Ruby's Misadventures With Reality

by Samantha Bohrman

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ruby v. Ozcorp

  The thing about pro bono clients, especially deceased pro bono clients, is they don’t pay. Even though Estelle’s case was nothing but loose ends, Ruby needed to get some other work done. Ming had mentioned, not so subtly, that rent was due. The power bill was also about $50 higher than Ruby expected and Sallie Mae and her Biomall Visa wanted their monthly cut of her salary, which so far consisted of an IOU for a Yakima rack. The Biomall went so far as to put her valet parking privileges on hold. In other words, she needed to sue someone, draft a will, or maybe negotiate something fast.

  Her pre-pregnancy T-shirt strained over her belly and her hair was matted down with a couple days of leftover product. All she was missing was a BBQ stain. “Ming, why do I have office space? What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know. You rented it.”

  “Well, what am I going to do with it? I printed out business cards that say Client Advisors. What does that even mean?”

  “Just be a lawyer. Sue someone. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

  “Junior associate basically means glorified coffee bitch. I don’t know how to sue anyone. Law school didn’t teach me anything except how to minimize my accessories. It was like a $200,000 book club, except one where all the members hate each other and the hostess calls you stupid.” It had been amusing enough until her first $900 monthly loan bill.

  “Maybe we could get you some sort of transition counseling for chicks who are experiencing reality for the first time.” Ming said between mouthfuls of Frosted Flakes.

  “Whatever. I grew up in a trailer on food stamps.”

  “You didn’t mind, though.”

  It was true. She and her mom went from bedazzling denim at the kitchen table to buying $500-a-pair rhinestone-encrusted jeans at the Biomall without thinking about, well, much of anything. What was there to worry about? “Whatever, Ming. Stop eating my Frosted Flakes.”

  …

  At Auntie Em’s, Ruby filled up with a vile brew of insecurity and a quadruple Americano that chewed at her gut like a rabid Chihuahua; she decided she would never go back to caramel, cinnamon, or vanilla lattes. No more vanilla. No more extras. No more sugar-coated reality. That’s how she ended up pregnant and unemployed in the first place. She needed to taste the bitterness. She needed to stop wishing and make $50,000 a year, minimum, or face bankruptcy court. The era of wishing in fountains was over.

  There weren’t any other customers and Auntie Em was looking through her the mail muttering to herself. “God damn Ozcorp,” she said.

  Ruby drew her brows together and said, “What’s your problem with the mall?”

  “Well, for one, I invested in the damn company, along with everyone else in town. All the shares are worthless. Oz is worse than an Amway salesman.”

  Ruby had never thought of the Biomall as a company or Oz as a businessman. It was just “the mall” and Oz was the town’s benefactor.

  When she sat back down at her desk a few minutes later, she was still grappling with the incongruity, so she flipped open her laptop and typed “Ozcorp” into the search box. A Google search filled in some of the details on the Biomall’s financial situation. Ozcorp went public and sold shares to fund expansions a while back. Expansions included the Chapel Mall, which was basically an extension of the Biomall (connected by monorail), but also several malls in neighboring states, bought up and retired to increase the Biomall’s regional supremacy. About seven years ago everything had started going to pot, the same time the Ozcorp launched Funland.

  Oh, Funland! That brought back memories. Funland had been an amusement park located inside the Biomall that functioned primarily as a hang-out for degenerate or bored high-school kids, basically the Biomall’s answer to the Mall of America’s Camp Snoopy, a traditional hang-out for Minnesota gang members in February. Ozcorp built it when Ruby was in college, so she only loitered there on rare occasions. One notable evening in her second year of law school, she and her boyfriend had done it (as in it) in the pink cup on the kiddy teacup ride. It had seemed like the thing to do at the time. She could just file that one away under Ruby “before sanity,” along with everything else that had occurred up until she realized she was living in a house of credit cards.

  She kept reading.

