Brake Failure

by Alison Brodie

  Rita: Who really killed Princess Diana?

  Taylor: It was the Saudis, wasn’t it?

  Rita: No, it was your MI5.’

  Taylor: No it wasn’t.

  Rita: Yes it was.

  Because the two women were busy answering their own questions, Ruby was able to focus on Edward and Donna, who sat further round the table. They were behaving as if they’d known each other for years; chattering and laughing uproariously. Surely, if they were having an affair they wouldn’t be acting so … affectionate?

  Ruby caught a movement in the doorway and glanced up. The man was tall and handsome with caramel-coloured skin and ink-black hair pulled back in a pony-tail. But it was his eyes: dark, almond-shaped and sad, so sad.

  ‘Payat!’ Someone called from the table.

  Payat?

  Like frantic fingers running through a filing cabinet, Ruby’s brain scrambled as it tried to remember every scrap of information on this man.

  a) Office geek who thinks he’s a Red Indian Chief. (Whoa! I got that wrong).

  b) The vicious hunting knife. (Yes, yes, Ruby, but the man has to eat, hasn’t he?)

  c) The proposition. (The PROPOSITION! He phoned to proposition me but I ignored him because some silly boy was trying to dismember his arm).

  Payat was scanning the guests as if searching for someone. Then his eyes found hers. ‘Ruby,’ he said, giving her a quiet smile. ‘How you doing?’

  She gazed up at him. In a split second, she had gone from merely existing to feeling alive. Like a defibrillator clamped to her chest, she had been jump-started.

  Payat took his seat at the far curve of the table, saying something to his neighbour as the waiter put plates of food on the table. Ruby bowed her head over her bowl of tagliatelle and began to roll the pasta on a fork. She couldn’t believe that these women around her carried on talking as if nothing had happened; as if this god, this figure of all that was proud, noble and masculine, had not entered their midst.

  Oh, but she wanted to stare at him. Chewing absent-mindedly, she looked around. What was he? she wondered, studying the wallpaper behind his head. Navajo? Cherokee?

  She had totally lost interest in Edward and Donna.

  Suddenly, there was a roar of laughter. The commotion was centred on Payat, who, reluctantly, allowed his colleagues to pull him to his feet and turn him around. As his crisp white shirt was tugged from his trousers, Ruby did not question what was happening; she was just glad to have the opportunity to view more flesh. Then she understood what all the fuss was about. The whole of his back was tattooed: a fist holding a thunderbolt, an eagle in flight, a motorbike, a leaping fish. He turned back, smiling self-consciously as he tucked in his shirt.

  Oh, God, please don’t let him be married, she pleaded inwardly. Of course, she had no intention of ever being unfaithful to Edward but there was nothing wrong in fantasising about a gorgeous stranger.

  If only she had known she was destined to meet this man she would have spent hours getting ready. She would have worn something tight - Spandex in a tiger-print. She glanced at Payat. She wasn’t the type to wear Spandex, but for him she would.

  She turned to Rita, who had finished eating. ‘Could I borrow your makeup, please? I didn’t have enough time to get ready.’

  Rita stood up abruptly. ‘Come on, we’ll all go together.’

  In the restroom, Rita and Taylor tipped out their make-up bags on to the counter. ‘I’ve got plum-coloured lipstick and extra-thick mascara.’ ‘I’ve got grey-black kohl.’

  ‘What’s coal?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘You don’t know?’ Rita promptly took charge. ‘It’s like a crayon.’ She held up a slim pencil, pulled down Ruby’s right cheek and ran the soft crayon along the lower lid of her eye. ‘What do you call the colour of your eyes?’ she asked. ‘Hazel?’

  ‘Topaz,’ Taylor answered, taking the top off a lipstick.

  Both women tried to subdue Ruby’s coarse brown hair; holding fistfuls of it as they tried to pin it into shape, but it just kept springing back, and they gave up. ‘It sure has a life of its own,’ Rita said with a laugh.

  Ruby turned to the mirror. Her face looked stunning! The kohl accentuated the colour of her eyes, and the lipstick made her lips seem even fuller.

  She didn’t care when the maître d’ saw her unbutton the top button of her shirt as she came out of the ladies lavatory. She didn’t care when he saw her remove a red carnation from a vase and stick it in her hair.

