3. Ruby
3
RUBY
“When are you seeing him again?” Mom sips her coffee leaning against the kitchen counter the following morning before she goes to work.
“I’m not.” I slather butter onto a slice of toast. The world does not think nearly highly enough of toast—it is the food of gods. “What did you think was going to happen? A marriage proposal within an hour of meeting?”
“I thought you would at least have secured a second date, Ruby.” Faint lines appear between her eyebrows. She’s disappointed, which means that she’ll already be scheming to get me back in front of Alessandro Russo.
“To secure a second date, we would need to have enjoyed a first.”
“Don’t get clever with me, Ruby. No one likes a smartass.”
“I do.” I munch on my toast and lick dripping butter from my fingers.
I don’t tell her that I’m not taking anyone’s sloppy seconds. I saw his tongue disappearing into that woman’s mouth. It’s obvious that Alessandro Russo is never going to be a one-woman man, and I’m worth more than that, even if my mom doesn’t believe I am.
“Even if he has no money and no prospects?” Mom finishes her coffee and grabs her purse from the counter.
“I’d rather have an intellectual conversation with a smartass than a bottle of champagne in a snooty restaurant with someone who’s eying up the waitresses.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She comes over and teases the curls out of my ponytail. “All men eye up other women. So long as they don’t touch, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Did Dad?”
She hesitates, her spine stiffening, the usual glazed look appearing in her eyes. “Of course he looked at other women. Lucky for me, he realized how good he had it at home.”
She leaves the house in a waft of Chanel No. 5, calling out goodbye to my dad as she goes, and poking her head back around the kitchen door to say, “Leave it with me, sweetie. This one’s not getting away so easily.”
I finish my breakfast, the toast clinging to the roof of my mouth. I try to empty my mind, focusing on my food and coffee instead of my mom’s determination to bag me a rich husband, but it doesn’t work.
Was Emily Bronte happy?
Why did Harry Weiss of all people pop into my head? It wasn’t like I was ever going to see him again, but something about the way he asked the question had stuck with me. He didn’t tell me that he knew nothing about the book or that he preferred movies to reading—although he probably did—but instead he’d ingested my comment and gotten straight to the heart of it. What made the author tick.
I swallow another mouthful of toast. Time for work.
I clear my dishes and go into the den where my dad is tucked up on the couch with a Harold Robbins book open on his lap.
“Are you off?” I see the way his expression crumples even though he tries to hide it.
I know he must be bored at home all day on his own, and it breaks my heart to have to leave him, but the bills won’t pay themselves. He makes me think of a dog waiting by the front door all day for his humans to come home because that’s the best part of the day.
“I’m due in the library in exactly—” I check my watch “—ten minutes.” I’m late again, but I sense that he doesn’t want me to leave.
“Go. I’ll be fine. You love your job at the library.”
I do. I enjoy it even more than I enjoy the dog walking I do to earn some extra cash. The library is the only place where I can forget everything else and pretend that I’m in Narnia or Wonderland or the Yorkshire moors. There’s no pressure to be me in the beautiful old building.
“See you later.” I cross the room and kiss his cheek. “I have a question to ask you when I get back.”
He smiles. “I’m intrigued. Can I wait that long?”
“Sorry. You have no choice.”
He stops me when I reach the door. “So long as it doesn’t involve your mom’s determination to clip your wings and tie you down.”
I freeze. I’ve never heard Mom discuss anything like that with him, so I’m surprised to hear him say it out loud. He knows more than he ever lets on, but I guess what else does he have to fill his day with?
“You know me, Dad. I’ll fly when I’m ready.”
He nods, and I swear there are tears in his eyes. “That’s my baby girl.”
I spend the rest of the day restocking bookshelves and directing people towards the right aisles. The smell of old books is my comfort zone, especially in winter when the days are short and the early twilight brings a gentle hush to the old building. When the whole world has gone home to put the fire on and shut the curtains, I choose a book and go lose myself in a squashy sofa somewhere quiet.
Today, I choose the same book my dad is reading: A Stone for Danny Fisher . It makes me feel close to him, like I can get inside his head and know what he’s been thinking all day.
