by Susan Wilson
“Did she say, ‘people like us’?”
“Not exactly, but I don’t know anyone else who knew that my friend Grace would get sick. I saw, Ruby. I saw her blood in my mind. It was bumpy.”
“She’s very sick?”
A sigh. Maybe a sniffle, and Ruby wishes Molly had FaceTimed instead of calling. “Luke something.”
Leukemia. Disease of the blood.
“Molly, the important thing to understand is that you might have predicted Grace’s illness, but it was already there. You didn’t cause it.”
“I know. I just got scared when my mind told me this and then it happened.”
“I’m glad you called me. You know that both your mother and I have the same…” Ruby almost says affliction. “… gift.”
“Kind of. Mom gets kind of weird if you call her on it.”
“And you do know what I do for a living.”
“You tell fortunes. For real. Like in fairy stories.”
“Yes. Well, not exactly like in fairy stories, but at fairs and carnivals and even parties.”
“Ruby?”
She knows the question before Molly asks. No big deal for a woman blessed with second sight. “I was your age when I knew. Your mom was too. It’s who we are.”
“No, I knew that. I just want to know if we’re witches.”
“Heavens no!”
Ruby hears Sabine hollering up the stairs for Molly to get a move on. Off to some organized activity no doubt. Molly signs off with a quick thank-you and I love you and is gone. The phone against Ruby’s cheek is hot.
At the very least, Molly will never have to figure out this “gift” for herself.
Assuming that Sister Bea will send the file off first thing Monday morning, and assuming that she won’t send it overnight but by regular business, Ruby won’t allow herself to become anxious about the file’s arrival until Wednesday morning. In the meantime, it’s Saturday and the Makers Faire awaits.
Over the past few weeks, the number of booths set up has begun to increase and Ruby’s tent is now flanked by a hat maker and yet another herbalist. This one specializes in lavender, and Ruby can smell it even before she arrives at her spot. It reminds her of the scent of old women, but she supposes that’s only because of the connection to the play, Lavender and Old Lace.
She greets the milliner, admires her array of hats, many of which are wide-brimmed and decorated with dried flowers. Very hippy, Ruby thinks. The milliner also has cloches on display and Ruby sort of wishes that she was a hat person, someone who could carry off wearing a cloche. Someone who wore the right coat and had the right shoes for such a hat. On her other side, Ruby says hello to the lavender lady and tries not to inhale too deeply.
Ruby gets the tent up, admires the little row of stitches she’s put into the tear in the tent wall, satisfied that it should hold up awhile longer. She’s been looking online for a new tent, feeling a bit like a traitor. This old girl has been a part of Ruby’s life, her routine, for so long, she fancies it is an old friend, a guardian. The holder of secrets. How should she honor it when the time comes to replace it? She feels the same way about the Westfalia. It’s sentimental, not logical. There’s no explaining it, no excusing it. Ruby runs a finger down the length of the repair and sighs. If her old tent and her old bus quit on her, she’ll be bereft.
The Hitchhiker bumps up against the back of Ruby’s knees. “You have me.”
“Yes, I do.” She scoops the dog up into her arms, never mind the dog hair embedding itself against her brocade caftan. She’ll wear it with pride.
The air seems lighter, the atmosphere around the tents and trailers and canopies cheerier somehow, and Ruby realizes that Cynthia Mann is nowhere to be seen. She will not invoke the name of her nemesis for fear of making her appear in a puff of brimstone smoke, but she does wonder where the heck she is. It doesn’t feel like Cynthia will suddenly jump out at her; it feels like a delightful absence. As if in recognition of that, her booth has been busy all morning, the cup of coffee she started with is untouched and cold. Fully half, maybe more, of the clients have been there for their dogs. She’s done more translating of canine concerns than predicting of future love. A nice change. She’s come to love touching these animals, feeling the soft fur, the bony skulls. The hiss and zizz of thought and feelings. The basic necessities they all come desiring—affection and kindness. A human hand laid out in hers never feels as accurate. The things she envisions for the dogs come to her so much more easily than the forecasting images she gets for humans. Maybe because dogs live so much in the present; humans, not so much.
