Shout Her Lovely Name (6 page)

Alone as She Felt All Day

Ruby drew the blinds apart with her fingers, peered out at Ira leaning against the giant mimosa tree in the brick courtyard. Beautiful and funny and absolutely the wrong boy. His white shirt, the pink blossoms, and the feathery green leaves were all muted by the lead weight of the sky. Thunderstorms were likely. The blinds escaped her fingers and snapped back into place. Sighing, Ruby returned to her hard plastic chair. A mocking illustration of a pink uterus with elegant fallopian tubes, an egg floating lazily downstream, was taped to the wall in front of her.
HEALTHY REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM
the diagram proclaimed. She shifted her gaze to the carpet, which was as gray as the sky.

Ira had insisted on joining her. He wanted a chance to play doting husband, to hold her hand and call her snookums, as if anyone would believe his act. As if this weren’t serious. Since Marco was neither available nor aware of the situation, she preferred to find out alone. When she relived this scene, she wanted to have nobly taken the news solo. The nurse knocked once, then strode in, crisp and precise. One hand rested on her square, uniformed hip, the other clasped Ruby’s chart. Her face was impassive.

“Your test came back positive.” A heavy line of bangs created a horizon across her forehead. Her eyes bored into Ruby, waiting for a response before committing to any emotion. When Ruby held her face in her hands and asked if the nurse was certain the rabbit had died, the nurse’s tone revealed neither support nor enthusiasm. “We don’t use those terms anymore. But yes. Absolutely.”

The ceiling seemed to drop down onto Ruby’s head, giving her a crushing headache. Squeezing her eyes shut, as if that could somehow protect her from the news, she quit breathing, crossed and then re-crossed her legs, grabbed at the fabric of her suddenly too tight skirt and tugged it down her thighs. Orange juice mixed with the bitter taste of aspirin burned the back of her throat. All the symptoms of early pregnancy, symptoms she’d learned about in health class, symptoms she had misread as hangovers, announced themselves. She was exhausted and sick to her stomach.

“When was your last period?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your last menstruation was when?” The nurse paused, her efficient pen poised expectantly over the forms. Her unfaltering gaze, the pristine whites of her eyes, nailed Ruby to her chair.

“June? Maybe May.”

“You found nothing unusual about your absent cycle?”

She’d missed her period before. Living on Frosted Flakes and Manhattans with two cherries all summer long, she thought she was too skinny to bleed. The crests of her hipbones pleased her. They flared like conch shells beneath her skin, and she liked to imagine Marco pressing his ear to her, telling her he could hear the ocean.

“Judging from the hormone levels in your blood, you’re into your second trimester. Would you like to call your husband?” It was a challenge, not an offer. Ruby had seen the woman take in her bare ring finger.

Ruby swallowed and shook her head no. She was salivating uncontrollably. She hated the way the nurse used the capped end of her pen to sweep her bangs aside.

The nurse continued speaking, her mouth opening and closing, stringing words together.

Ruby had begun to pace. She clutched her elbows in opposite hands to keep from shaking. She wanted the appointment to be over, to leave the nurse and the room without crying, without tearing the damn uterus off the wall.

“Your baby has a beating heart,” the nurse offered, calm and clear and definite.

Now Ruby heard it. A tiny, tiny pulse, like the start of a headache. Yes, she understood all the implications.

“Do you have a cigarette?” Ruby asked, her voice faltering.

“Miss Hargrove, surely you must have suspected?” The nurse walked to the window and parted the blinds. She jabbed her pen toward Ira. “Would you like to bring the father in?”

The revolving door cast Ruby out into the courtyard with the mimosa tree and Ira. He took one look at her pale and stricken face, held a fresh cigarette to his glowing cherry, and then passed it off to her as she came to his side.

“Poor bunny.”

She inhaled a long, thirsty drag, her hand shaking.

“Honey, come here.” Ira held his arms wide to encircle her. Ruby stiffened. She felt stringy, dried up, her muscles tough as jerky, and she had to stay that way. Were she to soften, to accept any small kindness, there would be no pulling away from a disastrous plunge.

“Don’t talk to me,” she whispered. Each time she brought the cigarette to her lips, her hand shook a little less, and when it was sucked down to the butt, she was still.

“Look, we can find someone to take care of this.”

“I’m too far gone.”

