The Loves of Ruby Dee (27 page)

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One afternoon Lonnie observed, “She’s talkin’ to herself again. You know, Ruby Dee may be a little crazy.”

Standing at the opening of the tractor barn, where he and Will were working on the swather, he watched her hanging her colorful bras and panties on the clothesline. Will, wiping his hands on a rag, walked up to look, too. He saw her dress flattened against her legs by the breeze and heard snatches of her voice.

“Nah,” he said. “She’s not talkin’ to herself...She’s talkin’ to that friend of hers—Miss Edna.”

Lonnie was so surprised at his straight-arrow brother saying something that absurd that his eyebrows shot up, and for once he didn’t have a comeback. A few minutes later, though, he said, “You know, Will, I don’t know how we’d ever go back to bein’ without her.”

Will met his brother’s gaze, then sighed. “Me, either, Lon. Me, either.”

And then one afternoon Will got a pretty big surprise, which made him realize Ruby Dee wasn’t just wrapped up in them and content to take what they gave her. Ruby Dee had plans.

He came into the kitchen and heard her on the phone, talking to someone about a mortgage. He heard that clearly—mortgage—and then something about fixed rates and a down payment. He didn’t have to hear much to know she was speaking about the price of a house. He saw the real estate section of the county newspaper open on the table, marked up with red ink, and lying there, too, was that peculiar paper, the one he had seen in her bedroom with the pictures pasted on it.

After she hung up, she looked at him. He said, “Are you lookin’ for a house to buy?”

She nodded. “I’m gettin’ a lot closer to havin’ the down payment.” Her eyes were fully on his.

Will swallowed. “The old man has come around. I imagine you’ll have a place here as long as you want it.” Then he added, “Dad probably couldn’t get along without you now.” He almost said
we,
but he didn’t.

She looked back down to the newspaper. “I was checking on a place down in Cheyenne. That way I’d still be able to take care of Hardy.”

Will didn’t know what to say to that, he was so surprised, even though he began to realize he shouldn’t have been. All this time he’d been thinking of his plans, and not taking hers into account at all. He was angry that she would have plans separate from theirs.

She lifted her coffee-brown eyes to his and said, “I can’t live with other people forever. I want my own house and my own babies to tend.”

“But not necessarily a man, right?” He hadn’t forgotten she’d said that.

And she answered smartly, “Not necessarily, I guess.”

Will turned and walked out the back door. He probably should have spoken up right then, but he figured she already knew how he felt about her. She had to know, and she had to know how the old man and Lonnie felt, too. They certainly did everything but cartwheels to make her feel welcome. If she didn’t see that, it was because she didn’t want to.

Ruby Dee went to the back door, to the screen door of the porch and watched Will stalk off up the hill. She didn’t think she should have to explain herself. Did he expect her not to have any future at all—to just go on caring for the three Starr men until she couldn’t do it anymore? To not want anything for herself? Will Starr of all people ought to know what it was to want something for oneself!

She was mad at him for not doing anything since their one kiss to show her that he wanted her. Oh, he was friendly, even affectionate. He sat with her in the mornings and talked, and he’d gotten the horse for her and he rode with her, but Lonnie did things like that, too, and so did Hardy. They all were sweet as they could be to her. All three of them!

That was the whole problem, and there was no use being angry at Will about it, she thought, depression falling over her like water, clean washing the anger away. All three of them wanted her.

She wasn’t certain what Lonnie might do if she chose Will, but she knew Hardy would have a fit. He’d have a fit and then he’d slip right back to the way he’d been before she’d come, one foot sliding into the grave, while the other one miserably kicked at everyone. Will and his daddy would be split apart again and Lonnie would be left dangling on the fringe. HELL TO PAY,
that’s what would happen, and it would be all her fault.

She started to cry. Hardy came in and asked her what in the hell she was crying about now. She didn’t answer him, but grabbed her papers and went upstairs. He hollered after her to not cry so long that she couldn’t start supper. He was just trying to josh her out of crying, and that sweetness made her cry all the harder.

