Second Glance: A Novel

  "How would you do it?" she had asked, with a morbid curiosity that, now, she could not believe they'd ever discussed. She also could not remember, although she'd tried so hard her head throbbed, how Ross had answered. Would he use pills, or a gun, or a knife? Would he lock himself in an anonymous motel room, jump from a train bridge, do it in his car?

  When Ross had been in the hospital after the last suicide attempt, she had gone to visit him. Since he was doped up on medication, Shelby was certain he did not remember their conversation. "Try living on dry land," Ross had said, "when you are a fish."

  The phone rang, and Shelby flew from Ross's bedroom down the hall to her own. "Shelby?"

  "Eli?" Her heart sank.

  "Has he called you yet?"

  "No."

  "All right, well . . . leave the line free for when Ross calls."

  She loved him, because he'd said when Ross calls, not if. "Okay," she promised, and she hung up to find Ethan standing in the doorway of her bedroom, looking miserable.

  "I think it's my fault," he confessed.

  Shelby patted the bed so that he'd sit beside her. "It's not, Ethan, believe me. I used to think that I was the one to blame, too, because I wasn't doing something Ross needed me to do."

  "No, that's not what I mean." His face twisted. "We were talking about it the other night--dying."

  Shelby turned slowly. "What did he say to you?"

  "That he was a coward." Ethan worried the seam of the quilt. "I asked him about his scars. Once I made him remember, maybe he couldn't stop thinking about it."

  She felt her shoulders relax. "Ethan, you didn't give Uncle Ross any ideas. They were in his head long before he got here."

  "Why would he do it?" Ethan exploded. "Why would he even want to die?"

  Shelby thought for a minute. "I don't think he wants to die. I think it's that he doesn't want to live."

  They sat in silence for a few seconds. "He also said he would bring me a girl."

  "He what?"

  Ethan blushed. "To kiss. So, you know, I could see what it was like."

  "Ah. And where was your uncle planning on finding this girl?"

  "I don't know. Isn't there someplace you can pay them to do that stuff?" He shrugged. "I guess there's a chance that he's off doing that, instead."

  Shelby thought of Ross walking the theater district in New York City, soliciting whores in heels and snakeskin skirts to come and kiss a nine-year-old boy. It was a frightening image, but not nearly as terrifying as the mental picture of Ross dying alone. "Let's hope," she said.

  For two nights, Ross slept in the backseat of his car, parked in the Wal-Mart lot behind the pools and barbecues. During the days, he haunted the hospital, slipping in to see Ruby whenever her granddaughter--he'd learned that her name was Meredith--was not there. Ross did not press Ruby for information about the Pikes, and Ruby did not volunteer it; in fact, their conversations tiptoed around this by filling in instead all the details they did not yet know: where they lived, what they did, how they'd come to be at this point. Ross discovered that he liked Ruby--she was sharp and outspoken and had memorized the batting average of every player on the Orioles. He knew that they were both getting something out of these daily visits--Ruby was deciding whether or not to trust him with the history she carried like a stone beneath her breastbone, and Ross was meeting the woman who had raised Lia's baby.

  She would not talk about Lia, or that baby, but she told him about Meredith, a single mother who worked too hard. About Lucy, scared of her own shadow. She laughed when Ross imitated the cardiologist who walked like he had a full diaper. And whenever Ross arrived, Ruby's face lit up.

  Not unlike Lia's.

  Meredith left the hospital at three to pick Lucy up at summer camp, and returned at around four-thirty, so Ross timed his visits accordingly. Today, he pushed through the swinging door to find Ruby sitting in a chair by the window.

  "Well, look at you," Ross said.

  "I was hoping to run a marathon today, but the nurse suggested this instead."

  "It suits you." He dropped a small wrapped gift into her lap. "Open it."

  "You didn't have to bring me anything," Ruby demurred. But Ross had brought her a present the last two times he'd seen her--a collection of wild purple loosestrife he'd picked from the side of the highway, a stack of magazines he'd found in someone's recycling bin. Gifts that she could enjoy . . . but tell Meredith had come from a friendly candy striper.

