Ruby's Misadventures With Reality Read online

  That’s one way to put a positive spin on a prison sentence. She was willing to bet that Trudi hadn’t described Jermaine’s experience in exactly those terms.

  Ruby steeled herself for a verbal whipping and walked into the kitchen where Trudi was supposedly preparing a Crockpot meal for Estelle’s dinner, something that struck Ruby as wildly out of character.

  “Hi, Trudi. Good to see you,” said Ruby politely.

  “Where the fuck is the salt?” Trudi spat out as she rummaged through Estelle’s cabinets. She stomped around the kitchen, looking through every drawer and cabinet, slamming doors, and muttering obscenities like Ruby wasn’t there. It looked more like she was ransacking the house than making dinner.

  “What are you making, Trudi?” Ruby asked, standing back a few paces.

  “Some food. What do you care?”

  We’re making progress! She didn’t call me a bitch.

  Trudi finally found a shaker of table salt and said, “Who the fuck keeps salt with the spices?”

  Ruby thought this made perfect sense, but kept her mouth shut.

  “No wonder I couldn’t find it.”

  After all of that, Trudi dumped the salt out of the shaker and refilled it. Ruby couldn’t imagine why. Then, with a liberal hand, Trudi shook it into the Crockpot and into Estelle’s large jar of unsalted peanuts before setting the shaker back on the counter. Estelle snacked on peanuts obsessively because of a tip she’d heard on Dr. Oz, something about omega fatty acid and memory.

  Before Ruby could help herself, the words shot out of her mouth, “Estelle has high blood pressure. I’d take it easy on the salt.”

  With that piece of unwelcome advice, Trudi got all up in her face. “Mind your own business. Estelle likes it salty. Plus, this is special low-sodium salt. Pastor Rick recommended it.”

  Ruby held up her hands in surrender. “If Pastor Rick likes it, I’m in.” Estelle had mentioned that Jermaine had taken a shine to Pastor Rick. Rick, apparently, preached the Gospel at jail, which tickled Estelle to no end.

  Estelle saved Ruby from further conversational shrapnel by coming back into the kitchen. She had stepped into some canary-yellow shoes and too much blush, but managed to look sweet in a batty old lady sort of way. “You look beautiful, Estelle.”

  “Aren’t you just a honey! So, I was wondering if you’d like to go to Auntie Em’s? I used to go there when I was girl. Jermaine says they still make homemade pie and soup.”

  …

  Ruby helped Estelle into the restaurant, a coffee shop-diner offering local foods and filled with high-school art projects. There were a variety of gluten-free selections. A pierced barista wearing a look of affected boredom loitered behind the counter and stared purposefully at the ceiling tiles. Estelle fussed over hanging up coats and hats before settling into a booth. After noticing the pierced baristas, she commented, “Must be new owners.”

  “Yeah, I think so. They still make great soup, though.” Ruby glanced at her watch and realized she had definitely not set aside enough time for a lunch date with an eighty-year old who hadn’t been out in… “Estelle, when was the last time you were out to lunch?”

  “Well, this makes the second time this month, actually.” She paused to make sure Ruby was listening and added, “You’ll never believe where I went.”

  “Where?”

  “Clementine’s,” Estelle exclaimed.

  Clementine’s happened to be the new happening spot in town with a Parisian chef and a waiting list for reservations, not the kind of place where people who can’t afford a new coat of house paint normally hung out.

  “Wow! You get around. Who was your date?”

  “Never you mind,” Estelle shook her head cryptically. “Just an old friend who needed a little favor.” In a sassy voice she said, “Turns out he’s gonna do a little favor for me.”

  Unsure what to make of all that sass, which was so unlike Estelle, Ruby probed, “What do you mean? What kind of favor?”

  Estelle smiled the self-satisfied smile of a woman holding all the cards and said, “Never you mind.” Then, she casually mentioned, “As for Clementine’s, that restaurant acted like it was the first place to put nuts in brownies.” Estelle gave a little chuckle.

  “And I thought you never went out,” Ruby teased.

