Ruby
After eating enough lobster Cobb salad to prevent comment, after helping Sarah clean the kitchen and her brothers find their pajamas, Ruby went to the guesthouse and pulled the door shut behind her. Her wedding gown, still sheathed in its clear plastic garment bag, was hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Her white satin shoes with their sparkly blue crystal buckles were underneath it. In the twilight, in the breeze, the shoes and the dress looked like a ghost bride, an invisible woman, facing her. Taunting her.
Ruby’s phone hummed. She pulled it out to see Gabe’s text. Got my mom and Aunt Amanda. Hitting the road. See you soon!
She pocketed the phone without responding and turned away from the wedding dress. A vase of pink peonies stood on the kitchenette counter, and two extension cords were coiled neatly beside it. A makeup mirror, lined with lights, was set up on a vanity in the bedroom, and in the bathroom Sarah had found two plush terrycloth bathrobes, one monogrammed BRIDE, the other monogrammed GROOM. I’m so happy for you both, read the card in the BRIDE robe’s pocket. Love you always. Safta.
Ruby knew if she looked in the miniature refrigerator she’d find flavored seltzer, Greek yogurt, and Rainier cherries, because her grandmother knew all her favorites. She knew, too, that the bed had been made with her favorite brushed-flannel sheets, and that Safta had purchased the hazelnut-flavored coffee that she liked. Tomorrow morning the florist was coming to do a walk-through. Tomorrow afternoon the musicians would stop by to drop off their amps. The caterers had already left boxes of plates and crystal wineglasses in the garage; the cleaning crew had already ensured that the house was spotless. Every possible hitch that Ruby had imagined—are you crazy, you can’t get a wedding dress in just four months! Or Sorry, all of our musicians are booked! or I’ve called every single caterer and no one’s free on such short notice—had either failed to materialize or just been artfully, charmingly, negotiated by her stepmother and her safta, so that Ruby could have what she wanted. Or what Ruby had thought she’d wanted.
I can’t do this, Ruby Faye Danhauser thought to herself. She said it out loud, to the empty guesthouse: “I can’t do this,” and, with the words still ringing in the air, she sat down hard on the edge of the bed. The windows were open. Ruby could smell, and hear, the ocean, along with bonfire smoke, and the sound of music, conversation, laughter when the wind gusted. Someone was having a party, down on the beach; she pictured people her age, laughing and happy. Maybe they were passing around a bottle, or a joint. Maybe they were flirting; maybe there were old couples breaking apart, new relationships sparking to life. All her happy peers who hadn’t gotten themselves stuck; young men and women who hadn’t played Houdini, wrapping themselves in chains and locking themselves into a box with no hope of escape. She could hear the murmur of female voices from the deck. Her stepmother and her safta, probably talking about last-minute details, making sure everything was perfect. Her wedding dress rippled in the breeze.
Ruby for sure, her dad used to call her. Her first-grade teacher had written Ruby is an extremely focused and hardworking student. Her drive and determination will surely help her succeed on her report card… and what kind of kid gets described as driven and determined when she’s six years old? Ruby buried her face in her hands and groaned. All of her teachers had said versions of the same thing. No matter what she’d tried, whether she had any talent or not—school and soccer, drums and Hebrew lessons—it was always the same thing. Ruby is focused. Ruby is driven. Determined. Single-minded. A little scary—that last, from her drumming teacher, an amiable stoner named Scoot. Ruby had overheard him say that to her dad once, that he’d never seen a kid practice as hard as Ruby; that he’d never seen anyone so set on mastering a skill. She just keeps bashing away at it, Scoot had said, shaking his head in what could have been admiration or could have been fear. That’s my Ruby, her dad had said fondly. She knows what she wants and she works for it.
When she’d seen her first Broadway show, she’d sat, leaning forward, entranced, as the story unfolded. It had been Phantom of the Opera—super cheesy, super unfashionable, super easy for her eventual Tisch classmates to trash. But when the very first organ chords came thundering through the theater, Ruby had felt electrified. Her skin had prickled with goose bumps. She’d almost been afraid to draw a breath. In the second act, the Phantom was singing, in front of a stand holding sheet music, with a candelabra flaming beside him, and one of the pages had caught on fire. Ruby wasn’t sure if it was part of the show or not, and as she watched, as the Phantom kept singing, a man dressed all in black, wearing a headset, hurried onto the stage. He’d deftly snatched the burning page, given it a brief pump of something chemical from a bottle in his pocket, and ran into the wings. It had all happened so smoothly, and so fast, that Ruby wasn’t completely sure that she’d seen it. After, she’d asked her father about it, and her father, it emerged, hadn’t even noticed.