Seasons of Her Life (52 page)

The next call was to Martha, who was at work. Ruby waited while she was paged. Her daughter's voice crackled over the wire. “Is anything wrong, Mom?” Martha asked anxiously. “Dad's okay, isn't he?”

“Nothing's wrong, Martha. Your dad is fine, I spoke to him half an hour ago.”

“You called him in the middle of the night? Mom, how could you do that? Just because you're estranged doesn't . . . was he mad?”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, he was sitting on the balcony. I had the impression he had company. We had a very nice conversation. I told him the same thing I'm calling to tell you. Today, Mrs. Sugar made the Fortune 500. What do you think of your mother now?”

Martha's voice sounded flat when she replied, “I think it's great, Mom. How did Dad take it?”

Ruby's shoulders slumped. They shot upward almost immediately. “Very well. We had a civil conversation.” She bit down on her tongue. There was so much she wanted to say to Martha concerning her father. Martha was still seeking Andrew's love and approval. Ruby hoped someday he would give his daughter what she needed.

“Dad invited me to Hawaii for Easter. Andy, too. He said he would send the tickets. I'm really looking forward to it,” Martha said with a lilt in her voice. “Andy isn't sure yet. I think he thinks you might be upset. He also said that if he went, he'd buy his own ticket.” Martha's voice turned flat again. “Andy said the money for the ticket came from you. Indirectly, of course. Andy is so ... protective of you, Mom. I keep telling him you have to be a barracuda to survive in the business world and you've survived very well.”

“Is that how you think of me, Martha, as a barracuda?” Ruby whispered.

“Sort of. But, Mom, that's a compliment. Do you like
shark
better?”

“No,” Ruby said curtly.

“You aced out Dad real neat. You got rid of him, paid him off, and now you're on easy street. I think that falls into the fast lane of traffic. Hey, Mom, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with what you've done. This is a man's world, especially for design engineers, as I find out each day I come to work. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive and make it. You made it and I'm proud of you.”

“I better let you go, Martha. I don't want to get you in trouble. We'll talk next week, okay?”

“Bye, Mom.”

Stung to the quick, Ruby bit down on her lower lip till she tasted her own blood. A barracuda. She hated the word. Don't think about this phone call, either. Get on with it, Ruby. Two down and one to go.

Andy's voice roared through the phone. “Yo, Ma, what's up? You call during the day only when something good is happening. How'ya doing?”

Ruby's spirits lifted the way they always did when she was talking to her son. Nothing ever got Andy down. “I've got news for you that will lift you right out of your shoes,” she said. “Sit down!”

“I'm sitting, Ma! Come on, come on.”

“Mrs. Sugar made the Fortune 500!”

Andy's whoop of pleasure forced Ruby to rear back and hold the phone away from her ear. “Hey, everybody,” she heard her son yell, “my mother and her friend made the Fortune 500! Ma, that's right up there with General Motors! Jeez. I'm taking you out tonight. Get all gussied up. The best restaurant in town. Hey, I'll even shave, and if you don't mind sharing me, I'd like to bring Nancy.”

“I can't think of anything I'd like more. You know I adore her.”

“Okay,” Andy boomed. “We're on. She can quit work early and be here by seven. Then we'll come and pick you up.”

Andy always came through, she thought as she said good-bye and hung up. If it weren't for Andrew and Andy, she wouldn't be sitting where she was. She must never lose sight of that. Never.

One last call. How sad she felt that she had to look up her parents' phone number in her address book. Ruby sucked in her breath as the phone started to ring. Her father answered on the fourth ring. “Pop, it's Ruby. I'd like to talk to Mom.”

“She's weeding the garden. What do you want, girl?”

Ruby's back stiffened. “I want to talk to Mom. I want to talk to her now. Please call her.”

“Call back later, after she's done.”

Ruby planted her feet firmly on the kitchen floor. “No, I want to talk to her now. Fetch her. Please.”

“You giving me orders, girl?”

“Yes,” Ruby said bluntly. The click in her ear didn't surprise her. She waited ten minutes, her eyes on the clock, before she dialed the number a second time. Her father answered.

“Let me put it to you another way, Pop. Either you put Mom on the phone now or your ass, not Mom's, will be on the street in as long as it takes me to call the police. I mean it, Pop, and I'll do it.”

