“I want to make sure my parents are okay, too,” said Ruby. “Would you mind driving over there?”
At her childhood home, just across the street from the Biomall, Ruby rushed to get out of the car. She felt genuine fear when she saw the state of her childhood home. The tornado had lifted the roof right off and the outside wall had collapsed, exposing the inside as if it were a child’s dollhouse. Her pink canopy bed and French-style mirrored dresser were arranged just so around her circular braided rug. Her parents’ cat was sprawled on the front lawn as if nothing had happened.
“Mom!” Ruby called. She was walking through the lawn with great trepidation, scared of what she might find. “Mom! Are you here?”
“Ruby! I’m so glad to see you!” Her mom came rushing out from the back. “I’m so glad you’re okay! I’ve been so worried.”
“Where did you go?”
“Your father and I hid in the meditation room in the basement. I put on some Enya and lit some lavender incense.” Maurine was shaking with excitement as she recounted this. She paused to collect her breath and stared at Ruby with laser-like intensity. “I think I actually reached a higher plane of understanding. I guess that happens when you almost die.” She looked back at Ruby’s dad, “I think even your father was able to meditate. It was incredible.”
Ray ignored his wife and walked over to Noel’s pickup. Admiring Noel’s brand new Husqvarna, he said, “Nice chainsaw, son.” It looked like it was going to be love at almost first sight for Noel and Ray. Ray was pretty checked-out at their first meeting.
“Yes, I am. Nice to meet you, Mr. O’Deare.”
Ruby’s mom suddenly forgot her transcendental state and went straight into mother-of-the-bride defcon 1. “Noel! I’m so glad you were watching over Ruby during the storm. Thank you! Thank you!”
Ruby flashed Noel a worried look, but he was holding his own against Maurine.
“Nice to see you again, Mrs. O’Deare. It was quite a storm, wasn’t it? We’d love to stay and talk, but we need to go check on Ruby and Ming’s office. Ming’s concerned about looters.”
“Okay, but you hurry back here soon.”
“Will do.”
“Thank you,” Ruby whispered to him on the way to the truck. She was thanking him for everything. She could see the path ahead of her clearly with Noel—a practical future involving home-cooked meals, some light farming, and whatever else people did in the country. There was a lot of grass to mow, she guessed. Assured of his love for her and their baby, she felt like they could tackle anything together.
…
At the office, the three of them got out. There wasn’t too much damage, just some stray shingles and branches in the road and one broken window.
Ruby busied herself picking up branches and piling them on the sidewalk. Noel kept asking her if she was okay, as if a pregnant person couldn’t walk about at all, but Ruby had never felt better. She liked cleaning up the street. She rounded up a couple of stray chairs that had blown across the road and delivered them to Auntie Em’s and accepted a free coffee graciously. Em said, “We don’t have power, so we’re going to have to make due with cold press.” At the hardware store she purchased a big push broom and started sweeping the sidewalk in front of the businesses. She felt useful.
When they finished clearing the street, she, Ming, Noel, Em, and a few others sat down and snacked on some cheese and meat trays in Auntie Em’s. A warm glow filled Ruby. Not only was she useful, but she belonged to a community, and a community with an appreciation for sexy lingerie, quality pork, and fine espresso. She had found her place.
Finally, Noel offered to drop off Ming and Ruby. “Thanks, but Todd called. He’s swinging by to pick me up in a minute,” Ming said to Ruby.
“Call if he doesn’t show up. I’m going to take off with Noel.”
“Great. See you later.”
Noel took Ruby’s hand and they walked to the pick-up. “Would you like to come to my place tonight?”
They drove almost the whole way to Noel’s, and listened to a news story about the tornado. From the news, Ruby figured the tornado hit the mall right about the time that Carrie was giving up on Mr. Big. Like an ambitious shopper, the tornado had hit both malls and Walmart on the way out of town. Where normal tornadoes picked up trash cans, tree branches, roof tiles, and the occasional cow (if Hollywood is to be believed), the Biomall tornado contained the entire contents of a Wet Seal store, including numerous fully dressed mannequins, and the entire unsold stockpile of Ozcorp’s failed cologne, Cut for Men. One female storm chaser claimed that the tornado smelled just like Cut, but skeptics pointed out that Cut smells like wood chips anyway, an entirely plausible smell for a tornado. Incidentally, this also accounted for Cut’s low sales figures.
