Now Oscar turned to me, his eyes flashing.
“What I do doesn’t bother you?“ he asked, his voice now a shadowy growl. “Why the fuck should it bother you?” He gestured to himself and then to me. “We do the same thing. You just got a license, is all.” Then he stood up and stepped close to me. His mouth was open slightly, showing his teeth. “Just like a fucking cokehead. You wanna buy my shit, but you don’t want me in your neighborhood.” He grinned but his eyes stayed angry. “Besides, I wasn’t here to sell drugs, pendejo. I was looking for a friend of yours.” He stayed inches from my face. His breathing was calm and steady, his eyes still. I stepped back and turned a little, holding my arm out toward the front door. Oscar nodded, then prodded me in the chest with his finger.
“You talk to your friend Worm,” he said. “You tell him I was looking for him.”
The door slammed shut behind him. I sat down in my stool slowly, supporting my weight with one hand. The music was brash and I rubbed my temples. When I looked up, Mitchell was standing across from me, behind the bar.
“You need a shot,” he said and turned to pour one. I watched him without thinking, feeling my heart beat in my chest, my breath pulling through my nose. Mitchell poured himself one, too.
“Frank told me what was going on,” he said, setting the shot in front of me. We looked at Frank, who was standing at the register, reading the notes that were taped to the mirror. Notes from me, about cleaning or cash drops, notes from the bartenders to each other, about covering shifts.
“Pour him one, too,” I said.
Mitchell moved to pour another shot. He tapped Frank on the shoulder with the back of his hand and, when Frank turned, handed him the shot, then shrugged in my direction. Frank followed him to my end of the bar. Mitchell and I picked up our shots.
“Thanks for pointing that guy out, Frank,” I said. Mitchell nodded in agreement.
“Is everything all right?” Frank asked. “What did he want?” I turned to Mitchell.
“He was looking for Worm,” I admitted.
Mitchell’s shoulders dropped and he shook his head.
“Fucking Worm,” Mitchell said, and drank his shot.
I asked Frank to take over the door again, then took a beer and my cigarettes and went into the office. Through the wooden door, the noise of the bar was just bass thump and muddled voices. I sat in the swivel chair and put my head down on the desk. For a minute, I just sat there, listening to the sounds of the bar and to my breathing. Anger came up in my throat. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket to call Worm. But, then I thought about it and I decided against it. Fuck him, I thought. It’s his fucking fault I’m in this shit. I dropped the phone on the desk and opened the drawer to get the bottle of Blanton’s. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem like the right time, so I closed the drawer again.
I went back out into the bar when I heard Mitchell and Tracy yelling last call. Mitchell and I walked out back to the patio and screwed the door shut while Tracy and Frank started closing. The four of us finished up quietly. We had a shot and Frank washed the glasses. When we walked out to the parking lot, Ruby was leaning against on the hood of my truck. She had an overnight bag at her feet and she bounced her purse on her knees. Ruby was there and everything else was gone. Even in the pale glow of the sodium lights, she looked like an absolute, like she had been built just to be standing there, like that, waiting for me. Mitchell and Tracy and Frank walked away without a word.
I stood as close to her as I dared. She took my hand. She leaned forward, her chest just touching mine. I looked down into her green eyes, eyes that I had thought about for six years.
“I thought maybe we could pretend for a little while longer,” she said.
I knew I was forgetting something and I just didn’t care. I stared into those eyes and I knew I was forgetting something, but it wasn’t until the next morning that I remembered it was Worm.
SUNDAY
TWELVE
The next morning, I made a strong pot of coffee and got in the shower before Ruby woke up. The cigarettes and the stress of the night before were still in my eyes like dirt. I stood for a long time with my head under the flow, resting my hands on the tiled wall and letting the hot water sting my back and neck.
I had slept in uncomfortable chunks. I hadn’t been in touch with Worm and now the feeling that someone might want to ransack my house was on my skin like a rash. Lying next to Ruby as she slept, I had to struggled to stay still. Each creak and clack of the old house caused my muscles to flinch.
