“True, but the rent is cheaper and the market is completely unexploited. There are 2,500 18-to-22-year-olds with daddy’s credit card and an empty closet, and I’d guess 90 percent of them will be pretty well-groomed by grad school, so I might as well be the one to sell them lace panties.” She chewed a mouthful of cereal and said, “Also, I wanted to tell you, there is a small office space upstairs that I can’t use for sales. I thought maybe you would like to rent it.” Ming glanced meaningfully at Ruby. “I’m not really sure what you want to do with it, but it might be a good start. I’d charge you a couple hundred a month for rent just to cover the utilities.”
“Ming! Are you serious?” Ruby suddenly felt the giddy lightness of unexpected salvation. “That would be great! I was thinking I’d get a job at Starbucks, but a law firm would be cool if it was affordable. I would love to rent your space. Plus, we could hang out every day at work.”
“Actually, Ruby, it’s just good business for me. I have to do something with the space.” Seeing Ruby’s nearly crestfallen look she added, “But, it’ll be fun. Wanna go have a look?”
…
Ming’s shop looked good: brick walls, high ceilings, crown molding, and huge windows that allowed sunlight to stream in and gave the place a cheery, welcoming feel. It had the perfect vibe for a high-end boutique, except for the dingy neighboring shops, but if Ming’s instincts were functioning like normal, an Anthropologie and Cold Stone Creamery would move in across the street within a year.
Ming squinted into the sunny windows and shaded her eyes dramatically. “Ugh. I’m going to have to put some blackout shades up. The freaking sun is giving me a migraine.”
“I think it’s nice,” said Ruby.
A tiny staircase at the back of the store led up to an old office with a Sam Spade vibe to it—door with a frosted glass window, exposed brick walls, and mounds of dust. Ruby pushed open the door to her office. Light streamed through the windows at oblique angles creating broad sunbeams through the dust motes. A beat-up desk the size of a barge, circa 1940s probably, sat with its back to the window, the kind of desk Spade could have banged his secretary on comfortably. A pile of old post-it notes and papers still littered its surface, many of them coffee-stained. The plaster was chipped and the room was a mess. Lettering across the windows spelled out “Client Advisors,” something just vague enough to work with. On the spot, she decided to keep the name.
Ruby loved it. She didn’t know what she was going to do exactly, but she knew she was going to do it in this space. If she still had to work at Starbucks, she could do that too, but she wanted this space.
“I’ll take it, Ming. It’s Bea–u–ti–ful!”
“Perfect. I’ll need one month’s rent as a deposit and one month’s rent in advance. Why don’t you draw up the contract? Actually, I’ll give you the first month free if you take care of the legal stuff. I can be your first client.”
“Great!” Ruby had no clue how to draw up a lease, but she figured it had to be simple. People downloaded that shit all the time from lawyer123.com. She would pretty much just be an intermediary.
Done standing around admiring the space, Ming said, “Okay, I’ve had enough of this. I need to get back to the lab for the afternoon and I have a conference call about some lace panties at four. I’m returning an entire shipment because they are impossible to dislodge from between your ass cheeks—total wedgie machines.” She paused to look up. “Do you want a ride home?”
“Nope. I think I’ll stick around here and dream a little, if that’s okay with you.”
Ming shook her head and sighed, in an affectionate way and said, “Whatever. Just leave the lease on my desk when you finish, would you?” She turned on her heel and click-clacked out of the room in a pair of Ruby’s shoes. It almost made Ruby cry. She was starting a business with her best friend.
In the center of the room, she squared her shoulders and inhaled deeply, totally at peace with her situation now that she had been relieved of the specter of traditional employment. She went over to the desk and sat down in the office chair. It creaked and she sank down a good three inches. She swiveled and took in the view from her new office. From her window she could see Auntie Em’s, a hookah shop, and a hardware store. Not exactly her element, but she liked coffee and the hookahs were displayed nicely.
