Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [36]
“I don’t know why you don’t just ask Pietro for a job.”
“We’re neighbors. No good. If he got mad at me, it would be awful. I’d feel hostility radiating through the walls.”
“How’s he gonna get mad at you working in a fun-house, girl?”
It had crossed Ruby’s mind to ask Ramirez for a job working at the Hell Hole, the spook house he’d owned and operated for the last five years. But Ramirez was a little volatile, prone to getting furious with his employees. The last thing Ruby wanted was animosity from her neighbor.
“I’m fine working for Glenda.”
Elsie made a face. Glenda wasn’t known for her sparkling personality.
“And I’m gonna kill that fucking boyfriend of yours,” Elsie added.
Normally, Ruby would have defended Ed’s honor, but this wasn’t normal. She said nothing. She finished her tea, refraining from commenting on exactly how bizarre it tasted.
“I should go.” Ruby rose from her chair. “Gotta feed the cats. Thanks for listening.”
Elsie looked at her with pity. “Oh, baby,” she said in that warm way that only nonwhite women seemed able to pull off. Had Jane or Ruby’s friend Elizabeth said “Oh, baby,” it would have just been weird.
“I’ll be all right, Elsie,” Ruby said, taking a few paces toward the door. “Thank you.” She smiled at her friend.
The apartment had never seemed so depressing. Maybe because it never had been. When Ruby had moved in four years earlier, she’d been starting fresh after nearly drinking herself to death. A stint in a Texas rehab had detoxed her enough to make her realize she wasn’t happy in Texas. She’d moved back to her native Brooklyn. She hadn’t had much in the way of needs and was just damned glad to be alive. That she’d ended up getting the museum job and liking both her job and her boss had been almost shocking after a long series of menial, meaningless, and thoroughly unpleasant jobs. As months passed, Ruby got used to living comfortably. She lived a simple, almost childlike existence and had no interest in acquiring the big problems and stresses that came with big careers and big lives. When Ed had come along, he’d seemed like crowning glory in an already good life. But now that he was in the wind, that life didn’t seem so rich anymore, and the simple things that had once made Ruby happy seemed useless and slightly pathetic.
She went over to the stereo, put a Joy Division CD on at full volume, and lay down on the floor.
After four songs, Ruby got up, swapped Joy Division for Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, then went into the kitchen to feed the cats. All four were at her feet, staring and meowing, and as she fed them, Ruby started fuming. Ed apparently assumed she’d take care of his two cats. Ruby stormed back into the living room, picked up the phone, and called Ed. Of course he didn’t answer. She gave his voice mail a piece of her mind about abandoning cats, even though it had been only forty-eight hours and this probably didn’t technically constitute abandonment.
“I hate that you’ve assumed I’d take care of your cats. I hate assumptions. And I hate whatever it is you’re doing.”
Ruby hung up but felt not one iota better. She turned the music off and went to her piano, where she banged around unsuccessfully for twenty minutes. She gave up on that particular path to salvation then decided that if she stood in the house one minute longer she would explode. She put ten bucks and two Fireballs into her pocket and went out. She saw Elsie and Ramirez sitting in their kitchen. She attempted a smile, was pretty sure it came out a grimace, and without waiting to see the grimace’s effects went down the stairs two at a time. She jogged down Stillwell, across Surf, and into the Eldorado Arcade, where she got ten dollars’ worth of quarters from the change machine and started playing Skee-Ball, compulsively pumping more quarters in the moment she threw