Even stranger, it appeared the Biomall had spawned the tornado that took it out. Everyone knew Emerald had been affecting the weather for some time, but no one guessed it could created an F5 tornado. Apparently, the amount of concrete had finally hit a critical threshold. When an approaching cold front hit the heat rising off the Biomall and its acres of parking—that was all it took. It seemed that her parents had paved the road to Hell for Rick, literally.
Noel pulled over the truck in a particularly pretty meadow. “Want to stop for a minute and talk? There’s a beautiful view here. Noel took out a couple of chairs and set them in the back of the pick-up and offered Ruby a hand up. “It’s nice to sit back here and look at the stars sometimes.”
“You stargaze?”
“Well, I sit out here and have a beer pretty often. Sometimes I happen to look up and notice the view.”
“Somehow I feel better about that.” Staring at the night sky with beer, now that was something she could get on board with. So much better than a vineyard or a yacht. So much less work, which reminded her… “I heard you say you’re not running for office anymore.”
“Yep.”
“Why not?”
He looked at her and her belly. “I want to move to the country and have a family. Politics was my dad’s idea, not mine. I was trying to make him happy.”
She smiled and took his hand. It was warm and dry and felt like home. She would have supported him if he really wanted to be a politician, but she breathed a sigh of relief at his statement. Being a politician’s wife didn’t sound like the life for or her wardrobe. All those drab suits would have killed her.
“I really want to try my hand at farming instead.”
She squeezed his hand in a gesture of support. She liked the country. If Debbie could do it, so could she.
They sat silently for a bit. It was a bit chilly outside, but the stars were incredible and the smell of wet earth filled the air, alive and green. The tornado’s devastation amplified all of the smells of nature. The broken trees smelled like freshly milled wood and the grass smelled freshly mown. If Yankee Candle company tried to capture the scent of spring, they couldn’t have done half as well. Noel started to say something. Ruby thought he might propose, but she didn’t want him to tonight. To her the tornado meant a fresh start and she saw no need to skip the end. She wanted to enjoy the moment without thought of the next, so she leaned over and kissed him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Image is Everything
Ruby stood in front of the makeshift shrine for Pastor Rick and absorbed the ambiance, which was downright carnival-esque. Parishioners had erected the shrine as close to the wrecked Chapel as authorities would allow. The centerpiece of the shrine was an oversized painting of Rick that looked even more like Brad Pitt than Rick did in real life. In fact, it might have been a picture of Brad Pitt. Just beyond the shrine, the Chapel Mall loomed on the horizon like the set of a Hollywood action movie at the end of filming. Nothing was left but a pile debris.
Pastor Rick had been the only fatality of the Biomall Twister. Like a captain unwilling to leave his ship even as the waves pushed him under, Pastor Rick stayed in the glass chapel until the end. Late Saturday, workers found him
in a pile of debris where the Chapel Mall used to be. There was no official report on what delivered the deathblow, but it appeared that the tornado had hurled him into the marble statue of himself pointing to the heavens. Either that, or the water slide took him out. Particularly creative speculators thought he might have shot down the water slide onto the impaling arm of his marble likeness. No one respectable endorsed that theory, but some college kid animated the scenario and it went viral on YouTube, after which, it became the accepted truth, at least for news consumers under the age of fifteen. And Todd.
Most of Emerald believed that Rick’s sacrifice prevented further fatalities. More rational observers attributed the low death count to the timing of the tornado. It struck a few hours after closing time at the mall, saving shoppers and employees from certain death. This explanation didn’t go very far though, except in academic circles. Emerald, it seemed, was desperate for a miracle.
Noel was pretty broken up about it, grieving more for the fact that he’d never had much of a relationship with his dad than for his dad himself. Those nightly card games had been a recent development.
