County Line (20 page)

Ruby Jane wanted to add her field goal percentage was better from eighteen feet than Clarice’s from eight. But though Coach had a rep for taking what he was given, he’d need to see her on the floor.

“It’s a different game against the big girls.”

“Have you seen my brother wrestle, sir?”

“Once or twice.”

“I taught him everything he knows.”

Coach tilted his head, and a faint smile played across his lips. “This team will win if we play as a team. You ready to do that?”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Expect to pass.” He nodded her back to the group. “All right then.” Coach stepped back and looked them all over. After a moment, he launched into his boilerplate. Shoot-arounds at lunch until formal practice started. Nutrition and conditioning tips, and reminders to those who hadn’t done so yet to get their athletic physicals before the start of practice. Gabi looked worried, so when practice broke up, Ruby Jane approached her. “Go see Doctor Hart in Farmersville. She does everyone’s physicals.”

“My grandparents may want me to go to their doctor.”

“Hart knows what the school requires, and she’ll fit you in right away. Just so you know.”

“Thanks.” Gabi hesitated. “You decided to play after all.”

“I don’t have anything else to do.”

“The coach—”

“Don’t worry about him. He’ll give you a fair shot.”

Across the gym, Ruby Jane spied Finn Nielson. He was dressed in sweats, looking her way. She supposed he was going to work out in the weight room and had stopped by the gym to ogle the cheerleaders practicing at the other end. Ruby Jane turned to Gabi.

“You’re taking Con Law as a junior too, same as me.”

“At Bay, I did some classes in summer school. My folks wanted to keep me busy. So I guess I’m a year ahead.”

“You want to be my project partner?”

Gabi blushed, cheeks flaring to compete with her red hair. “If you want.”

“We’re sitting next to each other already, I figured …”

“Sure.” Gabi’s gaze moved past Ruby Jane’s left shoulder.

“Whittaker, what was all that about?”

Clarice. Ruby Jane smiled fiercely at Gabi.

“I asked you a question.”

She turned to face Clarice. “I’m supposed to be impressed?”

“I’m captain of this team.”

“Not yet, you’re not.”

“Are you going to challenge me? They won’t vote for you.”

“You overrated bitch, you might be surprised by who people
won’t
vote for.”

Clarice thrust two rigid fingers at Ruby Jane’s sternum, lips tight against her teeth, mouth partway open. Her breath smelled of licorice and a hint of lunchtime smoke. Ruby Jane stood her ground, arms at her side, weight centered over the balls of her feet.

“What’s going on here?” Coach pushed his way into the circle. Neither Ruby Jane nor Clarice moved. “Whittaker, Moody, is there a problem?”

Moira spoke first. “Ruby called Clarice a bitch.”

“Is that true, Whittaker?”

Ruby Jane refused to break eye contact with Clarice. “The truth hurts, Coach.”

“That’s enough. Back off, both of you.”

Ruby Jane waited. After a moment, Clarice folded her arms and let her air out. The gym was quiet around them. Coach drew himself up.

“If we’re going to be successful, we have to work together. I won’t have my players at each other’s throats.”

“She—”

“I’m not done.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Whittaker, I won’t tolerate name calling or profanity. Two hours detention.”

Clarice grinned, but Coach turned on her.

“I hope you don’t think this is funny.”

Ruby Jane could feel the heat radiating off of Clarice. The grin collapsed.

“Starting tomorrow and for one full week, you two will go to Barker Stadium. Each day, you’ll run five laps around the field, including up and down each set of stairs on both bleachers. You’ll run them together, and neither can leave until the other is finished. I don’t care how long it takes.”

Ruby Jane closed her eyes.

“Any questions?”

“Coach, I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who—”

“If you want to be captain of this team, Moody, you have to behave like a leader. Leaders don’t bully. They don’t throw their weight around. And they don’t get into spats with their teammates.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“I may not select the team captain, but I do decide who’s eligible to run. And neither one of you will stand for election if you don’t get this nonsense under control. Am I understood?”

Ruby Jane nodded, and after a moment so did Clarice. Coach left them. Ruby Jane caught Clarice’s eye again, but the fire was out now. Ruby Jane didn’t mind running. She could run all day. Clarice would have to keep up.

- 21 -

Interview, April 1989

Ruby Jane lived in a saltbox on West Walnut, the Brubaker silos rising across the street. Two floors, living and dining rooms, kitchen and mudroom on the first. Three bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. Ruby Jane’s room, a cramped cell barely big enough for her bed, dresser, and a small desk, looked out over the street and driveway. Jimmie’s own airless cube across the hall shared a thin wall with the Studio.

From the time they’d moved in when she was eight years old, the house had felt small. Dale and Bella filled every room with their voices, loud when happy, louder when not. The issue was always the same: Dale’s failure to rise above his working class roots.

“I don’t even know why I stay with you.”

“You and me both, fucklips.”

Ruby Jane knew why. Habit. Inertia. Shared victimhood. Grandfather Denlinger’s refusal to accept Dale lent strength to the tenuous thread which bound Bella and Dale’s marriage together. Ruby Jane wondered if her grandfather realized the surest way to drive a wedge between his wayward daughter and her blue collar husband was to welcome Dale into the family. If that ever happened, Bella would drop Dale like an empty bourbon bottle.