  “Oh, I don’t normally. What does an old lady like me need to get out for anyway? I have The Pastor Rick Hour on TV, cooking, and a to-do list a mile long. Not to mention, it’s easier to stay put. I have a pretty tight schedule.” She looked at the clock. “I’m probably missing Dr. Oz right now and The Doctors if we stay past eleven, but he was only going to talk about snoring today so no matter. No one to complain if I snore! Now, when I was with Clarence I would have paid good money to figure that one out.” She stopped, conscious that she’d been talking about herself for longer than she thought polite.

  Ruby smiled. “We better talk about your house, though. Is anyone from Ozcorp still sniffing around, trying to buy your place?”

  “Well, I was going to need your help with that, but turns out I took care of that issue all by myself. Thanks to that little lunch date, I’m gonna keep the house and get Jermaine out of jail. How’s that for an old lady!”

  “What do you mean? What’d you do?” Estelle’s claims made no sense.

  “I’ll tell you next week after all the details are hammered out.” Then she looked at her menu. “I wonder if they make a good pumpkin pie?”

  “Well, if you change your mind, call me.”

  The route home from Em’s took them straight up Biomall Promenade. Approaching the shopping center always reminded Ruby of driving up to the Denver International Airport. Both structures grew out of the plains, strange, beautiful, and filled to capacity with Starbucks. Estelle’s neighborhood was no farther from the mall than a rental car agency from DIA, making it a perfect place for Elysian Fields. As the only poor neighborhood left in the vicinity of the mall, it was ripe for development. To Ruby, it looked like the Biomall was about ready to swallow up Estelle’s house, even if Estelle thought it was the other way around.

  That thought was for another day, though. Today, Ruby needed to meet her daily quota at work and then rush home to entertain a bunch of drunk chemists. Tonight was Ming’s departmental Halloween party. With a wistful sigh, Ruby thought of Noel. If he didn’t have a girlfriend, she would have invited him regardless of Ming’s protest. He didn’t look like a landlord. He probably wouldn’t act like one either. She wondered what sort of Halloween costume he would have worn. She imagined him as Prince Charming. But then again, he already looked just like Prince Charming in his zoning commissioner costume.

  Chapter Nine

  Halloween

  As she walked up to her front door that afternoon, the wind sent a pile of leaves skittering in front of her feet. The sun shone brightly, but in a post-apocalyptic, over-exposed way. Instead of warming things up, the world looked colder, flatter, and meaner—at least until the holiday decorations went up. Ruby pulled her sweater around her shoulders a little tighter and hurried into the house. In the kitchen, she opened the fridge door and stared for several moments before deciding that none of its contents could revive her. Nothing even tempted her.

  Resigned to her fate of spending her evening co-hosting the chemistry department’s drunken festivities, she shimmied into her white satin costume. She sucked in hard, but the zipper wouldn’t budge, so she plopped despondently onto the bed in the half-zipped costume. If the sexy nurse costume failed her, she had nothing to wear. She searched the depths of her imagination for ideas… Sexy cat. No. She didn’t have any black leggings. Bond girl. Maybe. She had a lot of big rhinestones.

  Partially squeezed into a decidedly unsexy nurse costume, Ruby slumped down at the kitchen table with a carton of leftover Chinese and a Diet Coke. Out of ideas, she picked up her cell and dialed Ming’s lab. No answer. Channeling all the desperation she felt into one plaintive plea for help, she said, “Miiinnng, where are yo
u? I had a rancid day and my costume doesn’t fit. Everyone is going to be here and I’m getting fat. Help!” Ruby tossed her phone across the table in frustration and grabbed her egg roll.

  The nurse costume malfunction stretched Ruby’s optimism past its breaking point. An afternoon of reading about people with terminal illness in her office had laid her bare. Without an optimistic glow to soften reality or expose possibility she saw herself in the harshest light possible: a failed attorney—worse yet, a failed asbestos attorney with more than two-hundred-grand in debt, unloved and unsuccessful, still trying to wriggle into a costume from her sorority days to impress…she wasn’t sure who. Ruby felt more than sad. She felt hollow.

  Ming found Ruby in just this pose, listlessly holding her uneaten egg roll and staring vacantly. “My God, Ruby. Seriously. The nurse costume isn’t even that good.”

  Ruby looked at Ming and gave her a weak smile. “I know. Have any other ideas?”

