We Five (9 page)

Ruth hoped someday to write professionally. This was her dream.

Now that she was grown and Reverend Mobry had turned the pulpit over to a younger man, the waitressing job seemed a perfect fit for her. It would give her time to read. And write. Bringing drinks to people at their slot machines and gaming tables didn't sound like a very taxing kind of job; it was definitely one she wouldn't have to take home with her every day in the way of frets and regrets. Ruth would also have the chance to see more of her four friends from childhood, Maggie, Jane, Carrie, and Molly, both at the casino and during the free hours the five liked to spend together.

We Five applied for the waitressing jobs together and were all hired. The head of Human Resources, a Ms. Touliatis, liked it that her new applicants got along so well; they seemed much more like sisters than friends. “You're all so, so, so
cohesive
!” she had marveled. “And Lucky Aces Casino
needs
cocktail waitresses who are cohesive.” Then Ms. Touliatis, who was forty-one and looked to Ruth as if she'd been twice run over by the ineluctably trundling steamroller of life, added through a wistful sigh: “I wish I had friends who were as dependable and devoted to one another as I see ya'll are. By way of contrast, I just last week caught my best friend Lawanda in bed with my husband Mack. Well, not just my husband, but also our Irish Setter, Dakota. Can you imagine that? Both my husband
and
my dog were cheating on me!”

“I don't think we can imagine that at all,” replied Jane, who felt a response of some sort was required.

“And then,” Ms. Touliatis went on, “there's my other good friend—
former
good friend, Heidi. Heidi once made fun of my lazy eye over the loudspeaker at Kmart.” Ms. Touliatis pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and blew her nose. “A good and true friend is one of life's great treasures.”

“That's a fact,” said Jane.

The Mobrys had taken news of Ruth's new job very well. “How convenient,” said the Reverend, “with the casino just down the road. And nowhere in the teachings of our socially progressive Lord and Savior do we find objections to cocktail waitressing in riverboat casinos, though the Southern Baptists would certainly have you think otherwise.”

“But do be careful,” Lucille Mobry added. “Men do get drunk in those places and try to take advantage when they can.”

Ruth nodded. “Yes, the woman who's in charge of all the waitresses—Ms. Colthurst—she's gonna have us all watch a training film called ‘How to Keep Their Mitts Off Your Tuches.' I think it was put out by the New Jersey Gaming Commission.”

Lucille suddenly looked tristful. “Does this mean you won't be living with us anymore? Are you gonna be moving in with one of your girlfriends?”

“Well, she doesn't
have
to,” suggested the Reverend. “She can have the trailer out back. You can be a real working woman, Ruth, with a place of your own, but you'll have us close at hand for whenever you need anything.”

“That's very sweet, Uncle Herb,” said Ruth. “But if I took you up on this, I'd want to pay you rent.”

“We'll take a little somethin' from you if it makes you feel better,” said Mobry. The retired minister was halted by a thought. “You know, Ruth, you've got an awful lot of books, and I'm not sure they'll all fit into that trailer. I might have to buy you one of those steel storage sheds and we can turn that into a little library for you.”

Ruth smiled. “That would be a funny-looking library.”

Lucille slapped the air with her hand. “Oh let's just keep the books in her old room. Whenever she wants one, she can come get it. Oh honey-girl, I guess you can tell how hard it's gonna be for us to let go of you. Just moving you outside into Lucius's old trailer is gonna feel like a huge separation.”

“I'm sure everything will work out fine,” said Ruth, as she stepped over to her “aunt” to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Unless there's a tornado,” fretted Lucille, “in which case we'll get to watch you fly away like Dorothy Gale.”

Mobry nodded. “You two remember when the big one touched down about a mile up the road? You recollect how much trouble we had getting Lucius out of that trailer and down into the basement?”

“Well, you don't have to worry about
me
,” said Ruth. “I'll be camped out in the basement long before the Weather Channel even puts up the Doppler radar. Me and my good friend, Little Debbie.” Ruth moistened her lips, visions of Swiss Cake Rolls and Oatmeal Creme Pies now dancing impudently in her head.