She’d never had much use for a hardware store before, but she took a look at her new office and decided it was time to become acquainted. At the store, she picked up trash bags, a broom and dustpan, some random cleaning supplies, and a trash bin. She asked the kid working there about plaster-repair work and bought a basketful of supplies that he suggested. Next trip, primer and paint. She envisioned turquoise walls and a honey-colored oriental rug. On her way back up to the office she picked up a latte and a sandwich from Em’s. She had always loved Em’s, even though she didn’t go often. It was the type of place where baristas made little heart designs on the top of your coffee and used ceramic mugs as a first option. It also reminded her of Estelle, their first and last lunch date.
Fortified with a hearty artisan-crafted sandwich, Ruby got back to work at the office. She filled trash bags with all the junk, swept the floors and dusted off the light fixtures and desk. She wheeled the decrepit chair down the stairs one thunk at a time, figuring it would be perfect for a college freegan. First thing tomorrow she’d pick up something better, probably from a sidewalk in her parents’ neighborhood.
Based on the store clerk’s advice, she used a trowel and spackle to fill in some cracks in the wall. Because she’d never done anything like this before and no one would ever believe her, she snapped a photo of herself with her iPhone. The first photo captured more of her body than her face. Looking at the image, Ruby saw her baby bump. It made her feel like she was looking at a photo of a stranger. Sure, she knew she was pregnant, but she still didn’t think of herself as a “Pregnant Lady.” Focusing in on her face and trowel, she snapped another photo minus the toaster-sized lump in her middle. She also took care to keep the partially unpacked boxes of bras and spare mannequins out of the picture. All she needed was to post a picture of herself at work with naked mannequins photo-bombing her! This time around, she was gonna keep things professional.
With the intent of announcing her new professional self to the world, she opened up a couple of social media accounts under her new business name. Thinking it would help people locate her business, she used a photo of the storefront as her profile pic. The LA Tits sign was significantly more noticeable than the lettering that spelled Client Advisors across her window, but she figured people could sort it out on their own. Finally she posted her first status update, “Client Advisors is open for business.” She’d figure out what she was doing once the first client walked through the door. Most likely it would be legal. Well, definitely legal. Beyond that, she was open to pretty much anything.
With her adrenaline officially gone, Ruby stared at evidence of her budding business. It struck her that she would be more comfortable acting in a QVC advertisement for cellulite cream, including a close-up on her thighs, than drafting a will for her first customer. Looking away from her new office, she turned toward the window. The angle of the sun obscured her vision a little, but she could have sworn that Eric just drove by in a police cruiser with—she had to be wrong—but it looked like Todd in the back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Out of Body Experiences
Turns out, it was Todd. Not long after Ruby observed the Todd look-alike riding around in a police cruiser, the phone rang. In a casual wanna-grab-a-pizza tone, Todd asked, “Yo, Rubes, can you do me a solid?”
“What kind of favor?”
“Wanna bail me out of the slammer?” His attitude didn’t seem to be the least bit dampened by whatever predicament he’d gotten himself into.
“What? I thought you were out of town?”
“I came back for a Super America run. They don’t sell Frito fun packs at the gas station down on the Rez.” Ruby di
dn’t choose this moment to remind him Fritos didn’t really jive with his purported goal of retreating from city life to seek profound stillness and “listen for the sound of the universe”—whatever that meant. Fritos just made her think of crunching. Todd went on, “Eric busted me. I guess I forgot to pay for the chips. I don’t know. Could you come get me?”
“Do you have money to pay me back?” She tried to remember if she’d ever seen Todd with money and couldn’t.
“Uh, I can probably Craigslist that Yakima rack.”
“You don’t have a car. Why do you have a Yakima?”
“Exaaaaactly.” After pausing to let the profundity of that idea sink in, he added, “Even better yet, I could just give it to you.”
With a sigh, she said, “Give me half an hour.” It figured that her first job would be bailing Todd out of jail and that he’d pay her with a used roof rack for her convertible.
She stomped down the stairs, thinking it would be nice to have Todd back at least. Ming had been so busy, it had been quiet around the house. At the front door, she paused to lock up. While she was fiddling with the keys, someone yelled her name from across the street.
