Staying True - A Contemporary Romance Novel (15 page)

“Jessica had so many friends. I
worried for her that she’d die of loneliness in jail. She’s a pretty girl, so I
could only imagine her getting gang raped, bullied, and tossed around like a
bag of potatoes.”

“Was she ever, you know, raped?” She
feathered my cheek with her comforting touch.

“She never told me. And I didn’t
ask.”

“I bet she misses touching and
kissing you something terrible.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“Do you miss touching and kissing
her?” Ruby asked.

“Before all of this happened, we were
very close, very affectionate. Now,” I rolled my eyes. “This is going to sounds
strange. Now that she’s sober, she’s just hard to get along with. We just fight
all the time now. We both pick on each other about stupid things. When
drinking, she let a lot of things slide. Nothing bothered her. Now everything
is amplified, she says.”

“You liked her better as a drunk?”

I clung to Ruby’s caring eyes. “So
sad, right? She’s far more pleasant when she’s drunk. No one realized she had a
problem.”

“You think no one knew, but darling,”
she said, running her fingers through my hair now, “I would guess most people
knew.”

I let her words absorb into me. They
came from a place of innocence and love. “I used to feel sorry for her one
minute, and then a moment later I would start tossing her stuff all over the
place, smashing her precious perfumes and ripping her binders full of notes
about her dreams and goals she hoped to accomplish one day.”

“I bet that felt really good.” Her
words crawled out to me, like a feline, arched and sensual, teasing me to draw
nearer. “How did your family take it?”

“My family.” I inhaled. “At first I
thought, I’ll just keep this whole mess hidden from them. I’ll pretend she’s
away on some important venture, like building habitat homes for the poor up in
the Appalachians somewhere.”

“Judgmental folks, I take it?”

I shrugged. “Jessica has always been
so good about not caring what people think about her. But I do.”

“Is prison scary for you when you
visit her?”

I paused and looked at Ross Simons on
the Monopoly board. I ran my finger over the square wishing I could just sink
into it and escape into some alternate reality where Ruby and I were walking
hand-in-hand down a city street, wearing expensive clothes, chit-chatting about
a Broadway play we had just seen and stopping into a cute, urban spot for some
fancy drinks. Instead, I looked up into her waiting eyes. “Imagine being tossed
into a gas chamber and having all of that noxious air, dead space, and stale
smell trapped in there with you.”

She pouted, offering me an empathetic
sigh. Then, she climbed to her knees and crawled around my backside. She combed
my hair with her fingers, massaging my scalp. She leaned in and whispered into
my ear. “I’m listening.”

“After we got through the whole bail,
attorney meetings, and trial, she landed in jail. The judge sentenced her to
two years in the state prison.”

“That’s it?”

“She was lucky she didn’t do this in
a different state with stricter minimum sentences.”

“I’d say.”

“I promised her I’d visit her that
very next day. She walked away, crying, looking back at me over her shoulder.
She looked so pathetic.”

Ruby continued massaging my scalp.
“Go on.”

“So anyway, the next day was a
Friday. I called the prison and asked about the visiting hours. They asked me
if Jessica had placed me on her visitor list because if not I wouldn’t be
allowed to speak with her. I said,
of course she did. She’s my wife.
So,
the next day I braved all and headed to the Bridgewater Correctional
Institute.”

Ruby leaned in and caressed my neck.
“You’re trembling.”

I continued. “When I entered and they
asked me if she added me to her list, I once again said,
yes, I’m sure she
did
.”

“She didn’t, did she?”

“Nope. She failed to place me on her
visitor list. I said to the clerk,
maybe she just didn’t know she had to?
And she said to me as cocky as ever,
if she wanted you on her list, she
would’ve placed you on it.”

She traveled to my temples and
circled them. “Tell me this gets better?”

“A few days later, I got a collect
call from her telling me she added me to her list. She asked me to bring her
some money and toiletries. It takes a couple of weeks for the visitor list
updates to happen, so she had to wait. When I received notice that she added me
to the list, I arranged to go in on a Thursday. Well, Thursday came and a few
hours before leaving to visit, Jessica’s friend from the Burlesque club called
me and invited me for lunch. I told her I planned to visit Jessica. And she
said, oh when you see that clerk with the red hair and the big attitude, can
you punch her in the face for me? She is beyond rude every time I go in there.”