“You want to call anybody? We could go back to the bar and you could call
him.
” Ira gave a halfhearted operatic flair to the
him.
They’d been performing the
him
aria all summer at the Flamingo Pond. When the bar’s phone rang, they’d belt out,
It’s him,
and then fight over who should answer, each hoping for a particular boy on the other end of the line. Of course it never was Marco. “Is he still in Europe?”

“Last time I saw him he wouldn’t even stay for breakfast.” Her heart beat against her ribs just as it had the morning she watched Marco pull on his blue jeans, even out his shirttails, and button from the bottom up. She watched from bed, wrapped in sheets that smelled of sex, sour and metallic. “He just got up, and kissed my forehead.” All their partings made her anxious. “Didn’t even tell me he was leaving for Europe.” It was the first time she’d admitted his omission to herself or to anyone else. Until now she’d tried to tell herself she just hadn’t heard him say it, or it had slipped his mind.

The wind picked up bits of leaves, paper scraps, and fallen petals from the brick courtyard. She watched the debris rise and then collapse.

“What about your parents?”

“That’s a joke. My dad’s too busy being a prick and my mom’s too busy letting him. It’s all melodrama. I don’t know what . . .” It started to rain. “Shit.” The clouds broke open the way they do in Florida in August and within seconds they were drenched. Steam rose up from the ground in front of them. She smeared her bangs off her forehead. “Ira, see you at the Pond. I’ve got to walk.”

“Wait. I’ve got nowhere to be.” This was an event for him, a chance to be loyal.

She patted his wet shirt to show she didn’t question his sincerity. “No, I’ll be in later.” She held her cheek out for him to kiss. “Thanks for coming.”

Her feet slapped one in front of the other down the buckling sidewalk, past the pastel clapboard houses with weathervanes and widow’s walks. Did women throw themselves from roofs? She imagined herself, hand shielding her eyes from the sun, a dress blowing about her legs, gazing out to sea for a sight of Marco’s boat. And when he didn’t return, she would have the sympathy of neighbors.

Where was the dignity in rejection? Slogging through the puddles she felt trapped by her own healthy, busy reproductive system.

The last time she’d seen Marco he’d arrived on a Friday night, late, and they’d spent two days in bed. She was studying for her English literature final, warning herself that he probably wouldn’t call. That it was just as well he hadn’t invited her to his parents’ home for his graduation dinner, she had exams anyway. Then he’d knocked. The knot of his tie loosened, his breath sweet with vino santo, he leaned against her doorjamb, grinning so wide his gums showed slick and pink. His arms were loaded with supplies from his parents’ Italian market: Chianti, dry salami, Romano cheese, bread, and her favorite, a large red tin of amaretti cookies.

“I’m starving,” he said. “Are you?”

Opening the door just a few inches, she filled the space with her body, as if she had something to conceal.

He peeked over her shoulder. “You have a surprise in there for me?” He leaned in very, very close and said, “I’ve saved a surprise for you too.”

“Have you?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow, suppressing a smile. If only she hadn’t let him in. If only she’d made him wait. If she hadn’t let him kiss her collarbone, press his knee between her legs, and whisper, leaning into her, “I’ve missed you.”

“At least you knocked with your elbows.” She took the cookie tin from his hands and pulled him in. “I was getting bored.”

The sheet rested on her bent knees and covered them both completely, like a child’s fort, turning the light beneath soft and opaque. Her skin, she knew, would be lovely as cream, and she hoped he noticed. With Marco leaning over her, poised to touch her, she felt she could breathe his exhalations, feel her own breath catch at the back of her throat when he pushed inside of her. She felt herself slipping, her chin and heart lifting toward him, his arm wrapped tight around her back. When Marco came, he moaned a combination plea and exaltation. She listened for her name, for love, but heard only syllables.

Her tiny dorm mattress, squeezed into a corner, left them no space. Their bodies wedged tightly together, he slept and she crammed Dickens, delicately turning the pages so she wouldn’t disturb his arm tossed over her shoulder. Her prescription, which she’d meant to fill the day before, which she would absolutely fill on Monday, was in the bottom of her pocketbook. Surely, she’d reasoned, missing one, two pills at the very most, wouldn’t make a difference. Between naps and sex, she fed him cookies, licking crumbs from his lips, tossing wrappers on the floor. Monday morning, when she wanted to go out for coffee and poached eggs, he buttoned his shirt. “I’ll call you.”