  As she walked back to the private dining room, it was not only the waiters who gave her a second glance, it was also Payat. For the rest of the meal she was vivacious and sparkling, laughing at everything Rita and Taylor said, while sneaking glances across at Payat to see what effect she was having on him.

  At the end of the meal, the guests moved into the bar area, and in the mêlée of choosing a place on one of the leather sofas, she was startled to find him beside her.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you,’ he said softly. She felt as if her tongue had doubled in size. ‘As I said the other day,’ he continued, ‘that dinner you did for Dwight Huffaker was inspirational. We need people like you at the agency. Or more specifically: I need you.’

  Astonishment loosened her tongue. ‘You … you … do?’

  ‘Sure. You see, I’m always on the look-out for fresh creative ways to secure and consolidate new business. That’s why I wanted to meet you. I’ve received a brief from Weavers, a stylish cosmetics firm that’s just starting up. They’re asking for attention-grabbing slogans to attract the female market. What do you think?’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘About helping me. I give you a product and you take it home. If you come up with some catchy one-liners, we get together.’

  ‘Get together?’

  ‘Yeah; but since you’re not eligible for a work permit, we can’t pay a wage. But we can give you a regular supply of the products, which are pretty classy. So, Ruby, do you have what it takes?’

  She gazed at him. At his collarbone was a chunk of turquoise on a leather thong. He smelled of all things exotic and sensual.

  He raised a hand as if stopping traffic. ‘I understand if you don’t want to-’

  ‘I do! I have! I can!’

  ‘Great.’ He gave her a measured look. ‘I can tell you don’t run with the herd. Am I right?’

  The words filtered through her muddled brain. In a flash of understanding, she tossed her head wild-stallion-fashion. ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘For the Weavers account,’ he continued. ‘We need someone who thinks off-the-wall, out-of-the-box; someone zingy and creative. Someone like you, Ruby.’

  Me?

  He had her utterly and totally wrong, but she wasn’t about to dispel his illusions. On the contrary, she was going to be everything he expected her to be, and more. But how did one change a personality that was set in concrete? How did one become … zingy?

  Molly was zingy.

  Ruby would learn from Molly. That meant accepting her friend’s invitation to the Brown Bag. Drastic results called for drastic measures.

  Payat produced a scarlet gift bag with Weavers stamped in gold. ‘This is hand cream,’ he said, taking out a tube and handing it to her. ‘Not an easy one.’

  Ruby said without pause: ‘“Hand Relief - You know you want it.”’

  Grinning, he punched her gently on the arm. ‘See, I knew you could do it.’

  She blinked vivaciously. ‘You betchya.’

  *

  Ruby couldn’t sleep. This was partly due to the sound of scrabbling on the roof and partly due to her brain going round and round the events of the evening. On the way home, Edward had revealed that:

  a) Payat was from the Pueblo tribe.

  b) Payat was single

  c) “Hand Relief” meant masturbation. (‘Although it could have a different meaning in

  America,’ Edward had shouted over her wail of distress).

  As the scrabbling overhead became more in
sistent, she considered waking Edward so he could go outside with a torch but he was snoring so soundly it would be difficult to wake him, let alone cajole him up a drain-pipe.

  Payat, on the other hand, would be wide awake in an instant and, after soothing her anxiety with gentle kisses, would scale the building in bare feet, silent like a panther. He would catch the animal and bring it down - a cute furry creature - to show her there was nothing to fear.

  With a sigh of longing, she rolled over and tried to sleep but it was impossible. Since all the roof tiles were wooden it sounded as if a big rat was busily ripping a hole in the roof.

  *

  ‘Ripping a hole in the roof?’ This was Shirletta Conroy, Wildlife Controller from the Yellow Pages. ‘Sounds like they could be racoons. Determined critters.’

  It was nine o’clock in the morning. Ruby held the phone to her ear, mentally flicking through her Encyclopaedia for Children as she tried to picture a racoon. Was it that thing with spikes?

  Shirletta continued. ‘Do you know how to check for them?’

