Ruby's Misadventures With Reality Read online

  “What for? Did you really know her that well? I know you liked her, but you just started helping her a few months ago. She’s a client. They die sometimes.”

  “I’m not a surgeon, Ming. It’s not like I lose people on the table 15 percent of the time. Not to mention, she’s my only client. And, I just feel like I should go. Eric needs to ask me some questions anyway. He can drive me home.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Ming pulled up in front of 835 Hyacinth Blvd. It looked the same, big old tatty house with a beat-up sofa on the front porch and a Christmas wreath that was probably attractive fifteen years ago, before the pine bows melded to the shape of its storage box and the glitter wore off the Styrofoam cardinals. Poor Estelle. Ruby wished she could drop by with a brand new wreath for her friend tomorrow, one with more glitter. She started to tear up because she hadn’t thought of that sooner.

  Eric was in front of the house strutting about like a seasoned investigator, taking note of this and that. He said something to Trudi, who had her butt parked on the front stairs. Trudi looked sullen and definitely less mean than usual, more like the outcast high-schooler Ruby remembered than the bitch throwing a fit in Estelle’s kitchen. Oblivious to the pitiful wreath, Eric walked right through the front door and headed for the other officials, probably guys with names like “Detective Lynch” and “Detective Ryan.” They looked important. They made some official noises and looked around them in an engaged and alert sort of way, very CSI.

  “Will you wait just one minute?” Ruby asked Ming.

  “Sure. Just wave if you’re going to leave with Eric.”

  “Thanks.” Ruby stepped out of the car and walked hesitantly up to the house. She stopped in front of Trudi. “I’m sorry about Estelle.”

  “Don’t be. She wasn’t anything to me.” Trudi’s tears belied the awful statement. Between her tears, blotchy red face, and shaking hands, she looked like a complete wreck.

  “Sorry anyways.” She brushed past Trudi, who refused to budge, on the way up the stairs. At the door she gently touched the boughs of the sad wreath. She looked in the door and saw Eric in a group with some other cops. “Eric!” she called. “I came by to—” She lost the words in her throat when she caught sight of a black body bag. She still stood upright, but inside she crumpled. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Her vibrant, sparkly friend should not be in that horrible bag. Though swamped with sadness, a flash of anger caught her unaware like a stitch in her side. As she stared at the bag, she didn’t think she would lose that stitch anytime soon.

  “Ruby, what are you doing here?” Eric wrapped an arm around her and steered her back down the stairs onto the lawn. “You should go straight home. I just called to let you know, as a courtesy. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I came.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He saw Ming and ushered Ruby back to the car.

  “I’ll come by in a bit. You go home and relax. Drink some tea or something.”

  Ruby nodded meekly. Ming said, “See you later, Viking.”

  As they drove off, Ruby looked out the side window and noticed the development sign planted firmly on the front corner of an industrial looking lot, “Future home of Elysian Fields Green Luxury Development. Live green and live well!” The sign looked like it had been there for a while. The upside-down orange couch rested in front of it and, strangely enough, part of a refrigerator was surfacing a little to the left of the sign. Apparently Elysian Fields was taking a while to get off the ground.

  Ming asked, “Isn’t that the old dump?” as they drove past the sign.

  “How would I know? Do you know anything about Elysian Fields?”

  “Yeah. I read a piece in the paper on it a few weeks ago. It’s supposed to be some über-sexy, green-living development—all sorts of Feng Shui-ed neighborhoods and upscale shops for the ‘urban elite.’ They didn’t mention the development was being built on the dump.” She chuckled.

  “Sounds good to me. Cute houses and shopping. What’s not to like?”

  “I have to admit, I like the no commute thing, the shopping, but I’d prefer not to bunk with anyone who calls themselves the urban elite, especially when it is built on top of a bunch of old toasters and microwaves. I’m 99 percent sure that is the old appliance dump. Oz operated it before the Biomall took off.” Ming paused to reflect for a moment. “And why live in a country club if it doesn’t have a pool or tennis courts? It’s all snob factor without the benefits, except proximity to the shopping, which we already have.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to have some sort of lower-income house built in? I know Destinee was trying to sell Estelle a place.”

