Ruby's Misadventures With Reality

by Samantha Bohrman

  Marvel explained that the point of the group was to set fitness goals and spend the lunch hour exercising. Though Ruby tried her best to look busy talking with Olivia, Destinee cornered her.

  “Ruby, I’m so glad you’re here! I bet you didn’t think I would be!” Destinee laughed a little, as if it was preposterous that she needed to lose weight. “I was hoping I would run into you. We can talk business while we’re feeling the burn.”

  Ruby nodded and smiled like a bobble-head doll. Behind her empty smile she wondered what Destinee was up to.

  “First of all, how does the evidence look?”

  Ruby fixated on Destinee’s nose, which looked perfect. She wondered if Destinee’s plastic-surgeon father had anything to do with that, but she answered, “It looks pretty good. I think plenty of the workers smoked.”

  “Excellent. I want a detailed list of all the smokers and please include any other negative health information available from the medical records, autopsy reports, or depositions. And I mean anything at this stage. We’ll prioritize later. If they had pernicious toenail fungus, I want to know about it. I need you to give me all the ammo you can to throw a wrench into their causation argument. Asbestos isn’t the only thing that causes lung damage.”

  Keep telling yourself that! She nodded and politely said, “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “This is the way it’s going to work: I will be the lead on the Medina case with Dworkin, only checking in from time to time. I envision you and Olivia as my field officers. You will get your hands dirty with document review. As needed, I will have you draft documents to the court and help with depositions.”

  Translation: You do all the work, I’ll take the credit.

  “Sounds great!” Ruby smiled brightly. It was actually good news. Dworkin had given her the impression that she was in charge, so it was a relief to be demoted. Destinee sounded as if she would just love to assign Ruby to urinal cake replacement and toilet cleaning, the little skuzzy bits around the hinges, not just general scrubbing.

  “I have another major case I’m heading up as well, which will go to trial in the spring, I think. You and Olivia will need to be first in command at that point.”

  “Okay, sounds like a wonderful opportunity,” said Ruby. She was starting to think delivering a baby sounded like a great alternative to being a field officer on the Medina Asbestos defense team. She wondered if Noel liked babies.

  Just when Ruby thought she was done, Destinee imparted one more piece of advice, but without the veneer of civility this time. “I would like you to cease any investigation of the Estelle Harris case. I need all of your energy going into the asbestos litigation.” She said this as if she knew that Ruby had already been poking around, which made zero sense because she had done nothing but talk to Eric. Destinee explained further, “The family has requested that I help manage the dispensation of the estate.”

  Ruby knew one thing. Jermaine did not request any “dispensation.”

  …

  After her fitness walk with Destinee, Ruby wrote the memo. She didn’t pretty it up. She had only reviewed the first 400 documents out of 60,000, definitely a flirtation with substandard work, at least compared to the other associates. She identified two smokers and one guy who lived in an old house that probably had some asbestos tiles in it. She didn’t mention that he probably didn’t shred and inhale his tiles, making it unlikely that they caused his mesothelioma.

  Before she left the office, her phone rang from under the desk. Ruby’s heart sputtered at the thought Noel might be calling. It’d be so much easier if he called her. She dropped to all fours and grabbed the phone just before the call went to voicemail. It turned out to be the cocker spaniel lady. “Hello, Ruby. Your application has been approved.”

  When Ruby heard this, she pressed send on the memo without bothering to proofread. She had puppies on the brain. Destinee would be delighted for the opportunity to inform her of any misspellings anyway. She reached for her purse and turned off her computer. “That’s great! When can I pick them up? Would tonight be okay?”

  “Actually, I won’t be around to meet you tonight. You can pick them up as early as tomorrow, but it’ll have to be before two o’clock because I have an appointment after that.”

  Ruby did a little mental math. Estelle’s funeral was at three o’clock tomorrow. She had planned on working until two and then heading over… But, if she worked during the morning, she could pick up the dogs and still make it to the funeral in plenty of time. She needed those dogs. Estelle would have loved those dogs. Debbie and Charmaine were going to get her through the next few months of her life. Besides, kids loved dogs. Her kid was going to be so lucky!

