Ruby's Misadventures With Reality

by Samantha Bohrman

  Fabrizia nodded.

  Ruby explained, “We talked on the phone once. I love your name.” Ruby fumbled with her handbag while the Chapel crowd looked on. Once she managed to undo the clasp, she pulled out the manila envelope labeled Oz in bold purple Sharpie letters. “Receipts” was still visible beneath the scratches. As she handed over the reused envelope, making the first act of her solo practitioner career official, she said, “Consider yourself served.” This, of course, was a bold statement stolen from television, but she didn’t know what else to say. The words felt unnatural on her lips, but she held her sassy pose. If nothing else, pageants had made her comfortable delivering a bold line in an ill-advised outfit. She could thank her mom for that skill.

  Pastor Rick looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Are you handing that document to me?”

  “No. The papers are for Destinee. It’s a suit against Ozcorp, so service to Destinee, in her capacity as a designated officer of the corporation, provides legal notice to Ozcorp.” Yes, she had taken civil procedure, thank you very much!

  Rick looked at her skeptically. “You sent those peanuts up the tube, didn’t you?” He was fixated on the peanuts.

  She laughed. “I guess I’m just three ounces of peanuts closer to Heaven.”

  Rick looked at her critically. “It’ll take more than that.”

  Ming, who had been ignoring the entire interaction and acting bored in the entry, said, “So where is Oz, Destinee? Do you guys talk now that you’re his number one biatch?”

  Before Destinee could answer, Ruby said, “You guys remember Estelle?” She looked directly at Destinee and said, “Estelle knew Oz.” Ruby didn’t know what possessed her to announce this. She just wanted to see Destinee’s reaction and let her know she didn’t hold all the cards.

  Rick raised his eyebrows. “Oh did she now? Did she tell you?”

  Ruby smiled cryptically.

  Ming interrupted Ruby’s efforts at intimidation. “Ruby, you done? I’ve gotta get down to Gemima’s Closet before school’s out. Looking at underwear with teenagers nauseates me.”

  Elevators can say a lot about a person’s personality. Some people jab the buttons and anxiously tap their feet. Others push extra buttons for fun. Ruby often forgot to push buttons at all. If she’d lived in a town with more elevators, this may have become obvious enough for her to change her behavior, but Emerald only had a couple of elevators and they were usually filled with at least a couple of other people also going to level two. Once, though, she and Todd had climbed in together, intending to go from the food level to Ruby’s office. After a minute or so, Ruby commented, “Wow, this elevator is slooow.”

  Todd responded, “Man, have you checked out those ceiling tiles? Do you think we could bust through them and climb out if we got stuck or something?” He didn’t suggest they were stuck, but he was thinking about it. Running with that idea, he jumped a couple of times to see if he could reach the ceiling and push through an escape hatch.

  After about five minutes, and only moments before Todd busted out the top, someone on the outside pushed the “up” button and the doors opened. Ruby and Todd exited despite never reaching the second floor.

  As usual, Ruby stepped aside and allowed Ming to take charge. As the elevator descended through the swirling vortex of angels, Ruby said, “Rick looks so young, but I don’t think he is. How old is he anyway?”

  “God knows. The dude got a new face when he was born again. Born again physically and spiritually.”

  “He looks good.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just like Brad Pitt,” Ming said. “I heard that he modeled his look after a promotional poster from Meet Joe Black. He liked Joe Black’s unearthly glow. A lady at the nail salon told me. I don’t know if she was full of it, but it’s a cool story.”

  Ruby remembered that poster. Brad Pitt dressed in a tux with a photo-shopped halo of light. If she remembered right, he had been playing the angel of death. Pastor Rick must not have actually seen the movie.

  So many things weren’t what they appeared to be in Emerald.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Panty Recon

  Gemima’s Closet had grown to be a three-story super-structure that housed a variety of derivative stores, Gem Kids, Gem Teen, and Gem for Dudes. It served as the Chapel Mall’s second anchor store, the main anchor being the Glass Chapel. The two anchors stared each other down across the brightly lit marble atrium with surprisingly little tension.

