5. Ruby
Ruby was listening to ”Walk Like An Egyptian” on the radio in her bedroom while doing her Algebra homework. The sun was out and it was a perfect California afternoon, but Patty had grounded her from leaving the house with her best friend Kit, and so instead of sitting in front of the television and watching MTV all afternoon, Ruby had given in and taken out her homework.
”Ruby?” Patty shouted from downstairs when she arrived home at seven o’clock that evening. ”I brought tacos.”
Ruby had finished her homework by then and was stretched out on her bed, listening to the top forty hits of the week while she thought about Eric Sanderson, the cutest boy in the entire eighth grade, and--in her humble opinion--maybe a better skateboarder than Tony Hawk.
”Ruby!” Patty yelled again, louder this time. ”Come down for dinner!”
Ruby was mad at her mother for grounding her, but if she thought about it rationally, she understood why Patty had done it: Ruby got caught skipping English class to leave campus with Kit because they”d heard that Eric and his friends were going to be at a skatepark by the beach. Getting grounded sucked, but having Patty tell Ruby that her dad would have been disappointed in her was the worst part.
Ruby turned off the radio and the bedroom light before wandering down the stairs in a house that had gone completely dark at some point during the evening.
”Hi, sweetie,” Patty said, turning to smile at her daughter. She”d already kicked off her heels and taken off her suit jacket, and she was standing in the kitchen with a bag of tacos from their favorite restaurant, eating one straight out of the wrapper. ”I”m starving. Court today,” she explained, bending her head to one side and taking a bite from one end of the taco.
Ruby frowned; this was not the mom she was used to seeing. Patty was and had always been proper. In fact, Ruby”s dad used to tease his wife about being the original Miss Manners, and since his death, Ruby had noticed that her mom worked even harder than usual at making sure she did everything by the book--something that generally drove thirteen-year-old Ruby insane.
”Mom,” she said, staring at her mother. ”Why are you eating standing up? Without shoes?”
Patty closed her eyes, chewing with a look of bliss on her face. ”Because I”m starving,” she said, reaching for a glass of wine that she”d just poured. ”How was school?”
Still frowning, Ruby walked over to the cupboard and got out two plates. She made a big show of putting the tacos on the plates, of pulling folded, ironed napkins from a drawer, and then leading her mother to the kitchen table.
”Fine, fine, fine,” Patty said, sounding as if she were the teenager in this situation, and like she was used to Ruby harping on her about things like keeping her elbows off the table and using proper grammar while on the phone with her friends. ”I”ll sit.” Patty unfolded a napkin and put it over the silk skirt she was still wearing, then unwrapped another taco. ”How was your day?”
Ruby shrugged. She wasn”t sure that she wanted to forgive her mother for grounding her and for keeping her away from the skatepark for a week. In that amount of time, Eric could end up dating Lisa, and then Ruby would be stuck watching them walk through the halls of the middle school with their hands in the back pockets of each other”s 501s. The very thought filled her with bile and disgust.
”It was fine,” Ruby finally conceded, taking a small bite of her first taco. She was starving, but didn”t want her mother to think they were having a moment or anything gross like that. ”I ate lunch outside the counselor”s office because I got called down for lunch detention for skipping school.”
Patty didn”t react to this, but kept eating ravenously.
”You know, I bet you skipped school before,” Ruby said. She watched her mother angrily.
”Nope. Never.”
Ruby huffed in disbelief. ”That”s got to be a lie.”
Patty shook her head. ”Absolute truth. I graduated high school in 1967, and I never once ditched a class to go and watch a boy ride a skateboard in the sun,” she said with a wink.
This infuriated Ruby that her mother might have known why she was skipping school. ”I bet you did other dumb stuff. Did you smoke cigarettes?”
”Of course,” Patty said with nonchalance. ”And sometimes I told my parents I was going to a sleepover at my friend Ellen”s, but instead Ellen and I would go to a party in the woods and drink beer with college boys. But I never skipped school.” She took another sip of her wine and leaned back in her chair. ”I know kids never learn from their parents” mistakes,” she said carefully, watching Ruby. ”But if you take anything away from this conversation, let it be that cigarettes are a nasty habit, and that teenage girls drinking with college boys in the woods is never a great idea.”