  She went home mostly content. While the valet retrieved her car, she stared out the window and rested her mind. Her day at work at least helped distract her from pregnancy and Estelle, sort of like getting a punch in the gut to take your mind off your headache.

  At home, she threw her briefcase in the corner and slumped onto the couch next to Todd.

  “Whatchya watchin’?” she asked.

  “MTV. Some show about pregnant chicks. I can’t find the remote.”

  It was Sixteen and Pregnant.

  “Think I’ll pass, Todd. Little too close to home.” Of course, Todd had no clue why Sixteen and Pregnant “hit too close to home” because Ruby hadn’t told anyone besides Ming, but he nodded in understanding and flipped the channel. She could have used the same line for Star Trek or Total Recall and he would have blindly accepted. Last person on Earth capable of overthrowing the robot overlords, yep, too close to home for Ruby.

  He flipped the channel to the six o’clock news. Ruby sat bolt upright as she saw a reporter standing right in front of the Elysian Fields sign. The camera panned the area giving her a glimpse of the sign, the orange couch, the fridge, and Estelle’s place with a single streamer of crime-scene tape trailing from the porch. Then the camera cut back to the local newscaster.

  The newscaster began, “Tonight, I would like to introduce you to the future home of Elysian Fields.” She pointed at the vacant lot behind her. “Elysian Fields will be the Biomall’s first official shopping community. Also, it’s going to be green. As part of a land reclamation project, Ozcorp is building it right on top of an old appliance landfill. There will be extensive land rehabilitation, as well as LEED-certified housing.”

  The reporter tossed her hair and continued. “So what does this mean? I have it for you in one word: Discounts! All residents of Elysian Fields will receive a Biomall credit card with an extra-high limit and low interest rate. Not to mention, Oz is connecting Elysian Fields to the Biomall via a monorail luxury caboose!” She fanned her face and said, “You can count me in. I’ve already pre-purchased a condo and intend to exercise my shiny new credit card asap.” She held up her credit card for the camera like she had just won a ticket to Willy Wonka’s. The credit card was gold with no writing except her name: “Janine,” as if she and the credit card company were on a first-name basis.

  Last week Ruby would have run to pre-order a condo. Tonight, she just stared. She flashed back to her conversation with Noel. He’d called the place a “soul-sucking, apathetic black hole.” Maybe he was right.

  Before she fell asleep that night, her phone beeped. It was a text. From Noel. Her heart began to race as she read it. He’d written, Hope you’re feeling better today. Wanted to call but didn’t have chance. Dinner Friday?

  Once again, she picked up the phone to call him. It was as good a time as any, but she wasn’t ready to say it out loud to him. It’s not like they were a nesting pair and he would be like, “Great, an egg!” They were just two birds who got drunk and he probably didn’t even want an egg or her, especially if she came with an egg. For a second, she thought about responding with news of their chick. Unable to find the right words, she decided to do the sensible thing and continue with the charade. She texted: Yes! Can’t wait for Friday.

  Chapter Thirteen

&n
bsp; Debbie and Charmaine Go to a Funeral

  Ruby looked at the map and noticed that Hackamore, Kansas, where she needed to pick up the dogs, was farther away from Emerald than she had imagined, so she punched the gas and set the cruise control to eighty mph. She felt like she was making a prison break from her angsty, depressed life. Three consecutive days of depression marked a new record for Ruby, if you didn’t include her identity crisis before law school. She had been seriously depressed, not just a touch of ennui, but an American-sized “let’s eat a double cheeseburger and rot because there aren’t any dolphins in Kansas” type depression. She hated to admit it, but her dad had been right about marine biology. No one had ever heard of a bachelor of arts in marine bio, especially in Kansas. Now, five years and another degree later, she still didn’t feel as if she’d made much headway.

  Cocker spaniels, she was sure, would make it all better. And when her kid was born, she was gonna tell it to her straight, or better yet, have Ming do it. Instead of the la-di-da, “you can be president if you put your mind to it or save the whales after you major in freaking dolphin appreciation” shtick she believed growing up, she would raise her kid on reality, straight up. She would let her know, “Better get used to gas station cappuccinos. Either that, or be an engineer.”

