5. Ruby
5
RUBY
“Have you heard the news?”
Mom is making ham omelets. Her cooking repertoire literally consists of omelets and grilled cheese, anything else is down to me. Dad did most of the cooking before his stroke, so Mom didn’t have to, and she conveniently forgot everything she’d ever learned while she had someone else to do it for her.
Dad peers at me over the top of his book, and I mouth, “She’s talking to you.”
“What news?” he asks.
“Alessandro Russo died in a car crash on the Interstate out of town.” She doesn’t even look up from what she’s doing, grating cheese over the top of the omelet in the pan.
My heart constricts like someone is squeezing the life out of it. I think of him on top of me in the back of the limo, his hands inside my pants, his breathy words, “God you’re so beautiful,” and my pulse is racing a marathon. I can still taste him. Still smell his cologne and his leather coat. I can still remember wondering why the driver didn’t stop the car when he saw what was happening in the rearview mirror.
The images in my head make me feel nauseous, but I can’t seem to understand that he’s dead. A life snuffed out, just like that. How is that even possible?
“Who, sweetheart?” Dad asks, and I want to throw my arms around his neck and sit on his lap the way I used to do when I was a little girl.
I want him to smooth my hair and tell me everything will be okay. Only, that promise isn’t his to make anymore.
“He’s an actor.” Mom uses present tense, and I don’t correct her. “Ruby met him at the ice rink the other night.”
I swallow and force myself to make eye contact. I give my dad a smile. “He was surrounded by fans,” I say as if that explains everything.
“Do we know what happened?” This is typical of my dad—he cares about everyone and everything that’s going on in the world, even though his world has practically shrunk to the size of our house.
“He was driving in the blizzard, in a Porsche. God knows why he didn’t wait for the weather to clear.” Mom slides the first omelet onto a plate and sticks it in front of my dad. “More money than sense,” she adds, turning back to the grill.
My thoughts are scrambling headfirst down a rabbit hole. What if our date hadn’t gone the way it did? What if he’d asked me to skip town with him? I might’ve been in that wreckage.
“There was a passenger in the car with him,” Mom continues the personal news report. “A friend. Guy named Harry Weiss.”
Harry Weiss.
The name gets stuck in my throat, and all that comes out is a feeble squeak.
“Okay, sweetheart?” Dad is waiting for Mom to sit down before he tucks into his meal.
“Did-did he die too?” I’m numb.
I shared Harry’s beer at the party. He tripped over me at the ice rink. He told me that he worked in oil, and somehow that is a hundred times more personal than having Alessandro Russo’s tongue in my mouth.
“Apparently he’s in a critical but stable condition in the hospital.”
I’m already on my feet. I hear Mom say, “Where are you going? Your omelet’s ready,” as I dash into the den and switch the TV on.
The news reporter is standing outside the University of Chicago Hospital, a scarf tucked inside her coat and pulled up to her chin, her shoulders hunched up around her neck. It’s still snowing, and she looks as if she would rather be anywhere else than outside in the middle of the worst blizzard since 1979.
“All we know so far,” she says, “is that Alessandro Russo was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. His brother, Carlos Russo, was seen arriving at the hospital a short while ago but declined to comment.”
“What about Harry?” I gravitate towards the screen and zone in on the reporter, willing her to mention the passenger in the car.
“The passenger, wealthy oil tycoon, Harry Weiss, is said to be in a critical condition. The eligible bachelors were travelling south on I-55 when the Porsche driven by Mr. Russo hit a patch of ice and skidded across the central median and into the path of an oncoming vehicle.”
I mute the sound, the reporter’s mouth still moving, and her eyes staring directly at me, leaving me alone with the silence.
Wealthy oil tycoon, Harry Weiss.
Eligible bachelors.
Harry told me that he was the boss, that it was early days for his business. He played it down like it was nothing to brag about, like the words ‘oil tycoon’ applied to other people who were not Harry Weiss. And she called him an eligible bachelor…
I pace the den. She made Harry sound like a player, another Alessandro Russo using women because he knew he could have anyone he wanted. Because every woman wants to hook an eligible bachelor, right? But that’s not the Harry Weiss I met at the rink. That Harry wanted to know if Emily Bronte was happy.
That Harry wouldn’t have touched me up in front of Kurt Russell as if I was his personal property.
But lurking beneath my thoughts and battling frantically to be heard is the reminder that his condition is critical. Harry Weiss might die too.
I slump onto the floor and hit the mute button to get the sound back on the TV. If I have to sit here all night waiting for an update, I will.
The footage has switched to images of Alessandro Russo from his latest movie. Images of him with a beautiful model on his arm on the red carpet. Images of him as a little boy in Italy. Right at the end of the report, they produce a photograph of Harry attending an event with a stunning blond—his face is turned away from the camera, but it is unmistakably him, his friends from the rink in the background.
Why do they have to focus on their lifestyle? A man is dead, and another is seriously hurt; isn’t it enough to report the facts without having to glam it up with pictures of red carpets, movie premieres, and models?
The door opens and my mom peeps into the room. “Your food is getting cold.” Her eyes drift to the TV screen. “Such a waste of a young life. Don’t be sad, darling. It obviously wasn’t meant to be.”
I can’t even look at her. How can she be so callous? So coldhearted? So fucking calculating?
The snow is still falling heavily. Our backyard is pure white, apart from the tiny fragile claw prints of the birds that have been searching for food. I feel like I should do something, only I’m not sure what, and just looking at the snow is giving me shivers.