But when I got out of the shower, Ruby was sitting in the living room, drinking coffee, and the bottom dropped out of all my nervousness. My heart jumped a little when I saw her, like it was a surprise again. Her dark hair was cinched up off her neck. The implications of curves under her almost-loose t-shirt made me warm. She grinned when she saw me, her chin tucked down on her chest. I knew better than to feel what I was feeling, knew better than to let those things in. But I grinned back and felt happy about it.
“Good morning,” I said to Ruby.
“Good morning,” she said back.
We sat on the couch, letting our knees touch, drinking our coffee, and grinning at each other. I kept looking up, not quite believing she was there. I kept looking up, imagining that it could have been like this. Ruby in the morning, on my couch and in my house.
“Good morning,” I said again and Ruby laughed.
I stepped into the kitchen and tried Worm again, but it went to voice mail. I hung up and turned the phone off for my visit with Jacob – Sarah’s rule. During one lunch, she said I kept checking the time, so from then on she demanded that I leave it off.
The drive out to The Heritage, the over-planned suburban city where Sarah lived with her parents, was an empty, gray stretch of interstate. Ruby sat in the passenger seat of my little truck, hands on her knees, watching the exits roll by. The windows were down and her lava black hair blew in little wisps across her face and neck.
We pulled into the empty parking lot of the Pappy Burger and parked next to the enclosed playscape, a yellow and blue tangle of slides and ladders wrapped in a greenhouse structure stuck on the front of the restaurant. I spotted Jacob immediately, flinging himself from one platform to another, his brown hair-mop bouncing. Ruby’s eyes scanned the playground. Jacob was the only kid there.
“Did you call Sarah and tell her I was coming?”
“No,” I said.
“Should you?”
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Really.”
Inside, the air was crisp and cold in my lungs. Thin music dripped through the speakers, behind the sounds of the burger production.
“Want anything?” I asked. Ruby had her arms folded over her soft belly. Her ivory face was looking at the plastic orange and blue menus hanging from the ceiling.
“Um,” she said. “What are you getting?”
“Just coffee.”
“Just coffee for me as well, then,” she said.
I stepped to an open register. The cashier, a short, burlish woman in a brown and orange polyester shirt and black visor, scuffled to her post. Her name tag read “Joy.” She watched me with flat eyes and flaccid cheeks until I realized she was waiting for me to order.
“Can I have two large coffees, please?”
“We stopped serving breakfast at eleven, sir,” Joy said, shifting her weight away from the register.
“I don’t want breakfast,” I said. “I want coffee.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Coffee,” she said, “is a breakfast item. And we stop serving breakfast at eleven.”
“Can I have two lunch coffees, then, please?”
“We do not currently have any coffee, sir,” Joy said, biting at each syllable. “Would you like something else?” I looked behind Joy, to the grills and the fryers, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else working. A pair of headphones lay abandoned on the stainless steel counter beneath the drive-through window. Some piece of equipment b
eeped, but Joy didn’t appear to notice.
“Just two waters, then.” Joy filled two flimsy plastic cups with ice water, set them on the counter in front of me and disappeared into the maze of shelves and coolers.
“Thank you,” I yelled after her.
Outside, Sarah sat on a yellow plastic bench, reading a paperback. Chicken nuggets, fries, and a milk carton sat on a brown tray next to her.
I was aware of the fact that Sarah looked a little bit like Ruby when I first started dating her. Both had dark, almost Mediterranean coloring and green eyes. Both had a habit of getting jagged haircuts that fell forward around the chin and neck. But Ruby was bigger. Not bigger, just more of everything. I hoped that Sarah wouldn’t notice the similarities.
“Hi, Sarah,” I said.