  ‘I don’t even know what they look like. We don’t have them in England.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Shirletta sounded surprised. ‘Well, they’re fat and furry with dark stripes. And because it gets so cold in winter they like to set up home on the smoke shelf just up inside the chimney.’

  Ruby imagined that black cold place and felt sorry for them. ‘What if I lure them outside and set up a cosy hutch in the back garden?’

  ‘That won’t work; they’ll get suspicious.’

  They’re obviously clever little things.

  ‘The first sign they’re there is when they chatter.’

  How sweet.

  ‘Have you got the gumption to look up the chimney?’

  ‘Gumption? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, they’re liable to rip off your head.’

  Ruby’s image of cute shivering balls of fluff was replaced by gigantic rat mutants. ‘Could you do it, please?’

  ‘I’ll be right over, but it’ll cost eighty bucks.’

  ‘Thank you so, so much.’

  Ruby dashed through to the sitting room, yanked the chain-link curtain across the fireplace, shut the glass door and barricaded it with the coffee table.

  Thirty minutes later, Shirletta arrived in her van and shone a torch up into the chimney.

  ‘Nope, they’re not up there.’ She went outside and checked the perimeter of the house. ‘There’s no sign they’ve been out here, neither. Have your trash cans been knocked over?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Last night, did you hear chattering or barking?’

  ‘No, just scratching.’

  ‘You might have starlings.’ Shirletta turned. ‘And if you do have raccoons, your dog will keep ’em away.’

  ‘But I haven’t got a-’

  Rowdy sat on the front lawn.

  Shirletta headed to her van. ‘He looks mighty hungry.’ Her tone was accusatory.

  ‘He’s not mine,’ Ruby protested. ‘He’s a stray. I have nothing to do with him. My friend was meant to be taking him to the animal shelter.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Shirletta swung into the driver’s seat. ‘If a dog don’t get adopted, it’s euthanized.’

  ‘Are you saying-?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s put to sleep. It’s the best system,’ Shirletta added quickly. ‘But he ain’t gonna be adopted. Way too ugly.’

  As the woman drove off, Ruby gazed at Rowdy. He was a bag of bones with a pink hairless tail. One ear was shredded, the other crooked at a broken angle. Shirletta was right: he was way too ugly to be wanted.

  Ruby studied him. She studied the garden shed. She had a mental image of Edward’s old eiderdown patterned in teddy bears. She took out her mobile and phoned Echo.

  ‘You want to keep him?’ Echo said. ‘What? Permanent?’

  Permanent?

  Ruby looked down at Rowdy who was gazing up at her with steady, trusting eyes, his tail swishing gently. She sighed. ‘Yeah. It’s permanent.’

  *

  After settling Rowdy on the eiderdown in the shed, Ruby went along to Karis’s coffee afternoon, carrying a plate of almond biscotti and the tube of Weavers hand-cream. She could only pray that her neighbours would prove to be a gold-mine of scintillating slogans.

  Her friends sat in the kitchen, a large bright room banked with high-tech machinery of chrome, dials, buttons and levers. You could send a man to the moon from here and still juice a lemon. Karis’s home was one of the advertisement-looking houses set in an immaculate lawn. Ruby had learned that although these houses might seem as if they belonged to film-stars, they were actually cheap; that was because land and construction were easily affordable in the Midwest.

  Karis was conducting a Christmas-wreath demonstration. Everyone seemed bored. Blair thoughtfully handled the electrical carving knife while Mary-Jo’s fingers hovered indecisively over a plate of pastries.

  ‘Hey, Karis, you sure about this?’ Echo called from the sofa.

  Karis continued tying a red ribbon into a bow. ‘You should be paying attention,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Just reading what you wrote.’ Echo held up the newsletter: ‘DON’T LET WORRY KILL YOU, LET THE CHURCH HELP.’ She gazed at Karis in bewilderment. ‘You killin’ people now, Karis?’

  Ruby interrupted before they started bickering. ‘This is an emergency, girls.’ She held up the tube. ‘Can you help me come up with some advertising slogans for hand cream?’

  They seemed mildly interested. ‘Is this for Edward?’ Mary-Jo asked, chewing idly.

  ‘No, it’s for the creative director.’ Ruby couldn’t stop herself: she had to tell someone.

