Seasons of Her Life (18 page)

“I have written here everything—the name of the man who sold us our houses, information from the bank where we have our mortgage, everything you need to know. Tomorrow at five-thirty he will meet us to see two houses. Bruno has agreed to”—she pursed her rosebud mouth into a small round O—“do whatever renovations need to be done, for a very small fee. We must help one another, and I,” she said dramatically, “will help you decorate. Again for a very small fee. What do you think, Ruby? A grand idea?”

“It's so sudden.” Ruby gasped. “I sort of like the idea of having money in the bank. I just ... what I mean is I haven't thought . . . I suppose it's a good idea, but maybe just one house, not two.”

“Nonsense. You must make that money work for you. If you charge enough rent, you can have what my man with the numbers calls cash flow, and before you know it, you will replace the money you used for the down payment. You must do this, Ruby. Next year the houses will cost more and the year after they will cost still more.” Rena's bracelets tinkled as she waved her arms about to make her point. Ruby noticed Bruno shaking his head up and down in agreement. Bruno was not stupid, even though Rena implied that he was.

“Two!” Rena said firmly. “You are living very nicely in my house and making ends meet and still saving a few dollars after you meet all your bills. Two!” she repeated.

“Who knows? The houses may not even need repair or decorating.” Her bangles tinkled and clinked. “You will post notices where you work, and before you can blink, you will have tenants like yourself. I will allow you to copy my lease, for a small fee.”

Bruno belched and rubbed his round stomach. He struggled off the plastic chair and bowed low before his wife. “It was an excellent meal, my little dove.” Rena giggled when he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it noisily. “Ah, another new ring. Wonderful! And how much did this one cost?”

Rena simpered, her cheeks puffing out. If Ruby hadn't known better, she would have thought the tiny woman had a toothache. She stifled a smile when she heard Rena say, “We can live two years off the sale price, should I decide to sell it.”

“Tomorrow you must get a matching one for the other hand, my dove.”

Rena was moving again, cleaning the shiny raspberry tabletop, whisking the greasy brown paper into the trash. The moment the dishes were in the sudsy water, she clapped her hands; the bracelets chimed and tinkled melodiously.

“Shoo, shoo,” she said. “I must start to think about a suitable wallpaper for Ruby's new houses.”

Ruby waved halfheartedly and climbed the stairs to her own kitchen. She felt weak with the decisions Rena was making for her. She wished she had someone to talk it all over with. Perhaps Andrew when he came to Washington, but that was still a few weeks off. She wondered if she could stall. She also wondered if it was wise to tell Andrew. Probably not. She wished she'd taken the real estate course she decided against a year ago. Maybe it wasn't too late. She could go to the library and see what they had. Anything of importance could be found in a library. And there was no time like the present.

Ruby was back in her room by nine forty-five with a load of books the librarian had recommended. Ruby found herself staring at them and then at the two letters from Andrew Blue. Should she write to him or read the books? She was always annoyed with herself when she had to make a decision concerning Andrew, even if it just meant writing a letter.

Ruby's eyes swiveled to the calendar behind her door. Her thoughts again went back to Calvin. It shouldn't hurt this much, not after all this time. She buried her face in the pillow. “You should have died, Calvin, then I could come to terms with it the way I did when my grandmother died,” she whimpered. “Death is final . . . this ... this thing between us ... it's still there, it won't go away. Someplace, somewhere, you're as alive as I am, but we might as well be dead.”

Ruby threw Andrew Blue's letters across the room and pushed the stack of library books to the floor.

In a flash she was off the bed and rummaging in her bottom dresser, where she kept her mementos of Calvin. In a minute she had the cards, notes, and pictures in the wastepaper basket. So little to show for such an intense relationship.

Dry-eyed, Ruby carried out the trash for a second time that evening. “Now you're dead, Calvin,” Ruby muttered as she fit the colorful lid back on the trash can. “You're really dead!”

