Ruby & Roland

by Faith Sullivan

  Rolling up my sleeves, I tossed kindling into the stove, where a bit of flame still flickered. I set a kettle of water from the kitchen pump on the stove, then grabbed a couple of chunks of wood from the bin and shoved them in.

  The sink was repulsive. Lifting out the dirty dishes, I grabbed a questionable-looking rag and began to scour the soap-stone with baking soda. When the water in the kettle had heated, I poured some into a basin and started on the dishes, no simple task since food had congealed on them.

  Half an hour later, when the last of the dishes were washed and dried with clean flour-sack towels from a drawer, I tossed the filthy towels beside the back door to carry across the road. Any other dirty linens I threw into the same pile, nearly retching at the look of them. I didn’t scrub the kitchen floor—that would wait for another day—but I did sweep, and I wiped off the table and counter.

  Was Dora really sleeping or was she listening to me doing this work? I tiptoed up the stairs. At the top, an open doorway beckoned, and I peeked in. A woman lay on a bed, back to me, a slow rising and falling of her torso indicating deep sleep. I tiptoed away again and down the stairs.

  Why, Dora, why do you sleep interminably, letting your house go to wrack and ruin and ignoring your husband? I sat for several moments at the kitchen table, lost in these thoughts.

  The afternoon had gone three, and it was time to start back up the driveway and across Cemetery Road. Gathering up the soiled things I had thrown down by the door, I headed out, but paused when I heard someone moving around in the barn. As I approached the wide barn door, two black cats came scurrying out, one with a rat in its mouth. Startled, I yelped and dropped the bundle. Inside, Roland turned toward me. “Ruby?”

  I crossed to where he stood holding a pitchfork. He thrust it aside and held out his arms. I walked into them, and now I held him, as I had only imagined doing.

  As if we’d rehearsed for years, in one sweet move we tumbled down on the pile of hay, facing one another. First, I held his face and kissed it everywhere, and then I took a fierce hold of his rear with my hands, and pressed his body against mine. Without removing our clothing, we shifted and writhed and turned every which way, twining and locking our legs until I heard myself whimper and Roland groan, “Jesus.” Neither the dust nor the scratchiness of the hay could diminish the delirium of the moment. Then the dust made me sneeze, and we laughed and that was sweet too.

  Grabbing up the bundle of laundry from the yard, I ran, singing all the way.

  I had noticed that in novels, when something momentous happens, the author often spends the following twenty pages analyzing it. Why did it happen? What did it mean? What were the likely consequences?

  I did not want to do that. What I wanted was to lock the moment in a tapestry bag with a shiny brass clasp, a bag to hold tight to my breast or to open at will in the future, removing the contents, not to question them but merely to savor them a thousand times. If the scene in the barn was a one-time occurrence, I would carry it in the tapestry bag all my life.

  Returning from the Allens’ that afternoon, I found Emma in the kitchen.

  “So how were things?”

  Lovely.

  “The kitchen was worse than you can imagine. Nearly every dish in the house was filthy.”

  She nodded, and said, “Go back there tomorrow afternoon and look what needs doing in the rest of the house. I’ll do up the laundry you brought, but there’s bound to be more. Bed linens at least.”

  As I laid the table with my back to her, Emma couldn’t see the Ruby I had become that afternoon.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Allens’ house felt silent and empty. Yesterday I’d made a racket banging pots and pans, and the noise had filled the place. Today, my chores, like dusting, were quiet. The place was ghostly, as if a wraith might meet me around a corner.

  Not that there were that many corners—three rooms on the first floor, probably three on the second, one belonging to old Moses—but still there was an eerie feeling. I recalled the day by the lake, when Roland said he felt more alive than he had all that month.

  Emma had sent a bag of rags with me for dusting the furniture, what little there was. I looked for a dry mop, something to swab up the gopher-size dust creatures lined up along the baseboards and huddled in the corners. Instead, in a dark pantry off the kitchen, I located a wet mop with a rag that was gray and stiff. I sprang open the jaws holding the rag and inserted one of Emma’s clean, soft ones.