”Did you ever drink and drive?” Ruby narrowed her eyes. She knew how strongly Patty felt about Ruby drinking and driving, or about her getting in the car with anyone who had. Up until that moment, it had seemed to Ruby that her mom was simply caught up in the current fever of the message being delivered by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and like any teenager, Ruby heard her mother”s pleas, but she pretty much let them go in one ear and out the other. After all, she was still only thirteen--no one was offering her alcohol yet, and no one who”d been drinking was offering to drive her anywhere.
Patty reached for another taco, her initial hunger slightly dulled by three tacos eaten in quick succession. ”I”ve made plenty of mistakes,” Patty said calmly. She pushed her last taco towards Ruby, who was still only halfway done with her first one. ”And some of those mistakes are mine to keep to myself.” She leaned forward then and reached for Ruby”s hand, taking it in hers against Ruby”s will. ”Just know that everything I do, I do because I have so many hopes and dreams for you. I want you to know that you can do anything in life, and that I”m so proud of you. You”re a good girl, Ruby Dallarosa. A wonderful girl.”
Ruby, who had been expecting more of a lecture than this, felt her eyes burn. She”d forgotten to bring a glass of water to the table, and now she felt like she had a piece of crunchy taco shell stuck in her throat.
Patty closed her eyes for a long moment, still holding her daughter”s hand. ”Ruby,” she said. ”There will be many things we don”t know about each other throughout the course of our lives, and that”s as it should be. A mother can never know every facet of her daughter”s life, and a daughter shouldn”t know every bit of her mother”s. It would be too much. We get to be in each other”s lives, and if we”re lucky, we”ll even be friends. But we don”t get to have full access to one another--that”s just how it goes, and it will be like that for you and your daughter someday as well.”
”I”m never having children,” Ruby said, shaking her head. ”We watched a video in health class this year of a woman giving birth, and it was disgusting. The camera was, like, right between her legs.” Ruby made a face like she might vomit.
Patty chuckled and squeezed her daughter”s hand. ”Okay,” she said gently. ”But someday you might change your mind for any number of reasons, and if you do, it will be wonderful. And terrifying. And you won”t always get it right, but you will do everything with love, which is really the only way to do anything. Do you see?”
Ruby thought about it; did she see? Her mother worked long hours and slept hard every night, then got up and made sure that Ruby lived in a world that was as close to perfect as she could make it. She was giving Ruby a top notch example to learn from: a woman who would not be stopped by life’s curveballs, and who threw herself into every single thing she did. That was love, right? And Ruby”s dad, who she missed every second of every day, had made up jokes and songs and had listened to anything Ruby wanted to tell him about--he”d done all that with love too. Now that she thought about it, love was everywhere: her English teacher writing encouraging notes on her essays, telling Ruby she could be a great writer if she wanted to. Kit skipping class and getting into just as much trouble as Ruby so that Ruby didn”t have to go to the skatepark alone where all the rowdy boys were hanging around, smoking cigarettes. That was love and friendship, wasn”t it? Maybe her mom was right…
Ruby shrugged and took a huge bite of her taco. “Well, I guess,” she said after chewing and swallowing (talking with food in her mouth would have horrified her mother—even the version of Patty sitting there without shoes on at the table). “Maybe I’ll change my mind about having kids, but I doubt it.”
Patty gave a throaty laugh. “That’s fair, Bibi,” she said, using Ruby’s nickname, as she occasionally did. And even though Ruby had been mad at her mother for days, she suddenly didn’t mind the familiarity of her nickname. “You’re a woman who is going places,” Patty said, standing up and stretching next to the table. She reached for the empty plates and for her wine glass, and padded into the kitchen on stocking feet. “But for now,” she called over one shoulder, “the only place you’re going is upstairs to shower before bed.”
Ruby rolled her eyes and stood up. She knew better than to argue with Patty when they were just getting back on good terms. “Okay, Mom,” she said, pushing in her chair and turning out the light over the table. “Thanks for the tacos.”