Finally Ruby gets a break, slips off her caftan, hangs up her decorative BACK SOON sign and snaps the Hitchhiker’s leash to her harness. The pair circumnavigate the grounds, stretching their legs, letting the dog relieve herself, deciding which food truck to patronize. Ruby sees Polly’s animal control truck alongside the western edge of the park. Polly is in line at the burger truck. If Ruby knows anything about her friend, she’s pretty certain Polly will be asking for leftovers for her guests at the shelter. She joins her in the line.
Lunch in hand, the two ladies snag a park bench. The Hitchhiker keeps making little muttering sounds, trying to look like she’s not begging, but willing to be a help cleaning up leftovers. Ruby has been firm about not feeding the little dog people food, but sometimes a bite of hamburger just happens to fall to the ground.
Around a mouthful of burger, Polly says, “Got a call the other day. Missing dog.”
“Can I help?”
“Possibly.” Polly swallows, wipes her lips with her paper napkin, doesn’t look at Ruby.
* * *
My life is in what happens in front of me, not behind. I don’t think about what came before, how it made me feel. I think about the here and now. The closest I come to understanding the future is knowing that if Ruby puts on her big dress, we go to the place where she touches other people and dogs and makes them feel good. If the sun is gone, I know that dinner is possible. If the lady who smells like lots of other dogs and even cats shows up, something usually happens.
But having said that, I can admit that I remember the past. I remember it in images that sometimes come to mind because of a scent or a sound or the sight of a crate. I remember grooming and trotting alongside a tall man who taught me how to “stack,” how to tolerate long rides in a crate. How to be a winner. The humans all say that we know when we’ve won. It’s true. There’s a pleasant air of approval that comes with winning. And sometimes special treats. Then it starts again. But we also know when we haven’t won. And the air around that is heavy with disapproval. That first tall man went away, and a short fat woman began to show me. But she had no stamina for the long trots around the ring and soon handed me over to yet another human. This one made some mistake and we were sent from the ring even before the ribbons were handed out. And that’s when my life changed.
* * *
Polly says, “Ruby. The dog described sounds a lot like your dog.”
Ruby crumples up the remains of her burger, now just bun, and jams it into the paper bag. “Her person is gone.”
“I know, she told you.” Polly doesn’t sound the least bit cynical.
“Whoever had her died. Of that I am certain.”
“You are correct. That’s the story the caller gave me.”
The Hitchhiker has jumped onto the bench, made herself comfortable on Ruby’s lap. Her muzzle is draped over Ruby’s arm. She sighs. Ruby is filled with florid images, bright clouds of an unfamiliar odor, part perfume, part offal. She almost puts the dog off her lap; it is almost too much to receive this kind of information. Within a moment, the images resolve to a deep sense of needing to run. Of needing to be gone. She isn’t sure if it’s the dog’s thoughts or her own.
Polly doesn’t seem to notice that Ruby isn’t listening as she relates a story about adult children finding their elderly mother dead on the kitchen floor in her house, where she had been for some time. Apparen
tly there was a clause in the adoption agreement stipulating that the dog go back to the breeder if the owner was unable to care for her. Unfortunately, the dog had vanished in all the drama.
“Ruby, the Hitchhiker might be this dog.”
“What evidence do you have?”
“Tricolor Cavalier King Charles spaniel. That’s what’s gone missing; that’s what you’ve got.”
“And I imagine that there are any number of similar dogs circulating.” Ruby sets the dog back on the ground. Stands up, brushes off her front.
“Gone missing pretty much the same week that you arrived.”
Ruby gathers the leash into both hands. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. You’ve told me.”
“No proof.”
“She’s microchipped.”
Ruby sits back down. How come she hadn’t seen this coming? Why hadn’t she consulted her own cards? She had, but it had been in such a narrow way, focused on what direction to take, when to leave, when to stay. She hadn’t seen loss.