Standing in front of Auntie Em’s was Noel, looking handsomer than ever. Like the model in a Ralph Lauren ad, his crisp white shirt contrasted with his glowing vacation tan. He was the vision of a relaxed businessman. All the municipal secretaries were probably falling over themselves for this man. Ruby sighed. This was their first face-to-face meeting since the RARVAB drama and the narrowly-missed sexting debacle. The emailing had been going pretty well, but Ruby wanted to be more than pen pals with the father of her child.
With a broad smile, he loped across the street and said, “Ruby! How was your Christm—” He paused, probably not wanting to assume she celebrated Christmas and corrected sheepishly, “How was your holiday?”
She fired off a little shotgun smattering of nervous laughter. “Christmas.” She nodded. “Yep. We do Christmas. You too?”
He nodded.
And a promising reunion had turned to awkward in less than a minute. She looked behind him and noticed for the first time the statues in front of the LA Tits building. A bronze statue of a munchkin-sized bride and groom stood staring into each other’s eyes. Bronze butterflies danced around them. As she and Noel stared awkwardly at each other nodding like bobble heads, the statues stared blissfully at one another, locked in endless mutual admiration. Ruby glared at the bride, who was wearing a halo of butterflies and looked to have an eleven-inch waist, “I do,” trembling on her lips.
Standing in front of LA Tits with a bun in the oven, Noel unsure of whether she celebrated Christmas, Ruby had the distinct feeling things weren’t going as planned. There was her dream, encased in bronze just to the left, and most likely, permanently out of reach. Here she was renting space and hanging out a shingle, riding into the sunset on the tasseled fringes of Ming’s underwear empire.
“How ’bout we go to lunch?” Noel said, oblivious to the statues.
She nodded. “How about later? I have to run a quick errand.” Sure, she could let Todd sit in jail, but it seemed inhumane. There was no way the police had actually detained him for stealing Fritos. Whatever they had him on, he could probably use a lawyer.
“I’ll tag along? We can talk and walk,” he suggested.
Ruby considered her task, filling out paperwork at jail… It wasn’t really the kind of thing she envisioned doing with Noel, but they were already miles away from saying “I do” in butterfly halos. “I guess—”
“Great. You lead the way,” he said. He clearly thought she was taking him on an errand to buy staples, after which they could grab a sandwich and become a more accurate reflection of the vision in bronze. “Where’re we going?”
“Well…right now we’re going to walk into the jail and bail out Todd.”
To his credit, he rolled with it, asking only, “Todd? As in Ski Patrol Todd? What’s he in for?”
She nodded. “He thinks he was arrested for stealing a Frito Lay fun pack. I’m guessing that was just the reason the police stopped him. It’ll probably turn out to be a possession charge. After we bail him out, I think we should grab a pizza and make jokes at his expense.”
Ruby walked up to the jailer, explained that she wanted to bail out Todd, and started filling out the required paperwork. When the clerk saw Noel he stopped her. “Your money’s no good here. This one is on the house.”
Ruby looked at Noel and tried to process what had just happened. “Seriously? They won’t take your money.”
He shrugged. “Ozcorp. Everyone bows down whether I want them to or not.”
She didn’t argue because it was saving her a thousand bucks that she didn’t have, but it didn’t sit right.
…
An hour later, Noel and Ruby pulled out of the jail with Todd in the backseat. “Todd, put on your seatbelt,” Ruby said.
“What?” he said staring into space.
“Put. On. Your. Seatbelt,” Ruby repeated.
He responded by rolling down the window.
Ruby turned around and looked at him. She was used to him being spacey, but this was beyond his normal. “Todd, what are you on?”
“Blackout, baby!”
“What?” Ruby had never heard of this drug before, but she remembered hearing him sing along to “Blacked Out, Cracked Out!” recently. Naively, she had assumed that the lyrics weren’t based on a real life scenario, but as she recalled the words—“Blacked out and forgot my own name. Wondering which pimps to blame”—realization dawned and she asked, “Have I ever taken Blackout?”