I know which hospital Harry is in. I could go visit him myself instead of relying on the news reporters to spice up the facts to make them a little more appetizing for the viewers. I reach the door and stop.
What if his model girlfriend is there at his bedside? How would I explain that he fell over me on the ice and now I’m invested in his well being? God, I already know what she would think, that I’m just another gold-digger after his money, now that I know he has some.
I go back to the news report which has now moved onto the blizzard.
I’ll wait here. His family will be with him, if they can get to Chicago from wherever they are. He might not even be allowed visitors, and even if he is, he probably won’t remember me.
But what if he dies from his injuries? Will I regret not making the effort to see him when he’s so close? What would my dad do?
That settles it. I sneak out of the den, grab my purse from my room, and tiptoe to the front door, my heart hammering against my ribs. I’m not telling my parents. My dad won’t question me wanting to visit a friend in hospital, but if my mom hears the words eligible bachelor associated with Harry, she’ll be sharpening her own talons and chaining me to his bedside.
I don’t even put my boots on inside the house. I open the door just enough for me to step outside onto the porch, hopping while I slide my feet into them and my arms into my coat, zipping it right up to my neck. Then I narrow my eyes against the bitter wind and walk towards the main road where I am able to get a cab.
The traffic is crawling.
The cab driver drops me as close to the hospital as he can get. I ignore the camera crew loitering outside the main entrance and am greeted by a blast of warm air when I step inside. The man on the front desk tells me where to find Harry when I claim to be his girlfriend, and I take the stairs slowly, wondering what on earth I’m doing here.
What if he doesn’t recognize me? What if he thinks I’m a crazy stalker trying to get my five minutes of fame because I happened to bump into him and Alessandro Russo by chance? I shouldn’t have come. What was I thinking?
But my legs still keep moving until I’m sitting beside his bed. Harry’s eyes are closed and he looks like he maybe shouldn’t have survived.
I sit on the uncomfortable plastic seat and study his face. His eyes are swollen and bruised. There’s a shelter over one of his arms, and a tube inserted into the back of his hand. But I still can’t help smiling at him even though he’s asleep.
The nurse told me that he was lucky, but they had to perform emergency surgery to correct a brain hemorrhage following trauma to his skull. I take off my coat, sit back and watch the monitor beeping regularly beside the bed. I wonder how much he remembers of the accident or if he even knows that he’s in hospital.
Now that I’m here, it feels like it was the right thing to do, which is strange considering I hardly even know Harry. But I make myself comfortable and settle in for the long haul. I’ve already made up my mind that I’m not going anywhere until I know that he’s alright.
I must close my eyes and doze off because when I open them again, Harry is watching me from the pillows, his expression unreadable. “You’re awake.” I stretch my arms above my head and yawn.
“Ruby?” His voice is hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
“Someone had to come and talk some sense into you.” I sit on the edge of the bed.
Then it hits me that he probably doesn’t even know that Alessandro is dead, and I pray that he doesn’t ask me.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
I can’t help smiling. At least he still has a sense of humor. “Do you want some water?”
He nods with his eyes, and I fill a plastic cup with tepid water from the jug on the bedside cabinet and hold it to his lips. There’s nothing awkward about being here with him like this. I can’t explain it, but it feels like I’ve always known him, well, known him a lot longer than a couple of days anyway.
He slumps back against the pillows like it hurts too much to hold his head up.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Vaguely. The snow… St. Louis…”
“St. Louis?”
But Harry is lost inside his memories, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to erase them. “I tried to stop him. Bright lights…”
He closes his eyes again, and looks so peaceful, I hope that he’ll drift off to sleep.
“I thought I was going to die…” Tears well in his eyes and trickle down the side of his face.
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“What do you think happens to people when they die, Ruby?” he says, and my heart skips— that, after everything—he remembers my name.
“I’ve never really thought about it.” It’s a lie. I thought about it a lot when my dad had his stroke, but all I knew was that if he died, he wouldn’t still be here.
“I think our souls go someplace else.” He’s still watching me with huge watery eyes. “I saw it…”
“Harry.” I reach for his hand and squeeze it. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
“I saw her… My mom.”
I swallow. You hear stories about people having near-death experiences, but how can anyone prove or disprove them? But, I believe him. I believe that’s what he thinks he saw anyway, and if that’s going to help him recover, there’s no way I’m questioning it.
“She was only forty when she died. Too young.”
I nod. My dad was younger than that when he had his stroke.
“I sometimes think…” More tears spill. “…that I’ll be the same. I’ll die young.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
I mean, what do I say to that? I can’t exactly tell him that it’s not going to happen to him too, and if he’s always had it in his head. Shit! Maybe he’ll manifest it with his gloomy thoughts.
“You mustn’t think like this. You’re still here, Harry.”
“Marry me, Ruby Jackson.”
I release his hand without thinking, and stand up, turning my back to him. He’s delirious. He must be. He thinks he saw his mom, and that he’s going to die when he’s forty, and this is the medication talking.
“I’ll go down on one knee when I get out of here. Do it properly.”
I force a smile and turn back around. “You won’t even remember this.” Thank God, I think.
“If I forget… I want you to remind me.”
Yeah, that’s not happening. “Okay.”
“Promise me, Ruby.”
“I promise, but you don’t even know me.”
“I’ll learn.” He closes his eyes, and I watch him until his breathing grows shallow, his chest rising and dipping, the blip-blip of the monitor steady and even.
I make up my mind that I can never tell him about Alessandro Russo and what happened in the back of the limo.