18
The Carerra Brothers Carnival had one more stop before they headed to winter over in Florida, like migratory birds, or retired northerners. It was only mid-October, and they were far enough south that the air still held a summer feel to it. Sticky. Charged. Ruby is alone in the RV, washing the lunch dishes, when Buck bangs open the RV’s screen door and walks in. At over six feet and with a thick body builder frame, he fills the available space. His muscle shirt is drenched with sweat from the heavy lifting of setting up the rides. He is pungent and Ruby wrinkles her nose as he reaches above her head to take down a glass from the cupboard. Does she imagine that he leans closer to her than necessary?
Buck is back to living in the RV, his girlfriend of the season having given him the heave-ho upon discovering she could no longer tolerate his serial flirting with the other carny girls or the hot-to-trot carnival goers all dressed in their short shorts and flouncy midriff-baring tops. This has meant that Ruby has moved from the alcove bed to the couch, that her night is often interrupted by Buck coming in late or finding his way to the miniscule bathroom, where she can hear every sound he makes. She hopes that he finds a new girlfriend soon. She likes living with Madame Celestine, but Buck’s presence has altered the dynamic. She is no longer the favored child; she is back to being the boarder. Celestine dotes on her son and makes no apology for it. He is the son of her long-lost lover, her constant reminder of a short period of happiness in her life. Ruby is uncertain if the man died or if he, like so many of these carny types, just vanished.
“How’s it going, Ruby Tuesday?” Buck thinks it’s funny to call her that, humming a few bars of the Rolling Stones song. “Who could hang a name blah blah blah.”
“Fine.”
“Girl of few words, aren’t you, Ruby Tuesday?”
Ruby has watched the other girls enjoy Buck’s teasing, using it as an excuse to touch him, to go all Southern Belle, and giggle. It’s something Ruby views with disdain. She cannot see herself acting demur, acting like a brainless Barbie doll just to attract gross attention. What man falls for that anyway? At some point this year she turned fifteen, but Ruby feels more like she skipped right over youth and has landed in adulthood.
“My mom treating you okay?”
“Yeah. Good.”
“Teaching you a lot?” Buck reaches into the tiny fridge and pours himself a glass of milk. He leans against the counter where Ruby stands over the sink. His hip touches hers and she moves away. “You making her some good money?”
“I guess.”
His hip follows hers. He stinks of sweat and cigarettes. When his hip touches hers again she sees him as he will be in a few short years and it isn’t a pretty picture. Like some men, he has peaked too soon. Too early for his essential good looks to last. She sees in her vision a Buck who still thinks he’s beautiful when in fact he will be a caricature of what he is now. A man who will never get it that women not only don’t find him attractive, but he has slid into repulsiveness. As Ruby pulls the sink stopper and rinses her hands, she is filled with the certainty that his degradation from hunk to has-been will be the outward manifestation of a disturbed act. He will forfeit his beauty with his already extant inner ugliness.
And, already, she understands that she will be the instrument.
Ruby’s first impulse is to pack up her tent and blow town. There’s no way she’s going to give up her dog. Yes, her dog. It’s been weeks, most of the summer, and Ruby can’t imagine not having the companionship of the Hitchhiker. If she had a permanent address, she would even have gotten the dog a license. Maybe she can fudge things a bit and use Bull’s address to establish her residency. Lie a little. Something that Ruby is quite good at.
Polly’s hand on her arm keeps Ruby seated on the park bench. “Let’s just confirm things at the vet’s. Maybe she isn’t the dog they’re looking for.…”
“They lost her. They left her out on the street to fend for herself.” This is a rough interpretation of the story the dog herself told her. A story without words, only images and scents.
“Possibly. But the important thing is that you have taken good care of her. Maybe the breeder will let you keep her.” Polly’s tone is hardly convincing.
“You really believe that a breeder with a return stipulation will let an itinerant fortune-teller keep this dog?”
Polly doesn’t give Ruby an answer.
“All right. Better to be fully informed than operate out of ignorance.” Ruby stands up, lobs her crumpled paper bag into a trash receptacle. “But I’ve got to finish out the day here. I’ll meet you at, where?”