  “Supposedly, but really, do food stamps work at Banana Republic and Starbucks? If they’d been trying to help the poor they could have put in someplace where their food stamps would go a little farther than Food Hollow. Maybe a worker’s center. It’s just a ploy to fast-track it through the zoning board. They’re all about mixed use/mixed income levels. Living next to janitors is very en vogue these days.”

  “You’re such a snot, Ming. If Noel is working on it, it has to be nice.”

  “Ohhh. I see how it is.”

  Ruby’s mind began to drift. As they drove past The Great Wall, she smelled delicious Chinese food. She started thinking about egg rolls and her mouth watered. When she realized that she was thinking about egg rolls while Estelle was dead, she couldn’t believe how callous she was. She was much too selfish to be a good mother. She started to cry. Then she started to cry harder because she was crying for herself, not Estelle.

  “Ruby, really, can’t we get through ten minutes without crying? Your hormones must be whacked. What is it this time?”

  “I’m fine,” Ruby said, still crying. “I really want an egg roll, though. I feel like such a jerk for wanting an egg roll. Estelle is never going to have an egg roll again.”

  Ming said, “Let’s get an egg roll.”

  …

  A few hours later, at her place, Eric gave her the official report. “The neighbors called and reported a fight, which is why the cops investigated in the first place. When the cops arrived they found Estelle dead in the kitchen and Trudi on the porch crying. Trudi admits that they had a fight. About you, actually.”

  Ruby cut in. “About the Giddyup deal?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say anything about that. From what I gathered, she and Jermaine just didn’t want Estelle to ‘lawyer up.’ Trudi claims that she left in a hurry. When she went back a few minutes later to retrieve her purse, she found Estelle dead in the kitchen.” He paused to let that soak in, then explained, “It looks like she had a heart attack. We wouldn’t have investigated at all except for the 911 call.” Eric said this with more finality than the statement probably deserved, meaning, Don’t abuse our friendship by making me look into this old lady’s death.

  “Oh.” Ruby sat silently for a moment. “That just doesn’t make sense to me. Estelle was healthy.” Ruby could picture Estelle going up and down the ladder retrieving Isotoners from the attic. The woman started every morning with a “Get fit while you sit” workout that she’d ordered from an infomercial. “That just doesn’t make sense to me, Eric. I don’t think she had a heart attack.”

  Eric patted her on the shoulder sympathetically, too polite to say, “Old people have heart attacks all the time.” After he left, Ruby changed into sweatpants and didn’t get out of them for the next thirty-six hours, about eighteen of which she spent sleeping.

  Chapter Twelve

  Asbestos Purgatory

  At work, she sat down in cubicle wearing a T-shirt that smelled vaguely of Chinese take-out from a few days ago and stared at the “Follow your dreams! Way Up High!” poster hanging squarely in front of her workspace, cheering her on like a backstabbing cheerleader, the kind who says nice things, but really hopes you fall off the top of the pyramid. This morning, its commandment pissed her off more than usual. She hated cheerleaders (she
had been on the color guard), so she stood up, took it off the wall, and let it fall behind her desk, where it landed with a satisfying thud.

  She smiled at the clean rectangle outlined in dust where the poster had been. It was almost as good as beating the fax machine with a baseball bat.

  With that out of the way, she slumped into her chair and pulled her phone out of her purse. She scrolled through her contacts until she came to Noel, but she couldn’t bring herself to press “send.” Notifying Noel that she was pregnant was just too much for a Monday morning. She set the phone on the desk. A little too forcefully, she slid it across the surface. It slammed against the wall and dropped behind her desk. That decided it. She’d call Noel later. At this point, she’d have to move the desk if she wanted to talk him, which tipped the scales from epically daunting to impossible.