Patty said nothing, but Ruby could hear the sound of water running in the kitchen and of her mother singing a Whitney Houston song softly to herself as she opened and closed the refrigerator and the cabinets.
Ruby smiled to herself, feeling relieved that she and Patty had—in their own way—cleared the air between them. Things weren’t perfect yet, but they were getting back to normal.
Rather than walking down to State Street on the morning of the will reading, which Ruby could have easily have done if she’d given herself an hour to amble down there, she pulls her mother’s white Mercedes S-Class coupe convertible out of the garage, backing carefully down the driveway as she looks both ways for kids on bicycles or pedestrians with dogs on leashes. The car is beautiful, and somehow the tan leather interior still smells like Patty just drove it off the lot, even though the car is five years old. Ruby knows her mind is elsewhere, and while Helen offered to drive her to the meeting and have coffee in a cafe until Ruby finishes, she feels like she really needs to do this alone.
She woke up that morning with the memory of her adolescent scuffle with Patty over skipping school playing in her mind, and she laid in bed for the better part of an hour just remembering the times that she and her mother had not seen eye to eye on things, but had figured out how to navigate each situation just the same. She only hopes that she’s done as good a job with her own girls, letting them be themselves while still learning how to adapt and compromise so that they can mesh with friends, family members, and love interests. It’s tough, learning which parts of yourself need to change and which parts you should cling to firmly, but she believes that Harlow and Athena have grown into self-aware, self-confident young women who can both hold their own and also be flexible when necessary.
That was always the hardest thing with Patty: learning how to be flexible with her. She expected nothing but the best from herself, and therefore from those around her, and being the daughter of a woman with so much stamina and such strong convictions hadn’t always been easy.
As Ruby swings the Mercedes into a parking spot a block from State Street and puts up the roof, she remembers a time—much like the one where she’d been grounded—where she and her mother had gone rounds and ultimately given one another the silent treatment for a while. It had been around the time that Ruby started acting in commercials and driving around L.A. to audition that she and Patty had come to an impasse. In Patty’s mind, her daughter’s time would have been better spent working as a legal assistant or even as a barista, which would have afforded her the time to focus on her homework rather than forcing her to waste afternoons stuck in hours of traffic, only to then wait for hours in a hot building for her turn to audition for bit parts or commercials, sitting with her back against a wall as she highlighted parts of her textbooks in preparation for essays and exams.
It had been one of Ruby’s favorite parts of her life, but in Patty’s eyes, she was spreading herself too thin in pursuit of something that didn’t matter. It was only when Ruby had landed a Levi’s spot and pocketed nearly twenty thousand dollars for her trouble that Patty had softened her stance.
“I suppose the money would come in handy,” she’d said, looking up from the novel she was reading next to Ruby poolside at the Hotel Bel Air, where they’d checked in for a girls’ weekend to mark the anniversary of Ruby’s father’s passing. “Your dad’s life insurance policy has provided us with enough that UCLA is totally paid for, but having money in the bank for your future is a good idea. A woman never knows when she might need some cash on hand.”
Ruby had rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses and flipped the page of her People magazine, but she was secretly happy that Patty had come around. They’d spent the rest of the weekend drinking mimosas, having lunch by the pool, and telling stores about Ruben Dallarosa that made them laugh and cry in equal measures. But the months leading up to that breakthrough had been rough, marked by Patty pointing out her displeasure at Ruby shuttling “from Hell’s Half Acre to Timbuktu and back” in order to potentially secure a few bucks acting as a cheerleader in a beer commercial, or a young mother pushing a fake baby in a stroller through the aisles of a grocery store. She’d repeatedly said that if Ruby wanted to, she could be a real actress, and that it would be no trouble for her to connect her daughter to an entertainment lawyer, an agent, or someone already in the business who wouldn’t mind taking on a mentee, or, at the very least, answering a few questions from a budding actress.
