by Tom Rachman
She locates a plastic bag she has been saving for an opportunity like this, teases apart the knot, and recoils at the smell. She takes out a rotten tomato, a rotten egg, and a rotten orange and opens the window. With deliberation, she aims and tosses the egg, then ducks. No one howls--she has missed. Next, the orange. Still no bull's-eye. She hurls the tomato and it lands perfectly, splattering seeds and fetid pulp. She hides under her window ledge. The workmen curse for a minute, hunting around for their attacker. They turn off their radio.
"Victory," she says.
Then the radio comes back on, they are as loud as before, and she is wide awake.
She sits on the toilet. "What kind of people are these?"
The hissing shower fills the bathroom with steam. She strips, disheartened at the sight of her naked body. "It's like I'm melting." She scrubs herself roughly under the spray, then drips sullenly around the bathroom.
She takes the bus to Piazza del Popolo and walks to the Metropolitan cinema, which is showing the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. She studies the poster outside. Is it worse to watch a movie alone in a packed theater or alone in an empty one? What if there's someone she knows? Someone from work? She recalls her tantrum at Oliver Ott. Should she go into the office and check her emails? He will have complained to Kathleen. This'll be it. They'll fire her. Imagine all she can do once freed from the paper. Only, she cannot imagine anything--she has hated this job for years, yet blanks at a future outside that newsroom.
She glances around. What if Dario saw her in front of this cinema, alone on New Year's Eve? What if he's strolling along Via del Corso with his family right now? She escapes down Via di Ripetta, cuts down side streets, emerging finally at Piazza San Salvatore in Lauro. The winter sun reaches down here, its warmth spread across the piazza like a tablecloth. She shades her brow. Traffic whooshes along Lungotevere. Pedestrians pass, quietly, respectfully. She admires the broad-shouldered church there--it looks as if it had kicked aside all those grimy cars crowding its steps. A simple crucifix hangs above the pediment, archangels under the frieze, stone columns framing the sturdy wooden door.
She walks peaceably away, gliding within tranquil thoughts, watching her shoes emerge one after the other beneath her. She crosses the Tiber and merges with the crowd entering St. Peter's. The square's curled colonnades embrace the pilgrims, the colossal basilica looms behind, a stone obelisk points to the clouds. However, the center of attention today is the Christmas tree and the Nativity scene, including a flailing baby Jesus picked out by spotlight. The throng pushes closer to the creche, and Ruby moves, too, studying not the tableau but the surging crowd itself: dads panning camcorders across the manger, nuns contemplating the Three Wise Men, teenagers whispering rude jokes about donkeys in biblical times. As everyone else angles for a clear view, Ruby closes her eyes and leans into them, brushing strangers' hands--not for long, not so anyone would notice, but in glancing strokes.
Once home, she takes out her overnight bag, which she packed days ago, and places it by the front door. It's still too early to go to the hotel. She looks around for distraction and grabs the remote control and the blanket, inadvertently baring the family photos from New York: images of Pap, Kurt, herself. She collects them in her lap, reverse sides up.
Work crosses her mind. Dave Belling. "Such a phony," she mutters. His down-home, Southern-boy country bullshit. Her jaw tenses. Clint Oakley. "Fucking asshole." Those guys will love it when she gets fired. "And I'll be over the goddamn moon." Never set foot in that dump again.
She turns over the photos. The one on top is of Kurt, her brother, older by a year. He gave her the photos at Pap's funeral. "We should share them," Ruby told him at the time.
"It's okay."
"Keep some at least."
He said that Pap, during the last seventy-two hours, had shouted a lot.
"Saying what?"
"That he didn't want to die. Made a scene at the hospital."
"I wish you didn't tell me that, Kurt."
"But there was no point, really."
"What in?"
"In you coming back before he died."
Indeed, Ruby hadn't returned from Italy while Pap was ill--she'd been waiting for a plea. She wanted Pap to express remorse. During the last days, Ruby kept phoning Kurt, hoping to hear Pap wasn't dead, hoping to hear he was. The funeral was at St. Mary Star of the Sea Cemetery, off the Rockaway Turnpike. It was July and hot, and Ruby was afraid everyone would notice how much she sweated. Instead, everyone hugged her: cousins and nephews and kids. She was the daughter of the deceased. Kurt sat next to her, and he squeezed her hand for a few seconds during the service.
