by Anna Roberts
5
The glass door stood open, and when the wind blew indoors it smelled like smoke. Ruby sighed and looked out to see if Charlie was once again lighting up out there, only to see him standing over a bright curl of actual flame and ash. It gusted towards the door and he just stared at it, like he had never expected burning paper to catch in the wind.
“What the hell are you doing?” she said, stamping out the fire. Whatever he had been burning was gone now. “If you’re gonna burn shit then put it in a trashcan, Charlie. You’re gonna set the whole place on fire.”
He had a cardboard file still in his hand. He held it up by one edge and it flopped open, empty. “See?” he said. “Told you I’d deal with the cops.”
“How did you get that?” she asked, realizing what she was looking at. Was that who had been at the door? The police? “Why’d they just hand it to you?”
“My good looks and charm, I guess,” he said, with the little lopsided grin that had made her point him to her motel room door in the first place. She had never done that before – not in all the years of her marriage – and when she did it she knew why Ro had always been so keen on cheating. The thrill was near enough to blow your socks off.
“You’re crazy,” she said, but he just kept smiling. He reached out and cupped her face, his thumbs smoothing along her cheekbones, pulling the skin tight at the corners of her eyes. He kissed each eye and looked down at her with a kind of fierce wonder that she’d yearned for like crazy, yawning over the pages of romance novels in her trailer. Sometimes she’d lain awake next to Ro, listening to him snore and crying silently, feeling the tears puddle in her ears and knowing that they were too stale and worn in their ways for him to ever look at her that way again.
But here it was. That look. Need. Love. Passion. And now that it was directed her way she couldn’t help but think be careful what you wish for, ‘cause you might just get it.
“Are you okay?” she asked. She couldn’t smell booze, but his eyes were too bright, like he’d been snorting something he shouldn’t.
“Never better,” he said. “Look at you. What a savior. What a saint.”
Something wasn’t right. She couldn’t put her finger on it but it was jangling all those nerves that had been pulled tight and tuned to Ro’s moods over the years. All those nerves that said ‘tread carefully, or you’re gonna get smacked’.
“A virtuous woman has a price beyond rubies,” he said, his fingers lacing into the roots of her hair, tightening in a way that made her heart beat fast for all the wrong reasons. “So what’s your price, Ruby?”
She tasted metal in her mouth, some rusty bell ringing in her head. Her skin felt cold and too tight. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Sure you don’t,” he said. “You never do. You ask for the world and want it for free.”
“Charlie, what are you talking about?”
He smiled. His fingers relaxed, combed through to the ends of her hair. “Nothing,” he said. “Thinking out loud. Come on – go put on a dress. I’m taking you out to dinner. Champagne and oysters. Nothing but the best for my girl.”
“I can’t drink champagne,” she said, even though she wanted to. She’d never even tasted it before. “Goddamit, Charlie – do you even want this baby?”
He smoothed the corners of her eyes again and kissed her mouth. “Listen to me,” he said, looking at her with that strange new intensity that should have set her heart on fire but instead just set her nerves on edge. “You have no idea how much I want a baby. I want it more than anything else in the world.”
She felt wet on her eyelashes and realized she was crying again. Happened a lot lately – just flowed out with no warning. Hormones and all. “Okay,” she said, and in that moment she told herself she was happy. Happier than she’d ever been. “Thank you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. She knew she was supposed to say ‘I love you’ or make a big romantic speech about how he was her moon and her sun and her stars, but instead she just stood there like a dumbass, with ash blowing over her bare feet. The charred cardboard folder flapped in the breeze. She bent to pick it up, but he stooped and caught her wrist. “Come on. Put on your party dress, Cinderella. Leave the ashes for the night, before you turn into a fucking pumpkin or something.”
He laughed and went back indoors. As Ruby straightened up a photograph – an old black and white thing – fell from a pocket inside the burned folder. She picked it up. It was a mugshot; she could tell by the lines on the wall behind him and the board he was holding up, but that part of the photograph was burned away so that all she could see of the man’s name was the first two letters – WE. He looked like Charlie in a black wig and he was smiling – no, grinning. Like they’d told him not to smile and he couldn’t resist giving them a fuck-you by baring his teeth.
