The Wise and the Wicked

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The Wise and the Wicked Page 4

by Rebecca Podos


  I get down to business determining my whereabouts. I have resolved to gather materials from the clotheslines, and then explore my surroundings, when a racket from beyond the house calls me back to the present . . . whenever the present is. I make my way in my boots and shift through the side yard, and come upon a crowd gathered in the street.

  A plump middle-aged woman kneels in the packed dust, twisting her long stained apron in her hands, her plain linen cap crooked on her head. “I have been falsely accused! Will no one help me?” The woman cries, reaching out to no soul in particular, but to all of us.

  I stand shivering in my dress, surveying the angry, appalled, shuttered faces of the crowd, searching for pity. But none come forward.

  Ruby’s attention drifted, her skin crawling inexplicably, and the third time she had to rewind the episode, Ruby gave up. Instead, she wandered the house in tight figure eights. She stopped in the kitchen, where Ginger was banging around beneath the kitchen sink, fixing a leaking joint in a pipe. From the sound of it, everything was going wrong. “Son of a bitch,” she swore, her voice echoing around the cabinet. Then came the clang of Ginger’s skull on the pipe. “Son of a bitch!” Scooting out, she glared at Ruby, one hand clapped to her head. Her hair color was fading, now like blue smoke, and it stuck to her forehead with sweat.

  From her spot in the doorway, Ruby gave a what are you gonna do? shrug, meant to be sympathetic.

  Ginger tossed her wrench to the tiles and grabbed for the roll of plumber’s tape on the counter. “No, no, don’t be useful or anything,” she snapped.

  “Don’t be competent or anything,” Ruby spat back, and moved on to the living room.

  Dahlia sat on the couch, her own hair lightened from sky to cloud. For an hour, she’d been flipping idly through the Plainsmen, Saltville’s weekly local newspaper. But she kept setting it down and gazing dreamily out the window into the early night sky.

  “I’m going to the store,” Ruby announced. “I need . . . something.”

  Slowly, her sister turned and watched her stuff her feet into boots. “Drive careful, okay?” The caution in Dahlia’s voice blew wind across a spark of unease, flaming it up.

  “I’ll walk.” Though it was frigid out, Ruby didn’t feel like being boxed in.

  “Be careful,” Dahlia repeated, her gaze already drifting back to the window.

  Outside, even the moon looked frozen when it peeked through the clouds, a bobbing chip of ice in a sea-dark sky. The Saltville General Store was a mile trudge from the house. She walked up Stone Road and turned left on Church Street, creatively named for the century-old one-room United Methodist Church. Then right onto Elm until she reached the store, its lighted sign announcing BEEF, PIE, AND MILK in the window. The dented bell above the mantel gargled as she ducked inside.

  Paul, the twentysomething cashier who she’d only seen emerge from behind the counter to wait on Dahlia, with whom he was clearly in love, nodded as she passed the counter. He tucked his beard into his chest and went back to reading Game & Fish, while she strolled the mostly empty aisles toward the grocery section. It was bomb shelter food; the isotopes in nuclear fallout would decay slower than the tins of ravioli and beans, vacuum-sealed jerky, and plastic-wrapped cupcakes.

  From a lower shelf just beyond Paul’s eye line, Ruby snatched a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts and stuffed it into her winter coat. She picked up a pack of toilet paper from the shelf behind, fingers jumping, and clutched it to her stomach.

  The nerviness of the day dissolved all at once, and as she turned, she felt good. She felt powerful.

  Until she saw boy’s-name-that-started-with-a-D down the aisle, between her and the register. He had a full shopping basket slung over one arm and a box of saltines in his free hand, but he held perfectly still, watching Ruby. From the thinned line of his lips and the way his dark eyebrows knotted together below a gray ski cap, she knew he’d seen everything. The blood slipped from Ruby’s cheeks.

  Because there was nothing else to do, she picked up her chin and brushed by him toward the counter, waiting for the boy—Dov, she remembered—to call her out. She handed over one of Levi’s twenties to pay for the toilet paper while Dov stepped behind her in line, but he said nothing.

