Ruby squirmed inside the warm robe when she remembered how it had all been possible. Mrs. Sugar, with Dixie’s approval, had hired Calvin as a consultant, a traveling consultant. Off the books, of course. She’d never allowed the word gigolo to enter her mind except for times like now, when things were all wrong. She had always managed to justify the situation to Dixie and herself by saying she could not, would not, take anything from Calvin’s family. She could take him, his love and passion, because his wife didn’t want those things.
Ruby added a huge log to the fire. It would last till morning. She threw in an empty orange juice carton to give the sparking log impetus.
She was back on the sofa, her thoughts again on Calvin. He had made an unsuccessful bid for the United States Senate, unsuccessful because he hadn’t been prepared, mentally or financially. She’d hardly seen him that year, surrounded as he was by advisers who didn’t seem to know what to do with him. Calvin had refused to listen to them anyway. At first he’d called Ruby often to tell her how things were going and ask for her input, which he ignored. At the end, when things grew black, he stopped calling. She’d watched the election returns and cried for his loss.
Now he was making a second try, and this time she thought he’d make it. She tried to be an asset to him by contributing handsomely to his campaign fund. Beyond that, she lent him huge sums of money. Still, she knew without being told that his new advisers had her down on their books as a liability.
He still called once in a while, but his voice was always full of shame. He promised they would get together as soon as he had a free moment. She felt like calling him now, this minute, and telling him ... what? You broke my heart? I believed in you? I trusted you? She snorted. She’d done all that in a letter, and he hadn’t answered. He was probably too damn busy even to go to the post office box to pick up his mail. Out of sight, out of mind. She hadn’t written for three weeks now. Up to that time she’d written twice a week, sometimes three times, but for months there had been no response.
“Fuck you, Calvin Santos,” Ruby whispered.
She cried then, huge, gulping sobs that shook her shoulders. Once she’d told herself she had no regrets about anything in her life. It wasn’t true now, though. There was plenty to cry about.
All her old friends were gone. Grace and Paul were dead. She’d gone to their separate funerals just months apart. Paul had gone first with a heart attack. Lost without her love, Grace had managed to hang on for several months and then took an overdose of sleeping pills.
Then there was Mabel McIntyre. On a bright October day with the leaves all bronze and golden she’d called the number in her address book and was told the number was disconnected. She’d known what that meant and hadn’t tried it again. Mabel was gone. So, too, were the Quantrells. God, so many times she’d wanted to go to Michigan to see them, but she hadn’t. The year the Christmas gifts came back was one of the hardest things to bear. She’d made them part of her life. Now they were gone.
And Rena and Bruno. Rena had called a year before and said they were liquidating all their assets and going back to Egypt. She’d written again six months later from her homeland and said Bruno had passed away. The letter was long and rambling, but only in the bottom line did she finally get around to saying that she, too, was dying and had perhaps three months to live. It had taken that long for the letter to reach her. She’d called right away, but she was told Rena had already passed away. She’d truly grieved for Rena and Bruno.
Her uncles were gone now, too. It was only her immediate family and Dixie that were left to her. She was still estranged from her daughter and sisters, even now, four and a half years after their parents’ deaths.
Betrayed by her own daughter. It had hurt so unbearably, more than she thought possible. Andrew’s intervention and confessions hadn’t swayed Martha at all. “She’s just like you, Ruby, stubborn as hell. Even when I told her how I cheated on you and gambled away everything, she told me I was making it all up because you support me and I didn’t want it all to come crashing down on me.”
As for her sisters, the only information she had was what Andy got from Martha. Amber was the same. Opal had gone to a detox center to dry out, but she was back on the bottle again.
That left Dixie, who had been acting peculiar for some time now, and Ruby didn’t know why. She hadn’t wanted to stick her nose into her friend’s affairs.
She was half a century old, and she hadn’t done half of what she wanted to do. Mrs. Sugar now was like a shiny red bicycle that was getting rusty on the fenders. She needed things to occupy her time, to challenge her. Ruby reached for the pencil and pad and started scribbling furiously.