Ruby gasped and stopped massaging.
She curled up around the front of me with a look of horror on her face. “Were
they sleeping together?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“So what happened when you finally
went?”

“I didn’t go that Thursday. I made
her wait.”

“Did you talk to her about her dancer
friend?”

“When I finally walked into the
prison, my fear superseded my memory. I forgot all about confronting her. I
remember sitting there in my car thinking, I am going to walk in there holding
my head up high even though I know everyone is going to be staring at me
thinking
she married a loser.

Ruby took my hands in hers. “You’re
still trembling.” She rubbed my hands in hers.

Ruby listened to me in a way that no
one ever did. She cared. She wanted to hear my story. No one ever wanted to
hear my stories. I wanted to unload all of them to her. “I was a wreck that
day. I had to be searched. The lady at the check-in counter growled like an
angry tiger. She wore her dark hair in this tight bun. It shined blue under the
fluorescent bulbs. She wrote my name in black marker on a visitor pass and
flicked her finger to the right and told me to walk that way.”

“Fuck this game of Monopoly,” Ruby
said. She swept it away from us and guided me backwards against the floor. She
propped a pillow under my head and reached for a blanket on the couch. She covered
me up, then held my hand. “Go on.”

“That day was hell. The prison
smelled like ammonia covered up in Pledge. I can still hear the way my heels
clacked on the floor that first day. The walls closed in around me. As I walked
towards the security guard, I swallowed nothing but dry air. My left eye
twitched. I suddenly hated my friend Janie. I hated her for getting married and
asking me to be her maid of honor. I hated hiring Jessica. I hated loving
Jessica. I hated everything about Jessica at that point.”

“Understandable.” She squeezed my
hand.

“When I approached the gray-haired
man in uniform, he smiled at me and ushered me to a chair. I had to remove my
shoes and jewelry just like at an airport. He treated me with dignity. My
nerves shook every part of me, and he placed his gentle hand on my back and
guided me to sit. I cried under his compassion. He had asked me if it was my
first time. I couldn’t even talk.”

Ruby rubbed my arm, up and down, in
long soothing strokes.

“He patted my shoulder blade and told
me it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Was it?”

“It was no massage, I can tell you
that.” I reached up for her hand. I laced my fingers in hers and admired their
grace. I kissed them, one at a time with my trembling lips.

“Well, darling, nothing’s going to be
like my massage.” She teased me with a wink. “Get to the part when you see
her.”

“Okay, so they take me to this room
with Plexiglas, a row of chairs, and telephone receivers. I sat in the chair
and waited. The room spun. I braced my hands on the counter, stood up, and
contemplated just running and never looking back. Honestly, I was so angry. So
incredibly angry that she did this to herself. Then, the door opened, and in
she walked on the other side of the glass wearing an orange jumpsuit.”

Ruby nodded, squirming. “I can’t
imagine.”

“I just remember her eyes. They
drooped. The life in them had vanished. The sparkle faded. Her jaw hung like a
drug addict. She walked without swagger, without attitude. She didn’t smile.
She just sat down across from me and eyed her end of the receiver with gloom. I
picked up my end first. I tried on a smile, but she didn’t look. She just shook
her head, exhaled, and stared up to the ceiling. I tapped on the glass, and the
guard said
no tapping the glass, ma’am.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” I blew out some air. “So, I
sat there, studying her sullen face and lifeless body. Finally, she bowed her
head and picked up the receiver. I said hi to her as sweetly as possible. She
sat staring at the counter, not reciprocating. Her chin quivered and finally
she burst into a crying fit. Tears flew. She choked on them. She hung her head
in shame. She didn’t once meet my eye. She just cried like a baby in an orange
jumpsuit.”

Ruby laid down beside me and curled
up under the blanket.

“She did this for five minutes. I
cradled the phone to my ear and prayed she would say something that I could
walk away with that would offer me some peace. The guard stood in the corner
staring straight ahead as if all too familiar with this scene. Then the guard
told us to wrap up our visit. She pointed her eyes directly at me. “Don’t come
back,” she whispered.

Ruby hugged me tightly.

“She hung up, and without looking at
me, she walked out of the room.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Well, so the next day I drove back
to show her I would not abandon her, that we would get through this together.
That’s what we did. We got through things.”

