“You giving me orders, girl?”
“Yes,” Ruby said bluntly. The click in her ear didn’t surprise her. She waited ten minutes, her eyes on the clock, before she dialed the number a second time. Her father answered.
“Let me put it to you another way, Pop. Either you put Mom on the phone now or your ass, not Mom’s, will be on the street in as long as it takes me to call the police. I mean it, Pop, and I’ll do it.”
“Worthless, no-good bitch. The television set is broken.”
“Ask me if I care, Pop. Get Mom.” Ruby waited and waited. She was still waiting fifteen minutes later when she finally heard her mother’s voice, all trembly and shaky-sounding. As trembly and shaky as she felt.
Ruby’s voice was tear-filled when she spoke to her mother. “Mom, it’s Ruby. I . . . I’m calling to ... to ... tell . . .” She couldn’t tell her mother about the Fortune 500; she wouldn’t know what it was and it wasn’t important right now. “Mom, would you like to ... to come and live with me? Or if you don’t think we can live together, how would you like to move to Hawaii without Pop? I have a house in Maui I would like occupied. Amber and Nangi can visit you; they’ll only be five hours away. Mac and Opal can fly there anytime. I can visit. You can finally see your grandchildren. Mom, whatever you want, I’ll give you. Maui is beautiful. This house is beautiful. It overlooks the Pacific. It’s like a big jewel in a setting of flowers. You could garden. I’ll get you a housekeeper and you’ll never have to do another thing. I’ll get you a car and have someone teach you to drive, or better yet, get you a chauffeur and he’ll drive you. Mom, are you still there?”
“I’m here, Ruby. That’s very generous of you, but your father needs me here. If you really want to do something for me, give us the deed to this house.”
Ruby’s head jerked upright. It was a minute before she could make her tongue work again. “I can’t do that. If it were just you, I’d give it to you in a heartbeat. You know that.”
“That’s what I want, Ruby.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s what Pop wants. He’s making you say that. You don’t need to have the deed. I pay all your bills. I haven’t asked you to pay me rent in five years. And I’ve sent you money, lots of money. Having a deed is not important to you, but it is to Pop, and I’m not parting with it. Ask me for anything else, I’ll give it. Gladly. But not that house. If you change your mind, call me. It’s a forever offer, Mom. Bye.”
This was another thing she wasn’t going to think about.
Ruby dialed Dixie’s number, but there was no answer. She let the phone ring seventeen times before she hung up.
The biggest moment of her life, and here she was with no one to share it. “Oh, yeah, we’ll just see about that!” She reached for the phone, dialed the long distance operator, and placed her call. “Person to person, operator, to General Calvin Santos. This is Ruby Blue.”
Ruby poured the remains of the coffee into her cup. It looked as black as tar. She gulped at it. It tasted like mud. She finished what was in the cup. Her sinuses cleared immediately.
“Ruby. Ruby, is it really you?” Calvin asked quietly.
“In the flesh, Calvin. Listen, I know this call is a surprise, but I got some good news today, and I’ve been calling around to share it with someone. Nangi was happy for me and so was my son. That was important to me, but I’m ... I’m all alone here ... my partner can’t seem to handle it and she went off. . . . Oh, Calvin, I just need someone to talk to.”
“I’m listening, Ruby,” Calvin said gently.
Ruby talked, Calvin listened. Then Calvin talked and Ruby listened. For ninety minutes. And then she promised to come and see him on Friday morning. Calvin.
After the call, Ruby tore through the house in a frenzy. She had nothing suitable to wear. What was appropriate? There was disgust on her face as she ripped through her closet, tossing out one outfit after another. Nothing! Damn! She needed everything from the skin out. What would a CEO wear? Something stylish, something sophisticated. Something feminine. Something gorgeously outrageous. Calvin would notice. He’d always complimented her on her simple wardrobe. He liked crisp, neat attire. She’d give him crisp and neat and soft and feminine.
“It’s my turn now. Mine!” She rolled over on the bed and howled like a coon. After all these years the sparks were still there for her. She’d heard them in Calvin’s voice, too.
Just three more days. Seventy-two hours and she would see Calvin—if she didn’t count the rest of today and the early morning hours of Friday. “Oh, God,” she moaned happily. It’s finally happening. After twenty-eight long years, she was finally going to see Calvin again.