Move Mom and Pop back to the cemetery in Barstow. Check to see if Amber and Opal have to give their approval. Go back to St. Andrew’s in Hawaii. Go to Michigan and see the Quantrell farmhouse. The list went on and on.
A pilgrimage. That’s what it all added up to. She’d go on a pilgrimage.
Tomorrow she would go to a travel agency and make arrangements. After she did that she’d go to Nick Palomo and have a complete physical. Maybe he could give her something for her hot flashes. Fifty-two years old, going on fifty-three, was time to start taking care of herself. She should drop the twenty pounds she’d put on and quit smoking. She should do a lot of things. Death had begun to scare her. Maybe she should start thinking about going back to church, too.
Maybe she should start to think about moving. She’d never decorated her bedroom the way she wanted. If she moved, she could do that. It wouldn’t be the same if she did it here in this house. She didn’t know why, it just wouldn’t be. Maybe because Andrew had once lived in the same room. Maybe she should go back to Barstow. With her parents. Never alone.
“Where did I go wrong?” Ruby cried into the sleeve of her robe. “What’s wrong with me?”
Ruby fell into a tortured, uneasy sleep that lasted till four o’clock. Then she got up, dressed, and walked out to her car.
Dixie’s house was dark. Usually, there was a night-light burning in the kitchen, but not tonight. She lifted the flowerpot by the front door, but the key was gone. There was another in the carport under the milk box. It was gone, too. She walked back and forth, ringing one doorbell and then the other. Twice she threw a pebble at Dixie’s window.
Ruby picked up a rock from the flower border and carried it back to the carport, where she tapped at the small pane of glass in the kitchen door. She reached in to unlatch the security chain and turn the button on the doorknob. Breaking and entering. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about a whole lot right now. She wondered what she would do if the police came. “Well, hey, now, this is my best friend’s house, and I’m free to do whatever I please.” Sure, sure, lady. And off to the police station she’d go.
The night-light had been on, Ruby decided when she pressed the switch. The bulb was burned out. She rummaged in Dixie’s junk drawer for a new bulb and fitted it in. The kitchen glowed in dim yellow light.
The refrigerator was empty, as was the freezer. It took her a minute to realize it had been disconnected. The cabinets held nothing but canned soup. All the staples, the flour, cereal, and coffee, were gone.
There was nothing of Dixie left in the house. Not a hair ribbon, not a grain of talcum powder, nothing. The closets were empty, all of them. Dixie’s strong box, which she kept under a pile of pillows in the closet, was gone, too. The beds had all been stripped and covered with dust sheets. The same with the furniture in the dining room and living room. Ruby sat down with a thump on the shroud-covered sofa. When had this happened? How had it happened without her knowing about it?
Dixie was gone, but the power was still on in the house. She ran to the phone in the kitchen. There was no dial tone. Standing where she was, she could see the thermostat in the hallway. It was set at fifty-five, just enough heat so the pipes wouldn’t freeze.
Ruby made a mental note to call a glazier to repair the window she’d broken. What was going on?
Where was Dixie? Ruby began to worry.
Her whole body was trembling when she let herself into her own house. She went immediately to the fire and threw on another log. She sat on the hearth, shivering as she waited for the log to light.
Her head was pounding so badly, she couldn’t think. Under the shower she took stock of her situation. She’d lost nearly everyone—even Calvin, if she was honest with herself. And now Dixie. Dixie was gone. Just like that. No good-byes. Dixie’s M.O. When things don’t work out, take off. Dixie hated dealing with problems. Dixie hated change of any kind. Had she neglected Dixie? No more than Dixie had neglected her. Though at first they’d pretended otherwise, their friendship had never been the same since that night she . . . since Hugo. For a while, Dixie had seemed like a prisoner set free, doing all sorts of adventurous things, but after a few weeks, she had fallen back into her old ways. Dixie had never fully recovered from Hugo’s death. That was the bottom line.