“Blend to mend.”

“Yes,” I said. “Blend to mend.”

We shared a sigh.

“So, I walked up to the receptionist
again, stated my name, and waited for her to hand me my name badge.”

“The red headed bitch that the whore
from the club told you about?” Ruby asked.

I hugged her, comforted by her spunk.
“No. Just the same mean one with the tight bun. She said I wasn’t on the list.”

“She took you off the list?”

“She took me off of the list.”

“So then what?”

“Dazed, I walked straight out of the
door, straight past a mother tugging her two screaming toddlers by their tiny
hands, and to my car. Then I sped away, numb. I didn’t want to return home
where her scent still lingered. I reached up to my dashboard and picked up the
yellow duck she placed there a year ago. I opened my window and tossed it out.
Then, I opened up the console and tore out her golf gloves. I tossed them out
too. For the ten miles I drove, I left a trail of Jessica on the road.”

“So how did you get back on the
list?”

“My sister asked her.”

“Your sister?”

We shared a laugh. “My sister to the
rescue.”

“Are you sad when you see her in
there?”

“I feel very sad for her.”

“Why are you with her? Why do you stay
true to someone who has screwed up your life?”

I hinged on Ruby’s question. “I’m
holding out for the hope that when she comes back to me, she’ll come back
recharged and fun again. This new Jessica, isn’t really her. Jail is making her
into this person. Once she’s out of jail, we’ll be able to get past all of this
stuff. I’m sure of it.”

She cupped my cheek in her hand.
“Have you ever cheated on her?”

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“Of course you’re not,” she whispered
with a tease pulling on the corner of her moist lips.

Chapter Twelve

Ruby

My massage chair business grew
quickly. I didn’t have to, but I worked every lunch hour and every happy hour.
Then later, Shawna and I would sit at the bar and talk about hair, makeup, and
shoes. She loved shoes. She wore a different pair every night, and they ranged
from flats, to sandals, to heels far too high to be comfortable behind a bar.

One night, after I closed up my
massage chair, I went into the lounge for a drink. Shawna couldn’t keep up with
her orders. Customers filled every last seat. Her face flushed. She didn’t even
see me when I walked up to her. She rushed past and stuck a pencil behind her
ear. So, I decided to step in and help her out. I walked behind the bar and
took some guy’s order for a shot of Sambuca. As I poured it, Shawna turned away
from a trio of guys and locked eyes with me. She ran towards me, flinging her
hands up. “Get out from back there.”

She looked angry, like I’d just
stolen her dog or her wallet or a great parking space at the mall at Christmas
rush. She charged at me. I freaked out and hopped back over to the customer
side of the bar. “Sorry.” I slid out of her way as she tossed the empty tray on
the bar.

“Please don’t mess this up for me.”
Her eyes pleaded. Fear hung on each spoke.

“How would I mess this up for you?”

Despair leaked from her cheeks.
“You’re not supposed to be behind the counter. If you got caught, I could get
myself and Nadia in a lot of trouble. She went out on a limb here to hire me.
Her brother-in-law can be a real asshole when he wants to be.”

“I just wanted to help.” My words
fell out of my mouth. “I would never try to get you in trouble.”

She sighed. “Not everybody is
carefree like you, dear.”

She walked away, shaking her head.
For the first time, I felt out of place at the Gateway Suites Lounge. I sped
out of there, through the back door and out into the dark parking lot. I
climbed into my Camaro and sped away, cursing at the starless night for being
so dark and dreary.

I turned on the radio, searching for a
song. Every station played a commercial. So I drove all the way back to
Jamestown in silence, fighting the deep gnawing in the pit of my stomach,
blinking away the look of angst on Shawna’s face.

I hated that I angered her. I hated
even more that I cared.

Fuck friendships. What good were they
anyway? The structure, expectations, and rules just complicated things. Yet,
friendships depended on such details.

I didn’t want to be counted on as a
friend because I’d never be a good one. I would never be there in times of
trouble. I would run away from dramatic, emotional phone calls in the middle of
the night. I would never know what to advise someone if ever someone asked my
opinion. I’d dish out the wrong advice, and next thing I’d be sitting in the
front row of a funeral home staring at her casket because I, Ruby Clark, didn’t
tell her the right move.

I cried the rest of the drive home.