The Lucius of above mention was Lucius Redder. He'd been CGS's building custodian since the church was founded by the Reverend and his sister in 1962. The siblings couldn't pay him much but allowed him to live rent-free in the house trailer, which Mobry had bought at an estate sale and which he'd docked permanently in the backyard. Lucius had died in his sleep about six months earlier—right before Mobry's retirement. No one knew how old he was, but Ruth guessed he'd reached at least ninety before he passed. Her friend Molly thought he was even older than that: “I think he was born into slavery.”

Molly said this with a straight face and nobody corrected her. “Molly isn't stupid,” Jane had once remarked to the others. “She just doesn't know very much.”

“This'll work nicely,” said Lucille Mobry a few days later. She was standing inside the old trailer and giving it a good looking-over the way interior decorators do. “It needs a
little
fixin' up, I'll give you that, but Herb and I have a lot of time on our hands now. He can wedge those bed legs so you don't roll off in your sleep, and I can sew you some nice new café curtains and re-cover this old couch. And I'll get you a bunch of lavender sachets that'll remove the old-man smell.”

“Don't go to too much trouble, Aunt Lucille. I can do most of those things myself.”

“But I
want
to, honey-girl. And just think: you can sit out here and read in peace and quiet. You won't have to listen to all those shows Herb and I watch now, which we never had time for before, like that funny Moesha, who looks like Stelloise's girl Jerline, or that show where Rob Petrie is a doctor who solves crimes, but his wife Laura is nowhere to be found.”

“The television never bothered me,” said Ruth simply, thinking distractedly of what she was going to do with the big armchair next to the door with the batting coming out of it.

Jane Higgins was standing on the concrete pad outside the door to Ruth's trailer. Ruth held the door open for her.

“Where are the others?” she asked, craning her neck to see around Jane.

“Mags' car went into a ditch.”

“Is she all right? Was anybody with her?”

“She'd just picked up Molly and Carrie. It happened over by Carrie's house. Everybody's fine. The road had some ice on it and she just slid right in.”

“What are they gonna do?”

“Well, Molly's daddy can't drive us to the casino because his car's in the shop with a distributor problem, and Mrs. Hale was already on her way up to Memphis for a doctor's appointment, so Mags got the idea of calling the casino to see if they could send over one of their courtesy vans to pick us up. And guess what? They said they would.”

Ruth sighed. “Couldn't we just see the new insurance man some other day—like maybe one of the nights we're all waitressing?”

Jane shook her head. “The meeting is for
everybody
—that means
all
the employees of Lucky Aces. Ms. Touliatis isn't gonna make that insurance man drive all the way back down to make a second presentation for just five cocktail waitresses.”

Ruth acquiesced with a nod. “Why do we even need medical insurance anyway?”

“Because one of these days Mags just might drive us all into the Mississippi River and we'll probably have to get our lungs pumped out.” Jane looked around the trailer. “I like what you've done with this stinky ol' place.”

“I haven't done half the things I
want
to. I did put up those curtains. Lucille helped me. I don't know anything about curtains. I should have asked Carrie to be my ‘aesthetic advisor.'”

“Whatever the hell that is, I'm sure she would've been glad to do it. Carrie's so cultured. Do you know what Lyle said about Carrie? I don't go quoting my brother very often because most of what comes out of his mouth is drunken garbage, but this one was funny. He said Carrie and her mother had such high airs they probably shitted divinity.”

Ruth's mouth wasn't doing what Jane's mouth was doing; only one of the two friends was smiling. “What does he mean: ‘divinity'?”

“
Divinity
! Like pecan divinity. Like what you get at Stuckey's.”

“Oh, you mean
candy
.”

“But
divinity
candy. That's the joke. You know: divinity's white and shit is—oh, just forget it.” Jane rolled her eyes and groaned. “It spoils everything when I have to explain jokes to you. You're getting as bad as Molly.”

