Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

by A. L. Michael

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of a one-eighty from last night?’ Chelsea said. ‘Maybe you should think about it, there’s no rush, is there?’

  Evie frowned at her, and Mollie shrugged, ‘It’s been ten years. Things happen when they’re meant to.’

  Evie cleared her throat, finishing buttering her toast before she shared her latest realisation.

  ‘I may have done something… well, not bad, not really, but…’

  ‘Evie.’ She looked up to find her two old friends staring at her with exactly the same look they’d given her at seventeen when they found her sucking face with that guy who used to sell cigarettes in the pub.

  She huffed, holding up her hands, ‘I called Evelyn on the way here. The woman who owns Ruby’s arts centre place.’

  ‘You did that without us?’ Chelsea frowned, ‘Way to be secretive, Eves.’

  ‘I was going to tell you this morning what I found out, that was always my intention. I was just… curious. You guys have lives and reasons to go back to them and, well, I don’t. I wanted to know if there were options.’

  ‘And?’ Mollie’s blue eyes radiated hope, as if smiling desperately could make it into good news, ‘Where is it?’

  ‘London,’ Evie grinned, ‘near Camden Market.’

  Chelsea froze, not entirely sure what it meant but feeling as if suddenly she was standing at the end of a long tunnel. London. Home, her home.

  Mollie tried not to look disappointed, ‘Well, it would be a great place for an arts centre. A shitty place to try and pay for rent while working for minimum wage though.’

  Evie tried to hold back a smile, ‘Mollie, what if I told you that this nice lady Evelyn asked us if we’d be using the two-bedroomed flat that Ruby had also been renting? That is completely paid for along with the studio.’

  Mollie’s eyes shone, and she broke out the huge white grin that got her the lead role in Annie with absolutely no audition, ‘For six months, like she said in the letter? Along with the studio?’

  Evie paused, then nodded, her grin matching Mollie’s, ‘We can do this, Molls.’

  Come on…. come on. Let’s do this. We’re meant to do this.

  Mollie’s eyes bulged, ‘London. We can easily get the centre going in six months, and even if it’s struggling, six months to save would let us save up for rent. I’ll put in a transfer form at work today. They can send me to a London store, so I’ll still have an income.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Evie bounced in her chair, grinning.

  ‘Two weeks, max.’

  Chelsea looked between the two of them, ‘Seriously? That’s it?’

  Mollie and Evie shrugged, looking at each other. ‘Ruby has decreed. We need to get out, and we’ve got a chance to make our dreams come true. Why not?’

  Chelsea’s eyebrows skyrocketed, ‘You just used to be so… cautious, Moll.’

  Mollie snorted, taking a sip of her coffee, ‘I think if I was cautious I probably wouldn’t have a ten-year-old daughter. This is our chance. The question is…’ she delicately put down her cup ‘… are you in or out?’

  Chelsea’s mouth twitched briefly into a smile, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, ‘Sure, I’m in.’

  Evie looked at her doubtfully, but smiled all the same. ‘Bucks Fizz with our breakfast then?’

  ‘Urgh, how can you even think that?’

  ‘Hair of the dog. Besides, Ruby would love it,’ Evie justified, and waved over a waiter.

  A little niggle of doubt gnawed at her, a tiny bit of guilt at the white lie she’d told. Evelyn had been telling the truth, Ruby had paid up in advance for the space and the flat. But she’d written that letter months ago. They had three months left paid on the lease. Three months to make it a success and survive. They could do it, they could. It would be just like that school trip again. Evie would work out all the crap behind the scenes to make it happen, and in the end, they’d never even know there had been a chance of failure. Three months. It was barely a lie. She looked at Mollie’s face, almost splitting with happiness, and clinked her champagne glass in determination.

  Chapter Three

  Life went on in Badgeley. Evie went to her job at the call centre, but she dealt with customer complaints with finesse, even smiling when she hung up her headset for the day. She had an entire notebook filled with ideas for their gallery space, as well as lists: what to pack, what to leave, what to fix, things to remember. The two weeks waiting for Mollie’s transfer time was like torture, counting down the days until they could get it started, get it making money. Especially with the three-month deadline at the back of her mind. They all had less time than they thought.

