Chapter 1
Present day.
"My God, I'm going to be late because of you," Amelia says, gulping down her coffee hurriedly while searching for her phone on the kitchen counter.
"My fault?" Ruby asks, arching her eyebrows with an amused expression. "I didn't hear you complaining while I was between your legs. In fact, you moaned so loud the neighbors probably heard you."
Amelia finds her phone and grabs it, then turns toward Ruby and feels a spasm between her legs when she remembers that moment—barely twenty minutes ago—when she was showering and Ruby burst into the bathroom.
Amelia was about to protest because she had just enough time to finish showering and drink her coffee before heading to the supermarket where she works as a cashier, but when she saw Ruby kneeling before her with the sole intention of giving her pleasure, her throat closed and the words got trapped in her mouth.
"It's lucky they're both an elderly couple and deaf as posts," Amelia comments, grabbing her keys.
She approaches her girlfriend and gives her a kiss.
Ruby is finishing her coffee. She's also going to be late, though no one will scold her because she's the owner of the bar where she works.
Actually, she owns half of it, because the other half belongs to her best friend Ellie.
They didn't fulfill their dream of always being together as they promised—at least, as Ruby understood it in her nine-year-old mind—she always thought that together meant together in every sense, but, unlike her and to the pain of her heart, Ellie did start feeling attracted to boys and that repulsion she felt toward them disappeared to the point that, currently, she's married to Marcel.
Otherwise, at thirty-three, they still maintain a friendship that has remained unbreakable the entire time.
They opened the bar where they work ten years ago and, although it was very tough at first, now they can't complain.
It gives them enough money to pay the bills, live comfortably, and cover the salaries of four bartenders plus two cooks who split shifts throughout the week.
Ruby and Ellie agreed to each open one day, so today is her turn and Ellie will come later.
Between them they handle the accounting, take care of inventory, and work behind the bar without fixed schedules. If one needs a day off, she takes it; if she needs hours, she gets them too. The other doesn't ask questions—they have that kind of blind trust in each other.
Ruby says goodbye to Amelia at their front door and each rushes off in a different direction.
She reaches the bar barely ten minutes later, panting from hurrying, and lets out a huff when she sees Gaston, the beer distributor, unloading the last box on the sidewalk and closing the truck doors, ready to leave.
"Hey, Gaston!" Ruby shouts, appearing beside him like a ghost.
The man turns, startled, and frowns when he sees her.
"I've told you a thousand times not to unload the merchandise outside. Every time you do, someone steals a box," Ruby complains.
"I arrived and no one was here. I don't have time to wait," he justifies, flapping his shirt to cool off from the sweat.
Ruby checks her watch and frowns. Her agreement with the delivery company is for them to come after seven-thirty, and there are still five minutes to go.
"You're delivering outside your schedule. You should come later."
"It works better for me to stop here first. Or would you prefer I leave you for the end of the route?"
Ruby sighs. Her day started with sex, and she doesn't want this guy to ruin it in five minutes.
"Forget it," she says and pulls out her keys.
The man leaves and Ruby pauses for a second in front of the bar, smiling with satisfaction.
She never tires of looking at the facade.
She loves the aged brick with moss-green painted wooden details that have barely withstood the neighborhood's humid years.
It has hanging shutters framing two wide windows that look into the interior.
One of them has the name of the bar hand-painted: "The Early Bayou," in curved letters somewhat faded by the sun.
It was Ellie's idea and, although she wasn't very convinced, Ruby gave in and ended up delighted with the result.
A cream and burgundy striped awning extends over the entrance.
Underneath are four wrought iron tables resting on the sidewalk with the chairs still stacked.
It's something that catches the attention of early passersby because the mix of sun and breeze makes it a magnificent place to have coffee, but what really fascinates Ruby about the whole bar is the back patio.
It's a small refuge hidden behind a wooden gate located at the back of the bar.
Upon exiting, Ruby feels like she's entering another dimension.
The floor consists of irregular bricks, worn and warm in the sun.
In the center, more wrought iron tables rest under cream-colored umbrellas that have already known several summers.
Some chairs have worn linen striped cushions, and one or two are always a bit wobbly, but nobody seems to mind.
In one corner, a wooden shelf serves as a vertical garden: there are clay pots with rosemary, mint, basil, and lavender, and the air smells of all this mixed with the aroma of coffee and toast wafting from inside.
A string of warm lights hangs between the walls, crossing the sky as if catching the last golden hour of the day, but the star element, for both her and Ellie, is the swing that they use on Wednesdays, the only day when the bar remains closed.
Girls' Wednesday. That's what Ellie called it.
A few hours a week that are just for them, without Marcel, without Amelia or any of the partners they've had, just Ellie and Ruby telling each other their things.
They chose the back patio of the bar because no one bothers them there, and those hours, usually at sunset, have become a sacred ritual for both.
This has brought them the occasional argument with their partners.
Marcel because he doesn't understand his wife's need to spend those hours with her friend when, according to him, she sees her every day.
For Amelia the conflict is different; she claims the same as Marcel, but what she really feels is fear, because she knows that, although Ruby loves her and shows it every day, deep down and unable to help it, Ruby Hebert has always been in love with her best friend.
Ruby enters the bar, turns on the lights, and goes to the storage room to open the door and start bringing in the boxes that Gaston left on the street.
She considers waiting until Ariel and Caleb arrive, the waitress and waiter who have the morning shift, but she can't risk having the merchandise stolen, so she rolls up her sleeves and starts bringing in the boxes, leaving them messily near the entrance—she'll ask them to arrange them when they arrive.