Goodbye Ruby Tuesday (13 page)

Evie swallowed the lump in her throat. Mollie had never been mad at her. Mollie was never really mad at anyone.

‘So, lady, what do you want to do today?’ She put a joyful lilt into her voice, leaning on the breakfast bar as Esme stumbled in, bleary-eyed and yawning, stretching up to her tiptoes. She was wearing pyjama bottoms with unicorns on, and a pink t-shirt with The Ramones on.

‘Mum at work
again?
’ the little girl huffed.

‘Yep, afraid you’re stuck with me. But I’m better than your nanny, I think, so… juice?’ Evie wiggled the juice carton and Esme shrugged, climbing up onto a bar stool.

‘You know, Mum will calm down,’ Esme said suddenly, placing a small hand over Evie’s.

‘I don’t know kid, I haven’t upset her like that for a long time.’

‘She’s just scared. Mum’s not an adventurous person. I think she’d like to do the same thing day after day, forever.’ Esme said wisely, sipping at her juice.

‘Is that how you see her? I always thought she was full of adventure. She had you.’

Esme shrugged, ‘She just doesn’t want to go back to Nanny’s. I don’t want to either.’

Evie closed her eyes briefly, ‘I know, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. But, I think today should be about you, seeing as I ignored you yesterday. So what do you want to do?’

‘Gallery stuff? If you’re going to let me help today?’ the child said pointedly, raising an eyebrow and gazing at her godmother with a judgmental look.

‘Nope, I’ve decided that the gallery can wait one day. We’re going to do something
you
want to do.’

Esme sighed and thought about it, scratching her head. ‘I think I would like to make a cake for Killian, to thank him for being nice and helping you find me yesterday.’

‘Really?’ Evie frowned, her heart sinking, ‘I meant, like, did you want to go to the zoo or something.’

‘Evelyn said that creative ventures are about making contacts and making friends,’ Esme said sagely, sipping at her orange juice with her pinkie finger sticking out. ‘And he works here too, we should make him be nice to us again. We don’t have any friends here.’

‘Well, we could go to some kids’ event so you can make friends?’ Evie said hopefully.

Esme shook her head and rolled her eyes, ‘We should be nice to him because he was nice to us, we need to… what is it they do with puppies? Reward good behaviour.’

The little girl pushed up her glasses and nodded distinctly.

‘With cake?’

Esme sighed, as if dealing with adults was just too difficult, ‘Everyone loves cake. People can’t be mean to you if you gave them cake.’

Evie considered it, ‘Fair point. Okay, let’s bake something.’

Evie’s stomach clenched, thinking perhaps she could just send the little girl down to give him the cake herself, but since yesterday, she was not letting her out of her sight. She would just have to bite her tongue and deal with it. She had bigger problems than a grumpy carpenter.

A few hours later, Esme was hovering in front of Killian’s door, holding onto a very clearly homemade red velvet cake, covered in chocolate ganache, with the words
Thank you (I’m sorry I caused problems!)
iced in white icing on the top. Esme paused, looking up at Evie.

‘Do you think we should just leave it here?’

‘Just… on the floor, outside his door?’ Evie frowned.

‘What if he doesn’t like it?’

‘I’m sure he’ll like it,’ Evie said, sounding more sure than she felt, but holding onto the image of his kindness the day before, the way he’d spoken to Esme like she deserved to be spoken to. Like he could be caring. ‘He’s not a monster.’

‘He’s not?’ The door opened and Killian’s voice was clear, he could obviously hear them through the door. He looked down at the cake, Esme’s hopeful face as she proffered it, then stared at Evie.

‘Whose apology is it?’

Evie jutted her jaw and said nothing, breathing deeply.

‘Me!’ Esme said, ‘I was silly and made Evie worry and now my mum’s mad at her, and I wanted to say thank you for helping her because she’s working really hard for us and I love her and don’t want her to be sad.’

Killian chuckled slightly, ‘Laying it on a bit thick kid, maybe you should make your aunt a cake instead?’

‘Yeah, but she’d have to help me make it and that would be no surprise.’

‘So I get cake by default?’ He shook his head, smiling at her, ‘It was really no problem helping your aunt. I think I probably got her in more trouble than my help was worth.’

Evie met his eyes suddenly and, to her surprise, saw an apology there. She felt herself staring and stepped back a little. He had addressed Esme the entire time.