  Moving on to the next order of business, she needed to call Eric. With her office phone, of course. She could have used that to call Noel, too, she supposed, but pregnancy defied logic. It only felt right to talk about pregnancy on her personal phone. She might also need to wrap herself in a fuzzy warm blanket and hold a teddy bear.

  Eric might not want to get involved in Estelle’s case, but it didn’t hurt to ask. If there was foul play she wanted to make sure someone investigated properly. Jermaine and Trudi certainly weren’t going to do anything.

  “Eric, hi. It’s Ruby.”

  “Hey, Ruby. How are you feeling?”

  “Okay,” she lied. “I was just wondering if you got Estelle’s autopsy report back.”

  “Yeah.”

  He paused for a minute, making it was clear that he didn’t want to tell her the results.

  “So tell me already. What did it say?”

  “It’s inconclusive. The medical examiner sent out toxicology, but the results won’t be back for a week. I don’t expect anything that disputes the presumption of natural causes.”

  “So you’ll be looking into her death, treating it as a homicide until then?” Ruby asked hopefully.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think there’s anything to find, Ruby.”

  “If there’s anything you can do, I’d appreciate it. Estelle was my friend.”

  “All right. I’ll give you a call when I find anything out.” He paused and shifted his tones, a little less policeman and a little more Barry White. “I had something else to ask you, too. I’ve been meaning to call and see if you want to go out for a date, maybe one without your roommate. She’s cool and all, but I would sort of like to make it to second base without her, that is, unless we all want to go there together?”

  “Eric, are you serious? I just called about Estelle’s autopsy results. Is that how you roll? I realize that you didn’t know Estelle, but it’s not really the time. You aren’t getting off home plate today.”

  “Okay. Guess I’m just used to it. Plus, I thought a date might cheer you up. In my experience, a trip to second base, or even a full home-run, is the best way to help the bereaved. Much more effective than a casserole.”

  As nasty as he was, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Gratuitous flirting or not, she still felt pregnant and depressed when she hung up the phone. She wanted Eric to get on the horse and investigate. The woman might have been eighty-something, but she didn’t have a bad heart.

  She pushed thoughts of Estelle aside as her computer inconsiderately reminded her of the “59,666 documents left to review,” asbestos purgatory still waiting for her to clock in. On Friday, she would have forged on with glazed eyes, thoughts of her mid-morning coffee break dancing in her head, but after experiencing death and impending motherhood, something started to snap. Her shiny veneer of cheerful indifference began to crack. It turns out Ruby didn’t have much time for document review.

  But her boss certainly did.

  Her email pinged and a message from Destinee briefly flashed across the screen and faded like an unwelcome desert mirage. Destinee wrote:

  Ruby, Please put together a three-page memorandum describing the highlights of the Medina evidence so far. In addition, I want a list of all the employees who smoke and those who live in dwellings built before 1950. If your memo is good enough, I might be able to include it in the summary judgment motion.

  Destinee clearly thought she was tossing Ruby a juicy leftover from the pile of real lawyer work. Granted, if Destinee had sent the email to her more eager co-workers, like Olivia or Ted, she’d immediately receive a response asking for the opportunity to draft the whole document and give a ten-minute presentation on potential litigation strategies. Just like Olivia would have, Ruby dutifully started the requested memorandum. She typed:

  To: Destinee Childs

  From: Ruby O’Deare

  Date: November 5

  Re: Medina Asbestos Evidence Summary

  Then, she clicked onto the document viewer to look through her reviewed documents. She stared at the number again: 11,005 out of 59,666. Reflexively, she opened another window and typed in petfinder.com where she scrolled through all of the medium-sized dogs within one hundred miles of Emerald. When she clicked on a matched set of cocker spaniels named Debbie and Charmaine the excitement swamped her depression faster than a triple grande pumpkin-spice latte laced with Prozac delivered intravenously. Without even stopping to think, she typed a quick note: Are Debbie and Charmaine still available? She could see it now: Cocker spaniels sleeping in front of her fireplace on monogrammed dog beds. Walking cocker spaniels in the manner of a Louis Icart model, 20s-style chiffon dress clinging to her willowy frame while spaniels pulled her toward vanilla latte with eager glee.

