Ruby by Ann Hood Page B

resembling a castle was being built. Even in the dark, Olivia could make out turrets and large arched doorways. Her car looked familiar and safe.
    “Thanks for dinner,” Olivia said, climbing into it. She breathed in its smell happily.
    It was not until she had the headlights on, the car in reverse, that she saw Janice’s face peering in her window.
    Reluctantly, Olivia rolled it down.
    “He’s a nice guy,” Janice said, shoving the cheesecake at Olivia. “Pete.”
    “I know,” Olivia said. “I remember. Big but not fat.” She backed away, the cheesecake sliding around on the seat beside her.
    She had enough wine to make driving difficult. Olivia sat too close to the wheel, stared too hard at the road. Drunk like this, she could hit someone and kill them. Someone’s husband.
    She pulled over at a Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee. While she waited inside, she thought about Ruby. What if she was not as Olivia imagined her? What if she was like that Drew Barrymore character, a killer? A thief? Not that Olivia had anything valuable in the house. Her good jewelry and bankbooks were all back in New York. But she had cash and credit cards in the beach house. Her grandmother’s pearls. Her most valuable possession was worthless to anybody else: the answering-machine tape with David’s voice on it. She had not played it since he’d died, not once. Instead, she put it in her jewelry box, the place where valuable things should go.
    On the stools at the counter were some teenagers, kids around Ruby’s age, Olivia guessed. They all looked stoned, gobbling sugar doughnuts and laughing too hard about nothing at all. They all had tattoos and pierced body parts; one girl even had a small hoop earring jutting from her tongue. How is she eating so many doughnuts with that thing in there? Olivia wondered. These kids reminded her of Ruby, and they looked scary, dangerous.
    What if Ruby was a criminal? In some kind of burglary ring, maybe? What is wrong with me? Olivia thought. She had let a strange girl—maybe even a criminal—into her home. I am a woman so desperate for—love, company, what?—that I put myself in jeopardy. Are you happy, Pal? For a frightening instant, Olivia thought she had spoken out loud, but, no, it was just that her lips were moving, and one of the pierced girls was looking at her as if maybe Olivia was crazy or dangerous. Olivia smiled at the girl, who stared back at her blankly.
    Maybe the pregnant stomach is fake, Olivia thought. Something to garner sympathy and gain entry into people’s homes. And Olivia had told her she was there alone, that her husband was away. Instead of a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks knocked up by some rich, callous college boy, Olivia imagined Ruby as streetwise, a runaway. She’d seen a documentary once about street kids who robbed for a living. They slept on park benches and beaches; they ate from garbage cans behind restaurants.
    Olivia could see Ruby this way, with her tattoo and pierced nose. She was disappointed in her own suspicious nature. But then she remembered the careful way Ruby had studied her, the tough way she talked, not unlike these kids, who were eating too many sugar doughnuts and saying things like “Fuckin’ right, man” and “I’ll get that cocksucker.”
    It was taking forever to get one simple cup of black coffee. While she waited, some kid was robbing her, vandalizing her house.
    “Excuse me,” Olivia said to the kid closest to her, the one who had looked at her before. “Do you know someone named Ruby? She’s got a boyfriend at the college? She’s—uh—kind of, you know, pregnant?” Olivia clutched the slippery counter, drunk and scared and dizzy.
    They all turned their red-rimmed eyes on her. They smelled like mothballs and sweat and marijuana. None of them answered. But they, too, narrowed their eyes and studied her.
    “As a matter of fact,” Olivia continued, unable to stop herself, “she is pregnant.” Her own sour wine