Then
Ruby parted the curtains and peered out of the window. The day had been hot, another in a long string of humid days where the pavement turned sticky and the smell of exhaust seemed to permeate the air, but a thunderstorm had cut through it an hour ago and the driveway was now slicked black with rain. The air smelled of freshly cut grass. At the end of the drive, a lamp shone yellow, but otherwise it was dark.
She’d dressed up for the occasion and was wearing her favorite sundress, a little vintage number she’d bought at a thrift store in Boston a couple of years ago. It was sunshine yellow and had a nipped-in waist and a full skirt: much more girly than she usually went for, but it seemed to fit the occasion. She’d been waiting at the window for twenty minutes, even though Ethan wasn’t due to turn up until eight. She couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t wait.
Finally, she heard the sound of a car engine getting closer and then saw the flash of his headlights as he pulled into the driveway. Her father appeared next to her and glanced out of the window to see what she was looking at. ‘Is that Bill Bailey’s son?’ he asked as Ethan climbed out of the car. They both watched him lope up the driveway towards the front door.
‘I don’t know who his father is,’ she said, ‘but his name is Ethan.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, watching Ethan accidentally step on one of his geraniums. ‘Looks like Bill’s son to me.’
Ruby opened the door, and there he was, in a white T-shirt and a pair of worn-in jeans, smiling his crooked smile. ‘Hey,’ he said, and Ruby’s heart flipped and soared.
‘You must be Ethan!’ Ruby’s father pushed past her and stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Alec Atlas, Ruby’s father.’
‘Nice to meet you, sir,’ Ethan said, shaking his hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘All good, I hope!’ he said, forcing a laugh. ‘Now, I know you two are grown-ups and all, but Ruby is my little girl –
‘Dad, I’m twenty-one, not twelve,’ Ruby said. She heard the peevishness in her voice and hated herself for it.
‘I know, I know, just being your typical overprotective dad.’ Ruby wondered where that overprotectiveness had been when he had locked her and Piper, as kids, in the house with a pizza and a VHS so he could go on dates with a seemingly endless parade of leggy blondes, but decided to bite her tongue.
‘Sir, you don’t have anything to worry about with me,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll take good care of her, I promise.’ He flicked Ruby a wink when her father wasn’t looking and she gave him a sly smile.
‘Glad to hear it, glad to hear it. You’re Bill Bailey’s son, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Ethan said evenly.
‘Nice guy, Bill. You tell him when he finally decides to sell that old place of his to give me a call. I know a couple of developers who would pay a pretty penny for that plot of land.’
‘That land has been in our family for five generations, so I don’t think he’s planning on selling anytime soon,’ Ethan said, voice still even.
‘Well, you never know what the future might hold, so you just pass my message on to him and give him my regards.’
‘Will do, sir,’ Ethan said.
‘Well, I won’t keep you two any longer. Have fun and be safe!’
‘Bye, Dad,’ Ruby said, before grabbing Ethan’s hand and making a break for the car.
‘Don’t forget to tell your father!’ her father called after them. Ethan waved a hand in acknowledgement but didn’t turn back.
‘Man,’ he said, when they were safely out of the driveway, ‘is he always like that?’
‘Trying to wheedle business out of everyone? Yeah.’ She remembered the high blood pressure and felt a twist of guilt. ‘He means well, though.’
‘I’m sure,’ he said, ‘but he’s barking up the wrong tree with my dad. He always said he’ll be carried out of Beechfield in a pinewood box, and I don’t see that opinion changing anytime soon.’
‘Honestly, I can’t see a pinewood box stopping my father.’
Ethan drove them out to a little Italian restaurant by the river. ‘It’s not much to look at,’ he said with a shrug, ‘but the food’s good.’
There was a chorus of ‘Ethan!’ when they walked through the door. A stout, blousy woman with tinted red hair charged towards him and wrapped him in her arms. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages! Where have you been keeping yourself? Look at you, you’re too thin! Is that father of yours not feeding you? I’ll have a word with him next time I see him down at the Elks.’
‘I feed myself these days, June,’ he said with a fond smile.
‘I know, I know, you’re all grown up now, but I don’t care – you’ll always be the little boy who peed on my rose bushes. Do you remember that? Lord, I could have killed you! But then you looked up at me with those big eyes of yours and told me you were “helping the flowers”, and oh! My heart just melted. You were such a cute kid.’ Her eyes swiveled over to Ruby. ‘And who’s this? Is this your girlfriend? Ethan Bailey, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend! And a pretty one, too! Now don’t you go breaking this boy’s heart,’ she said, wagging a finger at a shell-shocked Ruby. ‘I don’t want to have to kill you.’
‘Auntie June . . .!’