Ruby stood a step behind me, sipping her water. Sarah closed her book, looked up at me, then over my shoulder at Ruby. Her eyes opened a little in surprise, then she nodded, a little nod of understanding. During our years together, I had talked often of Ruby. Sarah recognized her, I could tell. Another difference between Sarah and Ruby was that everything that Sarah felt or thought was instantly visible on her face. Ruby’s true feelings were a cloudy presence, hidden somewhere out of sight.
“Little John,” Sarah said.
“This is Ruby,” I said. Ruby stepped forward and held out her hand. Sarah took it without standing up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Ruby said.
Sarah’s mouth tightened into a small, sad smile.
“You, too,” she said. “John has told me a lot about you.”
I looked around for chairs to pull up, but all the chairs in the place were part of the tables, bolted to the table bases. So we sat, three in a row, on the bench, me between Sarah and Ruby. I leaned back as far as I could to try to accommodate conversation.
“Ruby’s in town for a few days,” I said. “She wanted to meet Jacob.”
“Oh,” Sarah said. Sarah was wearing black slacks and a yellow, buttoned blouse and I remembered that it was Sunday. Occasionally she would take Jacob to church with her parents. I had gone once as well. The church, the one attached to Jacob’s daycare, was one of those massive suburban Catholic churches with arched wooden ceilings and a choir-leader with a guitar.
“Church?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said. She picked up a salt packet from the tray next to her, flicked it with her fingernail a few times, then ripped it open and sprinkled its contents on the pile of fries. “It’s my father’s birthday and he asked us to come with him.” Her father was a jovial Catholic, a big gray man who liked to grab you by the shoulder and punch you in the arm. He had cried when Sarah and I told him about the divorce.
Jacob came running up, his brown bangs matted to his forehead with sweat. He was wearing blue cargo shorts that fell almost to his ankles and an Astros t-shirt I had given him. My breath caught a little when I saw the shirt. I knew Sarah had put it on him for me.
Jacob lifted his milk carton with both hands, sucked on the straw, and set it back down carefully. Then he stepped up next to me and hugged me from the side.
“Hi, dad,” he said. Lately, he’d been calling me dad instead of daddy, a slightly formal habit that I assumed came from Sarah talking about me to him, like, “Your dad will be here soon.” I’d tried to get him to revert to daddy, but without any luck.
“Hi, Jake,” I said, rubbing his brown mop-hair. He squirmed up onto Sarah’s lap and picked up a chicken nugget. His large brown eyes had long, thick lashes. He turned his face up to Sarah’s while he ate, watching her.
“Jacob,” Sarah said. “This is your dad’s friend, Miss Ruby.” Jacob looked over his shoulder at Ruby, then turned back to Sarah.
“Say ‘hi,’” Sarah said. Jacob pressed his head to Sarah’s chest and closed his eyes.
“Hi,” he said, barely.
“Hi,” Ruby said. “Nice to meet you.”
Jacob opened his eyes and looked up again into Sarah’s face.
“You can go play,” she said.
Jacob popped another nugget into his mouth and slid off her lap. He bounded up the blue stairs and disappeared.
“We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Sarah said. Her hands were folded on top of her book and her thumb tapped impatiently on the book’s spine.
“Leaving?” I asked.
“Evacuating?” Sarah said, turning to look at me. “The hurricane?”
“Oh,” I said.
“Where will you go?” Ruby asked. She didn’t like the focus of things to be off herself for too long.
“My sister’s house,” she said. “In Austin. You can come, too, John. If you’d like.”
I nodded like I was thinking about it.
“I can’t,” I said. “Mitchell will want to open the bar.”
Sarah shook her head at the answer she had known I would give. We watched Jacob running across a yellow bridge. The sun was hot on one side of my face. I sipped my water.
“Where in Austin does your sister live?” Ruby asked.
Sarah turned and leaned around me to look at Ruby.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her face was tired and drawn. “But would you mind giving John and me a minute alone?”
“Of course not,” Ruby said, already on her feet.