  Giant posters of Lolita-esque preteens in aqua body paint wearing Gemima panties lined the walls of Gemima’s Closet. Whether the underwear was blue or see-through remained unclear because of the models’ blue body paint. The store was doing an homage to the Blue Lagoon, Brook Shield’s slightly porn-y breakout role, if you didn’t count the Breck commercial, which was pretty much hair porn. As part of the promotion, the store workers had changed out their normal uniforms of tight tank tops for leis made of seashells held in place with double-sided tape.

  Ruby looked at the models and pointed at the leis. “My God! That should be illegal. Those models are like fourteen and they’re naked.”

  “No. They have seashells covering their boobs. I’m sure their parents are fine with that.”

  “I thought naked teens in stores were illegal after Abercrombie.” Ruby shuddered.

  Ming shrugged and said, “Who cares?”

  “Maybe it’s just getting to me because I’m going to be a mother soon.”

  “Ha! I’m sure that feeling will pass. If you have a daughter, you’ll probably be scheduling glamour shots wearing matching tube tops and wearing Daisy Dukes with your hoo-hahs showing by the time she’s twelve.”

  “Maybe,” Ruby acknowledged. “What are we doing here, anyway?”

  “I want to shoot myself just for saying this, but I need to check out their new Gem Magic bra.” Ming pointed to a special section of the store identifiable by the large number of banners proclaiming, “It’s Magic!” with photos of models staring down at their glorious boobs with delighted expressions. “I’m concerned that Gemima is infringing on my underwire patent, so I’m going to buy a few of these and road test them. If they’re using my technology, they’re going down.”

  “So, this is like corporate espionage?”

  “Only if Gemima stole my ideas. Will you try one of the Magic bras for a few days and let me know what you think?”

  “If you pay. I’m broke,” Ruby said the words with a little drama, as if she were play-acting the part of a poor person.

  “Fine,” said Ming. “But you’re not broke in the real sense of the word you know. You’re just Ivanka Trump without any mad money.”

  “No, I’m broke.”

  “No, You’re Ivana. I’ll buy your bra, though.”

  As they browsed, Ruby wandered off into a secluded alcove. As she paused to admire a display of Magic Gems in blue iridescent fabric, she started to say, “I feel like I’m eight again. These are so…” Before she could get out “Rainbow Brite” someone shoved her into the display hard and pinned her. She started to scream, but her attacker clasped a hand over her mouth and pressed her farther into the display. The cardboard shelving began to crumple beneath her.

  He breathed into her neck and said, “Back off, Ruby.”

  She nodded, but wondered what he meant. Back off what?

  “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. You better not scream.” As he said this, he poked her in the side with a knife.

  When he removed his hand, she said, “Back off what?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Leave Oz alone.”

  The interaction had gone on long enough that Ruby’s initial panic faded. She could tell that the guy was threatening her with a small Swiss army knife, the kind with only four or five tools and a plastic toothpick that he had probably lost unless he was ocd. Also, he smelled like cheesy fries. Imagining some bozo eating cheesy fries with a tiny Swiss army knife didn’t scare her, s
o she swiveled in his arms to face him dead-on, which would have been sexy if he hadn’t been shaped like a potato and dressed like a trucker, not to mention threatening her. As she turned, she kneed him hard in the crotch. Any girl who’s ever been cornered by a potato knows that this is just reflex, but he didn’t see it coming, so he took it full-on, belatedly reaching for his groin and buckling into a pile of rhinestone bras.

  As she high-stepped over him, the lighting, which was designed for optimum refraction to display the merchandise, picked up the shine on Estelle’s slippers and made little red rainbows dance all around the alcove. While he was still down, she grabbed the bra she had selected for her road test. She thought Noel might like it. It matched his new red and blue ties.

  “Rubes, what do you think of…” Ming stopped short as she took in the scene. “Jesus, Rubes. I know you got excited about the espionage thing, but you didn’t have to hurt anyone.”

  “He pinned me against the display and threatened me.”

  “Why?”

  “Told me to leave Oz alone. I’m not sure if he’s worried about the lawsuit or the murder investigation, though.”

  “Oh.”