Even if she knew how to reach him now, what would she say? She imagined him on a Vespa, on a cobblestone lane, his collar blown open by the wind, his teeth flashing in the sunlight. How could he even hear her calling, see her waving at him from the sidewalk, saying, “Marco, I’m pregnant”? She could imagine herself neither in Europe nor pregnant. It was only over the telephone that she could imagine telling him, a long black cord snaking over a fluffy, down-covered bed, the Alps out the window, the phone clutched in his hand, his face horrified as he listened to her distant mousy voice bothering him in his hotel room all the way across the Atlantic.

She fought to light another cigarette in the rain. At this moment she needed to be outside her own life. She thought if she could pull far enough away, imagine her life was a movie, she might know what she was supposed to do. She pictured her own wet hair, gamine face free of makeup, drenched blouse clinging to her breasts, thin wrists, fingers striking the soggy match tip until all the red was worn away, tears mingling with rain. She was scared and furious and stupid. Poor little match girl. Water dripped into her shoes, and she could think only in fucking clichés? The rain showed no signs of letting up and she was still blocks from the hotel room she’d rented in June, planning to stay only until September, when she would return to school. Her father had hung up on her when she told him she wouldn’t be home for the summer. He needed her in the house, as a buffer, someone to speak to her mother for him, as in
Tell Mrs. Put-Upon I’ll be late.
If she called home with this news, her father would explode with loud disappointment. At the very least, couldn’t someone as smart as Ruby have chosen some original path to screw everything up? Ultimately he’d take it out on her mother, who would absorb everything with quiet disappointment.

The neon tuna beacon of the Blue Fin Motel blinked at her from the roof. For forty-five dollars a month, her room came equipped with a hot plate, an icebox, and once-a-week fresh sheets. She kicked her pumps off at the door, abandoning them next to the bathing suit she’d dropped yesterday after her swim when she was still just Ruby, a cocktail waitress at the Pond, summering in the Keys, waiting for classes and another chance with Marco. Sitting on the edge of her unmade bed, surrounded by damp towels and flat pillows, an electric fan short one blade on the windowsill, she was overwhelmed by how pathetic her summer, and now her life, had become. Even if the nurse hadn’t told her about the beating heart, she still would have been terrified by the alternative, pain and blood. Death. She watched herself unbutton her blouse in the bureau mirror. Her wet hair, clinging to her skin, looked greasy, as if she’d totally let herself go. Tears fell down her cheeks to her neck and admirably fuller breasts. Rain clattered on the metal roof. A fresh pack of cigarettes sat on the nightstand. She lit one, stared in the mirror at the pretty girl alone in the depressing room.

It was still raining when she woke up, though not as hard. She was chilled, and her mouth tasted of stale cigarettes. The bedspread did little to warm her. She lay there, staring at the phone, willing it to ring, though she knew if it did it would only be Ira, checking in. She couldn’t stay trapped and dejected in this room all day. She couldn’t become someone whose life was defined by accidents. She’d already let that occur by thinking Marco would have a plan for their summer, and here she was, alone in the Keys. Certainly she had choices.

In the bathroom, she vigorously brushed her teeth, then peeled her skirt down her hips. Red ridges were carved into her flesh from the zipper and the waistband. If she wanted to wear this skirt in the near future, she was going to have to take over, trick her own body. It was simple, really. She’d wear herself out, move furniture, throw herself down stairs. Miscarriages were common; her own mother had had two. She would start right now. She pulled on her swimsuit, ran the four blocks to the beach, and plunged in. The ocean, compared to the rain, was warm. She dove through waves and was quickly past the shore break, pushing herself, waiting for the moment when she could no longer touch bottom and was simply taking her daily swim, supported by the hammock of deep water. She concentrated on the mechanics of her own body, the pivot of her shoulder joints as her arms circled through air and then water. Straining forward, she felt muscles stretch across her abdomen and hips. She kicked hard, straight-legged, fighting against the choppy sea. As her heart beat with the exertion, she thought she could hear blood speeding through her veins. She could see it too; each time she turned her head to breathe deep, salty gasps, she could see her blood in the private red sky behind her eyelids. A tide of blood flowed through her body, and she willed just a little to flow out between her legs.