When I finally arrived at my place, I
sat on my front porch and soothed myself by fantasizing about fun times with
Nadia. She didn’t infringe on my life. She didn’t expect anything from me. She
didn’t set blind rules and get angry when I ignored them without even knowing.
With Nadia, I was free. I would always remain free, because that would be the
only way I’d ever fully live a life I could one day look back on and say, I
played my cards as I saw fit.

Never would someone else get that
ability to take over those cards or my life. I would never live as my mom did,
wielding to a psychotic man, living like a little mouse pretending to enjoy the
feast of old moldy cheese for the sake of keeping his spirits high so he
wouldn’t beat her with a belt. Never would I seek what the average person
sought in life, marriage and undying love. That didn’t exist. That was a
façade. It ruined lust. It ruined passion. It killed a person, like Grace
killed Grampa’s spirit.

In my game plan, I would have fun. I
would spend my days laughing, smiling, and playing. I would not owe anyone my
commitment therefore no one could get upset with me or accuse me of crossing
lines and not staying true.

Nadia didn’t cling. She didn’t need
me. She wouldn’t expect me to drop my life for hers because Jessica had already
done that for her. For these reasons, she captivated me. Her mystery magnetized
her to me. I wanted to always remain a mystery to each other. I wanted us
guessing about the lives we spent outside our massages. I wanted to allow our
personal lives to breathe so that when we came back together again, we’d always
get high on the adrenaline and euphoria that circled us.

Thank God for Jessica.

Nadia’s marriage actually saved us
from future demise, standing in as a safety switch for my desire, saving me
from falling where relationships crumbled and ended up broken at the bottom of
an abyss.

I wanted to wonder about her when she
traveled back to Connecticut. Not in a creepy sort of way, but rather a
curious, simmering way. The more mystery, the less inclined I’d be to fly the
nest that encapsulated our friendly moments together. I wanted that nest to be
light and airy, a place to come to for affection, and a place to easily escape
when the spark started to twitch and fade.

I wanted to crave her always.

Why didn’t people offer the same
flexibility in friendships? Why did Shawna carve out these unwritten rules and
not explain them to me? How was I supposed to know I couldn’t help her? Did I
look like a mind reader?

I hated drama. I hated that an
unsettled feeling brewed in me. I hated that I wasted the entire evening
worrying.

I went back inside and fretted more
over a bowl of cheese curls and a bottle of Budweiser. As I sipped the last of
the beer, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it, and Shawna stood with a
silly grin on her face holding my sweater. “You forgot something.” Fresh lip
gloss coated her lips and dramatic eye shadow deepened her eyes. “Have you been
crying?”

I wiped under my swollen eyes.

“I don’t believe anyone’s ever cried
for me before.” She pulled in her bottom lip and tightened it, wobbling on the
threat of a break down.

I fought to keep my trembling chin in
order. “I would never compromise your job on purpose.”

“I know.” She handed my sweater to
me. “But you could’ve.”

“I’d never let a friend of mine get
into trouble,” I said.

A smile shined across her face. “You
think of me as a friend?”

I folded the sweater over my arm.
“Don’t you think of me as a friend?”

She blinked extra slowly as if I’d
just spoken to her in Russian.

“Do you not want me to be your
friend?” I asked, annoyed now.

Again, a long extended blink. Then, a
hand up to her mouth and a fresh batch of tears. She bit into her finger, and
her shoulders started to buck. Soon she folded over at the waist and clung to
her knees, crying.

I cradled her to me and let her have
a good cry. I eventually joined in. The two of us clung to each other like
pathetic, weepy fools, crying over friendship.

Mid-sniff she stood up. Her eyes were
swollen and red. “Thank you.”

“For?”

She backed away down to the steps of
my porch and waved at me. “For being my friend.” She ran off into the dark night,
and I just stood there speechless, not sure how to digest her weird act of
driving thirty miles to deliver my sweater in the middle of the night. Had she
never been friends with someone before?

I sat on my couch, kicked my feet up
and closed my eyes. Then my cell dinged. I read Shawna’s message: “Thank you
for being my friend.”

My heart clenched. I allowed the
drama to marinate within. I texted her back and told her how she honored me by
calling me friend.

* *

Nadia and Shawna arrived at my
grampa’s apartment with blueberry muffins in hand. Grampa reached out to Nadia
for the box. “Now, see there,” he said to me. “She’s a keeper.” He nudged me.