Looking around the crowd, Ruby knew she was living in a moment that would be remembered. People had traveled from all over the world, but mostly from Missouri, to light votive candles in front of the shrine. She looked over at Todd and said, “This display makes me almost sad he’s gone.”
Todd, who had come along to visit the shrine because Ruby had promised to pick up a pizza after, said, “But what a way to go out! If I had to pick a death, that’d be number two. Or maybe three.”
So there she sat, sitting on a bench in front of Oz’s shrine watching Todd get baked, because that’s what Todd was doing. It seemed like a proper way to commemorate the past few months.
The whole chain of events leading to Estelle’s death centered on Oz. Like so many bad ideas, it had all started at a business lunch. At Clementine’s, Oz had tried to impress Estelle and awe her into selling her property to him for Elysian Fields. Instead, Estelle realized Oz had handed her the trump card—knowledge of his true identity. Being the savvy lady she was, she decided to negotiate a deal with the police—turning in Oz’s identity for Jermaine’s freedom.
After so many months, Ruby wanted to wallow in the catharsis. Todd, high as hell, agreed to swing by Estelle’s, on the condition that they grab a pizza first.
Ruby pulled her Mustang up to Hyacinth Avenue where Estelle’s house had previously rested. To her surprise, there was nothing but splintered wood jutting out of the ground, loose insulation, and a random assortment of household paraphernalia scattered about in a disorganized mess. While Todd scarfed down a Little Caesar’s pepperoni pizza in the car, she climbed Estelle’s front steps and stared at the void where the house used to be. Slowly turning, she took in the view of the surrounding area. The tornado had destroyed everything in an act of natural justice. For once, Elysian Fields looked like the dump it was.
Then she saw it. Right where Organic Food Hollow was set to go in, sat an overturned structure. Although the tornado had flattened the house like a cardboard box and dumped it a quarter mile away, Ruby recognized the familiar yellow paint and white trim. Ruby wasn’t sure if she believed in a higher power, but she couldn’t help but think that Estelle would appreciate this gesture, that is, dumping her house onto Elysian Fields. It would take weeks to clean up the bezoar made of grow lights and thirty years’ worth of QVC. As far as shrines went, it was even more satisfying than an oil painting of Brad Pitt.
For a moment Ruby shut her eyes to the mess around her and savored the sensation of the wind whipping her skirt about her legs. Facing into the wind with the sun beating on her face, Ruby felt like a pioneer woman.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A Click of Her Heels
A month after the twister, Ruby sat on Noel’s front porch with a glass of iced tea resting on her belly, which had turned into a convenient lap desk. Noel leaned over and kissed the babe, saying “How’s Honor?”
Ruby made a face of horror, as she always did when he suggested that name. She said, “We’re calling her Fabrizia. Maybe Estelle. I really like Fabrizia, though. She would just sound skinny.” They’d spent the last month playing house at Noel’s big breezy farm and preparing for the baby. Noel wanted to bring her up into a new post-consumer world wearing cloth diapers and dining on homegrown vegetables. Ruby was fine with this vision, although she harbored some hope that Noel’s hardcore vision for a plot of land planted with potatoes and carrots would mellow into a casual interest in growing wine grapes.
The only fly in the ointment was Destinee. As she so often did, Destinee was escaping justice’s grasp. Biomall Board of Directors had rewarded her with a position as CEO of Ozcorp. As far as Ruby was concerned, it couldn’t have happened to a worse person. For the moment, Ruby was choosing to classify Destinee’s windfall as a delay in justice. As for Eric, the police department suspended him after Ruby notified them that Pastor Rick had been pulling his strings. No one looked surprised. Pastor Rick had been pulling a lot of strings in Emerald.
Even though justice and the American dream weren’t a click of the heels away, Ruby didn’t plan on becoming a socialist or throwing her TV away. Noel did, but that was his deal. What did she care if he insisted on having chickens? To her never-ending surprise, he was the anti-Ken, side-part and broad shoulders be damned. If it wasn’t that he loved her, she would call him downright un-American. He didn’t watch TV, read non-fiction, and deprived himself of most refined sugars. Her dad had taken to calling him “The Communist.” Her mom loved him because of the broad shoulders and side-part.