But that’s not what Ruby had wanted, she recalls now, stepping up onto the curb as she holds the strap of the purse she’s slung over her shoulder. The sun is high in the sky, warming her blonde head from above, and she gives a half-smile at the memory of her mother wanting her to aim higher, dream bigger. It was just that being a “real actress” wasn’t appealing to Ruby. Making a chunk of money here and there for a job that might last a day or two was what she wanted to do, and it gave her time to attend classes, do homework, throw dinner parties with her roommate, and date Kingston Riley, which had been another point of contention between Ruby and Patty.
“Good morning,” Ruby says to Reggie as she walks into the lobby of Berkshire, Hallywood, Briar, and Lane at nine-fifty, leaving herself ten minutes to get situated before the meeting at ten.
“Mrs. Hudson!” Reggie says with a huge, white smile. “Alan is waiting for you. Would you like me to show you back?”
“No, thank you,” Ruby says, holding up a hand so that Reggie won’t jump out of her seat. “I can show myself back. Is it alright if I stop in the restroom first?”
“Of course—second door on the right,” Reggie says, pointing. “Can I bring you a coffee?”
“Oh, please.” Ruby puts her hands together and makes a theatrical face like she might die without coffee. “Cream and sugar would be amazing, if you have it.”
“Absolutely. I’m on it.”
Five minutes later, Ruby is seated in the very same chair in Alan’s office as the day before, holding a ceramic cup and saucer in hand as she waits for him to start the meeting. He’s bustling around the office with his reading glasses on top of his head, pulling a book from the shelf, then reaching for a file. He gathers everything he needs while Ruby sips her coffee, letting her eyes follow him as he moves.
“Can I help you with anything?” she offers.
Alan waves a hand. “No, no—you get yourself caffeinated. I’m just about ready here.”
Two minutes later, Alan has opened a Zoom call and it’s projected onto a large screen on the wall of the office.
“Good morning,” he says, clearing his throat as he sits. He switches on a camera that’s facing Ruby, and she appears on the screen as well. The boxes of faces on the screen make it look as though they’re in the opening credits of The Brady Bunch.
“Good morning, Mr. Berkshire,” a woman says. She’s younger than Ruby—maybe forty—and has dark hair and eyes. She’s sitting in a sunny kitchen somewhere.
Another box opens and a man and woman sit there together, shoulder to shoulder, looking uncertain. They say nothing.
Then Ellen joins the call, and Ruby recognizes her kitchen table and the windows from the house in Seattle. “Sorry I’m late,” Ellen says, nodding at the camera. Ruby smiles at her.
“This is perfect,” Alan Berkshire says, clearing his throat again. Ruby can scarcely imagine an attorney with as much experience as Alan has getting nervous over a Zoom meeting to read a will aloud, and she realizes that this is his tell: Alan has something big to share that does make him a little anxious. “I’ll do introductions here quickly,” he says as he straightens his necktie. “I’m sure everyone here knows Ruby Hudson,” he says with a smile, nodding at Ruby although they’re the only ones in his office, “and Ruby, this is Ellen Majors, who is in Seattle, and Carmela Rivera, joining us from New York City. We also have Theodore and Zoe Westover calling in from Dallas.”
Ruby looks back and forth between the women and the couple on the screen. “Ellen and I have met, and Carmela, it’s nice to meet you,” she says, keeping her tone measured. “You as well, Theodore and Zoe.” She still isn’t sure what will come of this meeting.
“I’d like to start by laying out the terms of the will that involve everyone else, and then we can end our Zoom call and Ruby, you and I will continue to hammer out the details as they pertain to you and your daughters. Does that sound alright?”
Ruby knows that hers is the only input that matters here, so she nods. “That’s fine.”
“Fabulous.” Alan pushes forward. “First, Patty wanted me to address Ellen Majors, her lifelong friend, and close confidante.” He is reading now from a document on his computer screen. “Ellen,” he says, “Patty was clear in her request that you should continue to live in the house in Seattle. In fact, she would like you to take ownership of the property, and she has bequeathed it to you in your name, with a sum of five-hundred thousand dollars that she has earmarked for taxes, home improvements, or anything else you might need to do to the dwelling. She wanted me to thank you for your love and friendship, and to let you know how much you meant to her. She has also left you her autographed copy of the White Album by the Beatles, and she has set up another fund that will be allotted for long-term care should you ever need it. In that event, the house will be sold and all proceeds will go into the fund, which is earmarked completely for your care. Do you have any questions?”