  Ming went back over to the guy, who was still on the floor clutching his balls and watching the women talk. Ming gave him a swift kick just to get his attention, “Hey, freak show, what’s with the threat? Is Ruby here supposed to drop the lawsuit or the murder investigation?” Taking in his camo gear, she added, “If I thought you had any skills, I’d say someone is going all Tanya Harding on your ass, Rubes.”

  He gave her a dumb look, not taking her seriously, “Who are you supposed to be, Lucy Liu?”

  Ming ignored the comment and positioned a four-inch heel over his hand. She let it fall over his left thumb and pressed down. As she depressed her heel into his thumb, she said, “Did you know that application of pressure to the nail bed is a neurological test for brain death, the theory being that anyone who’s not dead will freak out because it hurts.”

  Upon application of the stiletto to his nail bed, Mr. Potato squealed like a pig in burning hot oil. It would have attracted the attention of other shoppers, but the store had Katy Perry cranked at nightclub volume.

  “Okay. This is your last chance. If you like having an opposable thumb, you better tell me.” As she looked closer at the man on the floor with his plumbers crack and camo T-shirt, she added, “Your opposable thumb might be the only thing distinguishing you from lesser mammals. Think fast.”

  “Fine,” he said, “Ozcorp wants Ruby to stop nosing around, drop the lawsuit, and stop looking for Oz.”

  He started to explain more, but she cut him off, “I get it. Doesn’t want to be extradited, go to jail, et cetera.” She picked up her foot like a lady and said, “Thank you. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

  To Ruby she said, “All right, Rubes, you have what you needed?”

  “Yep.” Ruby dangled the bra in the air.

  “Let’s check out.”

  As Ruby gave the would-be assailant one last glance, she said, “Hey, Fred. I didn’t even recognize you.” Then to Ming she added, “Ming, that guy is Destinee’s old paralegal.”

  Ming shrugged.

  She looked at Fred with renewed civility, as if they hadn’t just brawled in the middle of Gemima’s, “What have you been doing since, you know…” Destinee had loudly fired Fred during Ruby’s first week at Smiddy. “I can’t believe Dworkin assigned me such a fat slob in the first place,” she’d gone on. “You can’t even properly color-code briefs to appellate courts.” With finality, she’d yelled, “You’re fired!”

  “Tough job market,” Fred replied.

  “Well, good luck with that,” Ruby said before waving good-bye and sashaying toward the checkout line. Even though the line wound through the store, Ruby and Ming walked right up to the front and flashed a card. As part of its first-class customer program, the malls allowed so-called elite shoppers to check out first, no matter how long the line, in addition to valet parking and yearly glamour shots, which they displayed on the wall by the food court. Most people didn’t read the fine print on their elite shopper cards, but the mall let you pass them to your lineal descendants like English titles, except not as good. Transferring the right to be first in line at Orange Julius didn’t quite stack up to a castle and a dukedom, depending on personal preferences of course.

  On the way out of the store, the alarm went off because the clasp of one of the display bras had stuck to Ruby’s bag. Ming saw it, unhooked it, and tossed over her shoulder like a grenade.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In Plain Sight

  Ruby pulled into her driveway after making a much needed stop by the grocery store. The adrenaline of fighting for her life in an underwear store had worn off. She unloaded her bag of fancy cheese and olives and contemplated a quiet evening with the Kardashians. While she looked for her keys, Debbie and Charmaine squealed on the other side of the door. She braced herself for their doggie assault and lowered her bag to prevent them from shooting out the door and running like hell in no particular direction. After spending two months with the dogs, it had become clear to her that the OzDog geneticists had culled these two from the litter for IQ reasons. It couldn’t have been fur. Debbie and Charmaine were the Heather Locklears of cocker spaniels.

  The grocery bag didn’t hold them back, though. One of them—she still couldn’t tell them apart—shot out the door and sent the olive bag flying. Sniffer to the ground, the dog ran for her favorite bush and squatted before darting across the street. An Escalade almost took her out, but the dog didn’t even seem to notice.