  Funland began its downward spiral after two deaths on the “Twister,” a luge-style roller coaster that ejected several unsecured passengers into the stores below. When the Hollister storefront became nothing but a glorified splatter screen for Twister victims, the ride had to close. Following closely on the Twister deaths, a fourteen-year-old drowned after passing out drunk in the wave pool. The uncertified lifeguard failed to notice because he was making out with the victim’s underage sister. For a while, this all added to Funland’s cred, which the park capitalized on by posting extra warning signs (basically dares) that made teenagers and drunk cowboys shell out money for tickets to prove they had the cajones to ride the Twister, until finally, a couple of people caught Legionnaire’s disease from the water fountain and died, making Funland not only dangerous, but gross. After the insurance skyrocketed and people stopped visiting, Oz ripped out the rides and installed koi ponds and a reflective pool in honor of the Twister victims, but only after he’d shelled out millions in personal injury suits and attorney’s fees.

  Funland might have been the crown jewel of Oz’s epic failures. There was also a failed men’s fragrance line. The company had recruited the Jersey Shore star, “The Situation” to be the face of Cut and overpaid him by millions. Seriously bad idea. Fame is ephemeral and even more so when your talent is based on abs alone. Ruby glanced down at her own belly. Abs could not be counted on.

  Ruby flashed back to the news the other night and the report about the Biomall endorsing Elysian Fields. It looked like Ozcorp’s profits were about to sink deeper into the muck with another dumb idea. No wonder Em was pissed. She was probably horrified to have played a part in the development of Cut or Funland.

  Ruby flashed back to law school and Professor Feldman droning on… “A shareholders’ derivative suit is appropriate when the managers of a publicly held corporation put their own interests above those of the shareholders. Enron is a famous example.” Maybe she could file a lawsuit against Ozcorp on Em’s behalf. It wouldn’t be hard to find other investors, too. It appeared that several mutual funds had purchased big chunks of Ozcorp stock.

  Because she had never filed a lawsuit by herself, she Googled “how to file a lawsuit.” Ehow.com explained it in three easy steps. Step One advised, “Hire a lawyer,” but she forged on. Luckily, her gifted inner workings, which had been clogged with facts about celebrities and make-up tips, started to sputter and kick into gear. She managed to type the entire complaint without taking a coffee break, staring into space, or inventing an urgent need to clip her nails. She alleged violations of his duties of care, loyalty, and dereliction of duties. Then, she drafted a client agreement for Em to sign.

  With the freshly printed papers in hand, she trotted across the street to Em’s with the dogs on her heels and asked, “Em, are you busy? I have an idea.”

  “I’ve got some time. Bring in Charmaine and Debbie. We just baked dog treats. They’re gluten-free.” Em considered Charmaine to be gluten intolerant because of some excessive barking and a runny dog turd that had required a hose for removal a week ago.

  “Thanks! I think you might be right about Charmaine and her gluten intolerance. Her fur has been so much shinier since I changed her diet. She just loves eating those things you’ve been baking. So does Todd.” To be fair, they were really good dog biscuits. Todd hadn’t made it back to the reservation after his arrest. “I’m going to need to get a few more actually.”

  Em gave her an odd look, but handed over another bag of dog biscuits. “They’re on the house.” Em loved dogs. She was one of those people who cried at all those commercials featuring one-eyed dogs and Sarah McLachlan.

  “Hey
, Em, after you mentioned Ozcorp this morning, I started thinking. You might have a strong case against Ozcorp, strong enough to file a decent shareholder’s derivative suit.”

  Em started laughing. “You cut me up, Ruby O’Deare.”

  Ruby said, “I totally understand if you don’t want to. It’s a really big company and we probably wouldn’t win.”

  Em stopped laughing and said, “It’s not that. I’m just surprised. I thought you were just trying on bras over there or something.” After a few seconds pause, she said, “Sure, go ahead and sue ’em. Put my name on it. I don’t care.”

  “Really?” Ruby felt the excitement surge. It was probably a hair-brained idea and she was probably too inexperienced to manage the lawsuit, but deep down it felt like a good idea. Plus, she preferred not to think before she leaped. “I brought over a client agreement for you to sign.” She pulled out the complaint and handed it over. “Do you want to read this over? You can mark any spots I need to change.”

  Em looked it over for a few moments and said, “Yep. Looks good to me. Do you need an envelope?”

