Seasons of Her Life

by Fern Michaels

  “I told you I was out. The longer we stand here talking, the longer it’s going to be till dinner. Do you want rolls?”

  “Out doesn’t tell me where,” Hugo blustered. His eyes never left the knife in her hand.

  “Actually, I was driving around for a while. I stopped by Ruby’s but she was . . . busy. Now, do you want rolls or not?”

  “No, bread is good enough. Aren’t you going to take off your coat?”

  Dixie thought about the question for a full thirty seconds. “No. I’m going to warm this dinner that you could have warmed yourself, and then I’m going back out. Do you,” she said, enunciating each word carefully, “have a problem with me going out after dinner?”

  He would have a problem with it, she knew. Dixie never left the house after dark. His voice took on a singsong quality when he said, “It depends on where you’re going and why. I don’t see any need for you to leave the house. We have milk and bread, so you don’t need to go to the store. The church is closed and so is the post office, and you don’t have any letters or bills to mail.”

  Dixie’s voice took oh the same quality as her husband’s. “I’m going over to Ruby’s. She’s helping me make a quilt. For your mother for Mother’s Day.” She was stunned at how easy the lie rolled off her tongue. “I’ll be over there a lot from now on. It takes a long time to make a quilt. Of course, if you’d rather spend the money to buy a quilt, that’s fine with me. Your mother said that’s what she wanted.” She waved the wicked-looking knife in the air to make her point.

  “All right, all right, get supper on the table and don’t be all day about it,” Hugo said resignedly.

  Dixie turned, the knife still in her hand. “Set the table, Hugo. You can do the dishes, too. I don’t have time.” This must be what Ruby meant by asserting yourself. She shivered and shook at her own brazenness. Hugo had never once in their married life set the table or washed a dish. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to do it. Her eyes were as narrowed as her husband’s. You can be intimidated only if you allow yourself to be intimidated. She’d read that in a magazine in the dentist’s office last month. So far she’d made no move to put the spaghetti in a saucepan. “Don’t set a place for me.” God, I’m really pushing it, Dixie thought. Going into business was heady stuff, but she felt ready to deal with anything, even Hugo.

  Still wearing her coat, but weaponless, Dixie ladled out the spaghetti onto her husband’s plate. She filled his glass with milk and set his salad and bread just so. She felt as if she should unfold his napkin and tuck it under his chin. “Will there be anything else, Hugo?” She was out the door a minute later with no place to go.

  Dixie drove aimlessly until she saw a crowd of women heading toward St. Jude’s Catholic Church. Bingo night. She pulled into the parking lot and gambled away her milk and bread money. When she left the church basement at ten o’clock, she had seven dollars. She’d won the round robin but had to split it with four other women.

  Dixie elected to drive past Ruby’s house. There was a light on in the kitchen. That had to mean her friend was awake. She stopped, tooted the horn lightly. The outside light flashed as the front door opened.

  “I’m hungry,” Dixie said, shrugging out of her coat. “Wait till you hear how I ... what I did was I asserted myself. I could never have done it before.” She shrugged. “For want of a better word, today was a milestone of sorts for me. I think the knife helped. Can you believe it? Hugo set his own place at the table, and I told him to do the dishes. You should have seen me, Ruby. I had backbone. I actually stood up to him. God, it felt great!”

  “Listen, Dixie, I don’t want you taking chances where Hugo is concerned. He’s not exactly predictable. I think it’s wonderful that you got the confidence to stand up to him, and I’m glad that our business venture gave you that confidence. But please be careful. I don’t want him to forbid you to see me, and I don’t want to have regrets later.”

  “Ruby, that could never happen. No matter what, you and I will always be friends. You’re the sister I never had. If it ever came down to choosing between you and Hugo, I’d ...”

  “No, no, don’t say that. You are not going to have to make a choice, so don’t even think about it.” The phone rang. “Oh-oh, that’s Andy.”