  Thinking of her lost olives and the Kardashians, Ruby stood on her front stoop and bellowed with all the desperation of Marlon Brando. “Deeebbbiieee. Deeebbbiieee, Deeebbbiieee.”

  The dog paid no heed and made a beeline for the golf course. The neighbor heard, though. Mr. Cuttings stared, his hedge trimmers suspended mid-clip. With a weather-girl smile, Ruby waved. “Beautiful weather today! How’re the cats?”

  “The cats are just fine.” He began trimming the hedge again.

  Just in case the dog hadn’t heard, she called again, “Deeebbbiieee!”

  With another friendly wave for Mr. Cuttings, she gave up and headed inside. All she wanted to do was put her pregnant cankles up on a coffee table and eat a whole thing of olives, maybe without even putting them on a plate first.

  “Inside. Inside.” She shooed the remaining furball into the house and tossed her purse and packages by the door. She pulled up the doggie tracker app on her phone. For a few seconds she watched Debbie, the fucking whore, tour the golf course, making a suspiciously long stop on the third fairway. Luckily, no one seemed to realize it was her dog shitting on the golf course every day. No one but Em, who thought Ruby let her do it as a political statement. Ruby suspected that the dog got away with it because she looked just like Enzo, Oz’s favorite platinum-haired pooch. That platinum fur let them get away with murder.

  Looking at the tracker signal and thinking of Enzo, Ruby had an idea, perhaps even an epiphany. If she was going to be threatened for knowing Oz’s identity and whereabouts, she might as well know for real.

  She dialed Debbie, the crazy dog lady. “Debbie, this is Ruby O’Deare. I don’t know if you remember me.”

  Debbie cackled. “Yep. The scarf lady.”

  “I was just wondering about those microchips the dogs came with.”

  “Uh huh. What about ’em?”

  “I can’t hear you very well for some reason.” Ruby could hear a lot of yelling in the background—if she had to guess, she’d say at least four were people yelling “Mom” at once. Plus, animal noises, barking, and maybe some braying.

  After about five minutes, during which Debbie yelled “Be. Quiet. Do you want a time out?” multiple times, Debbie turned on a cartoon and everyone quieted down. “I have twenty-one minutes and forty-one seconds. GO.”

  “So I have this crazy idea.”

 
Her voice dry as dirt, she said, “I’m shocked.”

  “I want to track Enzo. The dog is still in Emerald and I would bet my life savings that he’s with Oz. Oz went everywhere with his dog. I figured he had the same tracker as Debbie and Charmaine since they are all from the same place.”

  “That sounds legit.” Debbie didn’t make any comment about Ruby’s goal.

  “Do you know how I might do that?”

  “Sure. I could figure that out. Enzo is Debbie and Charmaine’s father, so it makes things easy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. He has to be. That platinum fur is recessive. Enzo has to be the father and there’s a pattern to the assigned microchip numbers. If Enzo is the sire, his number will be the reverse derivative of Debbie and Charmaine’s. Did I tell you that I designed the system?”

  “No. Wow.” Ruby was impressed. Debbie contracted for Facebook and Ozcorp. It now seemed extra strange that she lived in a hoarder compound in Hackamore, but there was no accounting for taste.

  “Give me a second.”

  “Debbie and Charmaine are 1002 and 1003. That makes Enzo 666.” She cackled again. “The devil dog.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. Type it in. I gotta go, though. Only seventeen minutes left on that show and I need to take a shit.”

  “Cool! Thanks!” It was nice that Debbie helped out. She didn’t care why Ruby wanted the information or what she was going to do with it. That must be the key to success in corporate America. Keep your nose to the ground and don’t ask questions. When things got too weird, Debbie just moved to the boonies with her chickens.

  Ruby plugged in Enzo’s number to the app and waited for him to appear. Before long Enzo’s blip appeared in the Glass Chapel. It made sense. Pastor Rick was probably Oz’s spiritual advisor, helping him rationalize his criminal activities, giving him the feeling that God was on his side. Surrounding yourself with “yes men” can wreck a person. She’d seen it happen to Eddie Murphy—all those shitty movies in the early nineties. Admittedly, Oz wasn’t as talented as Eddie Murphy, but the same principle applied.