  “Sure.” Ruby looked at Em skeptically. “Are you sure, Em?”

  From the back room she shouted, “I’m sure. You know me, I love to raise a little hell.” A moment later, Em came out of the office with a nice thick manila envelope. It was already stamped “Auntie Em’s” in the left corner and someone had scrawled “receipts” across the middle. “I already wrote on it, but it’s fine other than that. Reduce, reuse, you know.”

  “Thanks.” It wasn’t professional looking, but it probably didn’t violate any rules, at least none that Ruby knew of, so she shoved the complaint into the envelope, crossed out “receipts,” and wrote “Oswald Rancka” in bold letters. Meanwhile, Debbie and Charmaine ran through the store like canine vacuums, scarfing up scone crumbs.

  Settled comfortably at one of Em’s tables, she called up Smiddy, figuring Marvel would know a process server. “Hey, Marvel.”

  “Ruby!” Marvel exclaimed. “I’m so glad you called! It’s been pretty dull around here since you left.”

  “I bet. No one sleeping with the judge lately?”

  Marvel laughed, “Yep. I wish you’d come back. It was more fun.”

  Ruby said, “I’m calling for a favor, actually. Do you know any process servers?”

  “Sure. I’ve got lots of names. Is the person you want to serve in the Emerald or somewhere else?”

  “Oh, I’m suing Ozcorp, so I thought I’d serve Oz.”

  Marvel laughed. “You’re joking! I just can’t imagine you suing the mall. What if they red-flag you and don’t let you in anymore? What would you do?”

  Ruby forced a little laugh, and repeated her question, “What’s the guy’s name and number?”

  As Marvel pulled up the number, she advised, “You know you can’t serve Oz, right? The guy skipped town years ago. He pled guilty to criminal liability in the Funland case after that last kid died on the Twister. When the court released him on bail he disappeared.”

  “Seriously? That must have happened while I was in college or law school.” There was a seven-year gap where she basically didn’t know what happened in the world. She studied for some exams and sat in Starbucks. Really, it was only recently that she had begun to develop situational awareness.

  “Most people think Oz is holed up in Switzerland or Japan or something, but he could be working at a gas station in a baseball hat and shades for all anyone knows.”

  Ruby frowned. Estelle had lunch with him not long ago. He must be in town somewhere, even if no one else knew about it. “Oh. Thanks anyway, Marvel. I’ll drop by soon.”

  “You do that!” said Marvel with real sincerity.

  The news about Oz completely floored Ruby. Inspired, she changed her status update on her new Client Advisors Facebook page. Ruby hadn’t bothered to check, but only a few people were following her page: the Emerald Police Department, Ming, Em, Noel, her mom, the Joel Smelch for Governor Campaign, and one Destinee. Her update appeared:

  Client AdvisorsTM: Whoa!? Did anyone else know Oz went missing? If you happen to see him, let him know Client AdvisorsTM is looking for his address. ;-)

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  At the Office Park

  At 10:40 p.m. Ruby pulled into the Bank of West call-center parking lot to wait for Trudi’s shift to end. After typing up the complaint, she’d decided she’d like to talk to Trudi about the night Estelle died. Trudi worked the three to eleven p.m. shift at the call center. When Ruby processed this information, all of the evil forces in her life aligned. Estelle’s assassin was one and the same as the debt collector she’d been avoiding. And for a moment, everything made sense.

  Ruby didn’t even mind the late hour. It was either wait for Trudi or watch infomercials with Todd. The Bank of the West call center sat in a bland-looking building within a larger office park. It was the kind of building that looked corporate formal on the outside, but was probably business casual on the inside. Ruby could imagine rows of employees clad in wrinkly khakis biding their time in rows of dusty gray cubicles. As she stared at the doors waiting for Trudi to emerge, her phone rang. Please be Noel! Her racing heart stilled when she saw the number. Someone from inside of the office park was calling to collect on her Bank of the West card. She hit mute, as usual. Little did they know she was sitting in the parking lot. She wondered if Noel’s parents would ever notice that she was on their outstanding accounts list. That could be awkward.