The Fortune 500 and Calvin. Ruby rolled off the bed. She laughed until she cried.
While Ruby was rolling off the bed, Dixie Sinclaire was limping up and down the boardwalk in Asbury Park. She was numb with cold and her hip was so painful, she was actually dragging her leg. She looked for a bench to sit down.
How angry the ocean looked. And Lord, it was cold, but she didn’t want to go home. She was afraid to go home. She wasn’t afraid of Hugo’s abuse anymore. What she was afraid of had been haunting her for a very long time. Once or twice she’d tried to talk to Ruby about her fear, but something always held her back. She didn’t want to destroy their success, and telling Ruby would have been tantamount to the ultimate betrayal in Ruby’s eyes. She should have left the moment she knew the good times were here to stay. Instead, she’d banked the money and confided in no one.
She knew exactly what her husband was going to say. She could probably say it for him and save him the effort. God, why hadn’t she left? She was certainly solvent, she could have bought a mansion at any point in her life during the past few years. Her old age was taken care of, thanks to Silas Ridgely. If she walked out and filed for divorce, there wasn’t a thing he could do. And yet she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t done anything but coast along and exist. Hugo wasn’t the problem. She was.
Dixie shrugged deeper into her coat, which wasn’t nearly warm enough. Hugo was going to say she’d shortened his life by making him work so hard these past years when he could have retired and taken life a little easier. He’d start off by calling her a cripple, then a liar and a thief. He would throw every little thing in her face that had ever made him unhappy. He would say they could have been eating steak and roast beef instead of casseroles and hamburger. And of course he would say. that the money should have been in his name, too. In his eyes, she would be nothing but a cripple and a criminal.
Overhead, a sea gull swooped down on the rocky beach below where she was sitting. His mate joined him to scavenge for food.
Finally, she said the simple truth out loud, as if Ruby were there to listen. “I didn’t want to be alone. Hugo gave me something to do, something to worry about. I had to make his meals, wash his clothes, clean his house. A woman is only half a woman without a husband.”
But Ruby wasn’t half a woman. Ruby was as whole as they came. For three years she’d lived in a house with no furniture. She’d sold off the dining room set first, then the sofa from the living room, and then the television set. Ruby had survived. She hadn’t worried about cooking meals, dusting, and doing laundry. And she’d gotten through her breakup with Andrew. If Ruby could do it, why couldn’t she? Now it was too late. She couldn’t leave Hugo. It wouldn’t be right. He was dying. And because of that, she knew she would give him whatever he wanted.
“Oh, Ruby, I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”
The gulls swooped upward, their cries shrill against the slapping waves. Dixie sobbed.
It was almost dark, time for her to return home ... to return somewhere. She really didn’t want to go home, so where? To Ruby’s, of course. Who else could make sense of what she was going through? Hugo could ruin everything. Everything. No, that wasn’t true, she’d already ruined it. She’d allowed things to get to this point, and only she could make them right.
Ruby’s house was dark when Dixie arrived. She
shouldn’t have stopped at the diner for a supper she hadn’t touched. She’d had five cups of coffee, and now she felt strung out. She reached down under the mat for the key Ruby kept for emergencies. She let herself into the dark house, heading for the kitchen. Ruby still kept her shopping bags of receipts behind the table. Her briefcase was there, too.
All she needed was a piece of paper and a pen. Ruby’s briefcase yielded both. She wrote steadily for a full minute. Satisfied with the wording, Dixie put on her coat and went next door to the Mastersons. She asked them to witness her signature. She headed back to Ruby’s and removed the framed five-dollar bill from its frame over the stove. Her eyes were dry when she removed the brittle bill. It was Ruby’s money. She’d earned it as of today. Dixie choked on a sob when she laid the bill alongside the note. She’d just sold her shares of Mrs. Sugar to Ruby for five dollars. She would not allow Hugo to ruin Ruby’s life. It was all she could think of to do to protect Ruby.
The front door was open to the dark night. She’d just made a decision no one in her right mind would make. Well, she could certainly justify that. She hadn’t been in her right mind since the day Hugo crippled her. But maybe she was being hasty. Something, instinct perhaps, told her this wasn’t the time. She drew a five-dollar bill from her purse to put into the frame, then returned the frame to its place over the stove. The single sheet of paper and Ruby’s five-dollar bill crackled when she folded them into a neat square. She’d hide it under the floor mat in her car. If the Mastersons mentioned it to Ruby, she would have to come up with a suitable story. The elderly couple hadn’t read the paper, just signed and dated it.
