Winning Ruby Heart

by Jennifer Lohmann

  “Viewers will spot a fake interview.”

  “It won’t be fake, and this is the only offer you’ll get. Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it.” He wasn’t a fool, and he was a good enough interviewer to get what the viewers wanted, even with her conditions. The linoleum of the counter was cool when Micah put his hands on it, but it couldn’t stop excitement from boiling over in his blood. The story of Ruby’s comeback—and that was what this was, even if she didn’t believe it yet—was going to be the news story of the year. He closed his eyes and imagined all the ratings, the promotions...and spending more time with Ruby in her tight running pants.

  His brain may have actually made squeaking-eraser sounds as he wiped the last thought from his mind. He’d made his choice and he was choosing his professional integrity.

  He was so busy convincing himself of the right thing to do that he almost missed that she’d started talking again.

  “And I need your help. This is part of the bargain. I have to find a place to live by the end of a week. Which means I also have to figure out how to live, and I want a coach. But I don’t want to let this get in the way of my training.”

  Before the consequences had a chance to flash through his brain, he said, “I’ll help you any way I can, but I have my own conditions. If this interview gets the attention I think it will, you’re going to be the star of the ultra series NSN is working on.”

  “Fine.”

  “We tape you training. We tape you at races. When you succeed, we’re taping, and when you fail, we’re taping.”

  “You tape the training only. My home life is off-limits. And I won’t fail,” she said with the single-minded hubris of an elite athlete.

  He drummed his fingers on the side of his chair as he considered both what she was offering and what it would cost him. She was offering to grant him near-full access to her life, and he couldn’t use any of it for the ultra series. A feature about running or not, America would squirm with twisted pleasure when they realized Ruby Heart had to learn to balance a checkbook.

  The ugly side of being incredibly talented at one thing was that the public wasn’t very forgiving when they realized you were as human as the rest of the world. Learning that your hero could fuck up wasn’t a lesson most people cared to learn, and they usually blamed their hero for their unreasonable expectations.

  But Ruby was already dangerous to him, without the added time spent with her. Getting to know her outside of her sport. Learning more about her as a person.... Even if he didn’t use the information directly in his series, the feature would be better for it. But the fact that he would become more emotionally attached and risk his career was high.

  Of course, maybe he’d learn Ruby had some horrible flaw that would turn him off her forever. Worse than doping, because apparently that hadn’t been enough.

  Then he realized all she’d said in this one phone call. “Wait, your parents sic King on you, you adopt a dog, you need to find a new place to live and you call me for an interview? Don’t tell me this was all in the same day.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. King found me last week.”

  He laughed again, this time at himself for underestimating her. Ruby never did anything halfway, which was probably why she had been successful as a runner, but this was...ridiculous. Ruby had had the right word for it.

  “And you only gave yourself a week to do this?”

  The breath she puffed out this time was full of frustration, and Micah thought it was frustration with him. “You told me that patience was overrated. And you were right. I’ve been trapped by my fall from grace for too long. And I let my sins corner me. And that ends now.” God help the world, Ruby was coming out with her fists up and ready to fight back.

  The vision was such a contradiction to the pigtailed and big-eyed look she was cultivating now. Back when she’d been America’s Darling, she’d had a cutting edge to her appearance, but she’d been a naive, fragile girl. Now she looked like that girl, yet she had the fighting spirit of a woman. He appreciated the contradiction. He liked the contradiction. He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. God help him, he wished he didn’t like Ruby Heart.

  “So when do we start the Ruby Heart regeneration plan?”

  “This is not a joke,” she said suspiciously.

  “No, it is not. The more successful you are at this, the better the series will be.” Sure, Micah. Those are your reasons. Nothing personal. Maybe you should make a promise not to lie to yourself, too, eh? Micah backed himself away from the counter and headed to the door. He needed to go to his office, find Dexter and Amir and get this interview underway. Before he headed out the door, he took the phone off speaker and put his Bluetooth in so that he could use both hands on his wheelchair.

  “Before I set a time, I need to talk to my parents. They need to be warned, at least.”

  “You’re not going to let them talk you out of it?” Micah asked while he navigated the gap left for him in the cluttered hallway.

  “No. I’m committed.”

  Micah waited a second to respond. “When are you talking to them?”

  “Today.”

  “Ripping the Band-Aid off all in one go?”

  “This won’t get easier if I run from it.”

  Micah figured Ruby probably thought running made most things easier.

  “I’ll call you tonight, then. And we’ll set up a time.”

  She was silent for a moment. He wished he could see her and judge her commitment. “Okay. I want to do the interview soon.”

  “So do I. And, Ruby?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Good luck talking with your parents.”

  She hung up before responding. Micah pushed the call button for the elevator. As the elevator beeped its way past a couple of floors, he told himself the rise in his blood pressure was strictly due to the excitement of the ultra series and the upcoming interview.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  RUBY EASED HER way through the French doors and joined her parents on the patio by the pool. Her mother sat with her face in the sun, wearing a large straw hat and a breezy white linen dress. When combined with the gin and tonic fizzing away on the table next to her, Ruby had the impression that her mother could float away at any moment. After their last argument about King’s phone call, Ruby knew better—under all that linen and straw was a piece of marble too heavy for mere mortals to move. Had her mother turned from flesh to stone in the aftermath of Ruby’s career, or had Ruby been too self-absorbed to notice how cold her mother’s hugs had always been?

