Chapter Twenty-three #2
“We’re getting married, Ruby Elizabeth. No more excuses or running away or lost time.
We are going to get married. My vote is that we move back here and try like hell to find out what we want to do with the rest of our lives.
I’m going to give photography a try; it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.
Most importantly, we’re going to promise to grow old together.
And we’re going to do it. We’ll sit on our own porch until we’re blind and hairless and I can’t remember what the hell my own name is.
And the last thing you’re going to feel in this world is me kissing you good night. ”
“We’ll have children,” she said, dreaming of it for the very first time.
“At least two, so they’ll each have a best friend.”
“And our son. We’ll name him Eric . . .”
Ruby would have slept on the dock all night, wrapped in Dean’s arms and that old blanket, but he’d wanted to get back to Eric, and so they’d kissed—and kissed and kissed—good-bye.
Then she helped Dean untie the boat and walked up to the top of the bank to watch him leave.
Moonlight shimmered on all the white surfaces of the boat, turned everything silvery blue.
He started the engine; the boat pulled away from the dock.
The chug-chug-chug of the motor broke the silence of the night.
Moment by moment, he lost coloring. It started with the tip of the mast; it turned black suddenly, then the rest of the boat followed.
In the last slice of moonlight, a dark hand lifted, raised, waved good-bye.
Though Dean couldn’t see her, he knew somehow that Ruby was still there, watching him leave.
It was what she’d always done.
She stood there until the boat disappeared into the choppy silver-tipped sea, then turned and went to the house.
The kitchen light was on, and Mom’s bedroom door was closed.
Ruby walked—okay, skipped—over to the closed door. There was no doubt in her mind that her mother would want to be wakened. After all, it wasn’t every day your daughter got engaged.
She was just about to knock when the phone rang.
She ran for the kitchen and answered the phone on the second ring, hoping it wasn’t about Eric. “Hello?”
“Ruby—where in the goddamn hell have you been? I’ve been calling all night. And what kind of podunk, backwater, double-wide house doesn’t have an answering machine?”
Ruby immediately relaxed. “Val?” She glanced at the clock. It was one in the morning. “Can we have this discussion in the morning? I—”
His voice was muffled. “Yeah, another Stoly martini, babe . . . three olives. Sorry, Ruby. Anyway, what is this shit about you not turning in the article? Tell me Maudeen wasn’t listening well.”
“Oh, that. I’m not going to deliver, that’s all.”
“That’s all. That’s all? Look comedy princess, this isn’t some low-rent vanity-press publisher we’re talking about.
This is Caché magazine. They’ve reserved the space in the issue, printed the cover—with your picture on it, I might add—and leaked the story.
” He paused; she heard the exhalation of smoke into the receiver.
“And I’ve gotten some interest in you from the networks; NBC wants to talk to you about writing a pilot. ”
“A . . . pilot? My own sitcom?” Ruby felt sick. That had always been a pie-in-the-sky dream of hers. Every comedian dreamed about her own show.
“Yeah, your own sitcom. So, no dicking around. You’re supposed to deliver the article tomorrow. I FedExed your plane tickets yesterday. They’re probably on your front door now. You’re scheduled for Sarah Purcell on Monday morning.”
“I can’t do it, Val.” Ruby closed her eyes. In that minute, she could feel the warm imprint of her mother’s hand on her head, the gentleness of that touch. Panic rushed through her.
Val drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Christ. I knew you were a pain in the ass, but I promised them you were professional. I gave them my word, Ruby.”
“I am a professional.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded small. Afraid.
“Professionals don’t take money from national magazines and then break the contract. Can you pay them back?”
Ruby flinched, thinking of the Porsche in her parking spot, the designer dress in her closet, the money she gave her dad. “If they’ll give me some time—” Like, twenty years.
“It doesn’t work that way. The only chance of getting out of this deal is to pay them back, and even then they have to agree. And baby doll, they won’t.”
“You mean they can force me—”
Val laughed. “Where have you been living . . . Potatoville, USA? This is big business. You can’t just change your mind. Is it written?”
She hated the weakness that made her answer. “Yes.”
“And the problem is . . .”
Ruby felt like crying. “I like her.” She swallowed thickly. “No. I love her.”
Val was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I’m sorry, Ruby.”
His concern was harder to take than the yelling. “I am, too,” she answered dully.
“You’ll be on the plane then, right? I’ll have Bertram pick you up.”
Ruby hung up the phone in a daze. She wandered out onto the porch, found the FedEx envelope. Inside, there was a first-class ticket and a short itinerary. They were taking her to Spago to celebrate after the taping of Sarah Purcell . . .
A week ago that would have thrilled her.
She walked dully past her mother’s door. At the last minute, she stopped, pressed her fingertips to the wood.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby breathed. But she knew those two little words wouldn’t be enough. Not nearly enough.
With a sigh, she turned and went upstairs. She flopped onto the bed and tried to sleep, but she couldn’t keep her eyes closed. At last, she flicked on the light and reached for her pad of paper.
I just got off the phone with my agent.
The joke is on me, it seems. I can’t get out of this deal. I have to deliver the article as promised or some corporate Mr. Big will sue me until I bleed.
And I will lose my mother, this woman whom I’ve waited and longed for all of my life, whom I’ve alternately deified and vilified. Whatever we could have become will be gone. And this time it will be all my fault. The whole world will see the bankruptcy of my soul.
I finally learned that life is not made up of BIG moments and sudden epiphanies, but rather of tiny bits of time, some so small they pass by unnoticed.
All this I can see now . . . and it is too late.
Monday, I will appear on The Sarah Purcell Show, and after that, what I see will matter only to me. My mother won’t care.
But I want to say this—for the record, although I’m aware it comes too late and at too great a price—I love my mother.
I love my mother.
Ruby released her hold on the pen. It rolled away from her, plopped over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, where it landed with a little click.
It was too much, all of this, and on the day she’d finally believed in a happy-ever-after future for herself. She couldn’t write anymore, couldn’t think.
“I love you, Mom,” she whispered, staring up at the spidery crack in the ceiling.