Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [10]
RUBY WATCHED in horror as an enormous rat crawled up her leg. She felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a voice in her ear.
“Ruby, hey, Ruby.”
She opened her eyes. Ed was peering at her as if she was a medical curiosity.
“Hi,” she said.
“You were screaming.”
“I was having a nightmare.” Before nodding off, Ruby had gotten to a passage about rats getting onto crowded subway cars and riding to the next stop. This notion had successfully distracted her from the image of Jody’s husband’s leg, and she’d fallen asleep. Dreaming of rats.
Ruby scooted her body back on the couch, making room for Ed as she told him about the dream rat crawling up her leg.
“Why are you reading about rodents?”
“It’s fascinating.”
“Rats?”
“Very primal.”
Ed smiled and shook his head. He looked exhausted.
There were crevices around his mouth, valleys beneath his eyes. His glasses were filthy. His hair needed cutting. Still, Ruby liked looking at him. This was one of the things that made her think she was in it for the long haul with Ed. She always found him beautiful. Even when he wasn’t.
“Is Juan okay?” Ruby dug her fingers into Ed’s forearm, kneading the tight narrow muscles there.
“I think so. He’s eating good, not acting like anything’s bothering him.” Ed looked worried while saying it. He hadn’t convinced himself that his prized little horse was truly all right.
“I didn’t make dinner,” Ruby announced.
Ed was relieved but tried not to show it.
“We’ll go out.”
“It’s late.” Ruby had just looked at the little clock atop the TV. It was nearly ten.
“Brighton Diner?” Ed asked.
“Okay.”
The place was loud, the food was lousy, and the waitresses were hostile. But Ruby didn’t mind. Just as she enjoyed brutalizing her body, Ruby liked stoically weathering waitresses’ minor abuses, figuring she was getting her quota of pain from the universe for the week and could ward off anything worse happening.
It was after eleven by the time Ruby and Ed walked back from the diner, both a little queasy and sleepy from greasy omelettes.
Astroland was still thriving. Girls in tight jeans and belly-baring tops. Hipster white kids looking nervous at being vastly outnumbered by dark-skinned folks. Here and there, an old Russian couple, disgusted at what the world was coming to.
Ruby fell asleep spooning behind Ed, marveling that they’d gotten through the evening without her telling him what had happened that day. It almost seemed like any other night. Almost.
5. MAGIC
At three-thirty in the morning, Ed got up and went into the kitchen to poach four eggs. It was Wednesday, one of Ruby’s days off from the museum, the day when she usually accompanied Ed to the track, spending a few hours at Belmont before going to The Hole. Today though, her body was protesting the lack of sleep. Her eyes wouldn’t open and her legs were stiff. She slowly got out of bed and started stretching. She hated imagining what getting older would be like. At this rate, she’d need a full body cast by age fifty.
Ruby went into the kitchen and fed the cats and ate her poached eggs while Ed showered. He was ready long before she was and waited at the door, drumming his fingers on the door frame.
“I’m sorry I’m slow—don’t be impatient,” Ruby said.
“I’m not impatient.”
Ruby kept feeling as if she was forgetting something, but she couldn’t figure out what. Maybe it was just the secret she was keeping from Ed. Maybe the secret was disorienting her. She followed Ed into the hall and locked up.
Ramirez, who probably hadn’t been to bed yet, had his door open. He was standing in the middle of his yellow kitchen, looking put out about something. He’d gotten paunchy lately, evidently having sympathetic swelling with his pregnant wife. Though he’d outdone her by now. Where the diminutive Elsie still barely showed at six months, Ramirez looked ready to birth