“She’s already taken.” I hugged his
shoulders and guided him to the side. “Let the poor girls enter. It’s getting
chilly outside.”

We ate blueberry muffins while grampa
showed off his story books to the girls. He handwrote each one over the years
and drew stick figures in marker for the book covers. “It’s not my art they
come to see.” He laughed. Bentley jumped on his lap, and he scratched the top
of his head. Bentley purred.

Bentley always hated when I scratched
his head.

The girls browsed his collection, and
he glowed with their gushing.

By the time we left his apartment we
had missed mass.

“How about we change it up for you a
little this week with a different activity?” Nadia swung an arm around his neck
and helped guide him into the front seat of her CRV.

“Thank you. By God. Yes, please,”
Grampa said, as if she just pulled him from the wreckage of a fiery car. Then,
he rolled down the window and stuck his hand out like a little kid. “Take us
somewhere fun.”

She turned around to the backseat.
“What do you say, pretty girl?”

I blew her a kiss, and she blinked
extra heavily. I swallowed a moan and settled in for the ride.

Grampa turned around and offered a
mint to Shawna. “You’re sweet enough, but I’m offering one to you anyway.”

“Oh, aren’t you a cutie?” She took
one from him.

“You think I’m cute now, just wait
until I’m a few years older and have a little more gray hair on this head.” He
chuckled, and we all joined in.

I sat up and messed with his hair.
“Grampa, always flirting.”

“I see where you get it from now,”
Nadia said.

Shawna snuck me a smile and nudged my
side with her elbow. When Nadia took off, Shawna mouthed, “You’re all red.”

I pushed her elbow away and turned to
admire the pine trees rushing by us.

A few minutes later, Nadia pulled
into the parking lot of a pottery café. My heart flipped. I gazed through the
window at the adorable pieces displayed in the front window. “I love pottery.”

Nadia glanced at me from the rearview
window. We shared an extended stare, and she ended with a wink. This girl had
some hold over me.

We climbed out of the car and walked
into the pottery café. The place buzzed with people. Everything looked sunny
and bright, from the yellow walls to the red flowered border to the speckled
floor tiles. A lady wearing a polka dotted apron approached with a smile. Nadia
stepped up. “I reserved a table for four.”

The lady took my grampa’s arm in the
crook of hers. “Right this way.”

My grampa swaggered alongside of her
with a gigantic smile on his face.

Shawna followed a few close steps
behind. I grabbed Nadia’s hand and eased up to her side. “You have just made my
grampa the happiest man in the world.”

She pointed her gaze down to my lips
and back up to my eyes. “It’s just pottery.”

I squeezed her hand. “Just pottery,
huh?”

Her lips curved upwards. “Just
pottery.”

A few minutes later, we were playing
with the clay like a group of kids. My grampa rolled his around forming a
baseball. “I don’t know how I ever got it so smooth,” he said, admiring it.

I nudged Nadia’s knee. She nudged
mine back. Then, we just left them nestled up against each other under the
privacy of the table.

“So, you’re already taken, dear?” he
asked Nadia.

She shrugged. “Yes, sir.”

“How long?”

“We’ve been together for several
years.”

“Is he handsome like me?”

She shot me a look.

I nodded. “It’s okay. Tell him.”

“She, sir. I married a woman.”

He rolled his perfect baseball around
on the table. “Well, I guess I’ve got no shot, then, huh?”

“None of us have a shot.” I stole the
ball from him. “I know you’re more creative than a baseball. Make a pretty mug
for me.” I handed it back to him.

He kneaded the clay. “So, if you’re
married, why are you always without her?”

Nadia looked at me again.

“Go on. Tell him.”

“She’s in jail, sir.” She twisted her
clay, pulling on it, ripping it apart. “She killed someone in a drunk driving
accident.”

The four of us pressed, rolled, and
ripped at our clay.

“Have you forgiven her?” Grampa
asked.

Nadia sighed. “It’s kind of hard when
she hasn’t even forgiven herself, sir.”

He fixated on the stretch of table in
front of Nadia. “You have to forgive her if you ever want to get on with your
life.”

“You speak like you’re coming from
experience,” Nadia said.

He nodded. “We’ve got some ugly
baggage in our family too.”