Ruby (24 page)

Nikki returned, easily rolling in video equipment that the tech boys in high school would have struggled with.

“Everybody done?” she asked, and they all silently, angrily almost, handed her their cards.

“So,” Nikki said, sitting again on the soft couch, “I thought we’d introduce ourselves. Tell one another our names and who our partner is and our due dates and any other pertinent information you want to share. Okay?”

Everyone glowered.

“Good. Let’s start with you two,” Nikki said, and pointed right at Olivia.

Olivia had expected Nikki would begin to her left, with the Jeep-shaped woman and her mechanic husband. She had no idea what she and Ruby would say. Even in the air-conditioned room, Olivia felt a trickle of sweat creep down her arm as everyone turned to look at her.

But Ruby didn’t hesitate.

“My name is Ruby,” she said.

“I love that name,” Nikki gushed. “My youngest is named Scarlet.”

Ruby frowned.
“Anyway”
she continued, “I’m Ruby and my due date is Labor Day. I guess I’m probably the youngest person here.” She lowered her voice. “I’m a pregnant teen. You know, unwed. The kind they do television specials about. And this is Olivia. She’s going to adopt my baby. It’s like one of those—what do they call them? Open adoptions? Where she like pays for everything, doctors and vitamins and stuff, and then she gets the baby. They put an ad in the paper. You know, ‘Couple seeking baby.’ That kind of thing.”

Olivia stared down at her toes, trying not to listen, thinking about how soon, when this was over, she was going to make an appointment for a pedicure.

“Wasn’t there a movie about that?” Ruby said, showing no indicating of shutting up anytime soon. “With like Glenn Close and one of those actresses with the three names. I always get them confused. Mary Jessica somebody?”

Olivia decided she would get one of those colors they were showing in
You!
A sparkly blue or green.

“Of course,” Nikki said, and Olivia felt the woman looking at her, “I usually get both partners in with the mother in cases like this.”

Olivia looked and saw not just Nikki and Ruby but everyone watching her.

“Will your husband be joining us?” Nikki said. “Maybe next week?”

Ruby didn’t miss a beat. “He travels so much, you know?” She pointed upward. “He’s a pilot. Always has his head in the clouds.”

“Isn’t that exciting?” Nikki said.

Olivia swallowed hard, nodded.

The next couple was talking now, all giggly and excited. When Olivia met Ruby’s eyes, the girl grinned and gave Olivia a big wink.

It was the heat.

It was those stupid drunken kisses with Rex.

It was loneliness.

It was neediness.

Olivia didn’t even care what it was. She was so hot and the air was so thick that she couldn’t breathe or think clearly. She dressed—a tank top and cutoffs, her old Jack Purcell’s, one of her new hats: Hyannis—and she drove straight to the surfer boy’s house. “Get it over with,” Winnie had advised her before she left. “It’s a hurdle. It’s nothing. It’s sex.”

She rang the doorbell and hoped he wasn’t home.

She held her breath, waiting. It was the middle of the night. He had a girlfriend. This last thought pleased her. The surfer boy, though disarming, was safe. He was not going to want a relationship or a commitment. He would go away.

When he opened the door—shirtless, also in cutoffs, tanned bare feet—he looked very awake.

“Well, hello,” he said.

That word
well
again.

Good. She didn’t even like him. This gave her confidence.

“Are you alone?” she said. “Which is my way of saying, Is your girlfriend here?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said, disappointing her. “Come on in.”

She wanted to question him about this discrepancy, but she was afraid she’d lose her nerve if there was too much conversation.

“Okay,” she said. “So. My husband died a year ago and I just sort of figured out that he’s not coming back. And my best friend, Winnie, when I told her about how at night sometimes when I can’t sleep, for some reason I see your stupid face, she said, ‘Go tell him.’”

“What part of this is supposed to win me over?” he said. “The ‘stupid face’ part?”

“Yeah. No. I mean, I want to kiss you.”

He cupped her face in his hands—big hands, she noticed—and said, “I have wanted to kiss you since the minute I saw you at that party.”

He did. He kissed her and she liked it too much.

“Actually,” he said, “my intentions are bad. I’ve wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss you. That day in my office, I thought I would go crazy not touching you.”

This is just sex, Olivia told herself. This is a good thing.

“Why are you wearing a hat?” he whispered as he kissed her throat.

“I’m a milliner,” she whispered back.

He knew nothing about her. She was a blank to him. So she lifted her shirt over her head and let him take one of her breasts in his mouth. Damn. It did feel good.