  In opposition to her mother’s light and airy facade, her father sat hunched under an umbrella, sweat glistening on his brow and dark spots expanding under his arms on his black polo shirt, even though the June sun was mild. He was drinking a whiskey, neat, which probably didn’t help cool him off. The still life of the perfect family was completed by her brother and his fiancée splashing each other in the water, seemingly unaware of the resentment and blame that were mixed into the mortar that held the patio stones together. Somehow Josh had always managed to happily live his life in spite of their parents. She wondered at his secret.

  The sun glinted off the patio, and the grass was a bright kelly-green. A beautiful prison, but her parole started next week and she couldn’t wait.

  Even though her shadow blocked her mother’s sun, her mom didn’t turn to look at her. Nor did her father glance up from his paper. She wasn’t ungrateful enough to think her parents wouldn’t notice she was gone, but imagining them missing her was a stretch. Josh, at least, waved when he caught a glimpse of her.

  In her mind, she added Micah to the patio, then scratched his image out again. His presence wouldn’t help her parents notice her. Instead, she’d be the daughter who couldn’t even be trusted to bring home a man with the u
se of his legs. Her mother would cover up her surprise by being overly solicitous. If Ruby was lucky, her father would only be rude.

  She needed to leave this house before she forgot all that her parents had ever done for her and only remembered the way they’d imprisoned her with the promise of safety. Theirs was a relationship that could only be repaired through the fog of distance.

  She plopped Micah back into the scene, this time erasing her parents’ reactions. You were something special. Micah hadn’t said she’d had something special, like her family always had. He’d meant her, not her medals, not her records and not even her running. She imagined him pulling up a seat, a margarita in his hand and a warm, encouraging smile on his lips. One that reminded her that she could be something special again.

  Her shoulders relaxed and set with determination, Ruby walked around her mother’s chair to stand in front of her. She didn’t look up until Ruby coughed and said hello. The sun was in the other direction, but her mother brought up her hand to shield her eyes anyway, and Ruby felt looked through rather than looked at.

  She’d rehearsed this scene. Visualized it as she had visualized hundreds of races. Josh’s presence would make it easier. Other people your age live on their own. Previously, that thought had been depressing. Now it felt like a challenge.

  “I’m moving out. By the end of this week.” Her words must have been more interesting than the news, because her dad folded his paper and looked at her.

  Christine and Josh stopped their water fight. Her mother picked up her drink and took a long sip, with a short hiccup at the end. Her father scowled.

  “Have you found a place yet?” Christine called out from the water.

  “No. I’m going to start looking tomorrow. I’m getting a dog, too. Next week.”

  “How do you expect to pay for this?” The paper made a loud thud when her father threw it to the ground. “Your money’s still frozen.”

  “I have Aunt Ruby’s money.” The eccentric aunt she’d been named after had left Ruby the money with a note to follow her dream. Apparently her dream was a dog and some freedom.

  “Unless you find a job—and I don’t know who would hire you—that won’t last you more than a year. Two at the most.”

  “I know.” Find a job was next week’s activity. One foot in front of the other and she’d make it to the finish. That’s how she’d won on every track in every competition. “I’m running races again. Not anything I’m banned from. Ultras,” she clarified before her dad could interrupt by reminding her about the ban. “And I’ve agreed to sit for an interview. With Micah Blackwell.”

  Her mom took another loud sip of her drink, then shook the ice and drank some more. Finally the crystal hit the mosaic table and her mother’s attention turned to Ruby. “This is because I told that other reporter where you were volunteering,” her mother accused, too angry to fake weakness.

  “No,” Ruby replied, surprised that she meant it. “This is because it’s far past time for me to figure out how to live on my own.” She had concentrated on her fears and her guilt for so long that what could have been easily stepped over at one time had now swelled into a brick wall eight feet tall. Moving out might only be chiseling at that wall with an ice pick, but an ice pick was all she had. It would do until she found a backhoe.

  “You’re being selfish. You know what this interview will do to us. Your sister. Your brother.”

  “I know.” She’d been selfish all her life.

  “You’re punishing us for not supporting you enough.” Her mother turned her wobbly voice to her husband. “Dennis, I said we didn’t support her enough.”

  “For God’s sake, Julie. She’s been living here since she left college. We paid for that goddamned weight room. We paid for a private coach—who turned our daughter into a cheater. My firm isn’t charging her legal fees. Running camps. Trips to the Olympics. How much more support does she need?”

  “Clearly we didn’t do something—”

  “I’m nearly thirty,” Ruby interrupted loudly. “Living on my own and making my own decisions isn’t about the weight room, you or Dad. It’s not even about the dog. I can’t be in prison forever.”