  Her hands worked the ribbon on the package until she pulled free a deck of cards. "I used to be quite the poker champion in my day," Ruby said. "I played it with the other girls who worked at the mill, on our cigarette breaks."

  "I only just learned. My nephew taught me."

  She began to shuffle, her knotted hands more nimble than he would have thought. "I'll be gentle, then. What about the pot?"

  "I didn't realize you indulged," Ross joked. "Maybe I can find some for next time."

  "Spoken like a man who's afraid to put his money where his mouth is."

  "The truth is, Ruby," he admitted, "I have about forty dollars to my name."

  Ruby didn't react to this; she just kept ruffling the cards and frowning. "It isn't five-card stud without a prize. I suppose we could play strip poker, but something tells me I'd have the better end of the deal there."

  "There's something else we could play for. Something free."

  "If you're thinking of sexual favors, I ought to tell you I'm not that kind of woman."

  Ross caught her eye. "How about the truth?"

  The air stilled around them. Ruby tapped the deck around and around in a square, aligning the edges. "But then nobody wins," she replied.

  "Ruby," he said. "Please."

  She looked at him for a long time. Then she shuffled the cards. "Ante up."

  "I'll give you the answer to one question," Ross began.

  Ruby nodded in agreement, and dealt them each two cards, one facedown. Ross had a ten of jacks, Ruby a queen of hearts. She raised a brow, waiting for him to make an opening bet. "Two answers," Ross said.

  "I'll call." She dealt two more cards faceup. Ross got a two of clubs, Ruby the queen of diamonds.

  "You're winning," Ross said.

  "I told you so."

  He looked at his hand. "Three questions of your choice."

  Ruby matched again, and continued to deal, until they each had two more cards--Ross a six and ace of clubs, Ruby a pair of kings.

  With the best hand showing, Ruby made the final bet. "I'll tell you everything," she said soberly, and Ross nodded. They flipped over the cards they'd had in the hole. Ross looked at her three of hearts. "Does that beat a two of clubs?"

  "Not by itself," Ruby said. "But your flush beats my two pair."

  "Even though you have people with crowns? And mine don't even go in order?"

  "Even though. Beginner's luck, I guess." She reached for his cards, and Ross noticed that her hand was shaking. "So," she said, looking up at him.

  "So," he answered softly.

  One of the pumps on her IV began to beep, the Ringer's solution having run low. A nurse would come in to fix it. And by the time she was finished, Meredith and Lucy would have returned. "I'm being discharged tomorrow morning," Ruby said.

  "Then I'll just have to come to your house to collect."

  "I'll be expecting you." He stood up and started for the door as the nurse entered the room. "Ross," Ruby called. "Thank you for the cards."

  "My pleasure."

  "Ross!" He turned, his hand on the panel of the door. "I threw that game," Ruby said.

  Ross smiled. "I know."

  Shelby was dreaming of blood, thick as molasses, flooding a city street, when the telephone woke her. "Aw, damn," Ross said when she picked up the receiver. "It's noon and you're asleep. I've been keeping other hours, so I forgot."

  She sat up instantly, the sheets pooling around her waist. "Ross? Are you all right? I thought you were dead!"

  "I'm not
dead. I'm just in Maryland." Ross seemed genuinely stunned. "What made you think that?"

  "Oh, gee, I don't know--a whole catena of misinformation, apparently. The suicide note you left me? The fact that you've tried to kill yourself before?"

  "That wasn't a suicide note. It was sort of a quick goodbye." When Shelby was silent, Ross added, chagrined. "Well, I see your point. Listen, by any chance is Eli there?"

  "Eli is out looking for your body," Shelby said pointedly.

  "Ah. Maybe you could relay a message. Tell him I found Ruby Weber."

  It took Shelby a moment to wade through the past three days and place the name. "The house girl? What did she tell you?"

  "Nothing," Ross admitted. "Yet."

  "When are you coming back?"

  "I don't know."

  Silence stretched between them, the thinnest filament. "But you are coming back?"

  Before he could answer, an operator got onto the line, announcing that Ross had run out of money."Tell Eli," he said, just before the line went dead.

  Shelby was left holding the phone. In her bedroom, the sun pushed at the backs of the rolled-down shades, threatening to burst through. Shelby threw back the covers and pulled open the curtains, letting the light spill over her bare feet.

