing even a strand of Frankie's hair paralysed Ruby. She made it to the foot of Octavia's garden path and froze. I could go to the library, Ruby told herself. I don't have to go home now. I could go find Isi. She started to walk away from the coffee shop. And then she stopped and turned. If I don't go get those keys, I'm giving in to a ridiculous, unfounded fear. What am I afraid of ?

Aware that she was starting to look very silly, and that two small children across the street were watching her from their living room window, she started marching toward the keys. The sun had disappeared behind a canopy of clouds, and the usual patio sitters had been halved in number. Frankie was nowhere to be found. Ruby's stomach relaxed just a little. She stuck her head in the doorway.

“Forgot my keys!” She cried merrily to Octavia.

“Oh whoopsie!” Octavia grabbed her keys from the top of the dishwasher and tossed them across the counter. Ruby caught them in a clean, smooth motion, pleased with her slickness. And then the bathroom door at the back of the café opened, revealing Frankie's notorious silhouette. Ruby's heart sank. She moved quickly for the exit, bumping into a regular named Ronald as she did so.

“Oh hello Ruby,” he said. Mysteriously, most of the people in the shop seemed to know her name. “Haven't seen you for a few days,” he remarked. He leaned casually in the doorway. The hair on the back of Ruby's neck stood up straight like antennas probing the air for traces of Frankie. Ronald dressed like a 50's teen idol, in a tight red shirt with pearly snaps and impressively sculpted, real blonde hair.

“How come your boyfriend never comes around here?” Ruby half expected him to pull a comb out of his back pocket and start styling his hair.

“He, uh, works a lot.” she said, and wondered who he was and how he knew Tariq.

“Not still cheating, is he?” Ronald winked at her.

Ruby's chest went cold.

Oh my God, she thought. Everybody knows. She told them. That fucking whore.

Ruby pushed past Ronald, hitting his soft chest with her shoulder.

“Ouch,” she heard him say behind her. She was almost running, despite the fact that you should never run from a social scene or a dog. Any cheerfulness she had felt that day disappeared, as if it had never existed. She actually began to run. She ran past Octavia's house, past the entertained children across the street, past the rest of the houses on the row, until she reached Main Street, where traffic raged in early rush hour and the stridulent, hateful noise of their horns seemed to give a sound to her fury.

Tariq sorted through the tangles in Ruby's hair while she slept on the couch.

“Are you my personal stylist?” She asked half-asleep.

“Just keeping you in tip-top shape,” he answered, and then pretended to brush her eyebrows.

“Is it time to go yet?”

“You can sleep for another twenty minutes,” he curled her hair behind her ear, “am I bothering you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I'm sorry. I just like touching you.”

“I know,” she said simply, keeping her eyes shut.

He had asked her to come over to Nal's before Octavia's birthday party. I've barely seen you alone since we got back, he said. She came over and promptly fell asleep.

Tariq walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Ruby was different now. When he asked her if something was wrong, she said no, but he knew it was because she was too busy thinking
about whatever was wrong to consider his question.

He went back into the front room and tried to sit on the couch next to her. But she wouldn't move to make space for him, or change her shape to accommodate his own.

“How can anyone sleep so much?” He whispered.

“I'm tired,” she moaned.

“From a hard day of sitting and staring?”

“Why would you say such a mean thing?” Her face scrunched with anger.

He got up and stood in the middle of the room, afraid to move towards her but too proud to retreat.

“Just leave me alone,” she groaned.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I'm sorry. I'm just, fed up.”