  ‘He’s a Native American. God, he’s so sexy and he’s tall with black hair in a pony-tail and he has such sad eyes and when he looks at you, you feel all goosepimply …’

  Her audience instantly lost their expression of mild interest and stared at her with ravenous curiosity. The questions came at her like bullets. Is he married? What’s his name? Did you kiss him? But did you want to kiss him?

  When Ruby had finally persuaded them that she was not about to embark on a torrid love affair, she diverted their attention back to the hand cream, which was quickly passed around.

  ‘Feels nice,’ Karis offered. ‘Smells like almonds.’ Everyone was now massaging cream into their hands, their eyes to the ceiling as if awaiting divine inspiration.

  ‘Velvet Touch! Blair shouted eagerly.

  Mary-Jo shouted louder: ‘Perfect Touch!’

  ‘A Soft Touch,’ Karis announced grandly. Ruby refrained from telling her that in England, this meant Gullible Twat. She wrote down all their suggestions before bringing up the second most important issue on her agenda: racoons.

  ‘Never had raccoons,’ Darlene said. ‘Although we’ve had chipmunks. And come summer when the outside tap is dripping we get copperheads.’

  ‘Copperheads?’ Ruby enquired.

  ‘Snakes.’

  Echo tossed the church bulletin aside. ‘Down at the river there’s snapping turtles. They get hold of you, they don’t let go till it thunders.’

  Mary-Jo bit into a pastry. ‘We’d always get starlings stuck in the chimney until we put chicken wire over the top.’

  ‘Yo!’ They were interrupted by Karis’s husband, who came in, threw a tool bag in the corner and drank from the tap. ‘You want feeding?’ Karis asked him.

  ‘Sure do, honey,’ he said, nodding a welcome to their visitors.

  Karis grabbed a ready-meal from the freezer, tossed it into the microwave, punched a button and sat back down. Job done.

  Is that dinner?

  Ruby - having been taught the importance of home-made stock, fresh ingredients and gentle simmering - was appalled. That poor man. But, on the other hand … she eyed the microwave speculatively. How wonderfully … easy. She thought of all those hours she had grated, shaved, zested, shredded, blanched, di
ced, sautéed and fricasséed just to see Edward shovel it into his mouth, too busy chattering to taste a thing.

  Mary-Jo was talking about her daughter, Scout, whose school had given her a bag of flour. ‘Scout has called hers Daisy. Scout is real responsible. Puts Daisy to bed at night; keeps her warm.’

  Ruby felt she had missed a chunk of conversation. ‘Sorry, why did the school give Scout a bag of flour?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t they do it in England?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Well, here, we believe it’s important to teach against early pregnancy. So sixth-graders get a bag of flour to care for so they know what’s it’s like having a baby and how it’s not so easy.’

  Not so easy? Ruby thought. If I’d been twelve and led to believe motherhood was all about dumping a bag of flour in the corner - and nothing to do with the non-stop placating of a screaming, hungry, defecating child - I would have probably been the first to get pregnant.

  *

  Ruby was listening to the chimney when Edward arrived home from work.

  ‘Ruby!’ he shouted. ‘Why is there a dog in the shed?’

  She stood straight. ‘Remember the noise on the roof last night?’

  Edward looked incredulous. ‘It was a dog?’

  ‘No. Racoons. The Wildlife Controller came out and did an inspection. She said that if we had a dog, it would keep them away.’

  ‘But I don’t want a dog!’

  ‘The inspection cost eighty dollars. Isn’t it cheaper to have a dog than to pay eighty dollars every week?’

  Edward mulled this over. ‘Alright,’ he said eventually. ‘But it doesn’t come in the house. Understood? And take that eiderdown off him. I’ve had that since I was a child.’

  Ruby saw the Tupperware box under Edward’s arm. She grabbed it and yanked off the lid. Chocolate cake! She stiffened, remembering she was the one who should be angry, not Edward. All day her thoughts had centred on raccoons, Rowdy, Payat and hand-cream, leaving no room for Edward and his pretty, pony-tailed secretary … until now.

  ‘I see Donna has made you another cake?’

  ‘I can’t say no. She’s in a sensitive place right now.’

  ‘What on earth does that mean?’