I lose track of time until I hear whispered voices and the gentle click of the front door. I close my book and listen. “Mrs. Bates?” I call out. Mrs. Bates is my boss and although she’s easygoing and happy to let me read when my work is done, she’d never go home without checking if the building is empty.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in a couple of hours.
I stand up, make my way towards the front desk, and stop when I reach the end of the history section. The ceiling lamps have been switched off, ready to close for the night, but the main entrance is aglow with golden light. Is there an event tonight that I’ve forgotten about?
“Mrs. Bates, did I forget?—”
I round the corner of the bookcase and freeze.
The entire library has been decorated with fairy lights, giving it the appearance of Santa’s grotto. Music is playing in the background, an old song by the Carpenters, and Mrs. Bates is nowhere to be seen.
Then Alessandro steps out from behind the romance section and grins at me. “Do you like it?”
I blink like this is a dream and I need to wake up. But no, he’s still there.
“I brought champagne.” He reaches behind him for a bottle which he pops open, then pours the bubbling liquid into two tall crystal flutes. He hands a glass to me.
I take it in silence, my brain still trying to process what’s going on.
“You left so suddenly last night,” he says. “I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” I sip the champagne, the bubbles fizzing on my tongue. “Where are you going?”
“LA. Hollywood. We start shooting next week.”
Of course he’s going to Hollywood. My mom didn’t expect him to meet me and stick around in Chicago for a while, did she? Or maybe she hoped he’d take me with him, lavish me with expensive gifts and a new wardrobe befitting the role of an actor’s girlfriend, while I proved to him that he couldn’t possibly live without me.
“You could’ve picked up the phone.”
His smile is wide, and I remember the woman climbing him in the pool of the InterContinental. He’s oblivious. “You didn’t give me your number.”
“Do you do this for every woman who doesn’t give you her number?”
“What do you take me for?” He spreads his arms wide.
“The kind of guy who can snap his fingers and have any woman he wants.”
“Ouch.” He doesn’t look like he’s in pain. “You sting me, Ruby. Have dinner with me. Please.”
“I don’t know.”
The image of them naked in the pool isn’t going away, and it’ll take more than a glass of champagne and some fairy lights to erase it. Even if he is destined to become a household name.
“I brought you a gift.” He picks up a small neatly wrapped package from the front desk and holds it out so that I have to step closer.
I put down my glass and take the gift from him, his long, slender fingers caressing mine a beat too long. I pretend not to notice as I unwrap it.
It’s a first edition copy of Wuthering Heights in mint condition. I run my fingertips across the cover and turn it over to make sure the back is as perfect as the front.
“It’s a rare edition,” he says. “I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it.”
I want him to stop talking. I want him to stop making this about him and me, and just let me enjoy it before I give it back to him. Because I can’t keep it. I have no idea how much it would’ve cost, but it wouldn’t have been cheap, and he doesn’t even know me.
“It’s beautiful.” I glance up at him and catch his eager eyes before the smile is back. For a moment, he looks like a little boy surprising his first crush with a present. “But?—”
“This is me now, standing in this library with you.”
He has adapted a quote from the book and switched the word ‘moors’ with ‘library’.
“Did my—did someone put you up to this?” I’m reluctant to let the book go, but I know I can’t keep it.
“I had some help from Harry,” he says sheepishly. “Have dinner with me, Ruby.”
Harry helped him? I find myself saying yes without even understanding why, but all I do know is that I’m even worse at reading men than I thought I was.
He has already booked a table for two in a cozy corner of the kind of restaurant I can barely afford to peek through the window of. He tells me to order whatever I want from the menu like I might be swayed to choose something cheap because he’s paying. So, I order lobster, the most expensive thing I can find.
He talks about his role in the new movie, and his family, and Italy, which is where he was born and where his parents still own several homes and quite a lot of land.
And I think about how much my mom would love him for a son-in-law.
A man comes over when we’ve finished our main course and shakes Alessandro’s hand, clapping him on the back like they’re lifelong buddies. He drags a seat over from a nearby table and sits down, and my breath catches in my throat when I recognize Kurt Russell.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Kurt Russell!
If she could see me now, my mom would have me in the nearest bridal store and trying on wedding gowns before I could blink.