  Her brother had not said he was coming back. But then, he hadn't said he wasn't, either.

  On the doorstep of Ruby's house, Ross rang the bell and stuck his hands in his pockets, only to find them filled with rose petals. "I know," he said aloud. "I'm anxious, too."

  The woman who answered the door was a six-foot Amazon in scrubs with cornrowed hair that reached her behind. "We don't want any," she said, and started to slam the door.

  "I'm not selling anything. I'm here to see Ruby. Tell her it's Ross."

  "Ms. Weber is asleep now."

  A voice, from the belly of the house: "No, I'm not!"

  The home health aide narrowed her eyes and then stepped aside to let Ross into the house. She muttered something under her breath in a language Ross didn't understand, and was certain he didn't want to. Ross followed her into a living room, where Ruby sat on a couch with a crocheted afghan covering her legs. "Welcome home," he said.

  "Welcome to my home." Ruby turned to the health aide. "Tajmalla, could you give us a minute?"

  With a bearing that made him think of African priestesses wearing kente headwraps, she glided from the room. "The agency sent her," Ruby said, watching her go. "She's been teaching me Swahili. Gorgeous language. It feels like a river running over your brain."

  Ross sat down across from Ruby. "Go ahead. Impress me."

  She concentrated. "Miya . . . no wait, that's Liya . . ."

  Lia?

  "Liya na tabia yako usilaumu wenzako,"Ruby said in a rush.

  "That means hello?"

  "No. It means, 'Do not blame others for problems you have created yourself.'"

  Ross shook his head. "I think I would have started with 'Hi, my name is Ross.'"

  "Actually," Ruby said, "I asked her to translate that particular sentence." She reached for the remote control, and turned off the soap opera on the television. "I thought it might help, you know, to have it in my head." Before I tell you the rest. "You need to explain something first. Why would you want to bring this up, now?"

  Ross thought of Lia, haunting the property; of Shelby unrolling those genealogy charts; of the rose petals that filled his pockets. "Because I need to know what happened to someone I love," he said.

  Ruby pulled the afghan higher. "He told me to bury the baby."

  "Spencer Pike?"

  She nodded. "You need to understand, the professor-- well, I've never met anyone like him, since then. He had a way of talking to you and before you knew it you were nodding right along with him without knowing how you'd even come to agree. I always figured that was what made Cissy Pike marry him." Ruby looked at Ross. "She made herself a friend, an Indian, and they kept sneaking off to see each other.

  The professor, he knew something was going on between them. He found the Indian up in her bedroom one day, threw him out, and knocked around Miz Pike . . . which made her go into labor."

  "Was the baby born alive?"

  Ruby seemed surprised by the question. "Oh, yes. I'd never attended a birthing before, I was only fourteen. And after all that work, to hear that baby cry . . ." Her voice trailed off. "Professor Pike took the baby, so his wife could get her rest. I was cleaning up inside when he came back and said that the baby had died. He'd left her in the icehouse, and he wanted me to bury her in an old apple crate before his wife woke up."

  "Did he tell you how the baby died?"

  Ruby shook her head. "He didn't tell, and I didn't ask. I think I knew the answer, already. I went out to the icehouse, and found her there, just like a doll wrapped in her blankets. There was something about putting her in the ground, when she still looked like an angel, that I just couldn't do. So I put her in the apple crate, but left the lid off. I figured that he could bury that baby himself if he felt a need to.

  "By the time I got inside, he was drinking in his study. I went up to bed. And in the middle of the night I heard a baby crying. I got up and went outside, following that noise." She shivered. "Sometimes, I still hear it, just before I fall asleep at night. I went out to the icehouse, toward that sound. But when I stepped up onto the porch, I bumped into Cissy Pike's legs." Ruby's voice dropped to a whisper. "She was tied to a rafter, her eyes wide open and bright red . . . I screamed. I thought that the professor had killed her--and that I was going to be next. I decided to run away, right then and there-- and then I heard it again. That cry. The baby I'd seen dead with my own two eyes was just inside the icehouse, in the apple crate, kicking and screaming."

  "You took her."

