Seasons of Her Life (66 page)

Her uncles were gone now, too. It was only her immediate family and Dixie that were left to her. She was still estranged from her daughter and sisters, even now, four and a half years after their parents' deaths.

Betrayed by her own daughter. It had hurt so unbearably, more than she thought possible. Andrew's intervention and confessions hadn't swayed Martha at all. “She's just like you, Ruby, stubborn as hell. Even when I told her how I cheated on you and gambled away everything, she told me I was making it all up because you support me and I didn't want it all to come crashing down on me.”

As for her sisters, the only information she had was what Andy got from Martha. Amber was the same. Opal had gone to a detox center to dry out, but she was back on the bottle again.

That left Dixie, who had been acting peculiar for some time now, and Ruby didn't know why. She hadn't wanted to stick her nose into her friend's affairs.

She was half a century old, and she hadn't done half of what she wanted to do. Mrs. Sugar now was like a shiny red bicycle that was getting rusty on the fenders. She needed things to occupy her time, to challenge her. Ruby reached for the pencil and pad and started scribbling furiously.

Move Mom and Pop back to the cemetery in Barstow. Check to see if Amber and Opal have to give their approval. Go back to St. Andrew's in Hawaii. Go to Michigan and see the Quantrell farmhouse. The list went on and on.

A pilgrimage. That's what it all added up to. She'd go on a pilgrimage.

Tomorrow she would go to a travel agency and make arrangements. After she did that she'd go to Nick Palomo and have a complete physical. Maybe he could give her something for her hot flashes. Fifty-two years old, going on fifty-three, was time to start taking care of herself. She should drop the twenty pounds she'd put on and quit smoking. She should do a lot of things. Death had begun to scare her. Maybe she should start thinking about going back to church, too.

Maybe she should start to think about moving. She'd never decorated her bedroom the way she wanted. If she moved, she could do that. It wouldn't be the same if she did it here in this house. She didn't know why, it just wouldn't be. Maybe because Andrew had once lived in the same room. Maybe she should go back to Barstow. With her parents. Never alone.

“Where did I go wrong?” Ruby cried into the sleeve of her robe. “What's wrong with me?”

Ruby fell into a tortured, uneasy sleep that lasted till four o'clock. Then she got up, dressed, and walked out to her car.

Dixie's house was dark. Usually, there was a night-light burning in the kitchen, but not tonight. She lifted the flowerpot by the front door, but the key was gone. There was another in the carport under the milk box. It was gone, too. She walked back and forth, ringing one doorbell and then the other. Twice she threw a pebble at Dixie's window.

Ruby picked up a rock from the flower border and carried it back to the carport, where she tapped at the small pane of glass in the kitchen door. She reached in to unlatch the security chain and turn the button on the doorknob.
Breaking and entering.
She didn't care. She didn't care about a whole lot right now. She wondered what she would do if the police came. “Well, hey, now, this is my best friend's house, and I'm free to do whatever I please.” Sure, sure, lady. And off to the police station she'd go.

The night-light
had
been on, Ruby decided when she pressed the switch. The bulb was burned out. She rummaged in Dixie's junk drawer for a new bulb and fitted it in. The kitchen glowed in dim yellow light.

The refrigerator was empty, as was the freezer. It took her a minute to realize it had been disconnected. The cabinets held nothing but canned soup. All the staples, the flour, cereal, and coffee, were gone.

There was nothing of Dixie left in the house. Not a hair ribbon, not a grain of talcum powder, nothing. The closets were empty, all of them. Dixie's strong box, which she kept under a pile of pillows in the closet, was gone, too. The beds had all been stripped and covered with dust sheets. The same with the furniture in the dining room and living room. Ruby sat down with a thump on the shroud-covered sofa. When had this happened? How had it happened without her knowing about it?

Dixie was gone, but the power was still on in the house. She ran to the phone in the kitchen. There was no dial tone. Standing where she was, she could see the thermostat in the hallway. It was set at fifty-five, just enough heat so the pipes wouldn't freeze.

Ruby made a mental note to call a glazier to repair the window she'd broken. What was going on? Where was Dixie? Ruby began to worry.

Her whole body was trembling when she let herself into her own house. She went immediately to the fire and threw on another log. She sat on the hearth, shivering as she waited for the log to light.

Her head was pounding so badly, she couldn't think. Under the shower she took stock of her situation. She'd lost nearly everyone—even Calvin, if she was honest with herself. And now Dixie. Dixie was gone. Just like that. No good-byes. Dixie's M.O. When things don't work out, take off. Dixie hated dealing with problems. Dixie hated change of any kind. Had she neglected Dixie? No more than Dixie had neglected her. Though at first they'd pretended otherwise, their friendship had never been the same since that night she . . . since Hugo. For a while, Dixie had seemed like a prisoner set free, doing all sorts of adventurous things, but after a few weeks, she had fallen back into her old ways. Dixie had never fully recovered from Hugo's death. That was the bottom line.