All of it felt good.

Until he said, “I was so crazy about you and I didn’t know you were a milliner or that you have a friend named Winnie or anything. I don’t know anything.”

“There’s nothing to know,” she told him.

Afterward, she felt good and not guilty at all. This was just sex. She’d had fun, more fun than she’d had in a long time. But she wanted nothing else from this surfer boy. You open yourself to someone and anything could happen. They could go out for a jog and get hit by a Honda Civic.

This was better. He knew how she liked to be touched, the way her skin felt under those big hands of his, the sound of her sighs and moans and breathing during sex. That was plenty. Olivia did not sit up and watch him sleep, the way she used to watch David.

Instead, she left. She made her way quietly out of his bed, out of his room, down the stairs, and outside, where the hot air felt good for a change with its suffocating intensity. Funny, Olivia thought, I can breathe better out here than in the cool bed beside Jake. Before she got in her car, she made sure she had remembered everything so that there would be no need to go back. She had her shoes in one hand, her hat in the other. And she had remembered to go without bothering to say good-bye.

At the outdoor art fair in town, Ruby liked all the bad paintings—the too-bright oils of turbulent oceans, the watercolors of lighthouses. She was eating her third cotton candy and pink sugar stuck to her chin. Olivia reached over and tried to wipe it off, but it was stubborn. She licked her finger to clean Ruby’s chin with her spit, the way a mother would. But Olivia stopped herself, her finger in midair until she jammed her hand into her pocket. Like a mother, she thought, pleased.

“You’ll do it, right?” Ruby was saying. She stared longingly at a painting of a purplish-blue ocean and a pink-and-yellow sunset. “You’ll teach Sage about art. And music, too. Mozart and all those guys?”

Walking straight toward them was Amy. After the book-club meeting, she had called Olivia and said, “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re crazy. You should not adopt that girl’s baby.” “Who said anything about adopting her baby?” Olivia had said angrily. Amy’s ability to see through every situation unnerved Olivia. She wondered how her sister had missed the fact that her husband had been having an affair.

Olivia returned Amy’s wave halfheartedly.

“Well,” Amy said right away, “he’s off.”

“Who?”

“Matthew. He went to the Galapagos Islands with Edward and the bimbo. Soon to be the next Mrs. Robbins, thank you very much.”

“Amy,” Olivia said, “she is a full professor of anthropology at Brown. She is not a bimbo.”

“What do you know about it? She has the fakest blond hair you’ve ever seen and I have it on good authority that she had a nose job.”

“The Galapagos Islands?” Ruby said. “That is so totally awesome. Didn’t like evolution get discovered there or something?”

Amy glared at her.

“Remember me?” Ruby said. “The pregnant teenager from next door? I cut Olivia’s hair? It still looks good, doesn’t it? Or do you think she could use some more pieces?” She touched Olivia’s hair in a familiar way. “Like here?
You!
says the chopped bob is in for fall.”

“I remember you,” Amy said, still glowering. “Haven’t you had that baby yet?”

“Tell me about it. I swear I’m going to burst. Like it could pop right out of my skin. I think that happened in a movie.” Ruby’s eyes settled somewhere beyond Amy’s head. “Hey,” she said, “look. That guy does the scribble painting I like. I’m going to go see.” She smiled at Amy. “Good to see you again.”

“Yes,” Amy said. “Great.” Under her breath she said, “I don’t like that kid, Olivia.”

Ruby turned around. “By the way,” she said, “did Olivia tell you? She’s my birthing partner.”

They both watched her make her way through the crowd.

“That’s an interesting turn of events, considering you have absolutely no interest in that baby,” Amy said in a flat voice, still watching Ruby.

“She’s all alone,” Olivia said.

“She does have parents, though, right? In the house next door?”

Amy looked at Olivia now, waiting.

“All right,” she said. “I’m thinking that I might maybe—”

“I knew it,” Amy said, grabbing her arm. “You can’t, Olivia. Think about what you’re doing.”

“I have thought about it,” Olivia said, shaking free of her sister’s grasp.

“Look at her. Do you want a kid with those genes? And she’s probably been stoned for half this pregnancy. Have you done drug testing? Genetic testing? For all you know, strange things run in her family. Have you thought about anything?

Beyond Amy, in the distance, Olivia watched Ruby, who was sitting beside the young man painting.

“I want that baby,” Olivia said, keeping her eyes fixed on Ruby.

“I think you’ve lost it, Olivia,” Amy said. “I really think you’ve lost it.”