Em, who Ruby hadn’t even heard pull up, interrupted their porch sitting with a surprise visit. Sidling up to the railing, she asked, “What are you two lazy bums doing?”
“Em!” Ruby greeted her with genuine pleasure. “We’re just hanging out. What’re you doing here?”
“Clare and I just traded shifts and I thought I’d bring this by on my way home. Some stuffy-looking dude in a three-piece suit dropped it off for you. He said he was a lawyer from Ozcorp.”
“That’s weird,” Ruby said, still casually flipping pages in the magazine. Apparently, everyone in town knew she was working out of Auntie Em’s when she wasn’t at her own place.
“I tried to get him to tell me what it was about, but he acted like a mob witness. Even turned down free coffee. I’m guessing it’s a letter notifying you that Oz was your father. Clare thinks they’re summoning you to a special elite shoppers’ pantheon. Either that, or it’s about the lawsuit.”
Ruby opened up the envelope and stared for a minute.
“It’s a note from Ozcorp’s attorneys explaining a condition of my trust. It says that if I don’t drop the shareholders suit against Ozcorp, I will lose rights to my trust. Apparently, if I file a legal action against Ozcorp or any of its key officers, my trust will dissolve before I gain access.” Ruby chewed on her a lip a little. “That sucks.”
“Fuck ’em,” said Em. “Who cares about the money?”
Noel glanced back at the peeling paint and said, “We might want to consider the money.”
“Oh, come on, you two.” Em looked exasperated. “What, will you have to delay installing a lap pool and buying Lipizzaner stallions to admire from the front porch? You’re made of money.”
“Not really,” said Noel. “I only make a token salary as a zoning commissioner and my parents cut me off after I withdrew my name from the governor’s race. We’re going to have to live off $25,000 a year, plus whatever rent we get from Ming unless you start making some money.”
Ruby smiled at him. They might not be engaged or married (yet), but the only pronoun Noel used was “we.” She reported, “I’m flush out of money. Even my parents are broke. Ozcorp cancelled all their contracts and they won’t get any new ones with Destinee in charge. They’re going to have to live off whatever my dad didn’t spend on Kubota tractors and the new house in Elysian Fields.”
> “They bought a house there?” Em grimaced.
With a shrug, Ruby said, “Yeah, I couldn’t talk them out of it.” Secretly, she was excited to escape into her dream life for an afternoon here and there.
“So it’s just you and me, baby,” said Noel.
“Yep. I guess it’s money or justice.” Ruby knew what she wanted. Giving up the trust wasn’t even a hard decision. Living off a percentage of the food-court profits would make for a posh existence, a life with European vacations, walk-in closets, and probably free soft pretzels with extra cheese sauce, but she knew it wouldn’t make her happy. She would be living off of Destinee’s dividends. Some people could probably live like that and be happy, but now that her eyes were open, Ruby couldn’t.
If she accepted the money and dropped Em’s lawsuit, she would be going right back to the old days. Ozcorp would rebuild the mall, she could go back to endless shopping, and her daughter would grow up in a plastic world with artificial weather and a credit card. Sure, she still had an unhealthy love for Pottery Barn and the Gap, but she didn’t want to be dependent on Ozcorp for happiness. For now, she wanted a farm, a baby, and some justice. “Em’s right. I’m not dropping the lawsuit, as long as you’re still on board, Em…”
Noel said, “That’s fine, but it takes money to fund a big lawsuit. Not a ton, but we’re a little low on discretionary income.”
Em looked thoughtful and said, “How much money you talking, Noel?”
“Thousands, probably. We could do it on a shoestring, but we’d need five or ten thousand for starters.”
Em said, “I’ve got a little idea.”
Ruby thought Em intended to write her a check like a normal client, but later that afternoon Em came back with a bunch of bright orange Home Depot buckets filled up to the tops with change. She backed her pickup up to Ruby and Noel’s front porch and said, “I rounded up a little funding for the lawsuit.”
Ruby's Misadventures With Reality Page 26