She had four days in Queens after that. Kurt took time off work and drove her around. They ate at the Astoria diner, as they had as kids, when they used to order fries and gravy and squirt on heaps of ketchup and vinegar, creating a mouth-puckering slop. As adults, they could order whatever they liked. So they ordered fries and gravy.
The whole family wanted to see her, sought her opinions and advice. "Aunt Ruby, tell Bill, the so-called great chef, what real Italian food is like." And: "Rube, have a word with Kelly about backpacking around Europe. I don't trust this kid she's going with."
Ruby kept hugging everyone. She stroked the little ones' chins, sat them on her knee, heard stories confided in whispers, warm on her ear. Everyone thought she was so smart and cosmopolitan. It made her scared to ever move home to Queens--if she did, they'd figure her out, see what a lie all this was, how ordinary she was.
During that trip, she spent her last day buying thank-you presents for everyone. Her gifts were acts not simply of generosity but of attention--she had listened to them all. For Kurt, it was the dashboard Global Positioning System, the only model that fit his Toyota truck; for Kelly, it was a long-coveted white Nikon Coolpix II, plus a money belt to be safe in Europe; and all the little nieces and nephews got the right video games and books and DVDs. The kids didn't want her to leave, and the adults asked when she was moving home to New York.
On the plane back to Rome, she resolved to digitize the old photos Kurt had given her and email him copies--someone in the photo department at work could show her how. She prepared an email message in her head: "Big brother, even though you don't want these now, maybe you will later. And you'll thank me! The kids will appreciate them maybe. All my love, Rube. P.S. Write back when you get this."
While Pap's funeral in New York had inflated her, the office punctured that soon enough. She returned to an avalanche of emails from the culture department (still run by Clint Oakley back then) over an edit she'd done before leaving. Clint had copied in Kathleen on all the complaints, to humiliate Ruby. Couldn't he have handled it privately, like a decent human being? Misery at work bled into her sleeping hours--she woke in the dark from anger. Pap haunted her, too, in images Ruby hadn't seen in years: Pap opening the closet to show her the cup where he kept human teeth; Pap heating a spoon on the stovetop; Pap telling the priest, "Look, my girl is sprouting."
The family photos in Ruby's lap make her want to wash her hands. It has been almost six months since she left New York, and she still hasn't had them digitized.
"Can't Kurt even call?" How hard can it be? She doesn't want to nag him. But it's like he doesn't care about sticking together, wouldn't care if they vanished from each other's lives. Says he doesn't like travel. But he took his wife to London. "Could have told me." She could have met them there.
Fireworks explode outside, though it's hours before midnight. She hides the photos on a kitchen shelf. She scrubs her hands with pumice till they are raw.
The taxi drops her in front of the Nettuno, a three-star hotel just outside the Vatican walls, whose peach facade has been hidden under scaffolding for years, the owners having run out of money and ambition halfway through a blast-cleaning in 1999.
Another firecracker bangs, and she jumps with fright.
The receptionist greets her in Italian, but she responds in English and han
ds him her American passport. "Hate flying during the holidays," she says. "Hate being away from my kids. But the bosses didn't want to reschedule the meeting. Which I didn't buy."
He takes a credit-card imprint.
"That's my personal card, not the company one," she tells him. "It's so I get the air miles."
He nods without interest.
She never stays at home on New Year's Eve. Every December 31, she becomes an American businesswoman stuck overseas during the holiday; each year, it's a different hotel.
The window of her room overlooks air-conditioning ducts, which suits her--less street noise. She drops her coat on the bed, takes a Peroni from the minibar, and flicks on the TV to check the pay-per-view. She watches a few minutes of a pornographic film, not aroused but dispirited. She changes to a music-video station but can't shake the feeling of pollution. "Who does that appeal to?" She fetches a Kit Kat from the minibar. "It's--" She takes a bite and stands before the mirror. "It's discouraging." She gets another beer and a packet of peanuts. "You know?" Next, she drinks a minibottle of Johnnie Walker Red, swirling it with mashed pretzels in her mouth. "No?" She has the mini of Absolut next, blended with a can of orange juice.