Back in her room, Ruby sat down and wrote a cheerful letter to Andrew Blue, so unlike her cut-and-dried polite previous responses.

When she read the letter over before sealing the envelope, she added a postscript saying that she was looking forward to his visit and would plan something for the weekend. Not sex, she added in a second postscript. She mailed the letter on her way to work the following morning.

After work Ruby met Rena and Hal Murdock on the corner of 31st and P streets. Hal, Ruby decided ten minutes later, was the closest thing to a greased pig she'd ever seen. He talked out of the side of his mouth in a language Ruby didn't understand even though she knew he was speaking English. She didn't like him, and what surprised her even more was that Rena didn't seem to like him, either. Obviously, Rena had read the same library book she had, the one that said it isn't necessary to like one's real estate agent as long as he gets his customer a good deal.

An hour later Ruby had seen Hal's two offerings, one a three-bedroom house on O Street with a finished basement and a walled-in courtyard. The second house was a building on Poplar Street that had been converted into a two-family house. Ruby's eyes sparkled, as did Rena's, when she thought about the rent she could charge. Hal's eyes gleamed and his capped teeth sparkled like a barracuda's.

Back in Hal's office, which was little more than a dingy storefront, Ruby looked at the sheaf of papers she was handed and told to read over. She looked helplessly at Rena.

“Tomorrow will be soon enough. We must look these over and have Miss Connors's attorney scrutinize them. Not that you would ever do anything wrong. A precaution, you understand.”

Hal said he did, but he seemed jittery to Ruby, and that made her suspicious.

“You might as well tell me now what's wrong with the house on Poplar Street,” Ruby said. “That's the one you whisked us out of so quickly. And you didn't have the key to the basement. I find that rather strange.”

“The basement floods when it rains,” Hal said out of the corner of his mouth. “I don't have a key. There's water damage.”

“Then the price should reflect what it's going to cost for repairs, assuming I intend to buy,” Ruby said. “Why don't you talk to both owners tomorrow and see if you can't come up with a more reasonable price. If we can't come to terms on Poplar Street, then I won't be wanting the other one on O Street. Tomorrow we can ... huddle, here at your office. Same time. Thank you for showing us around.”

On the trolley Rena looked at Ruby and laughed. “Huddle? What does that mean? Where did you learn to be so ... forceful? I think, Ruby, you are going to get the houses at a lot less than we anticipated. Your offer is low, but sound. I was so green when we bought our first one. We actually paid the asking price. I'll never do that again. All you need is a sump pump, and Bruno can do that for you—for a small fee. I'm thrilled for you, Ruby. It's wonderful to be a property owner, but also a little work. We will make a notation, in small print, on the rental lease that the tenants are responsible for
everything
.”

Ruby gaped. “Everything?”

“Everything.” Rena was as smug as a cat catching her first mouse. “Ah, I see you didn't read the lease
you
signed. You must make that a rule in life, Ruby, never sign your name to anything you disagree with or don't understand. Always have a good attorney in the background, even if it costs more than you want to pay. In order to make money, you must spend money ... wisely and with a clear head.”

“I'll remember that,” Ruby muttered, wondering what else was in the lease she hadn't bothered to read.

 

In the days to come, Ruby alternated between fits of elation and spasms of depression, which led to bouts of abject fear. Her sleep was invaded by demons named Hal, Rena, and Bruno. Was she doing the right thing? After she had asked herself for the hundredth time if her grandmother would approve of what she was doing with her inheritance, she finally decided to go through with the real estate deal. She would certainly be no poorer, and if things got sticky or messy, she would sell the czarina's ring and hope for the best.

Yesterday, after work, during a raging thunderstorm, she'd signed on the proverbial dotted line. Acceptance of her final offer was just a formality, Hal said. She was putting a thousand dollars down on each house, and if the bank approved her mortgage application at four percent, she would be an official property owner in forty-five days. She'd done her best to estimate hidden costs, Rena's fees, and closing costs. If she was lucky, she'd squeak by without touching her two-hundred-thirty-three-dollar savings account.