  “Yo, Ma! I have good news!” Ruby smiled as she held the phone away from her ear. Dixie giggled as the boy’s voice boomed over the wire. “Wait till you hear this. I sold all the cookies except one bag that my roommate ate by mistake. I could have sold more. Zack and I took them over to the student union and we were sold out in an hour. I sent you out a money order this afternoon. I called Jeff down at Princeton, and he said it took only forty-five minutes. He’s sending his money order tomorrow morning. But that’s not the good news. You ready, Ma?”

  I m ready, Andy.” She winked at Dixie and mouthed the words “Is this kid on the ball or what?”

  “One of the guys from the Fiji house bought a bag of cookies. His girlfriend was with him. The Fiji house is a frat and they have a sun porch. He said you could sell cookies from there. His girlfriend said she’d handle the concession. She belongs to a sorority. She said she and her sisters could sell three hours every afternoon. The brothers want enough cookies for the frat house and so do the girls. Nine guys in Fiji and there’s thirteen in the girls’ sorority. No money paid out, but I said you’d kick through with something if sales are up. Whatcha think, Ma? Super, huh?”

  “That’s wonderful, Andy!” Ruby said weakly. “When do they want us to start?”

  “Next week sometime. We’ll put it in the paper and the guys said they’d make a sign for the front yard. I’ll oversee it. You want I should call Jeff and ask him if he can make the same kind of deal?”

  “Do you want to run that last sentence by me again, Andy? I thought you went to college to learn proper English. And yes, tell Jeff to go ahead. This is so unbelievable.” She told him about her and Dixie’s trip to Easton.

  “Ma, that sounds great. Listen, I have another idea. I know a couple of girls over at Douglass, freshmen fifteeners. They’ll go for it in a big way. You want I should . . . I mean would you like me to call them and present the idea?”

  “Why not?” Ruby said giddily. Dixie was already adding columns of numbers on a piece of paper. “What’s a freshmen fifteener?”

  Andy’s laughter boomed again. “Freshman girls usually put on fifteen pounds their first year. Us guys work it off, they sort of hang on to it until their sophomore year and then we have a new batch to watch. Did I do good, Ma?”

  “Andy, you are the marvel in marvelous. Guess we’ll have to cut you in for a percentage. On the other hand, if we get Mrs. Sugar to the stage where we have to have a building, you can design it for us. Think about it, okay?”

  “You got it, Ma. I want to call Jeff now. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Andy.”

  There were tears in Ruby’s eyes when she turned to Dixie. “Guess you heard all of that.”

  Dixie shook her head. “My ears are still ringing. That kid is something else. I guess we’re in business,” she said carefully.

  “Looks like it,” Ruby said just as carefully. “Can we do it, Dix?”

  “Not with one stove. Or even two. We need three, or else we need a commercial oven. I don’t know what they cost. A lot, I think.”

  “Look,” Ruby said, reaching for a pencil, “we don’t have to move on this right away. Let’s look at it as a business opportunity, fine-tune it, and see if we can handle it. Tomorrow we’ll go to a restaurant supply house and see how much an oven costs. We owe it to ourselves to give it a try, but I don’t think we can bake enough cookies to sell every day, even if we have a commercial oven. Maybe three times a week. Our other alternative is hiring someone to make our deliveries. Then we’ll have to pay for gas, tolls, and wear and tear on our cars. I had no idea going into a business of your own had so many problems. I have to start thinking about health insurance, too. Andrew sai
d he’s cutting me off his. Can we do this, Dixie?” Ruby asked worriedly.

  “Of course. We both knew, we talked about this, Ruby, that we might have to work around the clock till we got established. I’m prepared. I know you’re worried that I won’t be able to hold up my end, but I can. I won’t let you down.”

  “Dixie, I know that. It’s me I’m worried about. We aren’t twenty years old and living in Camp Lejune anymore. In those days we could go all day and night and not wipe out. We’re forty now. I get tired, so do you. I can’t handle more than a fourteen-hour day. We have to think logically and hire someone. And we have no money. We already know we can’t get credit. The five hundred from Grace and Paul isn’t going to last very long. And I can’t take out a mortgage on the house my parents live in. If we flop in this business, I won’t have any means of paying it off, and now that I don’t have a husband or a steady job, a bank is going to be leery about lending me money.”