Dixie looked around Ruby’s neat kitchen. Nothing had changed over the years in this house. Ruby had replaced the furniture she’d sold off, but that was the extent of her personal spending. Nothing had changed in her own house, either. Life had become easier, resting on a velvet cushion of money, but neither of them had gone out and bought fancy cars or mink coats. On Silas Ridgely’s advice, Ruby had invested heavily in real estate. She had bought two condos and a house in Hawaii, which she rented out. She’d also invested in a ski resort in Vail, Colorado. She had a fortune tied up in stocks and bonds and funds, with a total yield of twenty-four percent. She doubted if Ruby had any idea how rich she really was.
She, on the other hand, had been ultra conservative, putting all her money into certificates of deposit, which Silas rolled over when they came due. She wasn’t diversified. She had turned down flat the offer to invest in a Dallas shopping center. She’d also turned down one that was being built in Pennsylvania. Ruby had simply nodded and told Silas to “do it.” She’d also jumped in with both feet when the proposal came through to buy into a Mercedes-Benz distributorship. The only time Dixie had ever really felt a twinge of envy was when she turned down an offer to buy two office buildings on Madison Avenue in New York. Ruby had been angry with her that time. “What if Mrs. Sugar goes down the tubes one of these days, Dixie? You have to be diversified.” But she wouldn’t be budged. She had, however, followed Ruby’s advice and taken out a monstrous insurance policy on her husband six years before. Ruby had taken one out on Andrew, too, but with his approval. She’d had to pay through the nose so Hugo wouldn’t have to take a physical. Now she felt like a ghoul. Five million dollars was a lot of money. She wondered what she would do with it when Hugo died. And he was going to die. Life expectancy with liver cancer was short. If the gods smiled on Hugo, he had a year, the doctor said. If they didn’t, less than a year. The news had overwhelmed her. It affected everything she did. She had even decided to postpone hip surgery at the Mayo Clinic, because she felt guilty about getting better when Hugo never would.
Dixie’s fingers drummed on Ruby’s kitchen table.
She looked at the kitchen clock. It was eight-thirty. She had to go home and talk to Hugo.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ruby was up with the sun the following morning. She fixed and ate an enormous breakfast and, for the first time in her life, left the dishes in the sink. Today she was taking the company limo into New York, where she was going to shop till her feet fell off.
She thought about Dixie. Her friend was so withdrawn these days.
Things just weren’t the same anymore, Ruby thought sadly, because Dixie wasn’t the same. That made all the difference. She herself had taken the call from the Mayo Clinic and spoken to the orthopedic surgeon who had scheduled Dixie for a hip socket replacement. He’d called because Dixie hadn’t shown up for her preliminary tests. Ruby had promised to give Dixie the message, but she’d had one of the office girls write it out and swear not to tell Dixie who had actually taken the call. That was the first she knew that Dixie’s deformity could be corrected, and it had hurt that Dixie hadn’t confided in her. Neither had Dixie confided in her about Hugo’s illness. Ruby had seen Hugo only once in recent weeks, but he was obviously sick. His skin had turned a deep yellow, and he’d lost so much weight, his face looked skeletal. Only once before had she seen anyone with that particular look: an employee who had died of a liver tumor.
Ruby sighed as she pulled up the zipper of her gray flannel skirt. Maybe she would give Dixie a call when she got home tonight. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. For God’s sake, I look like a Brownie leader, she thought in disgust. She made an instant pact with herself not to buy a thing that was beige or gray. Color—bold and beautiful. Colors with zip. First chance she got she was trading in her gray Oldsmobile for something that would turn people’s heads. Clearly it was time to move out of the shadows and into the sunshine.