The guys at work are gonna celebrate when she gets fired. "And I'll be popping the champagne." She twists the cap off a half bottle of Calabrian red and rips into a packet of chocolate wafers. The combination is infelicitous, but she's too drunk to care. On the TV, Toto is impersonating a doctor. The minibar is empty. She closes her eyes, yanks the covers up. She is asleep.
A thunder of blasts--she jumps up, breathless. After a terrible instant, she orients herself: the hotel. Television, on. Outside, fireworks. She checks her watch. It's a few minutes before midnight. The paper is going to fire her.
She goes out into the hall to watch the explosions from a window that gives onto the street. The sky sparkles. The bangs are ceaseless. All around the city, choruses rise:
"Sei!"
"Cinque!"
"Quattro!"
"Tre!"
"Due!"
"UNO!"
On a rooftop across the street, teenagers scream--no one can stop them tonight. From the roof's edge, they fling champagne flutes, which tinkle in the gutter. A distant ambulance siren whines. A man in a trench coat hurries down the sidewalk, studying the screen of his cellphone. Smoke from the fireworks rises up the street lamps like phantoms.
She knows the minibar is empty but checks it again. She tries to sleep. The noises peter out, but she can't drift off. She's wide awake. They're definitely going to fire her. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Herman Cohen said, "One more mess-up, Ruby, and it's curtains." They're looking to cut staff. Everybody knows who's next. The question is when they're going to do it.
She looks at her cellphone. She could call Kurt in Queens and wish him Happy New Year. But then he'd ask what she was doing, what sort of party she'd gone to.
From her toilet bag she fetches the Drakkar Noir, drips it on her hands, rubs it on her cheeks. She closes her eyes and inhales. It was months earlier that she bumped into Dario on Via dell'Umilta; it had been years since they'd seen each other. He laughed that she still remembered him using Drakkar Noir. "Haven't used that in ages," he said.
She opens her mobile and brings up his number. She doesn't dial, but holds the phone to her ear. "Hello," she says to the dead air. "May I please speak with Dario? Hi, Dario, it's me. If you want to drop by, you're totally welcome." My hotel is nice. Seriously, I don't want to cause trouble. But I enjoyed getting that drink with you. "What about if you were to drop by? Just for a few minutes?" I'm pretty tired anyhow.
She calls him using the hotel phone so he won't recognize the number.
He answers. "Pronto?"
She doesn't respond.
"Pronto?" he repeats. "Chi e?... Pronto?" He pauses. "Non rispondi?" He hangs up.
She calls back.
"Chi e?" he says. "Che vuoi?"
"Don't scream at me," she replies in English. "It's Ruby."
He sighs. "It's the middle of the night. It's New Year's. Why are you calling me?"
She's silent.
"Fifty calls from you in the last few weeks, Ruby. Fifty."
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you calling me?"
"It's just."
"Answer me."
"Sorry."
"Stop saying 'sorry.' Answer my question. This is getting ridiculous. Fifty times. Do you have something to say?"
She can't speak.
"Ruby, I'm married. I'm not interested in finding someone. I don't want anything with you. I don't want to hear from you, I don't want to see you. I don't want to have another drink with you. I don't want you to call this number again. Please."
"Dario."
"If you call me again, I'll have to--"
But she hangs up.
She finds a nail file in her toilet bag and digs it into her thigh until she breaks the skin. She widens the wound, then stanches the blood with toilet paper and washes her hands under scalding water.
The maids wake her the next morning.
"Not yet," she mumbles, then falls back to sleep.
Front desk calls. It's past noon. She's late for checkout.
She smells Dario's cologne on her still. As she pulls on her trousers, they catch on the gash on her thigh. No time for a shower. She stuffs her possessions back into her overnight bag, looks in the mirror, tries to bring her hair to life. "My last day at the paper." It's New Year's Day; her shift starts at 2 P.M. "Today is the day." This is when they fire her.