Ruby stepped from the shower, wrapped her hair in a towel, and slipped into her terry-cloth robe. She sat at her makeup mirror and slashed lipstick across her lips. She grimaced at her reflection. “Fuck you, Dixie, fuck you, Calvin. It's me now. The hell with both of you. The hell with Mrs. Sugar and Martha, the hell with you, too. As for you, Amber and Opal, kiss my butt, dead center.”

Ruby patted her hips as she sat down to an enormous breakfast of ham, eggs, toast, mounds of jelly, croissants, and coffee laced with thick, rich cream. She knew she was eating too much, and all the wrong foods, but she seemed unable to stop herself. What else was left? she wondered miserably.

Long fingernails tapped on the tabletop. The idea of going for a physical today was stupid. First of all, she had to make an appointment and fast the night before. At some point during the course of the evening, she recalled having inhaled half a cheesecake.

Today she was going to make travel arrangements and check on Dixie. Regardless of her previous intentions, she couldn't take off not knowing what happened to her friend. Before she did anything else, she had to call the glazier and have Dixie's back door repaired.

Ruby dumped the dishes in the sink. She looked at the pile of dishes that were days old. It would take her five minutes to put them in the dishwasher. She didn't feel like it. She snorted. One of the fringe benefits of living alone was that she could do whatever she damn well pleased whenever she damn well pleased.

When Ruby returned to the house at four o'clock, she was so disgruntled, she ate the other half of the cheesecake, wolfing it down in six bites. She slammed her way around the kitchen, angry with Dixie, angry with herself.

As she paced her way around the dining room, she realized the only concrete thing she'd accomplished was having the glass on Dixie's door repaired. The travel agency had said they needed several days to coordinate all the stops she wanted to make. In disgust, she'd told them forget it, and stomped out. She'd had absolutely no luck in tracing Dixie. The post office said there was no forwarding address, that mail was still delivered to Dixie's house. She'd stopped by to see if there was mail, but the only things in the box were flyers and circulars, which could mean only that Dixie had notified anyone she dealt with that she was moving on and had given them her new address.
She thought this through and covered her tracks. Why?

As a last shot, she called the Mayo Clinic and asked to speak to Dixie's doctor.

“I'm sorry,” Kyle Harvey said gently when she had explained why she'd called. “I haven't seen or heard from Dixie for several years. She came back twice, as you must know, for checkups. I recommended a doctor in New York.”

She laughed, a funny little sound that stuck in her throat. “You forgot to mention Dixie's trip out there for your wedding. She said it was beautiful. Any children?” She was being polite, nothing more.

“Being on call twenty-four hours a day doesn't make for a good marriage. No children. Someday,” he said brightly.

“Yes, someday.” She hated those words. “Thanks, Doctor.”

“It was nice talking to you again, Mrs. Blue.”

So what she had was zip, as Andy would say.

In a fit of helplessness Ruby picked up the dishes and threw them in the trash. She washed her hands before she called the attorneys in New York. Dixie hadn't been in touch. They hadn't called her because there had been no reason to call. “Well, don't bother; the number has been disconnected. She's moved out.” No reason to tell them she'd broken into Dixie's house. She wasn't in the mood for a lecture. Her anger was starting to build again.

Ruby's third phone call was to Silas Ridgely, who said he didn't know a thing. He reminded Ruby that Dixie handled her own investments.

“Shit,” Ruby said succinctly. She peeled the paper off a Milky Way bar and started to chew. She sat down on the chair, too tired to sustain her anger. She started to cry. In the deep recesses of her mind a warning bell sounded.
You're on overload, Ruby. One more thing, just one more and you're going to snap.

“Oh, yeah?”
Yeah.

On the edge or not, she had one more thing to do. One more thing. Something she should have done weeks ago, but hadn't had the guts.

Her shoulders stiff, her jaw clenched, Ruby picked up the phone and dialed Calvin Santos's campaign offices in Washington, D.C. She didn't bother making the call person to person. A voice that sounded barely pubescent answered the phone.

“This is the Oval Office calling for General Santos,” Ruby snapped. What the hell, if she was going to jail, she might as well go big.

The voice gasped, and Ruby heard her squeal, “It's the Oval Office! That's the President's place, isn't it?”

“General Santos speaking,” Calvin said, coming on the line.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Calvin, it's Ruby.”