“Ruby!” Charlie’s voice sounded a little like Ro’s did when he’d had enough, or when the pot roast wasn’t done right and he figured he’d make her pay by throwing it at her head.
“Okay, I’m coming,” she said, folding the photograph and tucking it into the pocket of her jean-shorts. “Let me just take this down to the trash.”
She swept up the ashes with a dustpan and brush – couldn’t find a broom. Maybe he thinks I’ll fly away.
Her heart was still beating strangely as she gathered up the trash, and she told herself sternly to get a grip. This was everything she had ever wanted. A baby coming, a man who was happy about it, and who looked at her like...
...like you’re something to eat.
“Like a princess,” she said, out loud, the better to drown out the voice in her head. She opened the door and headed down the stairs to the alleyway.
At first she thought the noise was garbage blowing in the wind. It was a kind of scuffling, scuttling noise, like plastic being tossed over paving stones, but as she peered over the low stepped wall she saw not spilled recycling but a brown creature running towards the street. It was so big that first she thought it was a small dog, but then she saw the long, naked tail; a rat.
The scuttling grew louder. Ruby watched in queasy horror as the rat was joined by another, then another and another and another, all Pied Pipering towards the street until they looked like a moving, furry brown carpet. She heard screams from the end of the alley; all those tourists and moony newlyweds were getting a Florida wildlife encounter that definitely wasn’t in the brochures.
Another rat came skittering down the stairs. Its tail whipped at her ankle and she let out a high, thin shriek, the sound of a lunatic. She looked around to make sure there weren’t more coming, and when she looked back she thought she was going crazy, or crazier. Like her nerves had finally snapped.
Ro was standing at the mouth of the alley. The rats ran either side of him like a stream of dirty water. He held a hand above his eyes against the sun as he looked up. “Ruby?”
“Oh my God,” she said, and dropped the trash bag.
Ro saw that she was about to run. He punted the rats out of the way and hurried up the stairs towards her. “Don’t you dare,” he said, grabbing her arm. “What kind of mess have you got yourself into this time, Ruby?”
“I didn’t,” she said, shaking him off and starting back up the stairs. “I haven’t. I left you. Let me alone.”
He grabbed the back of her shirt and she stopped, fearful of falling and hurting the baby.
“Holy shit, Ruby,” said Ro. “Even the goddamn rats are leaving this place. You left me for this?”
He’d always been skinny, but kind of skinny-fat. Flabby. Now he just looked straight up bony, like Lilly the bartender’s shitty cooking didn’t agree with him. And normally Ruby would have said ‘good’ and ‘serves you right’ to that, but there was a look in his eye that was a whole new kind of crazy. Not like the crazy he got before he got all smacky on her ass, or even the feverish crazy that came late at night when he was talking all kinds of dumb shit with Jared about pyramids and the Illumi-fucking-nati or whatever h
e’d heard on Alex Jones.
Instead it looked like he’d been scared clean out of his tiny little mind.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Jared’s dead,” said Ro. “Kaiden, too.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Ruby. They’re dead. Et up. Keys pack killed ‘em – your new fuckin’ boyfriend, probably.”
She swallowed, feeling cold and kind of cushiony, like she was watching this from somewhere else. The last ratty stragglers ran down the alleyway, leaving the trash untouched. She saw Ro’s gaze shift upwards and realized Charlie had opened the door.
“Ruby?”
“I’m comin’.”
He stepped down until he was standing on the step just above her. Ro was looking at him with murder in his eyes, but Charlie just stared him down. “Can I help you?” he said, so much like a civilized person that in that moment Ruby wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed and eaten her grandma. Because at least he wasn’t Ro.
“I dunno,” said Ro. “Guess you could give me my wife back?”
Charlie blinked down at him. “She’s a person, Cicero,” he said, in a cold, edgy kind of voice she’d never heard before. “Not a drill I borrowed and forgot to return.”