  Every time she saw Mollie, talking about how different Esme’s life was going to be, how she was building something for her daughter, a tight sick feeling held her stomach, clenching like a fist. She was putting them in jeopardy. She was taking a risk with their lives and it wasn’t her place. But… but they could do this. She was the only one who ever had faith, and hadn’t Ruby always known that?

  She was constantly on the phone to Evelyn, the sweet older lady who owned the studio, talking location, figuring out logistics and permits and everything else.

  ‘Darling girl, the place is yours for as long as you want it. I’m very pleased.’ Evelyn sounded very well-to-do, and whenever they spoke Evie imagined her sitting holding a teacup with her pinkie finger sticking out, an ancient ceramic-handled telephone in her other hand. There was something immediately relaxing about her.

  ‘Just remember to be nice to Killian,’ Evelyn had said pointedly.

  ‘Killian?’

  ‘The carpenter who rents the little workshop space in the studio? I mentioned him. He’s a lovely boy, but obviously his work can be noisy sometimes… I’m sure you can work together to figure something out, a compromise?’ Evelyn’s voice could do stern, surprisingly.

  ‘Of course, we’ll get along great!’ Evie was constantly chipper. Things were happening. Stuff was coming together. ‘Did Ruby know him?’

  ‘Ruby didn’t use the space much the last year or so. They may have crossed paths, who knows. She had her secrets.’

  She banged him, Evie thought to herself, obviously. She was surprised the press hadn’t gotten hold of that one: Ruby’s secret tryst with woodworker lover. Evie shook her head, the title would have been better than that: Ruby likes Wood.

  She put it out of her mind, hoping desperately that maybe he’d just be some hapless dork working away in his studio like a hermit, and they could all get on with their lives. She checked her bank account every day, looking at the money she’d transferred, the money she’d scraped together as an escape fund over the years. She liked seeing it sitting here, a nice round number. It was going to pay for her future. There was something bone-tremblingly exciting about that.

  Finally the day came, where she pulled up outside Mollie’s flat to find Esme sitting on a suitcase, surrounded by three black bin bags.

  ‘Hey munchkin, ready for adventures?’ Evie scooped her goddaughter up into her arms and swung her round. Esme regarded her seriously, pulling down her dark rimmed glasses to the end of her nose for effect.

  ‘Don’t you think I’m getting a little old for that now? I am ten!’

  Evie grinned and squeezed her, ‘I know, but adults keep doing embarrassing things so they can pretend you’re not growing up. Just go with it. It stops me feeling old.’

  ‘You are old,’ Esme said mercilessly, attempting to help drag a bag to the car, ‘but that’s okay, you’re still pretty.’

  ‘Well, gee, thanks. Didn’t your mama teach you looks aren’t the most important thing?’ Evie heaved the case into the car boot, suddenly realising an epic game of luggage Tetris was going to be necessary to get everything into her little Ford Fiesta.

  ‘Yes, but Nanny says if you’re not pretty, no one marries you, and you die alone eaten by cats who try to steal your peach schnapps.’

  Evie felt her head hurt, and looked over at Esme,
whose little face curled into a mischievous grin, her blue eyes wide and innocent. ‘You’re going to give your mother a heart attack one of these days.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not staying with Nanny any more, so I figure it’s important to get one more in for the road.’

  ‘You have seriously been hanging out with me too much, kid.’ Evie ruffled Esme’s hair, to her irritation, and opened the back door for her, ‘Your chariot, m’lady. Anyway, where’s your mum?’

  ‘They’re having one final argument. I think it’s how they say goodbye,’ Esme shrugged and pulled a book from her Frozen backpack, ignoring Evie instantly.

  Evie ventured closer to the front entrance of the flat, and heard the telltale signs of screaming and shouting. Pretty typical with Mollie’s mother.

  ‘I’ll see you at Christmas – try not to drink yourself to death before then, you selfish cow!’ Mollie’s voice echoed, followed by the thump of feet thundering down the staircase.

  She appeared before Evie, frazzled, her hair in a messy bun and her eyes red.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ She tried for a smile, and watched as Evie raised an eyebrow. ‘No, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s get going.’

  She slid into the passenger seat, turning around to talk to her daughter and then, seeing she was engrossed, turned back. ‘So here’s a very important question… can we stop and get pancakes on the way?’

  Esme looked up, suddenly completely alert, focused on Evie as she pretended to mull it over.