  “How ’bout a sexy doctor? I brought home a lab coat and some chemistry goggles. If you wear a push-up bra with the lab coat, it might look sexy.”

  Ruby normally would have balked at the suggestion of wearing a lab coat stained with toxic residues and a pair of oversized goggles, something she wouldn’t even wear during chemistry class, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about such trifles when other people had real lives with more important concerns like children, careers, mesothelioma. The only responsibility she had in life was making her hair appointments with Chaz, lest he feel stood up. “Thanks, Ming. I’m going to go carve a pumpkin now.”

  Somehow, hollowing out a gourd and carving a fake smile into its flesh fit Ruby’s mood perfectly. She took a serrated blade and jabbed it into a huge pumpkin. She sawed deliberately, eradicating thoughts of her stupid nurse costume and the fact that she sucked at her job and didn’t have a life. Ruby scooped out the seeds with disregard for the mess she was making.

  Ming stopped fixing appetizers to watch Ruby’s reckless knife handling. “Um, Ruby. You doing okay? Want me to help out with that pumpkin?”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’m carving eyelashes into my pumpkin.”

  Ruby was indeed trying to carve eyelashes into her pumpkin, but not doing a good job. She had never learned to properly handle a knife. Her mother would say this was because Ruby’s father never came home from work to teach her such things. Ruby gripped the knife awkwardly and pushed into the orange flesh really hard, trying to make the angle of the eyelash a perfect 45 degrees from the large eyeball she had already finished. She slipped. The knife deflected off the pumpkin’s cheek, veered left, and jabbed into her left hand. She stared for a split second and then hurried to the sink.

  With wide eyes, she held out her hand and asked Ming, “Will you look at this?” Ming called Todd over. He had been on ski patrol once and was therefore the biggest medical expert on the scene. Ruby shut her eyes and extended her hand limply. Unperturbed by the gushing blood, Todd peeled open the wound to see how deep it went while Ming looked over his shoulder.

  “Wicked! You hit bone!” He paused and looked thoughtful for a second before saying, “I did the same thing with a shovel once.” Before Todd could explain how he had managed to slice through one of his own appendages with such a crude implement, Ruby grabbed a kitchen towel and sat down on the couch.

  Meanwhile, a knock sounded at the door. A moment later, Noel let himself in and called out, “Ruby? You here? Is it a bad time?” He poked his head around the corner, but then stopped short when he saw Ruby’s hand. Her blood had started to soak through the towel she had wrapped it in. With a concerned look, he asked, “What happened? You’re bleeding.”

  “I cut myself, but I’m fine.” As she told him she was “fine,” she did start to feel a little faint.

  “Ruby, I think you need to sit back. That looks like a nasty cut.” After propping another pillow on the couch, he lifted her hand gently and looked at the finger. “I think you might need stitches.”

  “It’s fine. Todd looked at it.” Ruby cocked her head in Todd’s direction. She wished her finger wasn’t throbbing so she could enjoy Noel holding her hand. At any rate, he was fulfilling all of her gorgeous doctor fantasies. Last time, he’d saved her from a malfunctioning igniter, this time a bad finger cut—it was as if he’d written the Mr. Right playbook.

  Apparently not as distracted as she was by the hand holding, he looked skeptically at Todd. “Is he a medical expert?”

  “He used to be on ski patrol.”

  “Ski patrol?” Noel looked in the direction she indicated, only to see a man slopping a Jell-O shot onto his hockey mask.

  “Fuuuuck! Forgot I was wearing that,” Todd said. He took off the mask to wipe it off and shook his head. “What a waste.” He began to lick the red splatter off the plastic mask. When Todd noticed Noel staring at him, he asked, “You want to do a shot, man? They’re red.” He raised another shot and threw it back. “But that cut doesn’t look too bad. If you go to the ER, they’ll probably just prescribe her an antibiotic that she doesn’t need and stitch her.” After another moment of reflection he added, “I wouldn’t worry. It’s just a finger. Maybe if it was a thumb or something. I mean you can’t do jack without a thumb.”

  Noel looked at Ruby and said, “That settles it. You’re going to the ER and I’m driving.” Taking stock of her lab coat, Noel said, “I’m glad to see you have something warm on. Can you walk?”