Grabel seemed most interested in these details of Ruby Jane’s home and history, trivialities which had no bearing on Clarice and Gabi. He put a tape in the cassette recorder, tested it, and recorded the date, location, the names of those present. Then he propped a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses on the end of his nose and started in on the pointless questions. As he spoke, she kept her head tilted back against the window, eyes fixed on the acoustic ceiling tiles. She listened to the hiss of the recorder, to the soft whoosh of the air conditioning. The fluorescent lights hummed.

“You have a brother, right? James.”

“Yes.”

“He graduated last year?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“College.”

“Where at?”

She wrinkled her nose at a salty tang rising from her singlet, faintly acrid like her basketball uniform after a loss. She didn’t want to talk about Jimmie. Nash saved her the trouble. “James is up at Bowling Green, I believe.”

Grabel ignored him. No doubt his folder had a notation of Jimmie’s whereabouts. He turned a page, read for a moment. “I understand your grandmother Whittaker passed last year. Sorry to hear it.”

“Why? Did you know her?”

“Never mind. Tell me about your mother’s parents.”

“I don’t see them much.”

“Why not?”

“Ask Bella.” She stole a glance at Nash. For a moment, he met her gaze without expression, then he looked down as though he feared what his eyes might give away.

“You do see them from time to time though, right?”

Ruby Jane reached up to knead a sudden cramp in her trapezius. She probed with her fingertips, winced as she pressed into the ropy muscle. Grabel looked up.

“You do see them.”

She dropped her hand into her lap. “Once a year or so.”

“They live half an hour away.”

“Takes longer when you have to hitchhike.”

“How does that make you feel, that your grandparents aren’t a part of your life?”

“Relieved.”

“At least you got to see a lot of your grandmother Whittaker before she died.”

The acrid scent grew stronger. She stared at the ceiling.

“Ruby?”

“I didn’t give you permission to call me by my first name.”

“Christ. Your teachers must love you.”

She sniffed. Teachers were figures to be tolerated until class ended, then forgotten. Mrs. Parmelee was the only one who treated Ruby Jane like something more than an entry in a grade book.

“How about your old man’s father? What can you tell me about him?”

“I never knew him.”

“How come? Your grandparents split up?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“What happened then?”

“He died a long time ago.”

“How did he die?”

“How should I know? It was centuries before I was born.”

“No one ever told you?”

“Obviously not.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“If anyone thought it was my business, they’d have told me.”

Grabel leafed through the folder. “His name was Norbert Fulton. He ran off when your daddy was a bump in your grandmother’s skirt. They were never married.”

Ruby Jane shifted uncomfortably. The backs of her legs stuck to the vinyl seat and an itch raced across her thighs.

“Out of snappy comebacks?”

“If you already know so much, why ask me?”

“I want to know what
you
know.”

She rolled her neck, stretched her arms down to either side of the chair. “I know you’re a jerk who won’t let me use the bathroom.”

The dry skin at the corners of Grabel’s mouth and eyes creased into dozens of dendritic lines. His idea of a smile, maybe. “Why don’t we cover territory closer to home. How did your parents meet?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t realize we were going all the way back to the Mayflower landing.”

“I didn’t realize your parents were that old.”

Nash cleared his throat, a sound she realized was his attempt to suppress a laugh. She refused to grant Grabel that much.

“It was some kind of high school sweetheart thing.”

“Where did they go to school?”

“Bella went to Oakwood. Dale went to Dunbar.”

“Interesting. Dunbar and Oakwood kids don’t usually cross orbits.”

“My mother was probably slumming.”

Grabel lifted his head, gazed at her over the top of his reading glasses. His erosional smile remained, arid and thin. “Define slumming.”

She didn’t know what he wanted from her. Her only clues were an overheard snatch of cop talk and the looming presence of Clarice Moody’s broken nose. Was he trying to drag an admission out of her, trying to get her on the record as an unrepentant thug who’d bust out on a fellow student without a second thought? Or was there something more behind all these questions?

“You’re kidding, right?”

“What about you? Been slumming too? Like mother, like daughter?”

Sudden heat flooded her cheeks. She forced it down again with a blank smile to match his own. “You’re the one who had to come all the way out to Farmersville to find yourself a high school girl to hit on.”

“Finn Nielson must be the one who’s slumming then.”

At his post on the wall, Nash’s arms tightened across his chest. Grabel, decaying scarecrow, showed his teeth, cracked and grey like old ceramic. “What the hell. Fuck Finn Nielson.” He chortled, a sound in tune with his rippling wattle. “Oh, sorry. Poor choice of words.”

Ruby Jane’s heart jumped in her chest. She found herself pressed against glass, a wave of nausea churning through her gut. The rumor mill never rested.
Finn Nielson, Ruby Jane Whittaker
—she’d had no chance to make sense of it herself. Two mornings before she’d awakened on a far shore, and found her return journey interrupted by the world turning upside down.