“Maybe it's because I've been living with a minister and his sister all these years. When I hear the word ‘divinity' I don't usually think of candy.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know I'll have to start tailoring my jokes to your personal life experience.”

Ruth stared at her friend. “Why are you such a sourpuss this morning?”

“I'm not a sourpuss. On the other hand, I was in a slightly
better
mood before your Aunt Lucille made a crack about my handbag. You must have told her I got it from Second-Hand Roseanne.”

“When was this? You mean just now?”

Jane nodded. “When I was coming through the house. Now why do I have to come through
their
house when I'm here to visit
you
? Can't I just come
around
the house without having to pass Go and collect two hundred insults?”

“Oh stop it, Jane. Whatever she said, I know she didn't mean it the way you heard it. Lucille wouldn't even know how to insult a person if she tried.”

“She insults
me.
She calls me her ‘sister-in-spinsterhood,' her ‘bosom bachelorette.' Why does she think I'm never gonna get married? I'll tell you why she thinks that—because she thinks I'm ugly. That's what she thinks. That we're two ‘sisters-in-ugliness.' Do you know how offensive that is? Especially since
you're
the one who never wanted a ticket on the marriage train.”

Jane sat down on the couch.

“These shoes are hurting me already. They're new. I don't know what I was thinking.” She kicked off one of the shoes and began to rub her foot.

“Do you want to wear one of
my
pairs?”

“What size do you wear? I can't remember.”

“Eight.”

“I'm a ten, but thanks anyway. Does Lucille know you're a lesbian?”

“I'm sure she's figured it out.”

“But you've never told her?
Or
the Reverend?”

“No, but they have to know. They never ask me why I don't date. And they see some of the books I read. I'm sure they're okay with it. So, you're sure the courtesy van's gonna swing by to get
us
too?”

“That's what Mags said. Isn't it nice how things work out? Like the way Ms. Colthurst is letting us all work the day shift so we don't have to go all the way home and then have to come right back again tonight.”

“It
would
be nice, Jane, except for the fact that we hardly ever get good tips on the day shift. From nine in the morning till five in the afternoon it's just a bunch of stingy old farts who hog the nickel slots and drink up as many free Diet Pepsis as their bladders'll hold.”

“Whoo boy! There's a Ruth Thrasher I don't see very often.” Jane ran her hand along the fabric of the couch. She sniffed the air. “Did somebody pee on this sofa?”

“I think Lucius had a dog for a while.”

“Let's
hope
he had a dog. Aren't these colors
wild
? How old is this trailer house of yours?”

“Ancient. I didn't mean what I said about those old people. I like old people. I guess I just prefer old people like the ones who go to CGS—people who are trying to make the world a better place—not the ones who just sit at slot machines until all their organs shut down.”

“I know that, honey. I also know that going to that church has given you a big ol' conscience. I depend on your conscience, since sometimes I can't find where I put mine. That comes from having a brother it's so easy to want dead. First tortured with acid and then dropped off a bridge.”

“Jane, have you ever once thought something and then
not
said it?”

“All the time. Like all morning I've been thinking of how much I'm gonna enjoy getting the night off. Lyle's doing something with his friends tonight, and I'll have the apartment all to myself for a change. I plan to take a sudsy bubble bath with scented candles all around and sip white wine like somebody in the movies. And there'll be no Lyle to come banging on the door and tell me to please feed him, like he's a helpless baby chick waiting for his worms. I thought I might ask if I could move in with
you
, Ruth, since we're the only ones of the five of us who aren't abnormally attached to a parent.”

“Because we don't
have
parents,” Ruth superfluously interjected.

“Well, duh,
yeah.
But now that I've gotten myself a good look at this place, it's really small.”

“You're right. It
is
pretty small. But I'd have you for a roommate in a New York minute if it wasn't. You know that Mags' mother and Molly's father might be getting married, right?”

“Yeah, I'd heard that. Mrs. Barton will be saving a ton on chiropractic services and all those holistic teas and things Doc Osborne sells. Do you have any coffee?”