She rolls her overnight bag down the street. She could go home and shower, but instead she walks toward St. Peter's Square. The pope's Angelus speech is over, and the crowd is dispersing. She passes through tides of people, yellow Vatican kerchiefs around their necks. The basilica stands there like a throne, with humankind at its feet. She is ordered out of one vacation photo after another. "Sorry, would you mind just?" they ask. She shifts aside. "Excuse me, you're in mine now."
She is hoping that a romantic couple will ask her to take their picture. She loves that--being, for a moment, admitted into their union. But no one asks. Two young Mexicans even prefer to take the photo themselves, the man extending his disposable Kodak before himself and his new wife. He counts down and, as he reaches zero, Ruby--who stands a distance behind them--sticks her hand into the background of their shot. The camera flashes, she drops her hand, no one is the wiser. When they get home, she'll be there forever.
When she reaches the newsroom, it is empty except for Menzies. She switches on her computer, not even bothering to disinfect her workspace. They will have fired her via email. And someone has stolen her chair. Typical. She scans the room. Does this guy ever leave?
"Oh, sorry," Menzies says, jumping up as she approaches. "I'm in your chair. Here, please. Someone took mine and I thought you weren't here today. I know that's a lame excuse. It is amazingly comfortable, by the way."
"You can request one if you want. Only took me about six years."
"Here." He pushes her chair over. "We both got stuck with the crappy shift, huh."
"What's your job today?"
"I'm actually running the show. Gulp. Get ready for a bumpy ride. Kathleen and Herman both have the day off, so it's just me. I'm sort of sweating bullets," he says. "Incidentally, I have something for you that's going to redeem me on the chair theft." He rummages through his backpack and pulls out a CD. "I've been lugging this back and forth to work for days now. Keep forgetting to give it to you. Remember we were talking that time about Tony Bennett versus Frank Sinatra? I think this may settle the matter. Live at the Sands. You will be converted to Frank."
"Hey, thanks. When do you need it back?"
"That's for you to keep."
She touches her chest with surprise.
"You have to tell me what you think of it," he says, talking fast, unnerved by her emotion. "Some of Sinatra's lead-ins to the songs are great. I think you're gonna love it
."
"That is so thoughtful of you."
"It's just a copied CD, Rube! No big deal, seriously."
Awkwardly, she hugs him.
"No problem," he says, pulling away. "No problem. By the way, did you get that email I sent you?"
"What email? Is something the matter?"
"Not at all. It's about that headline on the nuclear-arms story. You did that head, right?"
"About how everyone's freaked out over Iran and North Korea? Did I fuck it up?"
"Not at all--your headline was great: 'Kooks with Nukes.' I suck at those one-column heads."
Clearly, he doesn't know they're firing her. He must be out of the loop.
She rolls her chair back to the copydesk and looks around the newsroom. Broken venetian blinds cover the newsroom windows, the strings tangled half up, half down, casting broken grids of shadow and sunlight across the grouchy old computers, their cooling fans grumbling away. Twenty years here. "My whole career."
Her computer takes forever to load up. "Come on." She is about to lose this job. "Thank God." Almost time to celebrate.
Her computer has stopped whirring; it's ready. She can picture the email. It'll say: "Ruby, please call me at home. It's about a very serious matter. Thank you." Who will have sent it? Kathleen? Or Herman? Or Accounts Payable?
Ruby logs on. All the routine emails are there: a festive edition of the Why? newsletter; something about turning off the lights in the bathrooms to save money; a reminder of how much it costs per minute to be late for deadline. But her dismissal?
She checks again.
Where the hell is it?
She keeps refreshing her in-box. She can't find it. It isn't there: no email. But there must be one.
No, there simply isn't.
She rises, sits back down, then stands once more and hurries into the ladies' room. She closes herself in a stall, sits on the toilet, covering her mouth.
Her breathing increases, her insides seem to swell. A tear runs down her face, slides ticklishly under her chin. Him--that's Dario's smell. The cologne from the night before. She never washed it off, and her tears have activated the scent.