  “Do you have anything you can sell at a flea market? I have some old stuff in the attic I could sell. You must have the same things I have. We might be able to get fifty or seventy-five dollars for the lot and use it to pay a driver and that will free us to bake. We’d have to do it on a Saturday, because that’s the only day the flea market is open. I can bring my stuff over here during the day and Hugo will never know.

  “It’s the practical thing to do. All that stuff isn’t being used, will probably never be used, and is taking up space. We can pay for a lot of hours and tolls, not to mention gas, if we net seventy-five dollars. And on that note I think I’ll leave.”

  Ruby spent the next several hours adding, subtracting, and multiplying. She scribbled and tossed wads of paper into the trash. She longed for an adding machine. Finally, in disgust, she picked up the phone and dialed her husband’s number. She was surprised to hear his sleepy voice. “I need to talk to you, Andrew,” she said briskly. “Wake up.”

  “Ruby! For God’s sake, it’s quarter after two. If you’re calling to tell me the house is on fire, tough, that’s your problem. You kicked me out. Call me at the store tomorrow.”

  “Andrew, I have to talk to you now. I need a commercial oven, maybe two. Does Sears sell them? Do you know where I can get them at a good price?”

  “You called me in the middle of the night to ask me something so stupid?”

  “Think of it in terms of your percentage, Andrew. Dixie and I are going into the cookie business and I need commercial ovens.”

  “You’re what?” Andrew exploded.

  “You heard me, the cookie business. We have too many orders and can’t fill them with our home ovens. Andrew, are you listening to me?”

  “You’re nuts, Ruby, and I’m nuts for listening to you.”

  Ruby clenched her teeth and then crossed her fingers. “I have orders.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He sounded interested.

  “You’re a dipshit, Andrew. This is going to work. I told you to think in terms of your percentage. You’ll be a rich man.”

  “Three percent,” Andrew said craftily, fully awake now.

  “Two,” Ruby said coldly. “Providing you get me two ovens at wholesale prices.”

  “Four,” Andrew said coolly.

  “Two and a half. That’s my only offer. Two and a half is not shabby.”

  “When do I start getting my share? When can I quit this lousy job?”

  “When I’m rich and famous. Don’t quit your job, Andrew, I could fall flat on my face, but it won’t be because I haven’t given it my all.”

  “Is that you talking, Ruby? The Ruby who can do anything? The fixer-upper Ruby I was married to? Nah, she never fails. She can do anything.”

  Ruby could feel the tears spring to her eyes. “I never said I was all those things. That’s the way you thought of me. It wasn’t fair to me, Andrew, then or now. I’m trying, so give me some credit, okay? If I succeed, so do you. I won’t ever cheat you. I think you know that.”

  “Okay. How soon do you need to know about the ovens?”

  “Tomorrow morning, before ten. Call the manager of the appliance department before you go to work, and get back to me. By the way, Andrew, you left a lot of stuff in the garage—tools and things. If I clean them up, do you mind if I sell them at the flea market? I need the money to pay a driver for a while. I’ve already borrowed everywhere I can.”

  “You aren’t signing my name to anything, are you?” Andrew demanded, a hard edge to his voice.

  “No, I wouldn’t do that. Can I sell the stuff or not?”

  “How much do you think you can get for it? Those tools are top of the line.”

  “Rusty tools. Twenty-five dollars, maybe thirty-five. Enough for me to pay a driver for a few days.”

  “That’s piss-away money. Okay, but if you get more than that, I want a share. I trust you, Ruby, not to cheat me.”

  “I’m flattered, Andrew. Good night.”

  “Ruby?”

  “What?”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”

  “The kids said you’re fine. I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  It wasn’t until she was halfway up the stairs that she realized he hadn’t asked how she was. Some things would never change, she thought wearily.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The brand new, ugly commercial ovens were turned on for the first time at 7 Ribbonmaker Lane the day before St. Patrick’s Day. The time was 8:01 A.M. They were turned off fourteen minutes later by the town’s health inspector. A representative from the gas company arrived at 9:25 and disconnected the gas he’d turned on the day before.