  It didn’t matter. She’d won nothing, because she no longer had the power. And so while Paul was busy ringing Dov up, she pulled loose the waistline of her coat and let the Pop-Tarts tumble onto a stack of Plainsmen copies beside the door. Then she walked out into a wet, steady snow.

  Another choked jangle of the bell, and Dov stood beside her on the sidewalk. He was taller than Ruby—everybody was—but not by much, a few inches at most, and she watched him squint up into the falling snow with her peripheral vision.

  “You’re Cece’s cousin, right?” he asked, and without waiting, answered himself, “I thought so. She’s my sister’s friend.”

  Ruby said nothing.

  Dov blinked as flakes melted on his eyelashes and salted his black hair and hat. “You want a ride?” He scratched his jaw. “I don’t see a car.”

  What was worse, Ruby wondered, accepting a pity lift, or slouching pathetically off into the weather like Charlie Brown after blowing a baseball game?

  In the end, she followed Dov to his shiny black pickup truck, too pristine inside and out to have ever gone mud-running. It smelled like fabric shampoo and something . . . sweet. Dov turned the key in the ignition, and they both jumped as a voice halfway between a moan and a scream blasted from the speakers, accompanied by a ukulele:

  Love is patient

  Love is kind

  Unless, of course, it’s poorly timed

  It might be deaf

  Or dumb

  Or blind

  Or require brief jail time

  Ruby snapped the radio off.

  “Ahh,” Dov said in protest. “That’s a good song, though. ‘Various Varieties of Love.’ It’s—”

  “Yeah, I know who it is.”

  While the engine warmed, he pulled the box of saltines from his shopping bags, tore open the package, and held them out to her, flashing a lazy white smile.

  “I’m not deprived,” she informed him.

  His smile wavered. “Good?”

  “I know you saw me. But I’m not starving. I didn’t do it because I’m poor.” That was true enough. If the water at 11 Stone Road had been shut off once or twice, it was only because Dahlia forgot to send the checks before Ginger took over and put them on autopay.

  “I didn’t think you were,” he said.

  Though she knew she was angry at herself for being caught, for feeling weak, the low calm of his voice made her angrier. “Why not? Why couldn’t I be? You don’t know me.”

  “I guess I don’t. I just . . . figured.”

  His nonanswer enraged her. “You figured? Okay, then. Masterful work, Inspector Clouseau.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s that famous detective, from those movies. It’s not funny if I have to tell you.”

  “No, it’s funny.” Dov’s voice was so deadpan, it actually was funny, and she laughed against her will. He gave her a shy grin, then pulled away from the curb into the deserted road, damp and glittering under the streetlights and the snow. He headed up Elm toward her house as she directed him.

  They lapsed into silence, and Ruby could have let it stretch until they reached her house. But she surprised herself by breaking it. “You’re in Cece’s math class?” Not sparkling wit, but it was the only thing she knew about him.

  “What, me? No way. I’m, like, remedial compared to her. And Talia. My sister will probably get a NASA scholarship to study on the moon, while I’m working on a chicken farm,” he said cheerfully.

  Ruby eyed the spotless, expensive leather interior of his spotless, expensive truck, doubting very much that Dov’s future was in poultry. But she didn’t point it out. “That’s bleak.”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe it will be a fancy chicken farm in France.”

  “Right. One
of those famous Parisian farms.”

  This time Dov laughed, one loud bark. “Exactly.”

  Was he flirting? Ruby wondered. Was she? It was hard to tell. She didn’t have much to do with non-Chernyavskys, and since the family only ever had daughters, they didn’t have much to do with boys at all.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t like boys, or didn’t want them—though, of course, some didn’t. It was just that, except in strange cases like Aunt Annie’s, they didn’t keep boys around. Ruby didn’t know her father at all—only that he was different than Ginger’s, and Dahlia’s—and she’d honestly never given it much thought. Chernyavskys didn’t get romantic tattoos with men or move into small apartments with them or marry them. Sometimes they took promises and made promises. Sometimes they even ran away with them for a little while. But they almost always came back alone. It was why Ruby knew that however much Ginger liked Levi, he wouldn’t last. Neither would Paul the cashier, if Dahlia ever glanced his way. And the thing about the boys: they didn’t even seem that sad to be left. More like fishermen who thought they’d caught a giant trout, but upon reeling it in, realized it was a small dragon. And when the dragon broke the line and splashed back, they rowed home wondering whether or not it had all really happened. They were confused, disoriented, and willing to forget.