  ‘Depends if anyone knows any good road trip songs to speed us on the way to the pancake place,’ she said, starting the engine.

  ***

  ‘Tell me about Ruby,’ Esme demanded from the backseat, apparently bored after their pancake stop. ‘Was she always so… sparkly?’

  Evie and Mollie exchanged a look. If ten-year-olds knew who Ruby Tuesday was, it was from the drinking and drama and bad language. By the end she’d looked like Rock’n’Roll Heroin Barbie, existing through sheer force of will. And yet everyone loved her brokenness, how it slipped through into her songs.

  ‘Well, yeah…’ Evie thought about it, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘She always seemed to sparkle. It was the leftover fairy dust from all the mischief she caused.’

  Evie winked at Esme in the mirror, but Mollie frowned.

  ‘She wasn’t some sort of benevolent Peter Pan character, she was a real person.’ She turned in her seat to face her daughter, ‘Once, she told me we were going to study in the library because she wanted help in History, and we ended up auditioning for A Streetcar Named Desire.’

  ‘You were Blanche in that, weren’t you?’ Evie exclaimed.

  ‘Yep, and Ruby was purposefully bad, ended up doing props instead.’ Mollie shook her head, ‘She knew I’d been too scared. She wanted me to have the light on me, be the centre of attention. Forced me into it.’

  ‘So she taught you to be brave and go after your dreams?’ Esme surmised, fingers interlocked beneath her chin like a tiny amateur psychologist, ‘Interesting.’

  ‘She more… tricked me into it. For my own good.’

  Esme frowned, ‘Does that make her good or bad?’

  ‘That makes her Ruby,’ Evie laughed. ‘It was the same with me, I couldn’t afford the art supplies to do a drawing class in Northampton. You needed your own tools, and I needed the class for my uni applications…’

  ‘You did go to that, I remember meeting you for coffee afterwards,’ Mollie interrupted.

  ‘Yep, Ruby got me all the supplies. I was so embarrassed. So grateful. Until I realised she’d shoplifted them.’

  ‘She stole!?’ Esme said, aghast, hand to her mouth in a way that Evie was sure she had spent time perfecting in a mirror.

  ‘She did!’ Evie laughed.

  ‘Which is really, really bad!’ Mollie interjected sternly.

  Esme rolled her eyes, ‘Duh, Mum. Obviously.’

  ‘She did a bad thing, but she did it out of love for a friend,’ Evie shrugged. ‘That’s what Ruby was, a patchwork of good intentions, bad choices and terrible impulse control. She wanted people to achieve their dreams.’

  ‘And that’s why we’re going to London,’ Esme finished, cleaning her glasses on the bottom of her Fame t-shirt. ‘So you and Mum can start an arts place with yummy cakes and cool art and dancing and plays.’ She paused, frowning at her glasses, then putting them back on and meeting Evie’s eyes in the mirror. ‘I think there should be a book corner.’

  ‘That’s a great idea Ez!’

  ‘I know,’ the little girl shrugged, and went back to her book.

  Evie raised her eyebrows at Mollie, who shrugged and threw up her hands.

  ‘Eves… what if we’re making a mistake?’ Mollie said quietly, staring out at the road ahead.

  ‘We’re not!’ She took her eyes off the road to glare at her friend, ‘Just think of this as another Streetcar situation. Ruby knows what she’s doing.’

  ‘Ruby didn’t know us as adults,’ Mollie shook her head, her blonde curls shaking sadly.

  ‘Lucky we weren’t smart enough to outgrow our dreams then, isn’t it?’ Evie said brightly, and turned on the radio, trying to ignore the tiny thud of guilt that jabbed her whenever she thought about how much they had to lose.

  ***

  ‘No need to thank me,’ Ruby said, dumping the plastic bag on the bed. Evie looked at her warily, and then went to open it. Inside were pencils, charcoal, colouring pencils. A sharpener in the shape of a teddy bear and a collection of rubbers in neon colours.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘You shall go to the… art… drawing class thingy!’ Ruby said, as if waving an invisible wand. ‘I knew you couldn’t go to the class without art supplies. So there they are.’

  Evie raised her eyebrows and felt her chest constrict a little, ‘Rubes…’

  Ruby waved her hands in front of her, ‘Nope, no soppiness. You know I don’t do all that icky stuff.’