  She rolled down the window, felt the wind whip her hair, and cranked up the radio to a Beyoncé song that soon faded into Neil Diamond and then a Pastor Rick sermon about cheating on Jesus by devoting too much energy to work. Ruby found it convincing. By the time she began her approach into Hackamore, the caffeine high had completely faded and the rural radio had brought her down to an emotional state where she wondered what the hell she was doing playing hooky from work to buy dogs.

  Where Ruby had expected to pick up the dogs at a shelter actually turned out to be a farmhouse way out in the boonies, a structure ripe for an episode of Hoarders, surrounded by ramshackle outbuildings and thigh-high grass. Debbie, a woman in a stained gray sweatshirt answered the door. A quick glance over Debbie’s shoulder gave Ruby the impression of a computer graveyard. Old radios, telephones, computer monitors, and pretty much anything else that you could plug in lined the walls. Debbie didn’t invite Ruby in, but led the way to the back yard.

  “So, you’re a lawyer?”

  “Uh, yep. I work at Smith, Dworkin, and LeBlue in Emerald.”

  “I used to work down at the Attorney General’s office,” Debbie mentioned. “White collar crimes division.”

  “Wow.” Ruby did a blatant double take. Debbie was about five years older than she was, but she looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet. She’d had highlights once, but they’d grown out about six inches back and she appeared to be wearing maternity pants. Ruby eyed the elastic waist jeans with apprehension. To her, donning a pair of elastic pants was like waving the white flag of surrender.

  “I got out of the job when I got pregnant the first time. I started fostering dogs and Facebooking for money and some other stuff. No office politics with dogs, at least none that concern me. I’m not a people person.” The way she said that, Ruby believed her. In fact, it probably went without saying.

  Ruby fought competing urges: 1. To drive back to Smiddy as fast as possible and buy a dog at a pet store like a normal person, or 2. To ask Debbie for mentoring advice; i.e., how she had achieved true bliss: Facebooking for money.

  Debbie had a third-world menagerie in the back: goats, chickens, a couple of Chihuahuas, and the cocker spaniels. The cockers, luckily, were everything Ruby had dreamed, adorable dogs with the look of animated stuffed animals, sad eyes, droopy ears, and wagging tails. “I’m glad you are able to take both. They’re sisters. I found them out on County Road 55 when they were just a couple of months old. Oz, or whoever is running his puppy mill, dumps the dogs that don’t meet the standards out there every now and then.

  “You named them?” Ruby was suddenly wondering why Debbie had named one of the puppies after herself.

  “Funny, huh? About the time I rescued the mother I read about this butterfly release idea, where you symbolically release butterflies into the world. They are supposed to represent you flying toward your dreams. I thought butterflies, cocker spaniels, what’s the dif?”

  Legs, fur, walking, piddling on the floor, Ruby began to list in her head.

  “Anyway, so I named the puppies after myself and intended to send them off into the world, but I ended up keeping them.”

  Still trying to put two and two together, Ruby asked, “They’re both named after you?”

  “Yeah, Charmaine’s named after me too, the woman I want to be. That’s my stage name.”

  “Oh… That’s pretty. Are you an actress?” Ruby took in the elastic pants again.

  “You could say that. My husband said it would be more symbolic if we just offed Debbie and kept Charmaine, but I decided to go the Petfinder route.”

  Ruby waited for Debbie to laugh at the absurdity of that statement, but Debbie just stared at the horizon for a moment with a steely-eyed Clint Eastwood gaze. Then, she let the dogs out of their run.

  “I can’t believe someone dumped these dogs. They’re so cute.” Ruby had heard about the OzDogs. Oz had created a non-shed spaniel without using poodles. Without the poodle gene, the dogs had silky, non-shed fur—the holy grail of the dog world.

  “They end up with a few Danny DeVitos in every litter, sort of like in Twins, that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. These two certainly got the looks. They might be missing their brains, though.”