  Dumbfounded, Ruby and Dixie could only stare with their mouths hanging open as they listened to the health inspector tell them their operation didn’t meet the sanitary codes of the town. “And,” he said coldly, “you don’t have a license to operate a business in your home. This is a residential area. It isn’t zoned for business. Furthermore, you need a fire wall behind the ovens and a fire door. You are not up to code,” he said, slapping a bright orange sticker on the wall behind the ovens. “What all this means, ladies, is you are to cease and desist until the town council can meet two weeks from tomorrow. I would suggest you at least apply for a license. Your presence is requested at the meeting. There’s a fine for operating a business in a residential area without the proper authorization. Licenses and Permits will tell you how much it is. Today,” he said, tongue in cheek, “would be a good time to pay it. Good day, ladies.”

  “Drinking on the job.” The inspector clucked his tongue to show what he thought of two women with wineglasses in their hands at nine-thirty in the morning.

  “Now, just a minute,” Ruby said in a hoarse, crackling voice. “We didn’t know we needed a license. What’s wrong with my garage? It’s clean. I cleaned it myself. And we aren’t drinking. This is ginger ale!”

  “Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Leave it up to a woman to make a mess of things,” he muttered.

  “You come back here,” Ruby yelled, emerging from her daze. “Are you saying we messed up here because we’re women and women are stupid?”

  “That about covers it,” the inspector yelled over his shoulder, ignoring her order to return to the garage.

  “You can’t do this!” Ruby screamed.

  “I just did it! We take our laws seriously in this town,” the inspector shot back.

  Andrew took that particular moment to waltz through the side door. He was smacking his hands gleefully, demanding to see the first cookies roll out of the oven.

  “Shut up, Andrew. Just shut up!” Ruby fumed. “We’re out of business.”

  Andrew craned his neck to stare out the side window at the departing health department car and gas company truck. “I should have known this was a harebrained scheme; you can’t do anything right, Ruby. I bought these ovens under my name. Who’s going to make the payments? They can’t be taken back. They’re goddamn used!” he bellowed.

  “There’
s not a crumb in them. They were turned on and turned off.”

  “They’re used!” Andrew continued to bellow. “And who’s that kid?” he said, pointing to a young man dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying an imitation leather briefcase. Dixie met him at the front door.

  Ruby’s eyes rolled back in her head when she heard the young man ask for Mrs. Sugar. He took a scarlet bag from his briefcase. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Dixie lead the young man into the kitchen and close the door. She was back five minutes later, her face drawn and white. In a hoarse croak she said, “He wants to order fifty gross of cookies, assorted, every week, for the school cafeteria at Monmouth College. How many is fifty gross?”

  Andrew’s eyes popped. “One hell of a lot of cookies, and you have no way to make them.”

  “I hate your attitude, Andrew. I mean, I really hate it!” Ruby said, sticking her face right up against her husband’s. “Please leave so I can tend to business.”

  “Ruby the screwup. I should have known better than to go along with this cockamamie idea. You damn well better come up with a way to make the payments on these ovens,” Andrew snarled.

  “I’ll remind you of your attitude when it’s time to write out your first check. I’m going to deduct. Do you hear me, Andrew? I’m going to deduct for every miserable, negative word you said here this morning. I want you out of here. Now! This is my house and I want you off the property. I’ll take a broom to you if you don’t move right now!”

  Andrew leaned against the wall. “It’s not yours yet! You don’t get the deed until you get fully caught up with the mortgage and give me my money, and, by the way, when is that going to be? Exactly?”

  Ruby picked up the long wooden paddle that was to be used to remove the cookie trays from the oven. She swung it wickedly. “You’ve pushed me too far, Andrew. Out! Call your lawyer, call mine, but get out of here!”

  Andrew’s Buick Special roared out of the driveway. He was shaking his fist at Ruby as he barreled down the street.