‘I’m kidding! Of course I’m kidding! Now come in and have some supper! You both look like a couple of starving little birds!’ She took Ruby’s elbow and led her over to a table. ‘I wasn’t kidding,’ she said in a low voice as she pulled out Ruby’s chair. Ruby looked up and nodded, eyes wide.
‘Sorry about that,’ Ethan said when June had bustled off to the kitchen. ‘She’s a little . . . overprotective of me.’
‘That’s okay,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s kind of sweet, actually. So she’s your aunt?’
‘I mean, we’re not related or anything, but yeah, she’s basically my aunt.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I’ve got lots of fake aunts in this town,’ he said. ‘I’m like a walking example of the whole “It takes a village thing”. My mom . . . well, she wasn’t really around.’ There was a pause as this settled in the air above them. ‘Anyway, sorry. Enough with the heavy stuff.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.
‘Who’s ready for some antipasti?’ Auntie June hovered above them, holding aloft an enormous platter laden with cold meats, cheeses and olives. She set it down in the middle of the table with a flourish, alongside a basket of bread. ‘I hope you’re hungry!’ she said. ‘I’ll just go get the pepper.’
‘How the hell are we going to eat all this?’ Ruby whispered. Her dress was already a little tight – who were these women from the past with their tiny wasp-waists? – and she worried the seams wouldn’t survive that much Parma ham.
‘This is just the appetizer,’ Ethan said, folding a chunk of parmesan into a slice of prosciutto and popping it into his mouth. ‘There are four more courses after this.’
‘Here you go!’ Auntie June reappeared with a pepper mill the size of a baseball bat. She ground a generous helping of pepper across the platter before leaning over and pinching Ethan’s cheek. ‘Look at you – adorable!’ she said, giving them both a wink before rushing back towards the kitchen. ‘Let me know if you need more bread!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I’m just doing your fish now!’
Ruby tore off a piece of bread and balanced a piece of cheese on it. ‘So how long have you been a bartender?’
He shrugged. ‘About three years.’
‘And you . . . like it?’ She wasn’t sure if there was a way of asking without sounding patronizing. From the slightly guarded look on his face, there wasn’t.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I like it a lot. I get to hang out with my friends and get paid for it, and it gives me the days free to do whatever I want. What’s not to like?’
‘What did you want to do before this?’
‘You make it sound like I’ve had some kind of accident that resulted in me only being able to bartend,’ he said with a laugh.
She blushed. ‘Sorry, it’s not that, it’s just . . . there must be something you want to do aside from bartending, right?’
‘Not right now.’ He tore into a piece of bread with his teeth and chewed it defensively. ‘I know it’s not what you or your friends – or your father, I’m guessing – would classify as a career or whatever, but I’m happy.’
‘I think you’re making a lot of shitty assumptions,’ she said, taking a swill of wine and sucking it down through her teeth. Being Alec Atlas’s daughter hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park – all those ads with him grinning out at potential customers, seasonally appropriate hat perched on his head. Witch hat, pilgrim hat, Santa hat, Abe Lincoln hat, tri-cornered hat: as a kid, she’d been able to predict the impending holiday by whatever novelty hat her father was wearing in the local newspaper. Sure, he was successful now, and that success had afforded her an expensive private education and a car on her sixteenth birthday. But Ruby knew exactly how hard her father had had to work to get where he was, and she was also all too aware – more than her father, for sure – of how his success was perceived in their small town. She knew they called him Greenback Atlas at the country club because they could smell the new money on him, the same club where he paid twice the annual dues as everyone else (something she learned from her lab partner in high school, a Beechfield blue-blood whose ancestors had once worn the actual pilgrim hats that her father wore in those cheesy advertisements).
‘What, you’re going to tell me your father is thrilled that you’re on a date with a bartender?’ he asked. ‘I saw the way he looked at me tonight. Like I was the delivery boy or something.’
‘I should go,’ she said, draining her glass. Her chair scraped the floor as she pushed back from the table. This had been a mistake, she saw that now. What was she even doing here, on a date with this random – albeit good-looking – townie? She was moving to New York in two months! New York, a city that was bound to be full of handsome, erudite men who used words like . . . like erudite! Who had careers! And swanky apartments! And shoes made of real leather! She stood up and gathered up her bag. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’
She was in the parking lot by the time he caught up with her. ‘How are you going to get home?’ he asked, a question she’d already started asking herself.
‘I’ll just walk,’ she said, gesturing towards the two-lane highway without sidewalks that was the only route home.
‘Seems a little dangerous,’ he said. ‘At least let me give you a lift.’
‘I’m fine, thanks. I’m perfectly capable of getting home on my own. I used to live in Boston, so I think I can handle Beechfield.’
‘Ooh, Boston, eh? Bright lights, big city! I hear they’ve got a museum there and everything!’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Look, this obviously isn’t working, so let’s just agree to disagree, say our goodbyes and hope we never see each other again. Okay?’