  “It’s just my finger, Noel. I’m not even sure I need to see a doctor.”

  “Of course you do. I won’t be able to sleep tonight unless you have someone look at this.” He looked very concerned.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m perfectly serious. What if it turns out to be broken or infected?” he asked, looking like a responsible adult, which she found amusing.

  Sure, she wanted to spend time with Noel, but not because he thought it was his duty. Also, she’d prefer to be wearing something other than a lab coat. She was desperate to go put on something sexier. “Noel, it’s so sweet of you to offer, but I don’t want you to spend your night chauffeuring me to the ER.”

  Looking her straight in the eyes, apparently not distracted by the cleavage-bearing lab coat, he said, “I came over to see you. I don’t care if we’re at the ER or a wine bar, but I was hoping to see you.”

  Ruby suddenly felt weightless and giddy, but before she got too excited, she asked, “What about your girlfriend?”

  “I broke up with Moira.”

  She managed to say, “Oh!” even though she wanted to squeal in delight like a teenage girl. “In that case, let’s have a glass of wine. I’m sure my finger will be fine.” As she said this, the blood soaked through the towel she had pressed to her hand. “You can order since that’s your area of expertise.”

  With a laugh, he said, “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

  “Well, duh!” she said. “I thought you knew everything about grapes.” Marvel had told her all about the winery.

  With a look of even greater concern, he said, “I think you might have lost more blood than you think. Liquor might not be the best idea right now.” He raised his eyebrows and added, “You already woke up at my house after a blackout once.”

  Todd pulled out a flask and filled it with some sort of liquor from the booze table. He handed it to Noel. “Here. You can have a drink and go to the ER. Best of both worlds, dude.”

  Chapter Ten

  Should Have Cast Jodi Foster

  The emergency-room crowd looked about how you would expect it to on Halloween. There were a couple of kids in superhero costumes with Spiderman masks flipped back to reveal blotchy, tear-streaked faces, a few college kids in various states of intoxication, as well as the usual crowd of high fevers and broken bones. Judging by the college kids, Ruby and Noel were probably not the only ones in the waiting room with a flask full of Jägermeister. Ruby took a sip and grimaced. “Maybe you’ll like this. Jäger isn’t really my
thing.”

  “Might as well,” he said with a glance at his surroundings. He took a long swig and continued scrolling through headlines on his phone. Once or twice he mentioned corn subsidies and the Farm Bill.

  Ruby smiled and nodded. Was the Farm Bill his go-to conversational gap filler or was he was really that boring? Then, she remembered, it was probably relevant to the winery. A winery, she marveled. He was so sophisticated! Ruby desperately wanted to talk about his single status, which he had so casually mentioned, but her finger hurt, so she decided to bring it up after some pain meds. In the meantime, she skimmed a magazine article titled, “Is Your Shampoo Making You Fat?” She chuckled in a superior, little laugh. She pointed it out to Noel, saying, “Look, Noel, isn’t this dumb?”

  Before he could answer, the nurse called her name.

  Noel got up to follow her, but when Ruby saw the scale, she said, “Noel, why don’t you wait out here. I’m sure this won’t take long.” There was no need for Noel to know everything before they even went on their first real date.

  “Okay, I’ll just be out here then.” He smiled and sat down next to a kid in a Spiderman costume.

  The preliminary weighing went poorly. The nurse costume did not lie—she weighed a solid fifteen pounds more than expected. Fifteen pounds, basically the equivalent of a Thanksgiving turkey. Clearly, the extra spandex in her pants had been lulling her into the false belief that she didn’t really need to work out. She was mentally working out a diet and exercise plan (a French diet maybe?) and perhaps a shampoo switch (just to be safe) when the doctor knocked and walked in. Staring blandly at the chart, he said, “Miss O’Deare, I see you have a finger injury.” He sat down across from her and asked her to hold out her hand. He looked it over and said. “Hmm. Looks like you have a pretty deep cut. I think you’re going to need some stitches and maybe a round of antibiotics. Are you up to date on tetanus?”

  Ruby nodded, still thinking about a French diet plan and trying to reconcile bread, wine, and cheese with her desired weight loss. The French were all skinny, so it had to work, she reasoned.