  So why bother with boys, or with anybody at all, outside of family? Why pick up a book you’d never finish, or start a math problem you’d never solve? Why begin what you know is only destined to end, sooner or later?

  Ruby was thinking about this while glancing sideways at Dov, at his profile stamped against the streetlights beyond the driver side window, when that frozen feeling crept through her again, stronger than it had been all day. Her ribs felt like windowpanes in winter, cold and fragile, frost embroidering itself across her bones as her breath hitched. In the next second, her phone went wild inside her coat pocket. Texts chimed in one after the other, and Ruby pried it out, fumbling it with nervous fingers. Without taking his eyes off the road, Dov caught her phone on the fall and handed it back.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, swiping at the screen. It was a group text between Ruby and her cousins.

  Mikki: Did you guys feel it?

  Oksana: Who was it?

  Cece: Not me mom’s here too

  Lili: Me and Mikki are ok, obvi. Mom says Aunt P’s not answering her phone?

  And then a second thread lit up.

  Dahlia: Ruby where are you????

  “What’s up?” Dov asked, shoving his ski cap back to keep his bangs out of his eyes. “Everything okay?”

  “Can you please drive faster?” The words floated up from between her iced-over ribs. “It’s a family thing.”

  “Sure.” He put his foot down, and they lurched forward with the wet grind of rubber.

  “Turn there,” she told him, short on breath. “Stone Road.”

  “Which house?”

  “This is fine.” They were four houses up from her own, but she was impatient. “Thanks, for . . . for the ride.” Grabbing her toilet paper, she left the warmth of the truck and tucked her head down against the snow. She heard the skate of his tires over asphalt as he turned to drive away, and looked over her shoulder. If Dov did the same when he paused at the end of the street, all he’d see would be the shape of her, getting smaller and farther away in the dark.

  Behind their flimsy living room curtains, her sisters’ silhouettes paced—Ruby could see them before she mounted the porch. She flung open the front door and they turned to stare at her. All at once, Dahlia melted onto the couch cushions with a shivery exhale of breath, while Ginger lurched forward, grabbing Ruby by the shoulders. “Why didn’t you text us back?” she barked.

  “I was almost home—” Ruby began, but lost her wind when Ginger crushed Ruby against her body.

  “Always text back,” she murmured into her hair, the afternoon’s bickering forgotten.

  Ruby tapped her elbows comfortingly; the only parts of her sister she could reach with her arms pinned. “Who was it?” she dared to ask.

  Ginger shook her head.

  Dahlia’s phone buzzed on the coffee table, and she lifted it with careful fingers, as if taking a hot pan from the oven. Ginger peeled them apart but took Ruby’s hand in hers, and they watched their big sister press the phone to her ear, white-knuckled. “Vera?” she answered, her usually serene voice brittle. Vera was another of the great-aunts, Polina’s little sister. They listened while she listened, and then, “Yes, I’ll tell them. Yes, we’ll see you then.” Dahlia ended the call, looking up to tell them, “It was Polina.” Her green eyes shivered with tears.

  Ginger squeezed Ruby’s hand hard enough to grind the bones, then pried her fingers free and crossed the room to the kitchen, announcing, “I’ll make tea.”

  “I’ll make the calls,” Dahlia said, though Ginger was already gone.

  And Ruby? She stood frozen, waiting to feel anything besides numb.

  • Six •

  The night their mother left them, Great-Aunt Polina had been Dahlia’s first phone call.

  She came quickly, not waiting to be let in but barging through the front door of the big brick house. Though she had raised their mother from a young age, Polina hadn’t rubbed off on her in any way that Ruby could see. Whereas their great-aunt moved powerfully through their halls, her mother was . . . soft. Ruby remembered exactly what she’d been wearing that morning: a ballet-pink sweater, loose high-waisted jeans, and wooly socks she’d padded down the driveway in to bring Ruby her forgotten lunch while she waited for the bus. In the morning cold, her cheeks were bright apples, her kisses light and her voice quiet as she murmured, “Be good, zerkal’tse.”