“And what about Jared? And Kaiden?” Ro started up the stairs. Charlie stepped down in front of Ruby just as Ro flailed out towards her. He caught Ro by the wrist, and while Ruby couldn’t see his face, she knew by the look in her husband’s eyes that Charlie wasn’t fucking around.
“We’ll discuss this another time,” said Charlie. “Come for lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“Yes. Lunch. You have lunch, don’t you?” Charlie said. “Up there in the swamp? Now, if you’ll excuse us; I’m taking your wife out to dinner.”
*
Once upon a time, thought Ruby, there was a girl who read too many books.
The same thing happened in all of them. A rich but lonely man came along and scooped up the poor but pretty girl from the parking lot or sidewalk or wherever he found her. And she found him arrogant at first, but grew to understand the sadness inside him, and so grew to love him. Meanwhile he bought her dresses and diamonds and she got to drink champagne in fancy restaurants and shine in all her goodness and beauty. It was a dumb fairytale and she knew that now, now that her shimmering new real life had the texture of those older, meaner fairytales. The ones where there was always a price, and a cold, hard lesson.
“Ta da,” said Charlie, as the waiter set down the dish. Oysters. A couple of dozen, she guessed, but the thought of trying to count those gray, slimy things made her queasy. She sat with a glass of champagne before her; she’d only wet her lips with it because of the look in his eye, but she didn’t dare drink it because of the baby. And now he wanted her to eat oysters, because that’s what you did when you were living the high life.
She was wearing a little black dress she’d bought just because she’d never owned one, even though when she’d tried it on in the store it had felt hard and starchy. She was glad of it now; the stiff black linen felt like the only thing holding her spine straight. The candles on the table on burned blue, and somewhere in her bones she knew that meant something. Real beeswax, maybe – even the candles here were nicer than the ones back home.
“I can’t,” she said, and her voice sounded to her own ears like she was about to faint.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” said Charlie, laughing at her. “You ate your grandmother, Ruby. I think you can choke down an oyster.”
“I wasn’t pregnant then,” she said. “You can’t drink booze and eat raw things. It says so in all the books.”
He laughed louder, and she had the wrongest feeling once more, the one that had been bugging her all night. Just little things, like the wolfish look in his eye and the way he bared his teeth too much when he smiled, but she’d been telling herself that at least he wasn’t Ro, and when else was a man going to take her out to a fancy dinner before she got too fat to fit into her new clothes?
“Books?” he said.
“I read.”
“I know you do. Romance novels and recipe books. Especially that one you stole from Gloria.” He picked up one of the oysters. It shimmered in its little bath of grease or sea-water or whatever it was, not that she wanted to know. Just thinking about getting up close and personal with it made her stomach twist and growl, and not in a good way.
Charlie poked in the shell with a fork. “Now – you break the little towbar, like so. Then you take a squeeze of lemon...”
He held the thing under her nose and she struggled not to gag. It smelled vile, like fish and old underpants. “Please, Charlie, I don’t –”
“– don’t be a baby. Open wide –”
“– I can’t –”
“– no such word as can’t. You don’t even have to chew. Just let it slide down your throat.”
“– but –”
He tipped the shell against her lips and there was no way to knock it out of his hands or spit it out without making everyone stare at them. Before she could help it the oyster was in her mouth, all gross and fleshy and fishy on her tongue. Swallow, swallow it quick. She fought her gag reflex and gulped it down, only to find the whole experience just got even more disgusting, because the feeling of it slithering down her throat was so nasty that she took a big, desperate gulp of champagne to wash it down. The bubbles stung the back of her nose and made her eyes water. She coughed into her napkin, but he was still grinning, the asshole.
“Fuck you,” she managed to say, almost yearning for Hamburger Helper dinner and her husband’s friendly fist. Somehow it hurt twice as much being tortured with these things that you’d always imagined you’d love.