  ‘Oh shut up, dork!’ Evie pulled her into a hug, ‘How did you even afford this?’

  Ruby’s hair tickled her nose, and smelled like a strange mixture of rosewater and Charlie body spray. She clutched at her delicate waist, rocking a little.

  ‘Best not to ask,’ came Ruby’s reply, and Evie pulled back, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Rubes, a handful of pick‘n’mix at Woolies is one thing – did you steal this stuff?’

  Ruby twirled a strand of hair, ‘Steal is such a strong word…’

  ‘Do you have a softer one that means “took stuff that wasn’t yours”?’

  ‘I’m working on it…’ Ruby smiled, then threw her arm around Evie. ‘Look, babe, none of this comes back on you. It’s not like I stole from one of the three shops in Badgeley. I’m not an idiot. And it’s for the greater good! It’s not like I’m a hoodie stealing Eminem CDs to sell on.’

  ‘You are so full of crap,’ Evie growled, but didn’t shrug off her arm.

  ‘Look, you need to do this art class. It’s your gift. Consider me an agent of fate, making sure you end up on the right path.’

  ‘And what if keeping me on the right path means you end up in prison?’ Evie looked at her friend, unimpressed.

  Ruby looked at her with a self-satisfied look of pity, ‘Babe, one day my luck is gonna run out. I’ve got no doubt about that. But when it does, it’s not gonna be stealing pencils for my talented friend. It’ll be robbing a bank, or hitting a police officer at a sit in, or accidentally overdosing. Don’t sweat the small shit.’

  ‘I guess I don’t have a choice,’ Evie said with irritation.

  ‘Nope, you don’t,’ Ruby kissed her cheek and squeezed her close, ‘so shut up and go with it.’

  ***

  The studio sat on a little courtyard off a main street in Camden. They’d driven down the high street a few times, getting lost, but Evie didn’t mind because she could feel Esme’s excitement. The little girl was glued to the window, nose pushed up against the glass, her m
outh in a little ‘o’.

  ‘Mummy! Look! Their hair is purple! Look!’

  ‘Ez, don’t point!’ Mollie hissed.

  ‘But can you see?!’

  ‘Yes, I can see!’ she grumbled, ‘Very cool.’

  ‘Why are the holes in their ears so big? I can see right through to their necks!’ Esme said in awe, with a hint of disgust.

  ‘It’s done on purpose,’ Evie supplied, thinking of a boy she’d kissed at a party at uni, and an unfortunate incident where her rings had got caught in his piercings. She’d stopped dating arty boys after that. Too much mess.

  ‘Do they use a hole punch?’ Esme asked, ‘To make the earring hole?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mollie sighed, looking for a distraction from the conversation, ‘Look Ez, the market!’

  Eventually, they found the little side street that led to the courtyard, the street sign reading ‘Camden Square’. They pulled up on the pavement, taking in the large houses surrounding the trees clustered in a little square, edging the bedraggled lawn in the centre. It was pretty but unkempt, which Evie found comforting.

  The building was Victorian, whitewashed with purple flowers arching across it. The main feature was a huge red door with delicate gold filigree flower patterns repeating over and over. It had a faintly Chinese look, and stood out next to the pretty, but very proper, houses that surrounded it.

  Esme let out a low whistle, her eyes wide. ‘Is this it? This is where we’re going to live?’

  ‘Doesn’t look dingy,’ Evie shrugged, reaching for the key.

  ‘Let’s get inside before we assess that,’ Mollie said, pursing her lips.

  Evie got out the huge, ancient key that had been sitting in the envelope Ruby gave them, a red satin ribbon threaded through the top. It was almost a joke – the key looked like it belonged to a secret garden somewhere, not an old studio.

  The lock clicked heavily, and Evie pushed on the door, which was lighter than expected and squeaked slightly. The room was cool and dark, and the sight that greeted them wasn’t unpleasant. The room was large, painted white with dark hardwood floors. Evelyn had said it used to be a photography studio, and Ruby apparently hadn’t done much to change it. Photographs from the original owner were still hung up, marginally dusty but beautiful nonetheless – black and white prints of classy women, the glitz and glamour of martini glasses and cigarette smoke; the men with hair slicked back, raising a knowing eyebrow at the camera. It made Evie a little homesick for a time before her own.