‘Fine by me,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as I get you home in one piece. Come on,’ he said, taking her by the elbow and leading her to his car. ‘I promise we won’t even have to talk. I just can’t have it on my conscience if you get flattened by a pickup on the walk home. Even if you are a big-city girl, and perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.’
‘Fine,’ she said. She was secretly relieved – she’d always found the suburbs a lot more frightening than the city at night, mainly because in the city all of the lunatics were in plain sight. In the suburbs, they could be hidden anywhere – in the woods, or a Volvo.
They began the ride home in silence, Ruby thinking how much she regretted not having taken the rest of the bottle of wine with her when she left, Ethan wondering if Charlie was still at Billy Jack’s. They were just pulling onto Hosmer Street when a doe leaped out in front of the car.
Ethan braked, hard, and the car screeched to a halt. The doe stood in the headlights, black eyes blinking blankly at them, and then stalked off the road and into the woods. They could hear each other’s breaths coming in quick, sharp gasps as they watched her disappear.
‘Fuck,’ Ethan said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m okay. Are you okay?’
‘I think so. Fuck.’
She glanced over at him and saw that he was pale with shock. ‘Are you okay to drive?’
He nodded. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Just give me a minute.’
‘Just pull in there,’ she said, gesturing towards a clearing on the side of the road.
He pulled in and switched off the car. They listened to the engine tick cool, and to each other’s breaths as they began to slow.
‘My dad killed a dog once,’ she said. ‘I was in the car when it happened. I’ll never forget the look on his face.’ She could still picture it, as clear as day. Shock and guilt and grief all rolled into one. ‘He loves dogs,’ she said, as if that made the fact he’d killed one both better and worse.
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I mean about loving dogs, not about having killed one. I hate cats, though.’
‘Really? How come?’ She loved cats.
‘They always look like they’re plotting against me.’
‘Maybe they are. Maybe they know you hate them, so they’re plotting their revenge.’ She unbuckled her belt and turned towards him. ‘Thanks for not killing the deer.’
‘I didn’t not kill it for you,’ he said, ‘but you’re welcome. I’m happy that nothing – and nobody – got killed just then.’
They sat in the darkness for a minute.
‘I didn’t mean to get all defensive back there,’ he said. ‘I just get a little prickly around the whole “where are you going with your life” thing. I hear it from my dad all the time, so . . .’
‘I get it,’ she said. ‘My dad asked me at least once a week when I was in college if I’d made any good connections yet. I’m pretty sure he cried when I told him I was majoring in English.’
‘You majored in English?’
‘With a minor in business. My small concession.’
‘So what’s your favorite book?’ He pushed his seat back from the wheel.
‘That’s such a hard question,’ she said. ‘I don’t know . . . maybe Tender Is the Night? I love anything Fitzgerald. Or maybe Vanity Fair? I was obsessed with The Bell Jar for a while, too. And anything by Jane Austen.’
He nodded. ‘I love Austen, too,’ he said.
‘Wait, you’ve read Jane Austen?’ She tried to picture him thumbing his way through Emma.
He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I know I’m not supposed to admit that because I’m a guy and everything . . .’
‘No, it’s not that, it’s just . . . I didn’t think you’d be into literature.’
‘What, you didn’t think bartenders could read?’
She felt herself blush and was thankful that it was too dark for him to see her. ‘No, of course not. I think you’re the first guy I’ve ever met who admitted that he liked Jane Austen.’
He shrugged. ‘I try to read a little bit of everything,’ he said. ‘Right now I’m in a big Chandler phase –’
‘I love Chandler! The Big Sleep is incredible. Have you seen the film?’
He let out a little scoff. ‘Of course I’ve seen the film. Watching the entire collected work of Humphrey Bogart was pretty much mandatory growing up under my father’s roof. The book is better, though, I think.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, putting her feet up on the dashboard. ‘You can’t really beat the Bogart–Bacall combo . . .’
He looked across at her and smiled. ‘This is fun,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I was a jerk earlier.’
‘I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have walked out,’ she said. ‘It was a dick move, even if you were being kind of a jerk.’
‘Tell you what,’ he said, pulling his seat forward and turning the key in the ignition. The engine coughed and spurted to life. ‘Why don’t we start over again? Auntie June is probably still making the pasta for the main course, anyway. We’ll sit down, have a bottle of wine – well, you will, I’ve got to drive – and talk about books and movies and anything other than the socio-economic disparities of growing up in Beechfield. I promise not to be a jerk if you promise not to walk out on me again.’
She slipped her seat belt back on and grinned at him. ‘It’s a deal.’
He pulled out onto the road and put his foot on the gas. He wanted to hurry in case she changed her mind, but of course she wouldn’t. Her mind was already made up.