She sat on her bed and looked at her dream paper and the few listings in the county newspaper. She couldn’t bring herself to call about the cottage all the way down in Oklahoma City, so far away from Hardy, who did need her. But she had to get her own place. She could rent something until she could buy. She could still stay on with Hardy, but she’d have her own place and could get started on those babies. Lord, she wanted babies.

Days passed, though, and she didn’t go look at anything. She didn’t do a blessed thing. She just kept thinking how upset the men would be if she moved out, and how she would miss them so much.

Miss Edna said to her,
“Ruby Dee, you have to stick to your plan.”
And Ruby Dee answered, “Miss Edna, don’t bother me. I’m doin’ the best I can.”

Will seemed to keep his distance after their little snit that afternoon, but Ruby Dee sensed that his deep inner pockets were ripping wider and wider and everything was getting ready to spill out. She felt her own inner ripping and tearing. There was a tug-of-war going on inside her between her desire for her own home and babies, and her desire to care for the Starr men. She couldn’t have stopped loving the three of them, and she couldn’t have stopped wanting Will most of all, any more than she could have stopped breathing.

Then the rain came at last and by heavy storms. Hardy said it was always that way at the end of summer. The wind and thunder and lightning bore down on them in the early hours of the morning and brought them all out of their beds. Will and Lonnie jerked on their jeans and boots, while Ruby Dee, wrapping her robe around her, ran around unplugging everything electric, and Hardy monitored the reports on their weather radio and the television. Ruby Dee wanted to unplug the radio and television, but Hardy insisted they remain on.

Having expected the storms, Will had the generator ready in case of power outage, and he and Lonnie had already stowed or tied down anything that could blow away, so they all just sat around the kitchen while Ruby Dee made breakfast. She used water sparingly, frightened of turning on the faucet and perhaps drawing lightning. All of Will’s assurances wouldn’t change her way of thinking.

Will didn’t respect storms enough to suit Ruby Dee. He loved them and went out on the front porch to watch.

Ruby Dee called, “Don’t be out there. Lightnin’ could get you. You could be sucked up!”

He came back in, to keep her calm.

Lightning flashed like camera bulbs—the blinding bright ones used for television—and the thunder rolled like cannon fire. It scared Ruby Dee so bad that she dropped the bowl she was mixing pancakes in and broke it. “It was my favorite bowl...Oh, Hardy, was it your Mama’s? It was so old.”

“Hell, it was Lila’s, so it’s nothin’ but good riddance.”

Hardy tried to get her to go down to the storm shelter, even said he was going to take her down, but Ruby Dee was more afraid of holes in the ground than she was of storms. A storm made her think of a hole in the ground. She tried to hold herself together, because panicking sure wasn’t going to help anything. She’d do pretty good one minute, and then here’d come the thunder again.

Will asked her to fix him a double helping of pancakes, and she whipped up more batter. As she was doing that, lightning came like shell fire over the house, and she whirled from the stove and right into his arms, clutching him, hiding her head on his chest, and she didn’t think one iota about Lonnie and Hardy being there, either. She couldn’t. She was ashamed of herself, but fear had her by the throat. Anyone would have such a fear after they had been through a storm that blew away the house around them, taking a handful of people with it. With each crack of lightning, she kept seeing the woman who had been her foster mother, knocked up against a tree, dead, with a stick of wood right through her eyeball.

Will held her tightly, whispering that it would be all right. Then he told Lonnie to slide the doors between the dining room and living room together and shut the dining room drapes. “We’ll just move everything in to the big table, Ruby Dee.” He said it like he was planning a party.

The dining room was at the center of the house, and it did feel a lot more sheltered. Hardy started telling storm stories, funny ones, like how a tornado had chased him to the house once, and had picked up his bucket of nails and set it down over at the Cottons’ place, five miles away, without losing a nail. He swore it was so, and that Cora Jean would know. Lonnie said he once saw a big oak tree picked up, turned around, and set back down in exactly the same spot. Ruby Dee thought that may have been made up, but Lonnie swore it wasn’t. After breakfast, Hardy had Ruby Dee rub castor oil on the joints of both legs and bind them. She knew the men were doing all these things to keep her from thinking about the storm, and their tender regard made her want to cry.