  Almost instantaneously, a woman responded. She explained that Debbie and Charmaine weren’t just run-of-the-mill cockers. They were OzDogs, genetically modified to be cuter than every other dog; i.e., act fast because they wouldn’t last! Moreover, she wrote that Debbie and Charmaine were still looking for their “forever home” and advised Ruby to fill out the attached application. More often than not, Ruby equated available with destined-to-be. For example, size eight Jimmy Choos in stock (or a largish seven or seven and a half or smallish size eight and a half or nine). Not buying them would be akin to composting a tortilla with Jesus’s face burned into it.

  Now she knew it—God wanted her to have cockers. She glanced furtively at the memo, her cursor blinking anxiously at the top of the page. She minimized it and pulled up the application. If there was a God, he wanted her to ignore Destinee, fill out the application, and rescue those dogs as soon as possible.

  1. Do you have a fenced back yard?

  2. Have you ever owned a dog before?

  3. Do you have other animals? If so, do they get along well with dogs?

  4. Do you have time to walk the dog every day?

  Ruby quickly answered “Yes!” to all of the questions and shot the application back to the cockers’ foster mom, Debbie. She figured it didn’t really matter that her back yard only had a decorative fence, her cats had never met a dog, and she had only owned a near-comatose Bernese Mountain Dog that had died while she was still wearing Care Bear underwear. Another bonus of having dogs was that she would have more in common with Noel. He had a dog. She felt like it was named Lupo…or maybe that was someone else? At any rate, she envisioned getting lattes on Saturday mornings and walking to the park, just her, Noel, and a bunch of dogs. And the baby, of course. Front packs these days were so fashionable.

  Her call to dog ownership answered, she looked back at the asbestos documents and began to read an old miner’s health insurance plan. She didn’t get past, “The insured agrees,” which she read approximately thirteen times, when Olivia walked in.

  “Ruby, how are you doing? Marvel told me you broke it or something.”

  Ruby held up the finger. She had nearly forgotten about it. “It’s just a bad cut.” Ruby looked at the finger and thought about her “other news.” She was planning on keeping that to herself for a good long while so as to avoid becomi
ng office gossip and questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. Perhaps if she wore the right clothes, she would never have to tell.

  “Okay, Marvel has finally pressured me into joining her Smiddy’s Biggest Loser club. We’re all supposed to go on walks, eat salads, and generally encourage each other to be healthier and lose weight. Whoever loses the most weight by Thanksgiving has to buy a round of drinks for the rest. Marvel promised there won’t be a weigh-in in the lobby, at least until the end. Are you in?”

  Ruby looked at Olivia. She thought carefully before going on. “I know I’ve been bugging you to exercise with me, but this might not be the best timing.” She tried to think of why without spilling the beans. “You know…with all the work we’ve got coming up, I’m not going to have time to make salads and pack little snacks of almonds and cranberries. Maybe we should wait.”

  Olivia looked stunned. “Seriously?”

  Ruby decided not to bother arguing. Liv would win, so she might as well give in. “Oh, whatever, why not?”

  “Nice. I knew you’d join. None of the attorneys in this firm manage to eat well or exercise. We have to take a stand and make it a priority.”

  Ruby looked out at the other attorneys. She could see several from her desk, most staring at their computer screens. Ted was typing feverishly to meet a deadline, Meg was shielding her screen so no one could see that she was on Gmail, and Zach was facing the wall with an iPad propped in his lap, probably napping. They were all putting in their time like lifers. Their days in a cube and any free hours now designated for supervised exercise.

  She managed to review twenty more documents before lunch, still not enough to write an updated review of evidence highlights, but she didn’t give a damn. She was so far behind, what did it matter anyway? She picked up her purse and walked with Olivia to the appointed meeting spot of the Biggest Loser crowd, which now included partners and supervisors, probably to show they cared about the little people.