  Who needs a brain? Todd barely had one and she loved him. She couldn’t understand why Debbie would get rid of such cutie pies. “Why part with them now?”

  “Just wait until you have a couple of kids. The chickens take care of themselves, but the dogs are too much work with a new baby in the house. They’re only about a year old, still puppies themselves, really. Plus, I gave up on the symbolism thing after the second kid was born. Debbie and Charmaine are both dead. ‘Mom’ is the only one left.”

  “Oh.” Ruby smiled, the same panicked smile she’d give personal finance expert, Suze Orman, if she ever met her in person. She dampened her panic, reasoning that Debbie was probably a run-of-the-mill nutso backwoods gal and not the ghost of Christmas future.

  Debbie started to give her the run-down. “You need to walk them twice a day. I’ve been feeding them a half-cup of dry food in the morning and at night. No treats because Debbie is on a diet.”

  Ruby scratched Debbie behind the ears and baby-talked her, “Ooh, Debbie. You look too pretty to be on a diet. Coochie coochie coo.”

  “Well, thanks, honey. If my husband sweet-talked that dog, I might have kept her around. Might have been good for our marriage. Also, you might want to clean them up before you kiss them.” Debbie pointed toward the pen as she said this. “There’s only so much cleaning I can do with a new baby.”

  Ruby looked back. Indeed, the run where they had been staying was filled with dog turds. “Good tip.” With nothing left to do but put the dogs in her car, she asked, “Do you have leashes for them?”

  “None that I can spare.”

  “Boy, do I feel silly. I was so excited I didn’t think of that.” Ruby ran back to her car and shuffled through the trunk until she found something just as good as dog leashes: two Hermes scarves that she’d been meaning to return. Too expensive, even from overstock.com, but now that she needed dog leashes asap, she figured what’s another couple hundred on top of two-hundred-grand in student loans? She ran back to the dogs and tied a scarf around each one’s neck.

  “That should do the trick.” Ruby felt more resourceful than ever. The dogs looked so cute with their golden fur and the scarves slung around their necks like accessories for a Vogue photo shoot. She knew she had done the right thing adopting them.

  “Is that really how you’re going to walk them?” Debbie asked, her brows drawn together skeptically.

  Ruby nodded.

  Debbie glanced meaningfully at Ruby’s “leas
hes” and said, “Let me tell you about the trackers. Both dogs have GPS microchips installed. You might need them.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You’ll need to download a tracker app for your phone.” She fished around in her pockets for the numbers and handed them to Ruby. “Once you program in the numbers, you’ll be able to track them on GPS. I’m actually getting some for my kids.”

  Ruby pulled out her phone and started fiddling with it to download the app.

  “It’s a fancy service, sort of like BlondeStar, but for finding lost dogs. If you dial customer service, someone will walk you through finding your dog.

  “Now I just have to keep from losing my phone!” Ruby laughed crazily because it was true.

  With the dogs loaded in the backseat, Ruby looked at Debbie. She was American Gothic personified, except with one hundred or so years of deferred maintenance (if you included Debbie and the house). Leaving Debbie like this while her dogs left in couture was unfair. Ruby untied one of the scarves for Debbie and gave it to her, hoping desperately that she wouldn’t pair it with the sweat suit.

  “You take it, Debbie. They can share one scarf. I’m sure I have another floating around somewhere. And really, they don’t look too sweet to run away.”

  Debbie put the scarf on with her sweatshirt, looked at Ruby as if she were a giant freak, and said, “Uh, thanks.”

  With the dogs loaded into the back seat, wiggling around, sniffing everything, and leaving suspicious brown dog prints all over the upholstery, Ruby drove back to the highway. She watched them in her rearview mirror with satisfaction. The farther she got from Debbie’s, the better she felt about her decision. She could handle a new baby and new dogs. Debbie was clearly dysfunctional. Feeling generous and grateful all at once, she decided to share the wealth and opened up the windows for the dogs. Debbie and Charmaine eagerly stuck their heads out to let the wind whip their droopy cocker ears like wind socks in a gale-force wind.