  Now she was gone—Dahlia, home visiting from college for her birthday, had opened the envelope that told them so—and Polina filled every abandoned corner of their home, like wind. Spying through the cracked kitchen door, Ruby heard her tell Dahlia in her harsh but comforting accent, “Ruby will live with me now.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if solving the simplest problem in the world.

  Dahlia sat at the kitchen table, elbows on the wood, hands knotted in front of her nose. “I don’t know if . . . I should . . . she has friends here.” At that time, Ruby had. “And Ginger—”

  “She will come also,” Polina hurried to say. Had she forgotten Ginger?

  “They have school. We can’t take them out.”

  “What’s friends? What’s school?” Polina set a steaming cup of tea down in front of Dahlia. It wasn’t anything fragrant from their mother’s shop, but something she’d brought along in her large purse, strong enough to curl inside Ruby’s nose in the doorway. She’d also set a silver flask on the table between them, and poured a generous amount of its contents into each of their cups. “They must be with family. Where will they live when you go back to your college?”

  “I don’t know . . .” Dahlia repeated. “God, I have to call Ginger. She’s sleeping over . . . somewhere. A friend’s. She’ll hate me just for telling her about Mom.” Dahlia dropped her forehead onto her fists. “I need time to think.”

  “So think. You are still a child, and how can a child take care of children? You must be smart, kotyonok.” The nickname, kitten, was kind, but from Polina, it might have been a reproach.

  Ruby was not feeling smart. When the bus had brought her home from school that afternoon, she’d seen the envelope with Dahlia’s name on it pinned with a magnet to the fridge. But she’d ignored it as she pulled out the bread to make a potato chip sandwich, believing it was a grocery list, or cash for pizza. It wasn’t unusual to find the shop closed; her mother wasn’t exactly flooded with customers during all daylight hours, pounding down the doors for herbal tea.

  “You took care of your sisters when you were younger than me, didn’t you? We’ve all heard the story,” Dahlia shot back, sounding nothing like a kitten. In spite of everything, Ruby was proud of her.

  “This is different. Even when I am young, I am not a ch
ild.”

  “Look, maybe we don’t even have to move them. I could stay here a bit longer. Maybe she’ll come back—”

  “I love my Evelina,” Polina interrupted. “You know this. But your mother, she is scared. So she makes her choice. We all make a choice,” she said, curling forward in a way Ruby had never seen, as if bent under a heavy load. Then she straightened and scraped her skirt smooth, but said in her gentlest tone yet, “Family is everything. The most important power we Chernyavskys have. Your mother will find this out for herself, I think. I hope. If not, she will never come back.”

  • Seven •

  On Thursday, the sky hanging dark and low above them, Ruby and her sisters stood in front of 54 Ivory Road, squinting up. Ruby had always thought Polina’s place looked like a huge gingerbread house. A gingerbread house that was left out in the yard for a couple of weeks for the deer and the birds to eat, but still. It was set a quarter mile back from the road by a sloped gravel driveway that sawed through the woods. Gray stone, with winter-bare tendrils of climbing ivy covering large patches. The tall windows were arced, the mossy roof tiles rounded like seashells. A tower on the left side, circled by a black-iron widow’s walk, crowned by a weathervane. It was an old, old house.

  Dahlia and Ginger clicked up the slate path in their heels, and Ruby followed. The grand front door swung open just before they’d reached them, revealing Great-Aunt Vera—Polina’s younger sister, though not at all young. Eighty-five years old, she’d grown up in the house just like Ruby’s mother, but forty years earlier. Now she had five daughters still living (Alyona would have made six), fourteen granddaughters—some of whom were still teenagers, some in their late thirties—and six great-granddaughters. A black pillbox hat with a bow and a half veil was nestled in her blue-white hair. “You girls look lovely,” she said, her accent much milder than her sister’s.

 

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