Ruby
Authors: Ann Hood
A Novel
Ann Hood
For Lorne
chapter two: Nouns Are the Part of Speech That Hurts
chapter three: Wouldn’t a Person Be Surprised?
chapter four: Karma Is a Boomerang
chapter five: Who Could Hang a Name on You?
chapter six: Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Will You Be Mine?
chapter eight: Babies and Mariachi
chapter ten: Still, I’m going to Miss You
Dear Amanda
O
LIVIA HAD SO
many things that she wanted to tell the girl who killed her husband that she wasn’t even sure where to begin. For example, she wanted the girl to know that she, Olivia, had once been someone who used to hum in public places, in an absent way that made people scowl at her. Still, she found herself doing it as she waited in line at the post office or for a spot at an ATM. She had been a hummer all her life, even humming in appreciation when she ate something she found especially delicious. During the trailers at movies, someone always shushed her, or turned to glare. “Sorry,” she’d whisper. But before she knew it, she was humming again. Maybe if she hummed an actual tune, she’d often thought, people would not mind so much. But she hummed randomly, absently, without direction.
She wrote:
Dear Amanda, since you killed my husband, I don’t hum anymore. My mother used to say that I hummed before I even talked. I hummed one way for yes and another way for no. I hummed something that meant good night and something that meant bye-bye. In my baby book—and my mother kept scrupulous records of everything from bowel movements to ounces gained each month—under the column that says “First Words,” my mother wrote that I didn’t talk; I hummed. So for thirty-seven years, I’ve hummed my way through life. And now I feel like I can’t even remember how to do it. If I press my lips together and try, I sound like I’m strangling.
But humming wasn’t what Olivia really wanted to talk about with the girl, Amanda. So she tore up each new letter and threw it away.
Olivia was a milliner. She made hats and sold them in a small shop on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. Long before Amanda killed her husband by running him down while he was jogging, long before Olivia even had a husband, she had this shop. It was sandwiched between an occult store and a store that over the years changed from one that sold used clothing to one that sold used books, until finally it was once again a store that sold used clothing.
Olivia’s shop was called the Rose Tattoo because she was unable to remove those words from its one front window. The old Rose Tattoo sold memorabilia of famous gay men—like James Dean and Tennessee Williams. People still came in and asked for a James Dean calendar or postcards of Liberace’s piano-shaped pool without even noticing the antique hat forms Olivia had bought at a flea market, or the hats that sat on top of those forms. Other times, people came in to get tattooed, thrusting pictures of Yosemite Sam or floral arrangements at Olivia and asking how much. They pointed to shoulders, hips, ankles. “How much for one here? Or here?” She always apologized and opened her arms to point at her hats. “I make hats,” she would explain.
To reach the Rose Tattoo, one had to walk down five steps and then turn right. The steps led to the occult shop, with its magical candles and books and tarot-card readers. Olivia always paused and waved to whoever was at the cash register. Over the years, she’d come to know them all. While she unlocked the grate over her shop’s door, the guy who ran the used-clothing shop would open his own door and say, “Oh, it’s you. You scared the shit out of me.” Then he’d go back inside his shop.
This trio of stores was hidden from view at street level. But there were signs with big arrows pointing the way. Often, Olivia had to rouse someone sleeping off a binge of some kind in the little walkway in front of the stores, or ask the young teenagers who liked to congregate there and smoke pot and read out loud books they’d bought at the occult store to please leave. But once she stepped inside, she did nothing but make, trim, design, and sell women’s hats. The shop smelled vaguely of falafels from the restaurant above it and of wet wool and incense and mothballs. To Olivia, it was the most wonderful combination of smells anywhere. She was certain that if someone blindfolded her and led her here, she would recognize it instantly by its unique aroma.
It was here, in the Rose Tattoo, that Olivia had met her husband. That was another thing she would like Amanda to know, the story of how David and Olivia met. She would like to tell Amanda about her life before David, too, because somehow that made finding him—and losing him—even more important. Sometimes when Olivia tried to write a letter to Amanda, these were the things she thought of. “Dear Amanda,” she’d write, “I was a woman who liked to dance alone. In my apartment, in my hat shop, I would put on music and close my eyes and dance. What I liked to play most was the tape of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing together. Their rendition of ‘They Can’t Take That Away from Me’ always sent me twirling across the floor.”
On the winter night that David walked into the Rose Tattoo, that’s exactly what Olivia was doing: dancing alone while Louis and Ella crooned “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” It was Valentine’s Day. For Olivia, it was the first Valentine’s Day without her long-term live-in boyfriend, Josh, and she was planning on celebrating. At home, she had a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator, which she planned to drink with a take-out Indian dinner, alone. She had a new apartment, so small that she cleaned the floor with a Dustbuster instead of a vacuum cleaner. For a thousand dollars a month, she got one room on Avenue A, a galley kitchen with a bathtub in it, and a tiny balcony where she stood every morning and drank her coffee—it was too small for chairs to fit.
When she glided, eyes closed, right into David, she stopped and gasped. Olivia thought she had put up the
CLOSED
sign, but she saw the window signless except for the curlicue writing of the store’s name.