Ruby saw Olivia watching her, and she waved. Something filled Olivia. She wanted to jump up and down, foolishly. She wanted to run through this crowd, across the street, to the beach, and jump into the water. Maybe Amy was right. Maybe she had lost it. But the girl was important to her. She was changing Olivia’s life.

Olivia lifted her arm and returned Ruby’s wave with a large sweeping one of her own.

“And another thing,” Amy was saying. “Why won’t you return Jake Maxwell’s calls? He’s driving me crazy asking about you.”

“What do you know about that?” Olivia asked sharply.

Surprised, Amy took a step back. “You didn’t.”

“You seem to be forgetting,” Olivia said, “that I’m the big sister. I ask you questions. I give you advice.”

“He’s a nice guy, Olivia. And you are irrational.”

The nice guy was walking toward them. Shit, Olivia thought. Shit, shit, shit. She hated these little towns where you so easily walked into your indiscretions. In New York, she would never have to see Jake Maxwell again.

“If it isn’t the elusive milliner,” Jake said. His jaw muscles twitched from being clenched so tightly. Possessive.

Amy put her hand on Jake’s arm. “Stay away from her. She’s acting irrational.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Is that right?”

Olivia adjusted her hat. It was an old one, a favorite, from the series she’d named after old movie stars. This one was Gene Tierney.

“Doing crazy things, huh?” he said. “Like sleepwalking?”

“I’ve got to be somewhere,” Olivia said.

She didn’t like the way Jake Maxwell made her feel: she wanted him to shut up and undress. She wanted to climb on top of him the way she had that night. She wanted too much from him.

“I think we have some unfinished business,” Jake said.

Olivia cleared her throat. “I think we’re finished,” she said. “In fact, I’m certain of it. Positive.”

“Those papers?”

“Oh. The papers. Right,” Olivia said. “I’ll call you. I’ll make an appointment.”

She walked away fast, bumping into a table that held small models of lighthouses. She heard Amy saying, “Someone’s got to help that girl.”

Olivia made the appointment through Jake’s secretary and showed up exactly on time with Ruby.

“I don’t know why,” Ruby said as they waited in the waiting room, “but every time you mention this guy, your voice gets funny.”

“I doubt it,” Olivia said.

Jake opened the door to his office and motioned them inside. He had on khaki pants, a blue-and-white pinstriped shirt, and a Nicole Miller tie of various animals running.

Good, Olivia thought, studying all the rats and rabbits racing diagonally across the tie, he’s probably in PETA or something. A radical. An asshole.

“Now I know why,” Ruby whispered. “He’s cute.”

“Really?” Olivia said. “Not my type.”

“No whispering,” Jake told them, closing the door. He got them chairs, offered coffee, water, iced tea. Then finally, he sat at his desk and opened a folder.

“Well,” he said, and Olivia smiled—that awful tic:
well, well, well.

“Nice tie,” Ruby told him. “Does it mean something?”

Jake shrugged. “A gift,” he said, and Olivia felt as if he was saying it directly to her.

“Oh,” Ruby said, “a gift. You’ve got a girlfriend.”

“One of those on-again, off-again girlfriends,” he said, looking at Olivia. “Which isn’t to my liking. I much prefer monogamy. I like to get to know someone, spend time with her. Call me crazy, but I’m not really into one-night stands. Or playing games. Or bullshit.”

“Jeez,” Ruby muttered. “I only asked about the tie.

“I think we’re here to settle that unfinished business?” Olivia said. Despite the air conditioning, she was hot and sweating.

“You’re exactly right,” Jake said. He pushed some papers across the desk to Ruby. “Basically, these are parental consent forms that say you, as the mother, are willing to give your baby to Olivia.” As he talked, Jake pointed to the paragraphs that illustrated, in legalese, what he was explaining. “That you’re not being paid to do this, or blackmailed, or otherwise coerced, but that you’re doing this of your own free will.”

Ruby nodded. Olivia had never seen her face so serious. Olivia felt it, too, the importance of these papers, of this moment. She looked from Ruby’s face down to her stomach. Ruby’s hands were folded over her belly. In there, Olivia thought, is my baby. It was fully formed by now, perfect. Together, Ruby and Olivia had studied the book Rachel had sent. They watched as the fetuses in the photographs grew larger and clearer, how the ears and the fingers and the toes all took shape. “This is freaking me out,” Ruby had said, but Olivia could only trace the shape of that baby in the picture and marvel at its development.