by Sharon Sala
Ruby was smiling all the way through self-checkout and made it back to her car without losing her composure. She was thinking of little girls and dolls as she drove to their house at the edge of town.
Charlie was carrying a sack of garbage to the Dumpster when Ruby drove up. He saw her and waved, then dumped the garbage and came running back.
“Hello, Miss Ruby!”
“Hello, Charlie. I had some free time and decided to bring the clothes today instead of tomorrow. Would you mind helping me carry them in?”
“Oh no, ma’am, I wouldn’t mind at all,” he said.
Ruby opened the trunk. “Your clothes and Pitty-Pat’s clothes are in here, along with shoes. Your mother’s things are in the back seat, so don’t mix them up, okay?”
“Okay,” Charlie said. He grabbed an armful of clothes for his little sister and headed toward the house.
Ruby got the toys and groceries and walked in behind him.
Alice was smiling as she entered the living room with her daughter. “My goodness, what’s happening now?” she said.
“Miss Ruby brought the clothes, Mama. Now we can enroll in school,” Charlie said. “All of these here are for Pitty-Pat.”
Alice clapped her hands. “This is wonderful. Wonderful!” she said, as Charlie carried the clothes into her bedroom and put them on her bed, then went back for more.
Ruby set her things down on the kitchen table.
“Alice, I worried you might be getting low on milk, so I brought another gallon.”
“That is so thoughtful of you,” Alice said, and put it straight into the refrigerator.
Ruby grinned at Pitty-Pat. “I also brought the kids a couple of things. Is it okay if I give them to Charlie and Pitty-Pat now?”
“Of course!” Alice said.
When Ruby took the doll out of the sack, the little girl squealed. The joy of seeing her face was something Ruby knew she’d never forget.
“She doesn’t have a name, and she didn’t have a home. I thought you might like to take care of her,” Ruby said.
Pitty-Pat’s eyes widened as she fell right into make-believe.
“She can live with me,” Pitty-Pat said.
“Wonderful. What are you going to name her?” Ruby asked.
Pitty-Pat looked down at the baby, intently studying her face. “She says her name is Baby Sue.”
“That’s a good name,” Ruby said. “Thank you for giving her a home.”
The little girl nodded seriously and wandered off into the other room, already talking to the baby as if it were real.
“Thank you for that,” Alice said.
Ruby shrugged. “Truthfully, coming here today is what I needed. I also brought a few little things for you.” She handed the sack of makeup to Alice.
“Oh dear lord, thank you so much,” Alice said. “It’s strange how a simple tube of lipstick can make a woman feel, isn’t it?”
Charlie came into the kitchen. “I’m almost through, Miss Ruby. I still have to get the shoes.”
“I brought you something, Charlie. I don’t know if it’s anything you’ll like, but I didn’t want to leave you out.”
She handed him the sack with the two board games and the Lego set.
“Mama, look! Monopoly! Just like the one that burned. All of us play this game. Miss Ruby, thank you, and this other game looks fun too.” Then he saw the Lego set and gasped. “Oh man…I always wanted one of these. Thank you, Miss Ruby, thank you,” and for the second time that day, Ruby got a hug.
She was smiling through tears. “You’re welcome, honey. Last but not least, this is for Booger.”
Charlie grinned, opened the package, and immediately gave the bone to the big hound. Booger woofed then chomped down on it and carried it back to his bed.
“Now, how about I help you carry in the shoes?” Ruby said.
“I’m feeling much better. I’ll help too,” Alice said.
The last of the donations were carried into the house before Charlie disappeared with his new gifts.
Pitty-Pat was putting Baby Sue to bed on the sofa, and Alice stood in the doorway, waving goodbye as Ruby drove away.
Ruby didn’t want to go home. Instinct sent her to the Curl Up and Dye.
She came in the back door like always, surprising Mabel Jean and the twins, as well as their clients.
“Ruby!” Vera cried.
“You’re just in time!” Vesta added.
“What do you need?” Ruby asked.
“Can you fill up the soap dispenser in the bathroom and put out some new toilet paper and a roll of paper towels? We’ve been so busy today that I haven’t had a chance to catch up.”
“Consider it done,” Ruby said as she put her jacket and purse away, and went to work.
When she was through with that, she grabbed a broom and began sweeping up hair clippings, then got out a new stack of towels for the shampoo station. When the phone rang, she was the one who answered.
“Curl Up and Dye, this is Ruby.”
There was a little gasp on the other end of the line, then a slight pause.
“Hello?” Ruby said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just… Oh never mind. Hi, Ruby, this is Precious Peters. I need a new perm. This one has grown out to nothing.”
“Just a minute. Let me get out my book, and I’ll see what I have.” She got her appointment book and flipped to next Tuesday. Her regulars were already penciled in, but there were plenty of gaps. “How about two p.m. on Tuesday?”