Two days ago, when it looked as if the sales would go through, Ruby posted a notice on the bulletin board at work. So far this evening she'd had eight calls from parties interested in renting. She'd probably get another dozen before the week was over. What she had to concern herself with now was Rena's nickel-and-diming her to death.

She was uneasy, but in her gut Ruby knew the tension she was feeling had little to do with her property. Andrew Blue would arrive tomorrow. Or was it tonight? She couldn't remember exactly. All she knew was she had a date for brunch tomorrow with the handsome marine, and she wasn't sure how she
really
felt about Andrew Blue now that she'd officially pronounced Calvin Santos dead. “Be up, Ruby, act positive, give Andrew a fair chance. You're twenty-one now, time to get your personal life in order. Time to think about
not
becoming an old maid.” Andrew had hung in there for two years, and so had she. That had to mean something. Especially now that she had finally put Calvin completely in the past.

Today she'd bought a new dress. Consciously or unconsciously, she bought it for Andrew. That was a start in the right direction. Tomorrow she would be cheerful, happy, and accommodating to him. She would tell him she was happy to see him, delighted to be in his company and she would let him know she was amenable to seeing him more often. And from now on she would change the tone of her letters. As of tomorrow she and Andrew would be what the girls in the house called a thing. She was settling, something she promised herself she would never do, but time and life didn't stand still for a Calvin Santos and a Ruby Connors.

Ruby cried herself to sleep.

 

Andrew Blue spat on the rag in his hand and applied it to the already-high shine on his shoes. He was so clean, neat, and pressed that his appearance screamed Marine Corps. Spit and polish, piss and vinegar, and damn proud of it.

He was ready for his date with Ruby Connors. She was the one thing he hadn't come to terms with since his transfer to Camp Lejune. He'd used leave time to come to Washington at his own expense to see her. For the life of him, he could never explain to himself why he had kept up his correspondence with her. At one point he'd actually thought he was in love with her, but he wasn't. He did feel something, though. Otherwise, why would he have kept writing to her every ten days? And what the hell did she write back? Words, just goddamn words with no meaning. The sun is shining ... Admiral Query said this or that ... my landlady got another diamond today ... there's a storm due tomorrow ... bullshit. He wanted more, something personal.

Ruby was still a hick from the sticks, but the last time he'd seen her, he'd been surprised at her appearance. She'd always been exceptionally neat and clean, but she was now dressed better; she'd put on a few pounds in all the right places, and she had a new hairstyle that was very becoming. She even wore earrings, little gold things that kind of swung from her ears. As they said in the Corps, Ruby was put together. He approved and he was not unaware of the stares he received from other guys when she was with him. She still wasn't beautiful, but there was something about Ruby ... he wanted her ... had never stopped wanting her.

Maybe this trip would be different. The tone of her last letter had left him puzzled. If was almost as if someone else had written it. He remembered laughing over several lines. Maybe the little hick was finally over the flip and that business with her bastard father. Now,
that
was something. He wanted to know more about that day, but Ruby refused to offer explanations, and finally he had to accept that he would probably never know what was behind that visit from her father.

His return to Washington this weekend was not strictly to see Ruby. It was the first step in a campaign. If, his colonel told him, he were married, he had a good chance of moving up in rank, so long as he played ball and kept his nose clean. For “favors rendered,” he would be grateful enough to pass along Andrew's name with his own personal recommendation. He had enough ears at his disposal to make good on his promise.

Andrew's stomach churned when he thought about the “favors rendered” part of the deal. If caught, his ass would be out of the Corps, and he'd get a dishonorable discharge. Whoever would have thought a colonel in the Corps on his way to being a brigadier general would have a passion for nubile young girls? Andrew had been revolted, but in true Corps fashion had kept his mouth shut. If he wanted to be honest with himself, he knew the main reason he hadn't turned his back on the colonel was that he would move up in rank that much faster. In the military, one hand washed the other. Everything was politics, playing the game to win.