  Ruby glanced up at Ross. "I had made a promise to care for that baby, if anything happened. So I took a roast we'd been saving for a dinner party, and put it in the crate instead, and nailed the lid shut, like Professor Pike wanted me to do in the first place. Then I grabbed the baby and ran."

  "Where is she now?" Ross asked.

  Ruby glanced away. "The baby was young and sickly. She died on the way to Baltimore."

  Ross thought of Lia, of Lily, of Meredith. And suddenly he understood why Ruby was lying. "You haven't told her," he said quietly.

  Ruby's eyes met his, in that small cramped space where no words can fit. After years of keeping this secret, big as Atlas's burden, Ross had come to offer a shoulder. But just because she'd told him did not mean she was going to be willing to tell anyone else.

  Suddenly there was a thunder of footsteps, and the little girl Ross had seen days earlier in her mother's company rounded the corner. "Granny Ruby, we're back!"

  A moment later, Meredith stood in the doorway, trailed by Tajmalla. "How are you feeling?" she asked Ruby, before her eyes homed in on Ross. "You."

  Ross stood up. He would have introduced himself, but again he was struck by this woman's uncanny resemblance to Lia Pike. He wondered what she would do if he reached out his hand and touched her cheek to make certain she was real.

  "I don't know who you are, and what business you have with my grandmother," Meredith said, "but I don't think--"

  "His name is Ross, dear," Ruby interrupted. "He's come to take you out to dinner."

  "What?" Ross and Meredith spoke at the same time.

  "I'm sure I mentioned it. Last week."

  "Last week you were in the hospital, talking to people who weren't in the room."

  Ruby smiled tightly at her. "Ross is an old friend . . . of a friend. And I've told him so much about you."

  Ross felt Meredith size him up, and find him sorely lacking. Then she looked at the woman she believed to be her grandmother--a woman who'd almost died--and her eyes softened. Was this Ruby's way of getting rid of Ross? Of pushing him to tell Meredith the truth? Or was this Ruby's way of making him understand why she hadn't?

  Either way, Ross knew, he would go out with this woman in a heartbea
t. If only so that he could sit across the table and stare at a face that he could not forget.

  "Will you, um, excuse me?" Meredith said politely, and she turned to Ruby, lowering her voice--but not enough that Ross could not hear. "Ruby, he's not my type . . ."

  "Merry, you have to actually date to have a type." Ruby smiled. "I have Lucy and Tajmalla to keep me company."

  "Coffee," Ross heard himself say. "Just a cup."

  Meredith turned to Ruby again. "When you're all better again, remind me to kill you," she murmured, and then she turned to Ross. "Just a cup."

  She moved stiffly to his side. Ruby stared at Ross, but she had on her poker face. And as he walked with Meredith out of the living room, two strangers who each thought they knew the other better than they truly did, Ross realized that her perfume smelled faintly of roses.

  The only reason she was doing this, Meredith told herself, was because she didn't want Ruby getting all worked up again. She watched with distaste as Ross swiped empty coffee cups, cassette cases, and cigarette packs off the passenger seat of his ancient rattletrap and tossed them into the backseat. "Sorry," he said, and he held the door open for her.

  It smelled of smoke. Meredith watched him walk to the driver's side. His hair was long--all one length, nearly to his shoulders; he wore a short-sleeved bowling shirt open over a man's tank-style T-shirt; his jeans had a hole on the left thigh. He looked like the kind of guy you'd find strumming a guitar for tips in a subway hollow, or writing bad poetry in the rear of a rundown cafe. The kind of guy who scribbled notes to himself on gum wrappers and stuck them in the pocket of his jacket, only to forget what they were about in the first place. The kind of guy who drove taxis while people like her were busy getting their doctorates. The kind of guy she would never have given a second glance.

  The car started right up, a small miracle. "So," he said, smiling. "Where to?"

  "Somewhere close." Meredith gave him directions to the first Starbucks that came to mind, and when he turned away she told herself that she had imagined the flash of disappointment in his eyes.

  Those eyes. She'd give him that. They made her think of the sort of pool you'd stumble across in a rain forest, so jewel green and rich that once you fell in, you'd be immediately over your head and unable--unwilling--to drag yourself out.