  Air whistled through her mom’s teeth as she sucked all the hurt feelings out of the backyard and concentrated them inside her breast. “Is that what this house is to you? Prison?” Her mother sniffed, not loud enough to be indelicate, but everyone within earshot knew she was on the verge of tears. She eased her way away from the table. “I’m going to go lie down before dinner. I’ll be in my room.”

  “Julie, she’s looking for attention,” her father said to her mother’s back. “If we ignore her, she’ll learn it doesn’t work.”

  Christine had been staring at the entire battle with her mouth open, but she snapped it shut when Ruby looked over to the pool. Astonishingly, Josh looked as if he was about to laugh. Which their father also noticed.

  “This isn’t funny,” he called out to Josh, who shrugged. “And you—” he turned his attention back to Ruby “—if you think you’ll get continued support from us on this...adventure, you’re wrong. I might even rethink the legal help.”

  With that as his last word, he left his newspaper on the patio stone, his tumbler half-full of whiskey on the small table, and followed his wife.

  For several seconds, the only noise in the backyard was the normally soothing burble of the pool. Even the birds had stopped chirping. Then Josh burst out laughing. He climbed out of the pool and gave Ruby a hug, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was dripping wet from the pool and she was in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “I can’t believe what I just heard. Ruby Heart, rebelling teenager fifteen years after the fact.”

  “It’s not funny, Josh,” Ruby said. Her T-shirt stuck to her chest. Josh had managed to get a couple of spots of water on her jeans, too. She’d have to wash them quickly in case the chlorine bleached them. And add a washer and dryer to the impossible list of things she needed in a new place, right after allows dogs, cheap and available on a week’s notice.

  “Ah, but it is funny, little sis. I heard crap like that all the time when I was sixteen, but you were their golden child. I guess everyone has to go through their teen years sometime.”

  I’m twenty-nine! Wanting to move out of my parents’ house and get a job and a dog isn’t rebelling. It’s normal. The absurdity of all this pounded on her skull while her brain shouted thoughts she couldn’t say. Protesting her age and normality only made her feel more immature—and weirder.

  “Ruby, do you have any idea how to rent an apartment?” Christine had joined them on the patio and was drying off her hair with a large green towel.

  Josh looked as though he was going to laugh again, but his mouth pursed and he stopped. Ruby didn’t miss the dart of Christine’s hand out from under her towel to Josh’s back to, Ruby assumed, pinch the dickens out of him.

  “I have to rent a house. Jodie at the shelter said Dotty would do better in a house, with a yard.”

  Christine and Josh exchanged looks and Ruby felt even more of a fool than before. Then she looked around the perfectly maintained backyard, the pit of her stomach burning. She couldn’t say it was unfairness, because she was in her current situation due to her own actions, but she had been raised and coddled to do one thing and one thing only. If she continued to be ashamed that she didn’t know how to perform the basic human activities of living, she might as well call the shelter and tell them she couldn’t take Dotty. And letting down the dog would really be something to be ashamed of.

  “Look, I know this is stupid, but I’ve got to get out of here. Moving out will never get any easier and we all know my running money is gone. The firm is fighting a losing battle.”

  “An expensive one, too.” Josh’s smirk faded. “I’ll talk to Dad about the legal bills. He’s not actually going to saddle
you with them.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Most athletes in my position have to pay their own legal bills. I’m not sure why I should be so special.”

  Her brother opened his mouth to argue, then changed his mind. “I’ll still talk with him.”

  “What can we help you with?” Christine asked. She was always kinder than her actual family.

  “See if anyone you know has a place for me to rent. Even a room, so long as they don’t mind a Dalmatian as a roommate.”

  “Ruby.” Josh’s voice was serious. Caring. “I think the interview is a good idea, but is Micah Blackwell really the best choice?”

  She caught her brother’s gaze. “Yes.” She didn’t lie and say that he wouldn’t hurt her or that the interview wouldn’t go against her, but Micah wouldn’t try to manipulate her. “I’ve got to get these pants in the wash and I have some calls to make.”

  Up in her room, with a bowl of ice cream cold on the bare skin of her legs, Ruby called him to set up the interview.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR SOME REASON, Micah had expected Ruby to fidget. She didn’t, of course. While other people battled their bodies through food or exercise, Ruby’s body was her machine to control. If he hadn’t been watching her so intently when she’d walked into the room, he wouldn’t have noticed her blink of recognition at the chair. She’d sat in the same chair in the same studio five years ago, and the only indication she had noticed was the slight catch of her breath and the rise and fall of her tiny breasts hidden under a plain cream blouse. She had on a black skirt, black hose and boring black pumps. Perhaps she was going for the innocent-nun look.

  Her mother must have picked out her clothes when she was America’s Darling. And Ruby could have benefited from some wardrobe advice for this interview. She looked like a woman hiding secrets in her skirts.

  Hose hid the magnificence of her leg muscles. Her skirt needed to be a little shorter and her blouse a little tighter. Show off a little. With her current outfit, there was no risk that she’d shift her legs and he’d get a peek past her thighs to whatever boring panties she was probably wearing.