  About ten minutes before quitting time, Trudi walked out to her car in jeggings and hooker boots. It looked as if the debt-collection industry had a particularly relaxed definition of biz casual; i.e., if it worked on the city bus, it worked in the office. Stepping out of her car, Ruby started waving. “Trudi, Hi.” She ran to catch up with her. “I was wondering if we could talk for a minute.”

  Trudi did a double take and said, “What are you doing here? You a paparazzi?”

  Ruby laughed. “I wish! Actually, I have a question and Monette said I could find you here.”

  “You never heard of a phone?” Trudi lacked her usual sass. She looked genuinely tired, probably from spending the last eight hours haranguing with debtors on the phone about payment plans. “What’s the question?”

  “It’s about Estelle.”

  Strangely enough, Trudi didn’t shut down. With a sigh, she said, “Whadya wanna know?” It wasn’t the type of behavior Ruby expected from a killer.

  In a serious tone, the kind of tone a teacher would use to confront a cheating student, Ruby leveled with her. “I know you traded Estelle’s free funeral in for a wedding.” She paused to let that statement sink in and watch Trudi’s reaction.

  Trudi laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about? It’s not like Estelle is gonna know. Who cares?”

  “That’s a little harsh isn’t it?”

  Trudi just shrugged. “Estelle wouldn’t have turned her nose up at a free wedding.” Then, she added, “I don’t see why it matters anyway. It’s not like I killed her to get a free wedding or something. The woman died of a heart attack.”

  Either Trudi was a good liar or she believed her lines. In carefully measured tones, Ruby said, “I don’t think so. Someone poisoned her.”

  Trudi snorted. “No fucking way. No one would kill Estelle.”

  “Just out of curiosity, I’m wondering where you bought the salt that you put in Estelle’s chicken, you know that day I came over to take her out for lunch?”

  The moment Trudi mentally traced the line between “Estelle was poisoned” and “Didn’t you make her chicken?” her breathing went all jagged and the color drained from her face. In a high-pitched voice, she said, “I didn’t—”

  “Oh no. It wasn’t you.” Ruby said, waving her hands as if the idea was preposterous. She hated to see Trudi upset about something she did by accident. As she heard herself comforting the killer, she decided she probably needed a partner if she was going to stick with this business. “I only
want to know one thing… Where did you get the special low-sodium salt you put on her food?”

  Trudi looked at her like she was off her rocker. “Pastor Rick told me about it. It was supposed to be good for the heart.”

  Ruby’s radar could be malfunctioning, but she was almost 100 percent sure that Trudi had not poisoned Estelle intentionally. Pastor Rick, she wasn’t so sure about. He certainly had motive, but killing someone by suggesting a new brand of salt to the victim’s would-be daughter-in-law sounded so complicated. It wasn’t one of those simple, elegant answers that smacked of truth. It was just another piece of the puzzle that didn’t quite fit.

  Because Ruby was of the philosophy that there is no sense feeling meaningless pain, she decided the best route was to reassure Trudi and send her on her way. She said, “Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She never would have guessed it, but it didn’t look like Trudi had committed an intentional crime, unless you counted bank robbery and crimes against fashion. Until she snagged a job writing for Glamour’s “Fashion Don’ts” feature, Trudi was safe.

  When she saw Trudi heading for the bus stop, Ruby impulsively offered, “Hey, I’ll give you a ride if you want.” Even though Trudi was bitchy, it seemed that she’d actually been a good friend to Estelle. “So when is Jermaine getting out of prison?”

  Trudi sighed and shook her head. “Not for a while.”

  “Estelle was sure she could get him out earlier. It’s too bad that didn’t work out.”

  “What do you mean?” Ruby asked. Had Trudi known about Estelle’s secret plan?

  “Oh, she had some dirt on Oz. She was going to threaten to blab if the police didn’t let Jermaine out.” Trudi sighed again. “I’m so bummed it didn’t work. I had the date picked out for the wedding and the flowers lined up.”

  Ruby stopped listening. Estelle had planned to blackmail Oz into letting Jermaine out? It all led back to Oz. Estelle died to protect his secret. When she heard it, she knew it was the puzzle piece she’d been looking for.