Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [58]
Ruby went back to the living room. There were two crusted dinner plates on the wood table. An empty beer bottle. A full ashtray. Socks. It didn’t quite make sense. She remembered Jody’s apartment being spare and clean. Maybe Jody was completely unraveling, and a latent filthy streak was revealing itself after years of suppression.
There was a narrow wooden staircase at the far end of the living room, and Ruby climbed up to the second floor. There was a bathroom at the top of the stairs, and the rest of the floor was one open room serving as a bedroom. There were snarled bedsheets, two half-empty coffee mugs, a pair of red panties.
As Ruby went into the bathroom to explore the medicine cabinet, Spike came running up the stairs. The puppy rushed over to Ruby then started licking her hands and wiggling furiously, as if he hadn’t seen her in years. Ruby laughed. Decided she might have completely lost her mind by now if it weren’t for the dog. It hadn’t even been a full day, and already she felt she couldn’t live without him.
The medicine cabinet held only a bottle of ibuprofen and an ancient-looking dental floss dispenser. The strangest thing in the bathroom was the shower curtain. A clear plastic number with little pockets containing translucent plastic fish. Ruby never would have thought Jody whimsical enough to buy a fish-motif shower curtain. Frivolous household items were the sort of thing she and Jody had occasionally discussed during lulls in sessions when Jody had urged Ruby to speak—to say Whatever comes to mind, Ruby—and Ruby had volunteered some triviality, like having bought vivid pink flannel bedsheets on sale at Bloomingdale’s. Never in the course of these mundane chats had Jody Ray admitted to a penchant for whimsical shower curtains.
Spike trotted after Ruby as she headed back down the stairs and into the kitchen. She picked Jody’s yellow purse up off the table and opened it. Nothing but a packet of Kleenex. She turned the purse upside down, spilling out dimes, pennies, and half a roll of cherry LifeSavers.
Ruby sat down at the kitchen table. There was a Home Depot receipt inside an empty fruit bowl. Someone had bought plants and gardening tools. Ruby hadn’t thought to look at the garden.
She didn’t want to lose Spike in the shrubbery again, so she left him in the house while she went to poke around outside. She walked to the back, where a little garden area was fenced off against deer. A shovel was wedged into the ground. Ruby stared at the tomato plants, trying to envision her elegant psychiatrist digging around in the dirt. It didn’t add up.
Ruby walked back around the side of the house and to the front. A blue car was parked next to the Mustang, and Ruby’s heart did a few somersaults before she realized that it was not the Honda and that the large neighbor from down the road was standing at the front door.
“Hiya,” said the woman. “Just seeing what you’re up to here.” She was narrowing her eyes at Ruby.
“Door was open. I’m just looking around,” Ruby said.
The large woman obviously didn’t believe her.
“Do you want to come in?” Ruby asked.
“You’re inviting me in? Ain’t even your house.”
“That’s true. But I have a right to be here.”
“How’s that?”
“Jody’s husband asked me to come look for her. He couldn’t come look for her himself. He’s sick,” Ruby said.
“And he couldn’t just call her?”
“They had a little fight. She wouldn’t answer his calls.”
“Huh,” said the woman. “And you’re a friend of the family?”
“Yes. Why don’t you come in,” Ruby reiterated her offer. She wanted the woman to see that she wasn’t up to anything nefarious.
The woman grunted and followed her inside.
Spike was at the door, wiggling. He tried to lick the big woman’s hands, but she squealed and moved out of the way a whole lot faster than Ruby would have guessed she could move.
“He doesn’t bite,” Ruby said.
“I don’t like dog drool,” said the woman. She was standing in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, wiping her wet hand