“She’s too pretty to be Ruby,” Tita Flora griped, at least three times. “It’s not realistic.”
“Dili Filipina siya,” Lola Celia grumbled, at least four times. She’s not even Filipina.
Joey was so consumed with the show, she only half listened to their ongoing snark. She agreed with her grandmother that Murderers could have at least used a Filipino actress. But her aunt was just plain wrong. While the woman playing Ruby was very pretty, she lacked the natural charisma and sensuality that the real Ruby had been gifted. At best, she was a cartoon version of the Ice Queen, and in Joey’s opinion, her mother was much more beautiful.
Tito Micky enjoyed the episode thoroughly. He passed the popcorn around as if Murderers was entertainment, as if Ruby wasn’t family and her daughter wasn’t sitting in the same living room, mortified to see her mother portrayed on TV for the whole world to see. The kids at her high school had finally started to forget who Joey’s mother was, and now this stupid TV show would remind them all over again.
As they watched, she was surprised that despite the dramatic overacting and the almost comically foreboding voice of the narrator, Murderers actually got a lot of the details about Ruby and Charles Baxter right. They did first meet at the Second Cup coffee shop near the bank, a “chance encounter” that wasn’t by chance at all. Ruby did make the first move. Charles did promise he was going to leave his wife for her. And Ruby did stop by his house unannounced the night of the murder, after Charles had ended their affair for the third or fourth time.
Where Murderers got it wrong was the relationship between Ruby and her child. For the purposes of keeping Ruby’s daughter’s identity a secret, the show had changed Joey’s name to Jessie. In the scene where Jessie meets with Ruby in prison just before the trial, the exchange is portrayed as loving.
In reality, it had been anything but.
* * *
It had been almost two months since Joey had seen her mother, and she was shocked to see that Ruby looked older.
She and Deborah were sitting at a table in the visitors’ room when Ruby was brought in by a prison guard （corrections officer）。 The orange jumpsuit hung on her. Her hair was greasy, tied up in a bun. There were creases in her forehead that weren’t there before. She looked like she had aged ten years.
Joey wanted to cry. She had done this; she was the reason her mother was in here, looking like a criminal. This was all her fault.
“It’s okay,” Deborah whispered, as if sensing her anguish. “You got this.”
When Ruby reached the table, she saw the look on Joey’s face and snorted. “It looks like all the fat I lost, you gained. At least I finally reached my goal weight.”
“You look good, Mama,” Joey said, her voice timid, but her mother had already lost interest.
“Who’s this?” Ruby looked at Deborah with a raised eyebrow, scrutinizing the social worker from head to toe.
Deborah introduced herself, but did not offer her hand. They were told at check-in that no physical contact was allowed, other than a brief hug at the beginning and end of the visit.
“So you’re the one taking care of my girl,” Ruby said.
“I’m doing my best, but Joelle is pretty good at taking care of herself.” Deborah pointed to a table a few feet away. “Joelle, I’ll be sitting right over there, okay? Take your time.”
“Well?” Ruby said to Joey when the social worker walked away. “Hug me already, Joelle.”
Joey wrapped her arms around her mother tightly. She could feel all the bones in her mother’s back.
Ruby pulled away to examine her. “Look at you. You’re a little piggly wiggly now.”
They took seats across from each other. The visitors’ room was half full, and there were boyfriends and husbands and a couple of noisy babies. It hurt Joey to think that her mother had been here for over seven weeks, and nobody other than her lawyer had come to visit her until now.
“How’s school?” Ruby asked.
The kids don’t speak to me. “Fine.”
“How’s Tita Flora?”
“Fine.”
“Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
“She’s fine,” Joey said, louder. “I don’t see her all that much. She works all the time.”
“Has she been saying smug, nasty things about me?” Ruby’s gaze was fixed on Joey’s face. “I bet she can’t shut up. Self-righteous bitch.”
“She hasn’t said anything about you.” It was a necessary lie. Her mother would not want to know the things her sister had said. “Not a word.”