  Back in the dining room, I dusted the sills of the two windows, then ran the makeshift dry mop over the pine flooring. From the room above came the sound of a woman’s soft step. I halted, standing stone still. But now, silence. What kept me from calling out, announcing myself? Why was I sneaking around like a thief?

  I dusted the parlor as I had the dining room, then shook the mop outside the back door. Roland was not in the farmyard nor did I see any movement in the barn. Disappointed, I turned back into the house, reminding myself that I shouldn’t expect to see Roland each time I crossed Cemetery Road.

  I opened the parlor door to the stairs. With the dust rag in hand, I began climbing, cleaning one tread at a time. Reaching the top, I went back down to collect the dry mop. After mopping the dust creatures in the second-floor hall, I let myself into what must be Moses’s room, a space monastically tidy. Quickly, I dusted the floor and the sparse furnishings. Beside the narrow bed lay a stack of Wild West magazines, and on the bureau stood a chalkware figure of Jesus.

  I would leave a note downstairs for Moses, asking about his laundry. Pulling the door silently to, I moved along to a third room. Storage? The hinges mewled as I entered. Across the room, near a double window, an empty cradle stood bathed in mellow afternoon light. Close by was a low, armless rocker, a sock doll propped on it. I did not linger, but closed the door again and descended the stairs.

  Reaching the bottom step, I sat down, oppressed. As the chill of the bare wooden step seeped into me, I shivered. I was jealous of everything connected with Roland—the cows in his pasture, the pasture itself, and his dog, Red. I was jealous of Moses. And, most especially, I was jealous of Dora, who had birthed Roland’s baby.

  Additionally, I was filled with guilt for loving Roland. Guilt and regret are so often linked, but not once in my life would I think, “If only I hadn’t loved Roland.”

  At last, I pulled myself up, hoping that the source of my jealousy and guilt might yet appear. I swept the kitchen floor and saw to several superfluous chores. Finally, as I was about to leave, I recalled Emma telling me to bring home any further laundry. With the greatest reluctance, I climbed the stairs again and knocked on Dora’s bedroom door.

  “Dora? It’s Ruby from the Schoonovers’. Emma wants me to gather up your laundry.” I waited. “Dora? Sheets, pillowcases, maybe clothes?”

  She didn’t answer, but I could hear her plodding slowly about. I wasn’t certain what the silence meant. Was she ignoring me? Would she produce soiled things or was I wasting my time? I sat down on the top step to wait. I would give her the benefit of the doubt. Ten minutes’ worth.

  I believe she used up the entire ten minutes, during which I grew to dislike her. I had risen to my feet to leave when the bedroom door opened partway and a pale arm reached out and dropped a stuffed pillowcase on the floor. A second pillowcase followed. And then the door was closed.

  I wanted to yell, “You know we’re doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, you lazy thing!” Out of the goodness of Emma’s heart, actually. I didn’t think I had any goodness in my heart for Dora Allen. But instead of yelling, I carried the pillowcases across Cemetery Road.

  Later I asked Emma if there was a laundry in Harvester. Maybe the Allens could send their dirty things to town. Emma and I already had as much washing as we could handle.

  “For a while, a Chinese man and his wife started what they called a ‘hand laundry,’ but the last I heard, they moved to St. Bridget. Mrs. Krautkammer’s sister and niece are taking in laundry, I
believe.” Emma handed me a stack of plates, meaning I should get on with setting the table. “But,” she continued, “Roland couldn’t afford hired laundry. And besides, there’d be mean gossip if a farmer’s wife wouldn’t wash their own clothes.”

  Halcyone having reached a happy ending, I was now well into my Tess of the d’Urbervilles and hoping for another such ending, yet wondering what one should make of this Alec fellow. Wasn’t there clinging to him an air of indolence and mischief? Beware, Tess, I thought. What an epidemic of cautionary tales! As the dim remains of light faded from my south-facing window, I laid the book aside and lit the kerosene lamp.

  Often I asked Serena’s advice, and sometimes she seemed to answer me. Or, at any rate, events would turn out in such a way that I felt she had answered me. With Roland, I supposed I would have to leave matters in the lap of the gods, as Serena might say. I could not see my way through to an end. I knew only one thing: the way I felt wouldn’t melt away.