“Oh.”

“That's it? Oh?”

“Well, I ...”

“Remember, you're talking to the President. I'm going to ask you some questions and all you have to do is say yes or no.”

“I can do that . . . sir.”

“I've written you a dozen letters, you haven't responded. You aren't going to write, are you?”

“That's not necessarily true. I've been busy, sir.”

“Calvin, go to another phone, where people can't hear you. I'm not hanging up till I get some answers from you. And don't
you
think about hanging up, because if you do, I'll come to those offices.”

“It isn't possible. There's just this one big room.” Calvin's voice lowered till Ruby had to strain to hear him. “Everyone will be gone in thirty minutes. Call me back then.”

“Calvin?”

“Yes?”

“If I had called and told that girl who I was, would you have taken my call?”

“I couldn't . . . sir, not at that time. I expect to be here another hour, sir.”

Ruby's shoulders drooped. “Good-bye, Calvin.”

The same internal voice she'd argued with before attacked her again. You really accomplished a lot. You know, of course, he won't be there when you call back. “
If
I call back.” Oh, you'll call back, you need to have your nose rubbed in it. The truth hurts. Only a fool ignores the truth. You just don't want to admit you made a mistake with Calvin. In the beginning you had all those doubts, but you pushed them out of the way. You knew way back then that Calvin wasn't who you wanted him to be. He's weak. He lies. He's selfish. He's sneaky. He cheated on his wife, and you helped him. Wise up, Ruby. Remember, he was never there for you when you needed him, but you were there to pick him up and dust him off time and time again. He wouldn't be running for the Senate if it weren't for you, but now he can't afford to have it come out that he's been seeing you. He's just going to let it fade away because he has no guts.

Ruby took up the other side of the argument. I'm not blameless here, she whispered to herself. If Calvin was sneaky and cheated on his wife, I helped him. I'm as guilty as he is. Once Andrew had said to her, “You aren't God, Ruby, you aren't even a saint, so don't try and make other people guilty when it's you who started the whole mess.” She couldn't remember what he had been referring to, but she supposed it didn't matter. She took charge, issued orders like a general. She always believed her way was best, and if ... Calvin . . . if people didn't do it her way, she always blamed them, never herself. That's what Andrew had been trying to tell her.

Tears dripped down her cheeks as she listened to the phone ring in Washington. She let it ring twenty-six times before she hung up.

Ruby was never more aware than she was at that moment of how alone she truly was. All her reserve was gone, there was nothing more to draw from. She wept then, her head buried in her arms, for yesterday, today, and all tomorrows yet to come.

Ruby told herself it was morbid curiosity that was making her sit there in front of the television watching the election returns. Tomorrow she was going to go for the physical that was eleven months overdue. Then she was personally going to pound, with a sledge hammer, the For Sale sign into her front yard.

She'd decided months ago that she wasn't going to make the trip to St. Andrew's or any of the other places she'd planned on. She was too tired, and it no longer seemed to matter. Nothing mattered anymore. What she was going to do was time her arrival in Barstow to coincide with the mortician she'd hired to bring her parents' bodies back to the town where they were born and married. Then she was going to get in the car and drive, and wherever she ran out of gas would be the place to which she would move. In approximately fifty-three hours, she would be gone from this place, just the way Dixie was gone. The thought of her friend made her eyes brim over. She didn't know what hurt more, Dixie or Calvin. Neither was she yet over Martha's heartbreaking betrayal.

All she did these days was go through the motions of living. Going someplace else the way she planned was her only way to survive. She'd been teetering on the edge for too long.

Ruby finished the bowl of popcorn just as the television anchor announced that Calvin Santos, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, had won his state.

“Bravo, Calvin,” she whispered before she shut off the television.

Her eyes glistening with tears, Ruby made her way upstairs. Calmly and methodically, she packed her bags, two huge ones and one long garment bag. She was surprised to discover that she had so little in the way of personal possessions. Andy had been by earlier in the day, his face long and sad when she told him to take whatever he wanted from the house. The rest was to be given to the Salvation Army.

She'd tried so hard to make her voice light and motherly when she said that he would be the first person she would call as soon as she found a tent to camp in.

“You talked about this with Dad, huh?”

“For hours. You know what he said?” Andy shook his head. “He said, ‘do whatever the hell pleases you. You paid your dues, Ruby, and you don't owe anybody anything. Reach out. Do what you want for a change.' ” She laughed then with a genuine mirth that surprised Andy as well as herself. “He said, ‘just tell those lawyers of yours not to screw up the payment schedule.' End of quote.”