‘Well, then maybe you could make her a cake,’ Esme said, grinning.

‘I think poisoning you all is probably not a good idea,’ Killian laughed, taking the cake from the girl carefully. ‘After all, I’ve been promised loud and exciting events in this studio. That hasn’t happened since Ruby was here. It would be a shame if you left before I got to see what all the fuss was about.’

He held Evie’s eyes again, his light blue eyes boring into her as she blinked rapidly. Slowly, she nodded, understanding what he was saying, as Esme babbled on about all the plans they had for the space.

‘Well, I better get back to work. Thanks for this.’ He held the cake up awkwardly.

‘And we better get back to work too,’ Evie said, nodding, feeling like she needed to say something else, but having no idea what. It wasn’t until they got back to the flat that she realised she should have said the simplest and hardest thing of all,
I’m sorry.

***

‘Why are you wasting your time?’ Ruby rolled her eyes, cigarette poised between bitten fingernails.

‘With what?’

‘Nigel,’ Ruby spat the name, eyebrows raised in disbelief, ‘I mean, babe, seriously? You’re a fittie. He’s a fifty-year-old in a sixteen-year-old’s puny body. He tried to talk to me about trainspotting last week. Trains!’

‘He’s all right,’ Evie shrugged, ‘better than those arseholes you bother with. He won’t hurt me.’

‘So you won’t bother loving anyone, then?’ Ruby sighed like it was all too obvious, leaning back on the grass and staring at the sky. Her skirt looked crumpled and she still had on eye mke-up from the night before, which made her look a little dangerous.

‘What?’

‘If you don’t get hurt, you don’t get love. Them’s the rules babe. What’s the point if there’s no risk?’

Evie snorted, ‘Well, I’d rather be alone in that case.’

‘Then be alone. Don’t string along some poor, sad dickhead who has no chance of breaking you.’

Evie looked at Ruby, who wasn’t even looking at her, but tracing cloud shapes with a fingertip, reaching out above her as the cigarette trailed smoke. The terrifying thing was that she might have been right.

‘Boys fall into types. There’s the kind, sweet ones, like Nigel and Jamie. There’s the lads who’ll leave you for the next thing that comes along with an open mouth. There’s the ones who lie because it’s fun to get away with it. And there’s the ones who control, who use how much you love them to destroy you.’ Evie shrugged, shuffling back on the grass.

‘You think you’re gonna turn out like your mum,’ Ruby said simply, ‘sorry babe, you’re too much of a bitch to be a doormat.’

‘Oi, that’s my mum,’ Evie sat up, frowning at her friend. Ruby smiled and raised an eyebrow.

‘Did I lie?’

‘Not the point.’

‘And no defence for you? Mum’s not a doormat but you’re a bitch, and that’s okay?’ Ruby shook her head.

‘I am a bitch. It’s been officially declared by the staff. I’m impulsive and selfish and don’t care about anyone but myself.’ She looked at the clouds, finding the shapes in them easily. An elephant, a dancing girl, a diamond, a gun.

‘Then why are you here with me?’

‘Because it’s a nice day and there’s no point wasting it in IT lessons.’

‘Then why did you give me this?’ Ruby held up the pot of sparkly red nail polish and waved it at her.

‘Because that colour doesn’t look right on me and I thought you’d want it,’ Evie shrugged, ‘if you don’t want it, chuck it away.’

Ruby sighed and leaned back again, ‘You’re the only one who knows it’s my birthday, and you know I fucking hate it. But you were still here for me. And you gave me something without it being a big, horrible, birthday thing.’

Evie huffed, ‘So what?’

‘So, you can’t always be the big bad wolf, dickhead. Sometimes it’s okay to be nice.’

Evie pulled a mushed cupcake out of her bag, ‘I suppose that means you want this sad excuse for a non-birthday cake?’

‘See, not a bitch,’ Ruby reached across and stroked a dark curl, her green eyes smiling. ‘You are nice, Evie Rodriguez, that’s not always a weakness.’

***

That night, Mollie came up, nodded at Evie when she saw her sitting with Esme on the sofa, and walked through to her bedroom without saying a word.

‘How do you get out of it when your mum’s angry with you?’ Evie whispered.

The little girl looked at her sadly, packing up her book to go through to her mum, ‘Normally I just say sorry and cry. I’m adorable and she can’t stay mad.’