“Worthless, no-good bitch. The television set is broken.”

“Ask me if I care, Pop. Get Mom.” Ruby waited and waited. She was still waiting fifteen minutes later when she finally heard her mother's voice, all trembly and shaky-sounding. As trembly and shaky as she felt.

Ruby's voice was tear-filled when she spoke to her mother. “Mom, it's Ruby. I . . . I'm calling to ... to ... tell . . .” She couldn't tell her mother about the Fortune 500; she wouldn't know what it was and it wasn't important right now. “Mom, would you like to ... to come and live with me? Or if you don't think we can live together, how would you like to move to Hawaii without Pop? I have a house in Maui I would like occupied. Amber and Nangi can visit you; they'll only be five hours away. Mac and Opal can fly there anytime. I can visit. You can finally see your grandchildren. Mom, whatever you want, I'll give you. Maui is beautiful. This house is beautiful. It overlooks the Pacific. It's like a big jewel in a setting of flowers. You could garden. I'll get you a housekeeper and you'll never have to do another thing. I'll get you a car and have someone teach you to drive, or better yet, get you a chauffeur and he'll drive you. Mom, are you still there?”

“I'm here, Ruby. That's very generous of you, but your father needs me here. If you really want to do something for me, give us the deed to this house.”

Ruby's head jerked upright. It was a minute before she could make her tongue work again. “I can't do that. If it were just you, I'd give it to you in a heartbeat. You know that.”

“That's what I want, Ruby.”

“No, it isn't. It's what Pop wants. He's making you say that. You don't need to have the deed. I pay all your bills. I haven't asked you to pay me rent in five years. And I've sent you money, lots of money. Having a deed is not important to you, but it is to Pop, and I'm not parting with it. Ask me for anything else, I'll give it. Gladly. But not that house. If you change your mind, call me. It's a forever offer, Mom. Bye.”

This was another thing she wasn't going to think about.

Ruby dialed Dixie's number, but there was no answer. She let the phone ring seventeen times before she hung up.

The biggest moment of her life, and here she was with no one to share it. “Oh, yeah, we'll just see about that!” She reached for the phone, dialed the long distance operator, and placed her call. “Person to person, operator, to General Calvin Santos. This is Ruby Blue.”

Ruby poured the remains of the coffee into her cup. It looked as black as tar. She gulped at it. It tasted like mud. She finished what was in the cup. Her sinuses cleared immediately.

“Ruby. Ruby, is it really you?” Calvin asked quietly.

“In the flesh, Calvin. Listen, I know this call is a surprise, but I got some good news today, and I've been calling around to share it with someone. Nangi was happy for me and so was my son. That was important to me, but I'm ... I'm all alone here ... my partner can't seem to handle it and she went off. . . . Oh, Calvin, I just need someone to talk to.”

“I'm listening, Ruby,” Calvin said gently.

Ruby talked, Calvin listened. Then Calvin talked and Ruby listened. For ninety minutes. And then she promised to come and see him on Friday morning. Calvin.

After the call, Ruby tore through the house in a frenzy. She had nothing suitable to wear. What was appropriate? There was disgust on her face as she ripped through her closet, tossing out one outfit after another. Nothing! Damn! She needed everything from the skin out. What would a CEO wear? Something stylish, something sophisticated. Something feminine. Something gorgeously outrageous. Calvin would notice. He'd always complimented her on her simple wardrobe. He liked crisp, neat attire. She'd give him crisp and neat and soft and feminine.

“It's my turn now. Mine!” She rolled over on the bed and howled like a coon. After all these years the sparks were still there for her. She'd heard them in Calvin's voice, too.

Just three more days. Seventy-two hours and she would see Calvin—if she didn't count the rest of today and the early morning hours of Friday. “Oh, God,” she moaned happily. It's finally happening. After twenty-eight long years, she was finally going to see Calvin again.

The Fortune 500 and Calvin. Ruby rolled off the bed. She laughed until she cried.

 

While Ruby was rolling off the bed, Dixie Sinclaire was limping up and down the boardwalk in Asbury Park. She was numb with cold and her hip was so painful, she was actually dragging her leg. She looked for a bench to sit down.