Ruby stepped from the shower, wrapped her hair in a towel, and slipped into her terry-cloth robe. She sat at her makeup mirror and slashed lipstick across her lips. She grimaced at her reflection. “Fuck you, Dixie, fuck you, Calvin. It’s me now. The hell with both of you. The hell with Mrs. Sugar and Martha, the hell with you, too. As for you, Amber and Opal, kiss my butt, dead center.”
Ruby patted her hips as she sat down to an enormous breakfast of ham, eggs, toast, mounds of jelly, croissants, and coffee laced with thick, rich cream. She knew she was eating too much, and all the wrong foods, but she seemed unable to stop herself. What else was left? she wondered miserably.
Long fingernails tapped on the tabletop. The idea of going for a physical today was stupid. First of all, she had to make an appointment and fast the night before. At some point during the course of the evening, she recalled having inhaled half a cheesecake.
Today she was going to make travel arrangements and check on Dixie. Regardless of her previous intentions, she couldn’t take off not knowing what happened to her friend. Before she did anything else, she had to call the glazier and have Dixie’s back door repaired.
Ruby dumped the dishes in the sink. She looked at the pile of dishes that were days old. It would take her five minutes to put them in the dishwasher. She didn’t feel like it. She snorted. One of the fringe benefits of living alone was that she could do whatever she damn well pleased whenever she damn well pleased.
When Ruby returned to the house at four o’clock, she was so disgruntled, she ate the other half of the cheesecake, wolfing it down in six bites. She slammed her way around the kitchen, angry with Dixie, angry with herself.
As she paced her way around the dining room, she realized the only concrete thing she’d accomplished was having the glass on Dixie’s door repaired. The travel agency had said they needed several days to coordinate all the stops she wanted to make. In disgust, she’d told them forget it, and stomped out. She’d had absolutely no luck in tracing Dixie. The post office said there was no forwarding address, that mail was still delivered to Dixie’s house. She’d stopped by to see if there was mail, but the only things in the box were flyers and circulars, which could mean only that Dixie had notified anyone she dealt with that she was moving on and had given them her new address. She thought this through and covered her tracks. Why?
As a last shot, she called the Mayo Clinic and asked to speak to Dixie’s doctor.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle Harvey said gently when she had explained why she’d called. “I haven’t seen or heard from Dixie for several years. She came back twice, as you must know, for checkups. I recommended a doctor in New York.”
She laughed, a funny little sound that stuck in her throat. “You forgot to mention Dixie’s trip out there for your wedding. She said it was beautiful. Any children?” She was being polite, nothing more.
“Being on call twenty-four hours a day doesn’t make for a good marriage. No children. Someday,” he said brightly.
“Yes, someday.” She hated those words. “Thanks, Doctor.”
“It was nice talking to you again, Mrs. Blue.”
So what she had was zip, as Andy would say.
In a fit of helplessness Ruby picked up the dishes and threw them in the trash. She washed her hands before she called the attorneys in New York. Dixie hadn’t been in touch. They hadn’t called her because there had been no reason to call. “Well, don’t bother; the number has been disconnected. She’s moved out.” No reason to tell them she’d broken into Dixie’s house. She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. Her anger was starting to build again.
Ruby’s third phone call was to Silas Ridgely, who said he didn’t know a thing. He reminded Ruby that Dixie handled her own investments.
“Shit,” Ruby said succinctly. She peeled the paper off a Milky Way bar and started to chew. She sat down on the chair, too tired to sustain her anger. She started to cry. In the deep recesses of her mind a warning bell sounded. You’re on overload, Ruby. One more thing, just one more and you’re going to snap.
“Oh, yeah?” Yeah.
On the edge or not, she had one more thing to do. One more thing. Something she should have done weeks ago, but hadn’t had the guts.
Her shoulders stiff, her jaw clenched, Ruby picked up the phone and dialed Calvin Santos’s campaign offices in Washington, D.C. She didn’t bother making the call person to person. A voice that sounded barely pubescent answered the phone.