Evie snorted and nodded, ‘Fair enough. Have a nice evening. Tell your mum there’s food on the side if she wants it.’

Esme nodded seriously, patting her hand and walking off.

Evie was at a loss. Sure, there were a hundred things she could do, but she didn’t feel right, sitting there in this flat they shared, knowing Mollie was metres away and still mad at her, not talking to her, hating her even. Evie grabbed her notebook and slunk downstairs to the studio, hoping that it was late enough that Killian had gone home. There were too many apologies to give and she wasn’t sure she could face any more shame.

She curled up on the chaise longue, holding her sketchbook to her chest, and realised there was music coming from Killian’s workshop. It sounded ghostly, ethereal. She paused, then upon hearing the faint sounds of a soulful voice, she realised it was Jeff Buckley. Evie closed her eyes, tracing out the lyrics that she’d mouthed along to as a teenager, then opened her sketchbook and began to draw.

It was nonsensical, nothing special, her hand just moving to the music, remembering and thinking as she shaded and sketched. Thinking about Ruby, and whether she would have been happier if they’d stayed in touch, if everything would have been different if she’d just walked up to her after that show in London, thrown her arms around her and said, ‘hey, babe, it’s me!’ She thought about Chelsea, and whether changing her name had been difficult, whether that person she loved knew there was a piece of her missing. She tried to remember any time Mollie had been angry before, and all she could come up with were Linda’s multiple indiscretions, the ways in which she’d put Esme at risk. She tried to think of ways to make it up to her. And she thought about a man who worked until late in the evening and had hated the idea of her, but had still helped her when she was panicked, had tried to help her further and been burnt for his efforts. A man who was prickly as hell and seemed to have history with her dead friend. A man she needed to apologise to. Just one more person in a long line.

Evie flexed her feet, stretching her legs out to ease the cramp as the door to Killian’s workshop opened. Evie didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor, pulling down the sleeves of her oversized man’s jumper, curling her arms around her legs to hide the fact that she was wearing Ninja Turtle pyjama bottoms.
I know I’m a coward, I know I need to say sorry. I can’t. I can’t.
She looked up, briefly, regretting it instantly, feeling her stomach dip.

He looked at her from the darkness, the barest light coming from his workspace. It was the same uniform as always – jeans covered in something, seemingly gloss or varnish, and a worn t-shirt. His dark hair was standing up on end, like he’d been running his hands through it. He was surprised to see her there, but she supposed it was her posture, the way she was curled in on herself defensively, that stopped him saying anything. He cleared his throat, nodded at her, and walked through to the kitchen. So things were polite, but cold. That was okay. Anything but the hateful barrage of spiteful comments and angry looks. Anything but seeing right through her and telling her so.

Evie heard the click of the kettle and the rattle of cutlery drawers and china mugs. She closed her eyes, listening to the clearer sounds of the music through the door, smiling to herself as she mouthed the words, shocked by how well she still knew them. She felt the words rather than recalled them, simply expelling from her before she realised. Jeff Buckley – being sixteen and sad and happy and confused. Every time she heard it, that was how she felt again.

There was a sudden dull thud beside her and Evie jumped, eyes opening. She looked down to see a mug of strong tea on the table next to her, and watched as Killian marched through his door, leaving it open just a crack, so the music drifted through.

***

‘Urgh, why Nick? Why couldn’t it be someone else?’ Evie rolled her eyes at Ruby, who looked suitably chastened. ‘You know how Chelsea feels about him!’

‘Yeah, and he’s a prick who jumped at the first chance of a kiss round the back of the wheelie bins. He’s a waste!’

‘And she should get to make that choice!’ Evie was exasperated, just imagining what was going to happen when Chelsea found out. ‘You know, you’re going to get a reputation if you keep doing this shit. I know you think you’re protecting your friends but it’s controlling.’

‘Someone worthy of Chelsea would have said “no”.’ Ruby stood up, her red hair quivering as she clenched her fists. ‘When I asked if they were together he said “not really. Nuffin serious”. I mean, come on! And I didn’t actually kiss him!’

Evie felt like her eyes were going to fall out of her head, ‘yes I KNOW. I KNOW he’s a bad guy, and she deserves better and blah blah blah. But how many times have you done this now? Me and Colin, and Luke, and that boy who delivers the paper that I hadn’t even talked to yet. And then with Mollie,’ she ticked them off her fingers, ‘David, and Brian, and then you tried it with Jamie–’