Polly gives Ruby the address of the local vet, Dr. Amanda Davios. “I’ll let her know that you’re coming. Right after two, okay?”
It feels like Polly has her hands around Ruby’s throat and is squeezing. “I’ll be there.”
Needless to say, Ruby can’t concentrate enough on her clients to get any kind of authentic read, so she spends the rest of the afternoon making stuff up, relying on forty years of telling fortunes, most of which are the psychic’s equivalent of “take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Yes, good luck will follow bad. Yes, the future object of your affection is just around the corner. No, don’t take that trip.
The Hitchhiker doesn’t retreat to her bed as usual but tucks herself up under Ruby’s floor-length caftan and on Ruby’s feet. Of course the dog knows something’s up. Something is not right. Ruby’s mind is filled with good-case scenarios and bad. Mostly bad. Even while running her forefinger along life lines, shuffling her deck of tarot cards, brewing tea, Ruby’s thoughts are running toward the “what ifs”: what if she just runs off? She certainly has a history of being successful doing that. Then again, what if the dog isn’t the one who’s gone missing? Would she then feel like a fugitive (again) and for no good reason? Should she get confirmation that the dog is the dog being sought and then run away? Ruby recognizes that she’s getting wound up. Why can’t she put her psychic powers to good use for herself and give herself some advice?
Ruby closes up shop before anyone else can approach her booth. As fast as she can, she folds the tent, packs up the table and the teapot. Shoves everything into the van without caring where it goes. She can straighten things up later. The dog is already inside, sitting upright on the bench seat, spaniel eyes following Ruby’s every move. She keeps yawning, a dog’s way of releasing anxiety. Is it Ruby making her anxious, or is it some canine intuition that she is vulnerable? That their partnership is vulnerable?
As soon as Ruby gets into the front seat, the dog hops onto the passenger seat, places her forepaws on the dashboard. Barks. It’s as if she’s urging Ruby to get going. Ruby’s hand actually trembles as she pokes the ignition key into the slot, missing it twice before inserting it. Twisting it. Hearing the rear engine grumble. Her heart is pounding and suddenly it feels exactly like it did in that moment so long ago when she picked up her schoolbag filled with socks and underwear and little
else and ducked out the window and down the fire escape to run away from the convent.
No, this is more like that desperate moment when she slipped out of Madame Celestine’s trailer and took off into the night. A runaway again. And, this time, a thief.
How serious will this breeder be about recovering the Hitchhiker? Will she press charges, incite a manhunt? It’s one thing to be able to blend into a population alone; a distinctive, attention-attracting dog at her side might make that impossible. Ruby slips the van into neutral. Shuts it off. “Talk to me.” She gathers the dog onto her lap, presses her cheek against the dog’s skull. The little dog presses her muzzle against Ruby. The zizzing and vibrations start immediately. Clouds of flavor and scent; pine and red. The confused senses eventually coalesce into thoughts, pixels becoming images.
* * *
The first memory/image that comes to mind is that of the nice lady. She is different from everyone else I know, and I instinctively know not to jump on her. She is fragile. But very, very happy to have me in her house. I have not been a dog in a human house. I have been a dog in a crate going from one place to another until that day when we left the ring. I have a memory/image of the scent of that handler, that day. The scent of anger and disappointment. This day I get the scent of a new job. Although I am brushed, I am not groomed. There is a distinction. Although I am walked, I am not required to stack. The old woman teaches me new tricks. I learn to sit up and beg. Humiliating, perhaps for some, but I get a kick out of it. I listen endlessly to words that have no meaning to me, but understand that it is my job to take them in. My chief job, though, is to be with her. This does not have to be taught.
Having no sense of time, I can’t say how long we were together, long enough for several seasons to pass. Long enough for me to observe that there were changes with her that did not bode well. My nose identified internal problems, a subtle whiff of trouble against which I could not warn her. So, when she cried in the night, I simply pressed myself closer.