As it turned out, none of the tornados sighted came anywhere near the ranch. The winds had been severe, however, and as soon as the rain quit, Will and Lonnie went out to look around. They reported that shingles had been blown off the house, one of the windows in the old man’s shop had been rattled out, and a piece of tin had been peeled up atop the old tractor barn, but everything else looked fine. The telephone in the house was out, and Lonnie tried using Will’s cellular phone to reach the Reeves’s store, but he couldn’t get through, so he drove down to find out how they had fared.

Ruby Dee let Sally out the screen door and then slowly stepped out behind her. As frightened as she was of storms, she loved the time afterward. The heat and dust were washed away, leaving the sweetest earthy smell, and the sun, like the mighty power of the Lord, came breaking through the purple clouds, shining down on everything so still that it was as if the world had stopped turning.

Looking around, savoring the freshness, Ruby Dee walked across the yard and up the sloping drive toward the horse barn, where she had seen Will go. When she reached the big entry of the barn, she peered down the wide alley and saw Will’s form at the far end, silhouetted against the brighter light outside.

He heard her and turned, then called her to come see the rainbow. She hurried to his side, and he pointed. “There.”

“Why, it’s a double!”

The barn sat higher than the miles and miles of rolling hills to the southeast, and the ribbons of the rainbows arched from one hill to another. Captivated, Ruby Dee stood rooted to the spot, watching the colors deepen and then pale, fade and move to another spot.

“Look! It’s moved...Oh, goodness, there’s another one!”

Then Will’s hand took her arm, and he turned her to him. His brilliant, steel-gray eyes danced with heat. She averted her eyes, suddenly embarrassed, knowing she had come looking for him because of the longing inside herself. It was as if the storm had stirred her as it had the tree limbs and grasses.

“I’m sorry about how I behaved during the storm—”she began, but she never got to explain, because he bent his head and kissed her.

When he lifted his head, she backed up, thinking that she should return to the house...yes, she most certainly should...and not be here with him, and not be having the desires she was having.

He came toward her, and she backed up, until she found herself against the wall of a horse stall. And then Will was kissing her again, and she was kissing him, her heart pounding and blood thrumming. She tried to keep her hands flattened against the wall behind her, but the next instant she had wrapped them around his neck, and he had his around her head and pulled her against him, and sweet, hot passion pooled deep in her intimate parts, bubbled up and flowed all over her.

She kissed his mouth and his neck, tasted his salty skin and inhaled the heady scent of him, felt his warm, silky hair and his large, strong muscles. He kissed her eyes and her neck and as far down on her breasts as the neckline of her dress would allow, and she wished he would tear her dress right off and get to all of her.

Then he was holding her against his hard body, her head pressed to his chest, hearing the thudding of his heart, while her own heart beat with longing and her pelvis pressed against his, all of its own accord.

He drew back, and she lifted her head to look into his intense, stormy eyes. He let go of her, stepped back and raked a hand through his hair. Ruby Dee wrapped her arms around herself and choked back tears.

He looked at her almost angrily. “I’m twelve years older than you are,” he said.

Well. She hadn’t known that bothered him. Instinctively she went to him, put her hand up to his neck.

“I’m the one who listens to Elvis,” she said, and a bit of a grin twitched his lips beneath his mustache.

Gazing at that mustache, she put her finger to it and stroked the coarse auburn hairs. And she knew exactly what she was doing.

Then she was looking again into his eyes and he was looking heavily at her. They kissed, quickly. Drew apart and looked at each other, saying silently with their eyes the things words couldn’t express: caring and fear and doubt...and longing. Mostly the longing that wanted to get past all the rest.

“Oh, Will, I don’t want to come between you and your daddy and Lonnie.”

 "I know.’’

Will didn’t know what else to say to that. He didn’t want to hurt his father or brother, either.

But he wanted Ruby Dee.

He reached out and brought her to him again, slowly but deliberately. He kissed her, brief and hard, and then again, seductively, wanting to give her something to remember, before finally letting her go, when she drew away. She went slowly, and he let his hand caress her neck at the very last.