Charlie clicked his tongue. “Ungrateful,” he said. “But you always are. You, Gloria, even my little Baby Blue. You witch bitches want everything from me. ‘Oh, save my baby, stop my brain from turning to wet cat food, tote dat barge, lift that, Yael.’ But when it comes to paying the piper?” His hand came down hard on the table, turning heads and jangling the crockery. “You can’t even say thank you for champagne and oysters.”
Ruby swallowed down acid and prayed that the oyster would stay put, but the next time she opened her mouth it wasn’t vomit that came up but the thing that had been gnawing at the edges of her mind for several hours now. “You’re not Charlie.”
He sat back and gave her a golf clap. “Bravo. Took you a while. You should lay off the romance novels, Ruby – brain candy causes cavities just the same as the regular kind.”
“What did you do with Charlie?” she said. Oh God, that thing was inside him, that great white roaring thing under his skin and in his head. When she looked in his eyes – Charlie’s eyes – she could feel how it filled him, like he was screaming at the seams with the size and power of it.
“Relax,” he said. “He’s in here. Not like I can miss him; he’s rather noisy.”
“Let him go. This wasn’t what I meant.”
The big spirit – Yael – sighed. “You never mean a lot of things, Ruby Tuesday,” he said. “That’s your problem. No long term planning. No idea of consequences.” He refilled her glass and the bubbles spilled over the top, making him giggle like a child. “Oops. Still getting the hang of this body thing.”
“It’s not your body,” she said, and had a sudden, scary sense of just how greedy this had made him. He ordered the fanciest foods because there was no time to waste in tasting them; sooner or later poor Charlie was going to be hollowed out like a fat candle cored by a hot wick, and sooner or later Yael was going to want to taste other things, things she had no intention of giving him.
“But it is, Ruby,” said Yael. “Promises were made. She spent all those years trying to keep darling Charlie away from me, but even old Doctor Faustus couldn’t keep on ducking the devil forever. You make your bargains, you sell your soul...”
His voice blurred to a drone. She was thinking ahead. Okay, so it wasn’t the Okefenokee
, but the Everglades would work for cover. Disappear into the swamp, find some abandoned cartel cabin and hole up eating game for a while. He wouldn’t want to go there; he was like her. He was thirsty for all the shiny things in life.
The hand came down hard on the table again, and this time she let out a frightened little squeak.
“Listen to me, Ruby.”
She tried. The drone kept buzzing in her ears like a trapped bee, and she wondered if this was the sound your heart made just before it quit. “I’m listening,” she said, tasting seawater and acid champagne. It cost so much and it still gave you heartburn.
“You’ll lose that baby without me,” he said. “Sure, you’ve winged it so far, and you’ve done very well – keeping the wolf from the door, so to speak – but the further along you go the harder it’ll be to keep up with the demands of your own body, never mind keeping it in shape every full moon. That little thing,” He nodded to her waist, just below the table top. “He’ll hollow out your teeth, leech off your blood supply, back up your bowels and strain your liver and heart. All in the interests of living to see daylight, even though he doesn’t even know what daylight is.”
He paused to drink, draining the glass in one swallow. Then he burped, loud and nasty, so that there was a kind of genteel stir among the other diners in the restaurant. He’d brought her here on purpose, not because he wanted to spoil her, but because he knew she’d be too intimidated to make a scene.
“It’s a hell of a why, Ruby Red,” he said. “Wanting to live. An irresistible force, but fragile, unready. That’s what mothers are for.”
“Yes,” was all she said, and she knew she was fucked. The swamp faded in her mind as she realized that she’d got exactly what she asked for when she called him. And that she’d been too full of baby hormones to count the goddamn cost.
“You need me, Ruby. I can help you.” He grinned and – to her horror – started to sing out loud. “I need you, you need me. We’re a werewolf family.”
Heads turned. She sank down in her chair and in the split second it took her to do so he reached across the table and grabbed her hands. Everyone was staring, and a husband-sounding voice in her head said you picked a fine time to start giving a shit, Ruby, but Yael had her held fast, gazing into her face in a parody of a romantic champagne dinner.