“That would be perfect,” Precious said. “Thank you…and Ruby…I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to come back to work. We sure have missed you.”
“Thank you,” Ruby said. “It’s good to be back.”
She hung up the phone, ignored the ache in the pit of her stomach, and then made herself smile at the next customer who was coming in the door. And so it continued.
By the time the last client had been seen and the girls were cleaning up their stations to leave, Ruby felt like she’d never been gone.
“See you in church?” she asked as Mabel Jean was putting on her coat.
“No, I’m going to Savannah tomorrow. It’s my granny’s eighty-first birthday. We’re all meeting at the nursing home to eat lunch with her.”
Ruby smiled. “That’s wonderful! Eat a piece of cake for me.”
“I will!” Mabel Jean said, and waved as she went out the back door.
Vesta and Vera were putting on their coats as well. “Are you leaving now too?” they asked.
Ruby nodded. “Yes. The front door is locked, and I already made out the night deposit. I’ll drop that by the bank on my way home. See you in church?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vesta said. “And let’s all go to Granny’s afterward.”
“Yes, let’s,” Ruby said. “See you there.”
They went out the back door.
Ruby heard their car start, and then they were gone.
She stood for a few moments, savoring the silence as she gazed around at her little shop and what she had created. Without planning it, somehow this place had become a place of shelter. The place where problems were shared and solutions made. A place where things that went wrong were made right.
It had healed Ruby once. She had to have faith it could do it again.
“See you next Tuesday,” she said as she turned out the lights, and then she too was gone.
* * *
The last scans they’d run on Peanut’s head were encouraging. The brain bleed had stopped, and the swelling was beginning to go down as well. The nurses continued to wake him at intervals because of the concussion, and every time they did, they asked him simple questions, like “What do you remember?” and “Do you know who’s president?” and “Do you know how old you are?”
Every t
ime, he would ask them his name, and each time they told him, he thought they surely were making a joke.
Paul Quick came in that evening making rounds and woke Peanut up.
“Good evening,” Dr. Quick said. “How do you feel?”
Peanut was sick of that question.
“The same,” he mumbled. “I hurt and can’t remember stuff.”
“Well, that’s not unusual, considering your injury. I have confidence that will change with time.”
“What’s my name?” Peanut asked.
Dr. Quick grinned. “Peanut Butterman.”
Peanut frowned. “Not funny,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.
Dr. Quick chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.
“When you remember, you’ll realize we’re not kidding you, son. Just rest. If you continue to progress, we’ll move you out of critical care into a regular room soon.”
“Am I married? Do I have a family?” Peanut asked.
The doctor frowned. “No, you aren’t married, and you have no family.”
Peanut’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t matter to anyone?”
The doctor sighed. “That’s not entirely true. You have a girlfriend.”
Peanut’s heart skipped a beat. There was someone who knew him well enough to have real answers. “Then where is she?”
Quick hesitated, then confessed.
“She was here the first time you woke up, and you were so upset I told her not to come back for a while.”
Peanut didn’t like that.“Wanna see her.”
“I’m not sure if—”
“Wanna see her, damn it,” Peanut muttered.
“Then I’ll give her a call,” the doctor said. “I’ll leave word at the nurses’ desk that she will be allowed to visit now.”
Peanut sighed again, his eyes already closing.
“Stupid decision,” he muttered, and then he was out.
Dr. Quick grinned.
“Your opinion has been noted.”
* * *
Ruby stopped at Broyle’s Dairy Queen and ordered a burger and fries, then drove home in silence, dreading the moment she had to go inside.
She pulled up into the driveway, and then grabbed her things and the keys and let herself in. She left the food in the kitchen and went down the hall, wincing at the sight of the broken frames and shattered glass.
She stepped across the threshold into her bedroom, her shoulders drooping in defeat at the sight of what she’d done.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I’ll be back in a little while to fix this.”
Then she went back to the cooling food, put her burger and fries on a plate, grabbed a glass of iced tea, and took the food to the living room to watch TV.
She ate without tasting it, trying to fill up the empty feeling in her heart by filling her stomach, but her food choice had not been wise. She nibbled at the burger so she didn’t have to open her mouth too wide, and then finally gave up, took it apart and ate the hamburger patty by breaking it up and nibbling on the bite-size pieces, along with eating some of the fries.
Finally, she gave up and threw the rest of it in the garbage, then gathered her cleaning equipment and went to put her little house back in order.
She worked through each task in a slow, methodical manner, beginning with sweeping up the glass and throwing away the frames and pictures. There was nothing personal about any of it, and she didn’t want to look at them again.
She had to remake the bed one layer at a time—from the mattress cover to the sheets, then the blankets, all the way to the old bedspread—before she tucked in her pillows and refolded the bath towels. The last thing to do was what she’d come to do earlier—put the bath towels away.