  Early Saturday afternoon, before we drove to town, Emma and I returned the laundry to the Allens, along with a roasted chicken, potatoes, and gravy. Roland and Moses were in the field, so we set the food on the table and the bundle of washing on the sofa. Emma looked around the kitchen and rolled up her sleeves. “Might as well take care of these dishes.”

  When we’d washed and dried them, Emma called up the stairs, “This is Emma Schoonover, Dora. I’m headed to town. Anything I can bring back?”

  After long moments, a woman’s voice, with some irritation, called back, “Two bottles of Mrs. Burnside’s Female Tonic.” Yet another brand.

  “All right.” Emma shook her head. To me, she said, “Can you remember that?”

  • • •

  The following Saturday, when the men returned from Reagan’s, Henry was excited, rattling on about the turn the May weather had taken and the sweet scent of the lilacs drifting from the cemeteries. Emma and I were still up, playing patience, and we glanced up to note smug, blank looks on the hired men’s faces. They were privy to some secret. Sitting down at the table, Henry poured a tot of whiskey for himself and one each for Jake and Dennis.

  “Now, then, old woman,” Henry said, “I have news. We’re going to own an automobile.” Jake and Dennis studied Emma’s face to judge her delight.

  “Why would we do that? You don’t know how to drive one,” she said.

  The hired men looked amazed at her response.

  “Kolchak’ll teach me,” Henry said. “Told me so.”

  “Seems to me we’ve gotten along pretty well without an automobile. Why throw money away on something we don’t need? They’re complicated and noisy and they scare the animals.”

  I could see that the boys wanted to speak up in favor of the automobile, but they kept their mouths shut. The way Jake rolled his eyes, though, it was obviously costing him to stay out of it. I kept out of it, too, though I was as excited as the men.

  “Anyway, you said I could get one of those new wash machines,” Emma said.

  “You can still get a wash machine,” Henry told her, though he made the appliance sound as dull as dust, compared to an automobile.

  “We’re not made of money.” Emma folded her hands on the table in a satisfied way, as if to say, “I see I’m the practical one here.”

  “The crops are planted, the weather’s fair, God’s in his heaven,” Henry said.

  “You’re the one who always says, don’t count the crops till after the harvest,” Emma pointed out.

  “We can do this,” Henry said with assurance and with some impatience. When a man counts on his news being well met and it turns out otherwise, it’s a comedown—and a little embarrassing, especially in front of other men, even if they are hired hands. “It’s done,” he said with finality, and drank the last of his whiskey.

  The next day, after church, where Henry broadcast his big news, and after the midday meal, Henry and Emma climbed into the buggy and left for his younger brother Harold’s farm, where Henry would further spread the tidings. Emma threw me a “boys will be boys” look as they drove away. I knew from Emma that Harold and Henry were lifelong competitors. The one advantage Harold had was children, four of them, including two boys. But now, Henry was going to own an automobile. So there!

  Meanwhile, Dennis, Jake, and Moses set off on the two-mile walk to town to watch the Harvester Hawks’ kittenball team play the Red Berry Roosters. The boys had milked the cows before church and I had gathered the eggs, watered the garden, and slopped the hogs, so I was free until evening.

  Dennis had caught me after church, asking, “Come to the game? There’ll be popcorn and root beer.”

  “Thank you, but I have letters to write. Maybe another time.” The truth was, rather than write to Illinois friends, I simply wanted to laze.

  Feeling like a mouse when the cat’s away, I carried a kitchen chair to the seldom-used front porch and opened Godey’s Lady’s Book. The afternoon was fine, the air thick and lazy with warmth. Half an hour later, I was so sleepy, the words on the page dimmed, my chin fell to my chest, and Godey’s dropped to the floor. Retrieving it, I retired to the parlor sofa.

  But I woke with a start, swallowing a scream, when someone placed a hand over my mouth and kissed my eyelids. It was Roland. While his fingers fumbled with the buttons of my dress, I began squirming to shed my clothes.