“And Marty? Did you tell her?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. She was outraged that I would sell the old family homestead. She said a lot of things, half of which I don't want to remember,” Ruby said in a choked voice.

“She'll come around one of these days,” Andy said miserably.

“She betrayed me, Andy, at the most vulnerable time of my life. It's not important anymore. Your father is right, she's as stubborn as I am. Who knows? In time, none of this will be important.”

“What about the business?”

“It runs like clockwork. My secretary told me last month that I got in her way. She said I add to the confusion. Do you believe that?”

“And Aunt Dixie?”

Ruby shrugged. “She wasn't the person I thought she was. It's that simple.”

“You were like sisters, you know, attached at the hip.” Andy threw his hands in the air. “Women!”

They said their good-byes then, and with much effort, both managed not to cry. Ruby watched until her son's Jeep was out of sight.

The following morning Ruby showed up at Nick Palomo's private clinic and went through seven hours of testing. “I want the works, whatever the works are,” she'd said briskly. “And, yes, I fasted.”

From the clinic she drove by Dixie's house. She pulled to the curb but didn't cut the engine. She stared at the house for a full five minutes before she gave a jaunty middle-finger salute. She drove home and pounded the For Sale sign into the front yard. She hoped Andy wouldn't be swamped with calls. It occurred to her then that the neighborhood had recycled itself. She really didn't know anyone anymore. From time to time she nodded and waved to her neighbors, but she couldn't come up with a name to put to a face.

After a quick dinner Ruby sorted through the papers she thought she would need to take with her. The rest were filed into huge cartons, which Andy would take back to his house and store in the attic. The last things to go into the box she was taking were the Rolodex from her desk at the office and her personal address book. Her checkbook and wad of traveler's checks went into the zippered compartment of her purse. All nineteen credit cards were safe in their special compartment. With what she had in her purse, she could probably live out the rest of her life in luxury if she wanted to.

At nine-thirty Ruby went to bed and slept straight through the night. It was her first full night of restful sleep in over five years.

Since there was no food in the house, Ruby went out to breakfast and passed the time with the owner of the diner. Then she headed out to the highway and the shopping mall, where she walked around for two hours. She bought two books, one by Helen MacInnes and one by William Goldman. She prowled through the five and dime, marveling at the array of costume jewelry that smelled like burned popcorn.

Ruby killed another hour by stopping for an Italian hot dog, French fries, and a milk shake. If she took the long way home instead of the highway, she'd only have an hour or so to wait till Nick Palomo called with the results of her medical tests. She could read one of the new books while she waited.

It was almost four o'clock when Ruby picked up the phone to hear Nick identify himself. They made small talk for a few minutes and then Nick said, “I want you to sit down, Mrs. Blue.” Ruby sat, her face draining. So, there was a reason she'd been feeling so lousy lately. It wasn't all nerves and emotionalism. She drew in a deep breath and held. it while her son's friend talked.

Ruby immediately picked up on the seriousness in Dr. Palomo's voice. She wondered if he were going to tell her she needed a life-saving operation or if she was going to die.

“First things first, Mrs. Blue. Your blood pressure is high. I'm sending over a prescription. Follow the instructions on the label. You're thirty pounds overweight. The weight
must
come off. The urologist who administered your kidney and bladder tests says you have a kidney infection of long standing that hasn't been treated. The medication for that will be delivered, too. You also have the makings of an ulcer. Diet will aid you there and some additional medication. That's the
good
news.”

Ruby's eyes rolled back in her head. She drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. How was she going to handle what came next?

“The
bad
news is what we found out from your blood work. Listen to me, Mrs. Blue. You are a
prime,
and I do mean prime, candidate for a heart attack or a stroke.... You do know what cholesterol is, don't you?”

“Vaguely,” Ruby whispered, her eyes twitching so badly she could barely see.

“Well, yours is so high, I don't know how you're still walking around. I
am
trying to scare you. With the medication I'm sending you, there are some medical pamphlets for you to read. Your HDL and your LDL have to be controlled as well as your triglycerides. Do you know what they are?”

Ruby shook her head. She realized Nick couldn't see her. “No,” she squeaked.

“By tonight, if you read what I've sent along to you, you'll know everything. You're a smart woman, Mrs. Blue. Don't ignore any of this. I made out a special diet for you, and I want you to stick to it to the letter.
Most
important, you must exercise.”

“Wait a second, Nick. Someone's at the door.”

On legs made of Jell-O Ruby opened the front door to the delivery boy from the clinic. It took her five minutes to extract the right amount of money from her wallet along with a tip. With her thumb and forefinger clutching the bag as though it held poison, she made her way back to the kitchen.

“It was the delivery from the clinic,” Ruby muttered.