How angry the ocean looked. And Lord, it was cold, but she didn't want to go home. She was afraid to go home. She wasn't afraid of Hugo's abuse anymore. What she was afraid of had been haunting her for a very long time. Once or twice she'd tried to talk to Ruby about her fear, but something always held her back. She didn't want to destroy their success, and telling Ruby would have been tantamount to the ultimate betrayal in Ruby's eyes. She should have left the moment she knew the good times were here to stay. Instead, she'd banked the money and confided in no one.

She knew exactly what her husband was going to say. She could probably say it for him and save him the effort. God, why hadn't she left? She was certainly solvent, she could have bought a mansion at any point in her life during the past few years. Her old age was taken care of, thanks to Silas Ridgely. If she walked out and filed for divorce, there wasn't a thing he could do. And yet she hadn't done it. She hadn't done anything but coast along and exist. Hugo wasn't the problem. She was.

Dixie shrugged deeper into her coat, which wasn't nearly warm enough. Hugo was going to say she'd shortened his life by making him work so hard these past years when he could have retired and taken life a little easier. He'd start off by calling her a cripple, then a liar and a thief. He would throw every little thing in her face that had ever made him unhappy. He would say they could have been eating steak and roast beef instead of casseroles and hamburger. And of course he would say. that the money should have been in his name, too. In his eyes, she would be nothing but a cripple and a criminal.

Overhead, a sea gull swooped down on the rocky beach below where she was sitting. His mate joined him to scavenge for food.

Finally, she said the simple truth out loud, as if Ruby were there to listen. “I didn't want to be alone. Hugo gave me something to do, something to worry about. I had to make his meals, wash his clothes, clean his house. A woman is only half a woman without a husband.”

But Ruby wasn't half a woman. Ruby was as whole as they came. For three years she'd lived in a house with no furniture. She'd sold off the dining room set first, then the sofa from the living room, and then the television set. Ruby had survived. She hadn't worried about cooking meals, dusting, and doing laundry. And she'd gotten through her breakup with Andrew. If Ruby could do it, why couldn't she? Now it was too late. She couldn't leave Hugo. It wouldn't be right. He was dying. And because of that, she knew she would give him whatever he wanted.

“Oh, Ruby, I'm so sorry. So very sorry.”

The gulls swooped upward, their cries shrill against the slapping waves. Dixie sobbed.

It was almost dark, time for her to return home ... to return somewhere. She really didn't want to go home, so where? To Ruby's, of course. Who else could make sense of what she was going through? Hugo could ruin everything. Everything. No, that wasn't true, she'd already ruined it. She'd allowed things to get to this point, and only she could make them right.

Ruby's house was dark when Dixie arrived. She shouldn't have stopped at the diner for a supper she hadn't touched. She'd had five cups of coffee, and now she felt strung out. She reached down under the mat for the key Ruby kept for emergencies. She let herself into the dark house, heading for the kitchen. Ruby still kept her shopping bags of receipts behind the table. Her briefcase was there, too.

All she needed was a piece of paper and a pen. Ruby's briefcase yielded both. She wrote steadily for a full minute. Satisfied with the wording, Dixie put on her coat and went next door to the Mastersons. She asked them to witness her signature. She headed back to Ruby's and removed the framed five-dollar bill from its frame over the stove. Her eyes were dry when she removed the brittle bill. It was Ruby's money. She'd earned it as of today. Dixie choked on a sob when she laid the bill alongside the note. She'd just sold her shares of Mrs. Sugar to Ruby for five dollars. She would not allow Hugo to ruin Ruby's life. It was all she could think of to do to protect Ruby.

The front door was open to the dark night. She'd just made a decision no one in her right mind would make. Well, she could certainly justify that. She hadn't been in her right mind since the day Hugo crippled her. But maybe she was being hasty. Something, instinct perhaps, told her this wasn't the time. She drew a five-dollar bill from her purse to put into the frame, then returned the frame to its place over the stove. The single sheet of paper and Ruby's five-dollar bill crackled when she folded them into a neat square. She'd hide it under the floor mat in her car. If the Mastersons mentioned it to Ruby, she would have to come up with a suitable story. The elderly couple hadn't read the paper, just signed and dated it.