  Soon we were thrashing around on the floor. I was naked, my petticoat twisted beneath my hips. Like a starving infant, Roland sought my breasts. What we were doing, I could not say, only that it was agreeable.

  Like most girls, I suppose, I had wondered what mating between a man and woman would be like. I’d seen animals coupling but, frankly, had hoped that there might be more to it with humans. And indeed there was: passionate kisses and caresses.

  After a bit, Roland groped with his equipment, and seconds later we were achieving a hesitant but juicy coupling, my demanding hands grasping his buttocks. A sharp pain followed, and then a pulsing pleasure that caused my body to rise from my hips. I cried out and then I laughed. In that moment, laughing was a kind of exaltation. Maybe that’s what laughing mostly is—exaltation—and maybe that’s what mating is too.

  As we collapsed like exhausted balloons, I was both happy and sad, but I asked, “May we do it again?” Now Roland laughed, and I laughed once more to hear him.

  The meaning of my sadness would slowly dawn: after this afternoon, I could never give myself to Roland for the first time. And after this afternoon, I could never again be the Ruby Drake that I had been.

  “Why so quiet?” he asked. “Are you sorry?”

  I kissed his neck beneath his ear.

  During those two hours, Roland taught me several new words and made me promise never to utter them except with him. And I never have. Time has lent those vulgar words an endearing patina.

  When we were done and I had put on my underthings, Roland insisted on fastening the eight nacre buttons on my dress, though his calloused fingers struggled as they had when he’d unbuttoned them. I offered to help, but he brushed my hands aside.

  When he’d finished, I kissed the callouses and picked up his shirt to help him into it, but he said, “No,” embarrassed perhaps by its shabbiness.

  Before he left, Roland said, “Ruby, I don’t ever want you to think that what happened was because of Dora or the way she is. What happened was because I love you.” He thought for a moment. “There are men who’ll tell a girl they love her only because they want to do what we did. That’s not the case with us.”

  Someday, when I was alone and sad, I would open the tapestry bag with the shiny brass closing and hold his words close.

  After Roland left and before anyone had returned, I washed out the blood I’d found on my petticoat and hung it up to dry in my room. It pained me to remove the memento.

  In late June, the automobile arrived, and after Kolchak had taught Henry the rudiments of it, he spent Sunday afternoons driving the machine in great circles around the farmyard, changing the
gears, applying the brakes, honking the horn, and frightening every living thing within half a mile. The sound of the horn alone caused the hens to cut their egg production. Mooing piteously and whinnying nervously, the cows and horses fled to the far end of the pasture. The pigs set up a terrible squealing and wouldn’t eat their slop until Henry had returned the automobile to the horse barn at the end of the day. Only Teddy remained calm. After the first circling by the machine, he stood at attention beside the back gate. Whatever inexplicable thing Henry did was all right by his dog.

  “It sure does fart a lot,” Dennis said of the bang-bang noises the automobile made.

  Emma complained daily of the dust it kicked up. One day she told Henry, “In Lundeen’s, a woman said that her nephew broke his arm when he lost control of that crank you start it with. Think of that. Broke his arm.” She set her coffee cup down. “When you break your arm, we’ll see how much you love that godforsaken thing.”

  But Henry only smiled and began teaching the boys to drive. I wanted to learn, but Henry said it was “too dangerous for the ladies.”

  Now and then Roland crossed Cemetery Road to see the automobile, and sometimes Henry gave him a ride around the yard and once even drove them out onto the road itself, turning the machine around in the Protestant cemetery to make the return home. Roland and I were never alone on these occasions, though once he managed to pass me a folded piece of paper, which I thrust into my apron pocket.

  Later I read: “Dear Ruby, I think of you all the time. I love you and I don’t know what to do. Do you think of me? Try to let me know. Your loving Roland.”

  I thought about him night and day. But I still took pains not to act moony around Emma. No one could know that Roland and I were lovers. I tried looking ahead, but the future was a dark tunnel with no light at the end.

  Now that Henry had his automobile, Emma sat down and ordered a wash machine from Montgomery Ward. The Schoonovers didn’t yet have electricity, but lines from town were expected before long. In the meantime we would use it without.