“This is the Oval Office calling for General Santos,” Ruby snapped. What the hell, if she was going to jail, she might as well go big.
The voice gasped, and Ruby heard her squeal, “It’s the Oval Office! That’s the President’s place, isn’t it?”
Good luck, Calvin, how can you lose with people like that working for you?
“General Santos speaking,” Calvin said, coming on the line.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Calvin, it’s Ruby.”
“Oh.”
“That’s it? Oh?”
“Well, I ...”
“Remember, you’re talking to the President. I’m going to ask you some questions and all you have to do is say yes or no.”
“I can do that . . . sir.”
“I’ve written you a dozen letters, you haven’t responded. You aren’t going to write, are you?”
“That’s not necessarily true. I’ve been busy, sir.”
“Calvin, go to another phone, where people can’t hear you. I’m not hanging up till I get some answers from you. And don’t you think about hanging up, because if you do, I’ll come to those offices.”
“It isn’t possible. There’s just this one big room.” Calvin’s voice lowered till Ruby had to strain to hear him. “Everyone will be gone in thirty minutes. Call me back then.”
“Calvin?”
“Yes?”
“If I had called and told that girl who I was, would you have taken my call?”
“I couldn’t . . . sir, not at that time. I expect to be here another hour, sir.”
Ruby’s shoulders drooped. “Good-bye, Calvin.”
The same internal voice she’d argued with before attacked her again. You really accomplished a lot. You know, of course, he won’t be there when you call back. “If I call back.” Oh, you’ll call back, you need to have your nose rubbed in it. The truth hurts. Only a fool ignores the truth. You just don’t want to admit you made a mistake with Calvin. In the beginning you had all those doubts, but you pushed them out of the way. You knew way back then that Calvin wasn’t who you wanted him to be. He’s weak. He lies. He’s selfish. He’s sneaky. He cheated on his wife, and you helped him. Wise up, Ruby. Remember, he was never there for you when you needed him, but you were there to pick him up and dust him off time and time again. He wouldn’t be running for the Senate if it weren’t for you, but now he can’t afford to have it come out that he’s been seeing you. He’s just going to let it fade away because he has no guts.
Ruby took up the other side of the argument. I’m not blameless here, she whispered to hersel
f. If Calvin was sneaky and cheated on his wife, I helped him. I’m as guilty as he is. Once Andrew had said to her, “You aren’t God, Ruby, you aren’t even a saint, so don’t try and make other people guilty when it’s you who started the whole mess.” She couldn’t remember what he had been referring to, but she supposed it didn’t matter. She took charge, issued orders like a general. She always believed her way was best, and if ... Calvin . . . if people didn’t do it her way, she always blamed them, never herself. That’s what Andrew had been trying to tell her.
Tears dripped down her cheeks as she listened to the phone ring in Washington. She let it ring twenty-six times before she hung up.
Ruby was never more aware than she was at that moment of how alone she truly was. All her reserve was gone, there was nothing more to draw from. She wept then, her head buried in her arms, for yesterday, today, and all tomorrows yet to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
November 6, 1984. The date was circled on Ruby’s calendar.
Ruby told herself it was morbid curiosity that was making her sit there in front of the television watching the election returns. Tomorrow she was going to go for the physical that was eleven months overdue. Then she was personally going to pound, with a sledge hammer, the For Sale sign into her front yard.
She’d decided months ago that she wasn’t going to make the trip to St. Andrew’s or any of the other places she’d planned on. She was too tired, and it no longer seemed to matter. Nothing mattered anymore. What she was going to do was time her arrival in Barstow to coincide with the mortician she’d hired to bring her parents’ bodies back to the town where they were born and married. Then she was going to get in the car and drive, and wherever she ran out of gas would be the place to which she would move. In approximately fifty-three hours, she would be gone from this place, just the way Dixie was gone. The thought of her friend made her eyes brim over. She didn’t know what hurt more, Dixie or Calvin. Neither was she yet over Martha’s heartbreaking betrayal.
Seasons of Her Life Page 58