“I’m here for a hat,” he said, grinning.
Olivia frowned at him. Unlike her humming, her dancing was a private thing. In her years with Josh, he’d never caught her at it.
“We’re closed,” she said.
She saw that he was clutching a wrinkled clipping from
New York
magazine’s “Best Bets” column about her hats.
Still grinning, he took a step toward her. Behind them, Louis and Ella were reaching a crescendo in their singing.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” he said.
Then he did the most unexpected thing. He took her hand in his, placed his other one around her waist, and danced a perfect waltz. She heard him humming softly to himself as he spun her away from him, then into him. The humming made her nervous.
The song ended, and he released her as easily as he had taken her.
Olivia stepped back to look at him. He had curly brown hair and eyes too close to his nose. But it was a lovely nose, straight and Roman, slightly too large for his face. His teeth were also a bit too large, and very white. He had on a beat-up leather bomber jacket, faded jeans, and sneakers, despite the winter slush in the streets. Olivia liked the face she was studying. Josh had been shorter, blonder, with broad Scandinavian features. He had always worn black: boots, pants, jacket. A bit of bright blue poked out from the collar of this guy’s jacket and made Olivia smile. But he was moving past her, toward the hats.
She stayed in the middle of the floor and watched him.
“What’s with the name of this place?” he said as he rubbed the felt brim of a hat between his thumb and forefinger.
“Well,
The Rose Tattoo
was a play—”
“I know that,” he said, without turning toward her. “Tennessee Williams.” He picked up another hat, a buttercup yellow felt one with black trim, and looked at Olivia. “I saw his house once,” he said. “In Key West. So tiny, like a miniature house, a doll’s house. With these tomato-colored shutters. I don’t know why, but I stood in front of it for a very long time and it made me so sad.”
He’s probably a frustrated writer, she thought, almost satisfied. Nothing was worse than a wannabe writer or actor or artist.
“I thought budding writers went to Key West to see Hemingway’s house,” she said.
“That was a bit of a letdown,” he said. He handed the hat to her. “Would you mind trying this on? To give me an idea, that’s all.”
Olivia put it on her head and pulled it low, the way a person was supposed to wear hats.
“Of course, she’s much taller than you,” he said absently. “And she doesn’t have those wonderful ripples of hair.”
He traced the air on both sides of her head, drawing curly lines with his fingers. Olivia reminded herself how much she was enjoying her still-new independence. She had hung every painting in her apartment exactly where she wanted, had bought sheets in a girlie pink, had arranged the silverware and glasses in the order she preferred. At night, she ate in bed, let her cat, Arthur, eat out of her dish, watched whatever she pleased, sometimes sleeping with the television on all night. Plus, she didn’t have to trip over Josh’s ridiculous bass every time she walked through the dark to the bathroom. It was so large, it had been like a third roommate.
He sighed. “She does look good in yellow.”
Olivia took off the hat and tried to smooth her uncontrollable hair. It had been damp all day and now rain splattered the shop’s windows. Her hair frizzed and curled, had a mind of its own.
“It’s a great hat,” she offered. “Your wife will love it. Women are always extremely satisfied with my hats.”
He held up the wrinkled clipping. “So it says.”
No wedding ring, Olivia noticed as he reached for his wallet. But also no correction on the word
wife.
She reminded herself how she’d sworn off dating until summer. After six years with someone, she thought six months alone was more than necessary.
“What’s that?” he said.
“What?”
“I thought you were humming something.”
Olivia cleared her throat and busied herself wrapping the hat, writing up the sale.
“Check okay?” he asked.
She pointed to the sign taped to the counter. “Make it out to me. Here’s how you spell it.”
He let out a low whistle. “Bertolucci,” he said. “That’s a mouthful.”
“We’re Americanized, though. TV dinners. Lots of lime green and raspberry clothing. The works.”
“Well,” he said, handing her his check, “I’m from California. No ethnicity at all. Just Californian. Third generation, which is really something.”
“Pioneers,” she said. She held out the hat in its hat box to him.
His name was David Henderson and he lived across town, in the West Village.
She didn’t expect him to walk out the door just like that, but he did. He turned and said, “Thanks for the dance.” But before she could answer, he was gone.
At home, there was a bouquet of roses from Josh, sitting on the landing in front of her door. She supposed they should make her miss him, but they didn’t. That was how ready she had been to move on. For the occasion, she’d strung lights shaped like red hearts around her rubber tree, and she turned them on now, refusing to think about David Henderson, the wannabe writer who used words like
tomato-colored
and was one hell of a good dancer. Her best friend, Winnie, had a date, or else Olivia would have called her to ask why, just when a person got her life the way she wanted it, another person popped in and turned everything upside down. Not that David Henderson had done that exactly. But Olivia recognized that he easily could. He with the brown curls and smooth steps. He with the wife, she reminded herself. A wife who looked good in yellow.
Olivia ate her tandoori chicken, her saag paneer, her samosas. She let Arthur lick her plate clean and then kiss her on the lips with his curry breath.
“Arthur,” she said, digging her fingers into the cat’s fur, just the way he liked it, “we’re headed for something.”