Afterward, she sat down on the side of the bed, trembling from emotional exhaustion and trying to talk herself out of church tomorrow, then remembered she’d already made a date with Vera and Vesta to go to Granny’s after church—the same date she’d made with Peanut a week ago today.
She shoved her hands through her hair, then headed for the bathroom, to the mirror above the sink. She eyed the three little stitches in her mouth, got her manicure scissors and tweezers and washed them in alcohol. Then before she could change her mind, she leaned in closer to the mirror, cut the first stitch and removed it with the tweezers. It stung enough to make her eyes water, but she kept going until they were gone.
She laid everything down and looked at herself again, then smiled. The simple removal of those stitches was another step in putting the past behind her.
Her gaze moved from her mouth to her hair and how Peanut had pulled it away from her face. She closed her eyes, remembering…
You are the color of love to me. I don’t care what you do with your hair.
She looked at herself again, ran her fingers through her hair, backed away a couple of steps and narrowed her eyes for a different view, then headed for the storage cabinet in the utility room.
She began going through the tints and the dyes, picking one up and then putting it back and looking for another. She was still undecided when her cell phone began to ring. She put down the box she was holding and ran to the living room to answer.
“Hello?”
“Ruby, this is Dr. Quick.”
“Oh my God,” Ruby moaned and sank to her knees as her legs went out from under her. “What happened?”
“Oh…I’m sorry, nothing, nothing. I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to give you an update on Peanut’s condition. The brain bleed stopped. The swelling in his brain appears to be going down. He still has no memories but is communicating well when we wake him.”
“Oh, thank God,” Ruby said. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“There’s a bit more. He has asked if he has family. I told him no, which seemed to make him sad. He asked if there was anyone who cared about him. I told him that he has a girlfriend. He asked why you hadn’t visited. I told him that you had been there once when he first awoke, and that he was so upset I asked you not to visit. He was not happy with me, so I told him that I would let you know you could visit now.”
Ruby started to cry.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Dr. Quick. The last two days have been the worst two days of my life…even worse than being kidnapped.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Quick said. “I had no intentions of hurting you. I was so focused on making sure that he didn’t cause himself harm by getting upset.”
“I understand. So are you saying I can visit any time now?”
“Yes. I told the nurses you were allowed, but not tonight, okay? I want to give him one more night of rest.”
“Yes, okay,” Ruby said. “Thank you for calling.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice night,” the doctor said, and hung up.
Ruby pulled herself up and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered. She dropped the phone onto the sofa and headed back to the storage cabinet. In a matter of six days, life had yanked her through hell backwards. It was time to turn herself around.
She shoved all of the boxes to one side and grabbed the one in the back corner, took out a pair of latex gloves, her coloring equipment, and a large plastic cape, then headed for her bathroom. This was probably going to set all of the churchgoers on their ears tomorrow, but they’d already seen the ugly part of her past. A new hair color wouldn’t be that unusual for her, even if they’d never seen it like this before.
She took everything out and laid it on the bathroom counter, fastened the cape around her neck, and opened the box. The last thing she did right before she started was put on the gloves.
“Here we go again,” Ruby said, and reached for her hair.
Chapter 17
Peanut woke with a start, heard a rhythmic beep, felt the blood pressure cuff beginning to
tighten around his arm to take another reading, and thought—hospital.
Through the glassed-in front of his room, he could see the circular nurses’ station in the center of the unit and the nurses who came and went. He wondered if he knew them from before, or if they were only familiar now because they were the faces he’d seen most recently.
He groaned as he closed his eyes, trying to get past the pounding headache, but when he did, he began to see other faces flashing before his eyes. People sitting in chairs in two rows, one row elevated above the other. Some of the people were motionless. Some were frowning. But they were all staring at him. He didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t recognize any of them.
A nurse opened his door and came in to check his vitals and readjust the drip in his IV.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Head hurts.”
“I’ll get you something for that.”
“Can I have water?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, and poured a little from his water pitcher into a glass and held the straw as he took a couple of sips. “Enough?” she asked, when he stopped.
“Yes. Thanks. What day?” he asked.
She smiled. “It’s Sunday…early Sunday morning.”
“Church,” he muttered. The thought made him anxious, like there was some place he was supposed to be, and then he let it go and fell back into the void.
The nurse left to get his pain meds. He was asleep when she came back. She injected the medication into his IV, and then closed his door on her way out.
* * *
Ruby was dressed except for her shoes and taking one last look at herself before leaving the house. As far as she was concerned, her new hair color was a success, and the bruises on her face had faded enough that makeup concealed a good portion of them.
She’d pulled her hair back from her face and fastened it to the top of her head, leaving the rest in a jumble of loose curls. She frowned a bit with regard to the pantsuit she’d chosen to wear, afraid she’d jumped the gun on spring, but then she decided she didn’t care. It looked good with her hair and her complexion, and that was what she was going for.