“I really am sorry,” Sarah said. “I don’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s not rude,” Ruby said. “Not at all.” She picked up her purse and pushed through the door into the restaurant. A wash of air-conditioned coolness blew past. I leaned forward, put my elbows on my knees. Sarah leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. Then she rubbed her eyes and turned to me.
“Little John,” she said. “You have to decide if you are in Jacob’s life or not.”
“I know,” I said.
“You can’t be half-assed about this,” she said. “If you’re not going to be his dad, then just leave him the hell alone. Leave us alone.”
“I want … I want to be there,” I said. “I just fucked things up with you and I can’t seem to fix it. And that makes it hard for me and him.”
Sarah shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Is that what you’ve told yourself?” she asked. “That you can’t be a good dad because you and I don’t get along?” I stayed silent. “John, you never take him. You never make any effort with him. He doesn’t need much,” she said. Her voice was thick and wet.
“I know.”
“You could just come take him sometimes,” she said. “Take him to the park or something.”
“I know,” I said.
“He only sees you once a week, and when he does see you, you’re drunk or hung over,” she said. “He doesn’t need a cokehead in his life.”
“Me? What about you?” I said, jumping at the opening. My throat was tight.
“What about me?”
“Worm said he saw you the other day.”
“Worm?” she said, her voice high. “I saw Worm at the mall. Jesus, Little John. Are you honestly accusing me of buying coke from Worm?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Jesus Christ. You’re fucking phenomenal,” she said. “Fucking unbelievable.” Her hands were clenched in tight fists on her knees. “You bring a date? You accuse me of buying coke? God.” She stood up. “I guess I should be grateful that you’re sober this time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
She stood for a long minute watching Jacob on the playground. Her lips were pursed and her eyes were wet with tears. Then, abruptly, she shook her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She packed her book into her purse and called out to Jacob. He came running up and started pulling on his shoes without a word. Sarah watched, her jaw clenched. When he pulled the Velcro straps tight, she closed her eyes.
“Hug your dad goodbye,” she said.
Jacob hugged me around one leg. I squatted down and held him in my arms. He was sweaty, his hair smelled of plastic sunsh
ine. I let him go and patted him on shoulder.
“Be good, kiddo,” I said, but I couldn’t look at him again.
“We’re leaving for Austin tomorrow afternoon,” Sarah said, her salty, coastal voice breaking. “I need you to think about all this. I need you to make up your mind.” I nodded and put my face in my hands. When I looked up again, they were gone.
Ruby and I sat on the concrete patio of a chain coffee shop in a strip center near the highway. Cars streamed past, their hornet buzzings echoing off the cinder block wall. Ruby pulled a pair of oversized sunglasses out of her purse. The sun was bleach white and hot.
“He’s a cute kid,” Ruby said, stirring her iced coffee with a straw. “He looks a lot like you.”
I nodded. My eyes were heavy. Traffic in the parking lot, traffic on the highway, blew by like we weren’t there. Across the highway was a used car lot. Strings of plastic flags were strung from light pole to light pole, thrumming in the wind. The air was thick with tar and diesel. I chewed on my thumbnail and an idea came to me.
“Evacuate with me, Ruby,” I said before I had even finished the thought.
“I’m sorry?”
“Evacuate with me. The hurricane is coming,” I said. “I have some money saved up. We could drive to Austin and then fly to France.” I didn’t want to stop talking. Just saying it felt like relief, like an uncoiling. “To, like, the south of France. To the beaches. I’ve got money saved up. I can afford it.”
Ruby was looking at her hands.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You’re unemployed. I could ask Mitchell to take care of things.”
“I don’t know,” she said again. She tilted her head and looked at me from under her choppy black bangs. “I don’t know.”
“Look. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I said. “It’d just be for a week. You never even have to see me again afterwards.” I gave her my best innocent grin. “If I become too unbearable, the wine there is really, really cheap.” Ruby smiled.
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