Ruby watches Ellen’s face on the screen; she’s crying quietly into a handkerchief, and she looks stunned. “I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head.
It’s an honest response to such a shockingly generous revelation, and Ruby feels for the woman. She’d liked Ellen immediately when they met, and she likes her even more now for showing up to this meeting and most likely expecting nothing more than some Beatles memorabilia (and probably not a signed copy of anything), but walking away with a home and the assurance of long-term care instead.
“Okay, well you let me know if you do. In the meantime, I’ll draw up papers for you, and we’ll get everything situated as far as the house.”
“Thank you,” Ellen says between sniffles. “I’m completely flabbergasted, but this is so Patty. She was such a generous and loyal friend.”
“As were you,” Ruby adds, dabbing at the corners of her own eyes. Now that she knows their story, she can see why her mother loved and valued Ellen’s friendship so much.
“Okay. And Carmela,” Alan says, moving on. Carmela sits forward in her chair, eyes wide. She’s been quiet so far. “You and your daughter and your sons will remain in the New York City apartment for as long as you’d like to. Just like with Ellen, ownership will revert to you with the proper paperwork, but there is no provision for selling the property in order to provide for long-term care; what you do with the apartment is up to you.” Alan pauses and consults the document in front of him. “The annual disbursements of ten thousand dollars to the Graham Academy in Brooklyn will continue until all three of your children have moved to high school, at which point the disbursements will increase for each child to cover tuition at the private high school of their choice. There is also a college fund set up for each child in the amount of $75,000, which Patty hopes the kids will be able to combine with scholarships and grants so that they can obtain their degrees.”
Ruby has sucked in a sharp breath at all of this information; she still has no clue who Carmela is, what she and her three children have to do with Patty, and why so much money and real estate is being signed over to them without Ruby knowing anything about them. She wants to protest, or at least to stop the proceedings and ask some questions, but she knows that doing so will not change anything. Patty’s wishes are set in stone, and all she can do now is try to find out what her mother’s reasoning was.
“Are there any questions, Carmela?”
Carmela, looking stunned, shakes her head. “No, none,” she croaks.
“Okay, then I’ll move on to Zoe and Theodore.” Alan leans his head sideways as if to stretch his neck, then carries on. “Patty Dallarosa has made a separate provision for the ongoing care of your father, Lyle Westover.”
Lyle W! Ruby thinks. These must be the children of the man who lives at Fair Skies Village. The pieces are falling into place in her mind, but Ruby tries to refocus on what Alan is saying so that she doesn’t miss anything.
“This is so kind of her,” Zoe says, crying openly. Her brother wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Everything she’s done has been so kind.”
Theodore clears his throat behind one balled-up fist, trying to keep his emotions in check. “We’ve been so grateful, and frankly, I can’t believe she’s doing more than she already has.”
Again, Ruby wants to speak up—to ask what and why and who and how—but she sits quietly, waiting for more information to be presented.
“Patricia has requested that her estate continue to pay out a sum of two thousand dollars a month, which is matched both by Lyle Westover’s children, and also by a separate fund from the law firm at which he worked for over forty years. In total, that money covers his care at Fair Skies Village in Austin, Texas. Should the cost of living there increase, Patty has allotted an extra one thousand dollars a month from her estate. She has also made provisions to cover Lyle Westover’s entire funeral and all of its expenses.” Alan pauses here, looking directly into the camera so that it looks like he’s making eye contact with Lyle’s children. “I’m sorry to speak so frankly about the eventual passing of your father, Zoe and Theodore.”
“No need to apologize,” Theodore says. “We can see the forest for the trees, but this level of generosity is…beyond comprehension.”