Alessandro introduces me to Kurt Russell, who leans over, takes my warm hand in his, and kisses me on the cheek. I’m never going to wash my face again.
He picks up the book Alessandro bought for me, strokes the cover the way I did when I opened it, and says, “I remember reading this in high school and hating it.” My stomach twists, my first crush crumpled like autumn leaves. “But I read it again last year and boy do I get it now.”
I’m floating. The waiter will have to grab my feet and drag me back down to earth any moment now.
Then, Alessandro leans closer and places his arm around my shoulder, his thumb stroking my left breast. I sit forward and reach for my wine glass which, I realize too late, is empty. Kurt Russell signals to the waiter to bring another bottle, and they settle into a conversation about upcoming movies and the roles they’d love to audition for, given the opportunity.
I drink my wine, and only half tune into the conversation.
Alessandro’s hands are everywhere. He’s paying attention to the conversation, but his eyes are everywhere too, and I’d bet my last dollar that he could tell me everyone who has walked in and out of the restaurant, and what they had to eat.
“Great guy,” he says about Kurt when we’re leaving. “Helped me a lot when I was first starting out.”
I keep quiet; he doesn’t need an answer. This is his world, and I just want to go home.
A chauffeur-driven limo is waiting outside for us. I give the driver my address and climb in, Alessandro sitting way too close, his thigh pressed up against mine.
I move away from him, and he moves closer. He strokes my cheek with his right hand, but before I can ask him to stop, his fingers are inside my coat, and underneath my sweater.
“What are you?—”
His mouth closes on mine, and the image of the woman in the pool with her tongue in his mouth floods my mind again. I try to pull away, but he grips my chin tightly, his fist like warm metal, his fingertips digging into my skin.
I squirm and wriggle, trying to twist my face away from him, but his tongue is probing, filling my mouth, and I can’t breathe.
He pulls away long enough to whisper, “God, you’re beautiful,” like it’s the standard compliment that he rolls out for every woman he wants to fuck.
I try pushing him off me, but somehow, he is on top of me, pinning me down, and my senses are filled with one thought: I need to get away from him . But his hands are everywhere, inside my sweater and my pants… Something gives—I think it’s the zipper of my pants—and I feel so exposed, so vulnerable, and I wonder why the car is still moving… Why hasn’t the driver stopped?
“Oh, baby,” he murmurs, his breath entering my lungs.
He doesn’t even say my name. I’m just ‘baby’ to him, like every other woman he has ever screwed, and it gives me the shot of rage and energy that I need.
He raises his upper body a fraction to maneuver his hand inside my panties, and I slide my arms between us and thump his chest with both hands, pounding his ribs like I’m battering down a door. He pulls his hands out of my clothes and grips my wrists to stop me.
It’s all I need. I raise my knees and shove him off me, rolling out from under him and landing on my knees on the floor of the limo. I drag my coat back around me, and shuffle backwards, putting as much distance between us as possible.
My breaths are coming in short, shallow gasps. And Alessandro is watching me with a look of genuine confusion on his face.
“What’s wrong? I thought you wanted this.”
I pull the limited-edition Wuthering Heights from my purse and throw it at him, flinching when I hear the spine rip. “Stop the car.”
“What?” He shakes his head. “What did I do? It’s why you came to the party last night, isn’t it? I mean, we’re both fucking adults here. You didn’t grab your skates last night for the sheer fucking fun of it.”
He doesn’t get it. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a good-looking movie star. The world is your oyster. Women throw their panties at you, and you take whatever you want, whenever you want it.
“ Stop. The. Car .”
He scoffs and shakes his head at me like I’m a little girl who just realized she doesn’t want to play big-girl games and now shit’s getting real. He leans forward, taps on the window separating us from the driver, and asks him to pull over.
I open the door and climb out, as the first snowflakes hit my face and make my eyes water.
“Good luck getting a better offer,” he says, before I can slam the door shut.
“I already did, asshole. Kurt Russell gave me his number when you were eying up the woman at the next table.” I know I shouldn’t lie about Kurt when he’s in love with Goldie Hawn, but I hope it infuriates him.
I walk away, my boots crunching on the icy sidewalk, a light frosting of snow collecting on my eyelashes as I tilt my head towards the starry sky.