Chapter Four

Ruby

The week had gone by so fast I didn’t even know what I was doing. It was Friday which meant the protest march was almost there. I didn’t have many spare moments to be taking personal time, but I had promised Lisa I would meet her friend, so that was what I was going to do. I had to remind myself that she didn’t force it on me, I agreed, knowing I needed to get out there and broaden my horizons a bit, it just never seemed to be the right time.

I looked in the mirror at my long dark hair, pulled up one side. My hazel eyes glimmered against the dark eye makeup I had applied, and I was satisfied with my outfit. It was a tight black dress with a black suit jacket over it, creating a serious but playful effect. This was one of my problems, I thought about everything way too much. People didn’t like intelligent people, it made them uncomfortable, but I had a hard time playing dumb, especially with so much ignorance already in the world.

That ignorance was in full force this week when the higher powers would found out about the number of people that the march and protest were going to bring. No one ever paid attention when it was under a thousand, but you could start to feel the push back when the numbers breached that mark. We had done that and more, especially with the controversy swirling around in the current administration. People were ready, they were no longer hiding behind the comfort of their front doors. They wanted change in any shape they could find it. In some ways, the political unrest happening had strengthened our ability to get the issues noticed. Three years ago, no one would have cared about a protest against outsourcing, it wasn’t one of the popular human rights issues, but now people were starting to take notice of everything.

That was good for us but also brought the opposition in our faces full force. I had seen it all through the years from death threats to financial bribes and this time was no different. You knew when people started to get nasty and show their colors, you were headed in the right direction. They were paying attention to you and perceived you as a danger to their pocketbooks. The thing you had to remember was they were people just like you, and their threats and callous words didn’t mean anything more than someone was taking notice. Still, it brought a level of discomfort and stress to my life since I had somehow become a leader in this movement.

I grabbed my bag and headed out the door, ready to go meet this guy at a restaurant in Manhattan. My sister had described him as funny and handsome, two things that were a plus but not the core of what I was looking for in a man. I just had to keep telling myself that like him or not, I was getting out there and meeting people, which I needed desperately in my life.

When I arrived, he was standing in front of the restaurant in a pair of dress pants, a button-up shirt that looked slightly too big on him, and a nervous smile. I stepped out of the car and watched his eyes grow bigger, obviously pleased with how I looked. I smiled at him and walked over, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

“Jack, I presume?”

“Yes,” he said smiling. “Ruby, you look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said, liking the smell of his cologne.

“Shall we?”

I nodded my head and walked through the door he held open for me. The hostess showed us to our seats in the back of the restaurant where we could talk more privately. You could barely tell how a date was going to go from the first twenty minutes, especially with nerves running wild between two people sizing each other up. That was the time when we decided whether we were attracted physically. He was handsome, I would give him that, but there was nothing smooth about his mannerisms. He looked like a big kid fumbling around at a fancy restaurant. I tried to ignore it and give him the benefit of the doubt.

However, after a bottle of wine and some food, I had a better idea of who this guy was. Jack was your typical spoiled middle-class male, from a family with enough money to keep their attention focused on moving up in the world, but not enough to enjoy dinners at places like we were sitting. He had been coddled to the point where he had no clue what went on in the world around him. It was like watching the news, listening to them recite the bull crap that was passed down from channel to channel until the truth was utterly unrecognizable. He lacked the capacity to make a clear, intelligent statement without replicating precisely what he read on his Facebook feed. I was trying hard to not be rude, but he was making it very difficult.

“You actually believe the CEO’s of these companies care about a few million dollars? They are making decisions on what will grow their business,” he said shaking his head.

“Of course, they care,” I scoffed. “And so do their stockholders. When you get that big, you start to lose touch with why you started in the first place. Though, some of these guys knew exactly what they wanted, without any moral or patriotic base to their decisions whatsoever. There is more than one way to accomplish a goal, Jack, it’s just that the most lucrative are almost always the easiest and quickest way around a problem.”

“You sound like a conspiracy theorist,” he laughed.

“You sound like an idiot,” I replied, not feeling sorry about it at all.

I looked down at my purse and pulled some cash out for dinner and tossed it on the table. I was done, I tried. This was the reason why I didn’t put myself out there anymore, it ended in me being pissed and storming out of whatever social situation we were in.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” I said looking over at him.

“Oh, come on, Ruby,” he chuckled. “It was a harmless conversation. Don’t go.”

“It’s not harmless,” I said turning around. “It’s the world we live in, and I can’t sit there and even consider spending time with someone that sees things through the same mainstream goggles that led us into this mess in the first place. I’m sorry, I’m sure you are a delightful person to hang out with outside of the debate, but this is my life.”

He shook his head with a snide smile on his face as I turned and walked out of the restaurant. I was pissed, not because he was the same old unintelligent guy that I seemed to always find, but because the world was so blind to everything. I couldn’t even socialize myself for a long enough time to make friends. Maybe I was kidding myself, maybe the people I worked with and protested with were the only people that I would ever feel even minutely comfortable with.

I stopped on the sidewalk and looked around, not ready to go home yet. I was too wired to go back and sit in my apartment, and I didn’t want to go to any of the gatherings the people I knew were throwing. I needed a drink and some time to myself. I looked across the street and recognized the name, it was that club, Exposé, that Lisa wanted to go to. I was fairly positive they had a bar on the lower level. I walked over and showed my ID, smiling at the doorman as he let me through. Straight ahead was a dark room with lights moving all around and a deep drum of music. To the left was a quieter bar with red carpeted floors and marble counters. There were small candles lit on all the surfaces and a few other people sitting around lost in conversation. It was still early which was probably why the place wasn’t packed yet.

I walked over and sat down on a bar stool, smiling up at the bartender behind the bar polishing glasses. I ordered a whiskey and diet and sighed, glancing up at the muted televisions playing the latest news channels. I looked to the side and there was one couple, pressed tightly together, and two guys, talking to each other about the local sports games and what chicks they were going to score with. I looked down at my drink as I swirled the straw around in the glass. I was thinking I needed to let the idea of a relationship go. I didn’t have time for it anyway.

Saddened by this revelation, I downed my drink and ordered another. If my date was over already, I might as well get wasted and drown my sorrows.