It’s on the tip of Ruby’s tongue to ask Zoe and Theodore whether their father and her mother had ever had a relationship, but she knows that this isn’t the time or place.
“Questions?” Alan asks of them, just as he had of Ellen and Carmela.
“No, not right now,” Zoe says, dabbing at her eyes. She’s pulled herself together enough to speak. “We just want to say thank you to Mrs. Hudson,” she says, leaning into her brother.
“Um,” Ruby says. She has no idea whether she should argue against their thanking her, or just say “You’re welcome,” and move on, so she goes with the latter. She has nothing to do with her mother’s decision to fund their dad’s ongoing care, but it seems best not to quibble.
“I think this is a good time to end the Zoom call now that all matters have been covered, and then Ruby and I can move on to the family issues. Thank you all for joining us, and my assistant will be in touch with details and paperwork. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.”
Everyone murmurs their thanks and their little boxes fade to black in separate blips as their calls are ended, and finally it’s just Ruby and Alan in the room. He turns off the screen and the camera, and leans forward on the desk, hands laced together. Today he’s in unrolled shirtsleeves, a tie, and he looks less like he’s about to end his day in order to play a quick nine holes with a circuit court judge, and more like he’s there to do serious business.
“I’m sure you have a million questions about what your mother has done with her will,” he says gently, keeping his eyes on Ruby’s face.
“I definitely do.” Ruby blinks in astonishment. “I know Ellen, and honestly, all of that makes perfect sense to me, but…who the hell are these other people?”
Alan nods sympathetically. “Your mother asked me to remind you of a conversation you two had once upon a time where she told you that you could never really know everything about a person, nor should you.”
Ruby is stunned. “I do remember it. In fact, I woke up this morning with that whole thing in my head. I laid in bed remembering it all: I’d been grounded, I was mad at her, and she came home late from court one night with a bag of tacos. We talked at the table and she told me that a mother never got to know everything about her daughter, and her daughter really never should know everything about her mother.”
Alan nods again. “Precisely. She was spot on there.” He pauses and then goes on. “She wanted you to remember that, and to decide for yourself whether you could simply accept that you’d never know everything about her, or whether you wanted to find out more about her as a person.”
Ruby contemplates this, though for her, there is only one answer. “I have to find out more,” she finally says, eyebrows raised as she exhales in resignation. “I need to know what life my mother was leading that caused her to bring all of these strangers to the reading of her will, and how in the world she ended up with a pied-à-terre in New York City and a bungalow on an island off the coast of Georgia.” Ruby stops and looks out the window for a moment. “Not to mention the reasons she might be funding an elderly gentleman’s long-term care. I’m totally at a loss, and I want answers.”
Alan pats the top of his desk with both hands and pushes his chair backwards so that he’s lined up to face his computer screen again. “Fabulous, then let’s wrap up here with the parts of the will that pertain to you, and I’ll send you on your way with the information you need.” Alan smiles at her curiously. “I know you’ve already lived in the White House, which not many people get to do, but I believe that you’re about to start a completely different adventure here, Ruby. I’d give anything to have the opportunity to learn more about my father at this point in my life, but unfortunately, everything about the man died with him. This is a gift she’s giving you, and to be perfectly honest, I’m jealous.”
Ruby takes a long, deep breath. “I guess I’m ready to meet my mother,” she says. “Again.”
Alan laughs gently, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling. He goes back to the screen and most of it is as Ruby expected: major trust funds for Harlow and Athena; the house in Santa Barbara and the one on Jekyll Island left to Ruby, along with several million dollars, and a stock portfolio that Ruby would take a closer look at later.
Just before she leaves the office, he hands her a sealed envelope. “The information you’ll need to start your journey,” he says gravely.
Ruby almost laughs at the seriousness of Alan Berkshire’s face; he looks like he’s presenting her with a terminal diagnosis.
“Thank you,” Ruby says with sincerity. “For everything.”
She tucks the envelope into her purse, zips it tightly, and walks out into the midday sun. Though it wasn’t ever something she thought she needed to do, it’s time for Ruby to go in search of her mother.
It’s time to find the real Patty Dallarosa.