That night, Ruby returned with an enormous pile of packages from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, B. Altman, and Bloomingdale’s. She tried to call Dixie—she’d been missing her all day—but there was no answer, so all alone, she tore into the bags and boxes, yanking out the clothing and throwing the bags and boxes out the door into the hallway. She was panting when her bed was finally loaded with her purchases. All about her were colorful scarves, designer handbags, soft leather gloves, dresses in every color of the rainbow. Thirteen pairs of shoes were scattered all over the floor. Boots so soft they felt like velvet were on the chair. How, she wondered, had she gotten through her life without all these gorgeous things? She pulled out a turquoise wool dress from the pile and held it against her, twirling round and round in front of the mirror. It was so perfect, the lines so stunning, she blinked. It was almost as though it were meant for her. It had been a perfect fit and worth every outrageous cent.
Ruby looked at the label inside the dress. Nq LTD. Ruby’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be! Yet, they were such odd initials. Nq had to be Nola Quantrell.
In a frenzy Ruby pawed through all the clothes she’d purchased. Time and again she’d gone back to the same racks looking for skirts and blouses with the same clean, stark lines. Her hands were feverish as she flipped back collars, pulled down zippers to look at the seams where some of the labels were sewn. All of the garments bore the same label, Nq LTD. Ruby dialed New York information. Seconds later she scribbled a number on the pad by the phone. She placed her call, holding her breath. A nasal-sounding operator much like the one back in Barstow said, “Nq Limited, how may I help you?”
“I’d like to speak with Nola Quantrell,” Ruby blurted out.
“You and half the fashion world,” the operator quipped. “Would you care to leave your name and number?” Ruby’s mind raced. Answering services protected their clients from the kind of call she was making. And it was after hours. If she said she was Ruby Blue, the operator would write down her name and she would get lost in the shuffle. “This is very important, ma’am,” Ruby said briskly. “Please tell Miss Quantrell that Mrs. Sugar of Mrs. Sugar’s Cookies called and needs to speak with her immediately. Tell her Ruby Blue wants to deliver a dozen to her personally. This is my number, where I can be reached all evening.” She rattled off her number in a daze.
“Are you really that cookie lady?” the operator demanded.
“I really am.”
To tell her she was only half of the famous lady might stall the call. “Nola knows me, so please tell her I’m waiting.”
“You better be on the up-and-up,” the operator fretted. “She gave strict orders I wasn’t to put through any calls. I could get fired. Nq Limited is a big account for my boss.”
Damn. “Operator, Mrs. Sugar isn’t too shabby, either. If you find yourself out of a job, call me and I’ll hire you on the spot. You have my home phone number. Is it a deal?”
The operator giggled. “Okay, Mrs. Sugar. If she’s gone for the day, I’ll call you back myself. It is late, but she usually stays till nine or so.”
“I really appreciate it, thank you.”
Mrs. Quantrell hadn’t said anything about Nola’s business in her yearly Christmas card, but there had been something peculiar about that card, now that she thought about it, something that brought a smile to her face. She laughed aloud when a vision of the card materialized behind her closed lids. It had been signed in red crayon with a lot of Xs and Os. It was the first year Mrs. Quantrell hadn’t added a personal message. She’d stopped sending thank-you notes years earlier for the weekly batch of cookies that was shipped to the Michigan farmhouse, but she’d always managed to scribble a message of sorts. She should have called Nola’s mother more often.
When the phone shrilled to life moments later, Ruby smiled from ear to ear.
“Don’t tell me you’re the famous Mrs. Sugar,” Nola trilled. “For God’s sake, Ruby, is it really you?”
“It’s me all right. Nola, I can’t believe ... yes, I do. I always knew you’d be rich and famous. And today I made you richer. I think I bought one of everything you’ve made. Your own label. How wonderful for you. Tell me everything, but not until you tell me why you never got in touch with me. How’s your son and Alex?”
“Alex and I went kaput right after we got to Europe. I married him only because of Mom and Dad. They didn’t want to see me live in sin for the baby’s sake. But he’s fine. In fact, he’s my partner. He handles the selling end. I do the designing. It wasn’t easy at first. I was all mixed up. I had to work and leave my son with sitters. Alex wasn’t father material. Mom was on my back in a nice kind of way, but she was still on my back. Dad was, well, he was acting like a father. I got a little huffy and thought I knew more than they did. For a long time I didn’t stay in touch with them. I worked for Dior for a while, but that was a nowhere job. The pay was lousy. Then I met some people who offered to front me and I made it. Can you believe I’m on the stock exchange? NASDAQ.”
Seasons of Her Life Page 45