“Good. I'm not finished, Mrs. Blue.”

“Am I going to die, Nick?” Ruby whispered.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone line. “There's always that possibility, Mrs. Blue. It's all up to you. You can't cheat, Mrs. Blue. You don't have that luxury. Is there anything you want to ask me?”

“Yes,” Ruby mumbled. “You won't tell Andy, will you?”

“Of course not. Are you alone, Mrs. Blue? Do you want me to come over?”

“I think I've been alone all my life, Nick,” Ruby said sadly. “No, I don't want you to come over. I'll do as you say. Thank you, Nick.”

 

Ruby stared at the calendar on the wall. For some reason it looked ominous. Dates. Numbers. She was moving into the winter of her life. She felt like crying.

Death. Die. Dead. Other people died. You died when you got old. How much time do I have? Will I just drop over or will I die in my sleep? Will I struggle to breathe? Will I turn blue?

The prescription bag from the clinic was heavy. Nick said there were pamphlets and articles. Prescription bottles weren't heavy. She wondered if she would die if she got up from the chair for a glass of water. She was afraid to move. Did she dare move? Maybe she shouldn't exert herself.
When you don't know what to do, do nothing and nothing will happen.

If I die here in the kitchen, how long will it be before I'm found? Everyone thinks I'm leaving tomorrow. I can't call Andy and tell him. I'm ... it might be weeks. They'd have to tear down the house because they wouldn't be able to get the smell of her decomposed body out of it.

Ruby quivered and shook, her legs like straw as she minced her way to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. She carried the water and the bag from the clinic to the living room. If she was going to die, she'd damn well die in a comfortable chair. She flicked on the television as she passed it. She needed sound.

Ruby read the instructions carefully, trying desperately not to make her eyeballs move. She shouldn't move. Once she took the pills she would hunker down and never move. Ever.

Stroke. She could become a vegetable.
Phfffttt,
and she could go like that with a heart attack.

Her life flashed before her then, the way the books said it did. She tried not to cry. She didn't want to cry. All she had in her pocket was one used tissue.

Who, she wondered, would come to her funeral? Andrew, of course. And Andy. But Marty, would she attend? Dixie wouldn't even know. Neither would Calvin.

She sniffed, unable to stem the flow of tears. Andrew would give. her a hell of a sendoff. Top-of-the-line casket, the whole works. He'd probably give the eulogy. “Say something nice, Andrew,” she whimpered.

Is this what I worked for all my life, to die now, when I'm at the top? “Oh, God, I don't want to die, I don't want to die,” she sniveled into the sleeve of her sweater.

The only thing left was to pray. Pray not to die or pray to live? She wished then for the Bible she'd left on the train so many years ago. A rosary to pray. All she had was her fingers. Make do, Ruby. Maybe an act of contrition, if you can remember the words.

Her voice was thin, frail, when she started to pray, but it grew stronger with each Hail Mary. She dozed during the fourth decade, between the fourth and fifth Hail Mary.

When she struggled to wakefulness later, she stared wild-eyed at her living room. The television was still playing, and it was at least an hour past dawn. She was
alive.
She'd made it through the night; that had to mean something. Maybe she did have time, time to rectify all the damage she'd done to herself.

Ruby finished the rosary, said the act of contrition, blessed herself, and got up from the chair. She looked upward. “I didn't ask for anything. I just prayed. I'll take it from here. If You have the time, look out for me, okay? Last night . . . yesterday . . . was ... to get me to this place in time. I needed to hit bottom. I think I cut myself a little slack. Whatever . . .”

Ruby showered and dressed in the clothes she'd laid out the afternoon before. She made a cup of tea just to have something to do, then sipped her tea as she read Nick Palomo's instructions. It took her a full hour to read through the pamphlets. When she had all of the information secure in her mind, she folded the papers and stuffed them into her purse. “I can handle all of it,” she muttered as she washed down the pills with a glass of water.

When she reached Barstow she would stop in the library and photocopy every article ever written about high blood pressure, cholesterol, and all those other things she never knew about. She allowed a smile to tug at the corners of her mouth when she looked at the three bottles of pills. Yesterday she hadn't noticed that one of them said estrogen.

“What the hell.” She grinned. “I'm alive, and if I have anything to say about it, I'm going to stay that way.”

Ruby left the autumn of her life behind in Rumson, New Jersey. None of that slim-to-none stuff for her this time around. The winter of her life was hers, to do whatever was best for her. A time to look back, a time to make new inroads if she so chose. A time to come to terms with everything in her life. A new beginning. The last season of her life. When she drove away from the house on Ribbonmaker Lane, she didn't look back.