“Duh,” he said, looking at Noel. “You both did. I asked you if you wanted a Pepsi or a Pepsi Special. I bet it was aaaawwwesome!”
Ruby and Noel looked at each other and Ruby said, “Sorry about that, Noel. I probably thought special meant diet.”
Noel shook his head in astonishment. “It’s not your fault.”
Noel looked at Todd. “Aren’t you going to apologize even?”
Todd stopped trying to touch his tongue to his nose long enough to say, “Whoa. Can you do that?”
Ruby put her hand on Noel’s and quietly said, “There’s no point.”
Noel took a deep breath and nodded.
Later that night, Noel, Ruby, and Todd sat on the couch watching some bad TV and chowing down on pizza. Todd, unfortunately, sat in the middle of them like a child. Debbie and Charmaine were flopped at their feet. It was like they were practicing for the real thing, but with a menagerie of adopted creatures, including one overgrown surfer dude. Ruby wondered why Todd even did drugs. Given his regular level of consciousness, it seemed like a redundancy.
Noel looked over Todd’s head with an amused smile. It was so sweet of Noel to spend the whole day putting up with Todd, especially after finding out about the Blackout. For the moment, her uncharted reality seemed even better than her dreams, even if less worthy of a bronze casting.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pastor Rick
Ruby pulled her pink settee up to her office window. She meant to read her e-mail, but she was mesmerized by the way the morning sun shone on the buildings across the street making their copper-colored roofs shine bright as new pennies in sharp contrast to the dingy January streets. It looked cold outside. She was thinking of… She forgot whatever it was when a nice-looking man with a briefcase and a cashmere scarf walked by. Just as she was admiring his overall look, he casually tossed his coffee cup into the gutter. Pig! He didn’t even look back.
She looked down at the paper in her lap, which she had been holding without really reading. Her gaze strayed to the top of the page. Staring back at her with a beauty pageant smile was none other than Destinee, giving the cameras a saucy sideways pose with a lot of leg thanks to a deep side slit. The article was about Elysian Fields.
Destinee described Elysian Fields as “Green like Seattle. Luxurious like Dubai.” She emphasized that Ozcorp was cleaning up contaminated soil be
fore building and including a variety of ecologically-minded features. “Elysian Fields will feature a LEED-certified gas station and golf course.” Ruby wondered if she was missing something. Could you get a LEED certification and sell gas? At any rate, just for living there, residents would automatically receive a fifty-point jump in their Biomall green credit scores. Noel needed to put his sustainability training to use stat. Even without a degree, she could see things to fix everywhere.
When she looked at the picture again she realized that Destinee, in her thigh-high slit and construction helmet, was standing in front of the site. Behind her Ruby could see some guys driving backhoes, the clean-up crew she assumed. When she looked a little closer she laughed. Is that Jermaine driving the backhoe? Another read-through of the article added to her suspicions, “Ozcorp hired an expert in land rehabilitation, well-versed in hazardous waste disposal and soil remediation to clean up the site.” She looked again at the picture of Jermaine. She wondered if Jermaine was “the expert,” squeezing in a little land rehab while he was out on bail before trial. Somehow, it seemed likely.
She logged on to her computer and looked up Elysian fields. Before long, she found an epa press release announcing that it had awarded Ozcorp $250,000 to clean up a former appliance landfill. She stared at the computer for a minute, but couldn’t find anything really wrong with that scenario. Still, she couldn’t kick the image of the businessman tossing his garbage in the street.
Ruby had been intending to call her mother’s friends and see if anyone needed a new will, but she scrapped that task. The Elysian Fields business reeked of insider dealings and it brought back all her suspicions about Estelle’s death. The trail might be cold by now, but she never did anything the easy way. She owed it to her friend to investigate. If nothing else, she would talk to the biggest suspects. Pastor Rick had been named in the will, so he was up first. Estelle had disinherited Jermaine because of Rick, so he would be second.
Ruby's Misadventures With Reality Page 17
