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‘No, I’m good. Really, I am,’ she said, sounding much more sure now. She glanced around the auditorium. ‘And I love seeing this place get the care it deserves.’
He dismissed the guilty pang that wrapped around his ribs.
‘Why don’t we start watching Brokeback Mountain?’ Gerry said, holding up a reel of film. ‘Errol can thread it up in no time. Do you want to join us, Luke?’
Luke frowned. Was the guy serious? Wasn’t that movie a tragedy? Didn’t the cowboys die at the end?
But before he could say anything, Ruby had pasted a brave smile on her face. ‘You know, Gerry, I think that would be an excellent idea. Matty adored that movie, even though he said it was a gay movie for straight people, it always made him cry. And I’d love to have a chance to clean out my sinuses over a sad movie for a change.’
As Jacie stepped up to give her a hard hug, Luke stepped away.
‘Luke, if you want to stay, we’d love to have you,’ Ruby said.
‘Sure,’ he said.
She was being kind to Gerry by humouring his asinine suggestion. She couldn’t really want to watch a movie about lovelorn cowboys while she was feeling like shit. So he’d stay and watch it with her. Make sure she didn’t get too shaky again.
It was the least he could do – after his mom had played fast and loose with her grief. And later today, after he’d let his mom stew in her own juices for a while, he was going to call her back, and give her hell for screwing with Ruby’s karma. And his own.
***
‘Mom, seriously, what the h
ell were you thinking?’ Luke kept his voice low and even.
He had finally relented and called his mother’s cell from the phone in his house in Chepstow Villas after he’d order in some take out and eaten it. It was close to eight p.m. UK time so he’d left her stewing for over six hours, it still didn’t feel long enough.
‘Darling, I don’t know what you mean.’ Yeah, right.
‘Ruby Graham is grieving, she scattered her best friend’s ashes barely two months ago,’ Luke added, his voice rising as the memory of Ruby’s tear-streaked cheeks blasted back into his memory and made him mad all over again. ‘Her emotions are shaky at best, she does not need you calling her out of the blue, playing the heartbroken sister and driving her emotions off a cliff.’
He’d been forced to sit through one of the most tragic films ever made to keep an eye on Ruby that afternoon. To her credit, she’d been a rock during the three-plus-hour endurance test as they watched Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger act their asses off. But he’d been watching her like a hawk before he’d headed out, for any signs of a wobble, and he’d seen her chin tremble more than enough times to know Ruby’s tough-it-out routine had been an act.
Ruby was still shaky, still devastated, still way too close to the cliff-edge for his liking. And he planned to get it through his mom’s skull that she was not to contact Ruby and freak her out again.
‘But I am the heartbroken sister,’ his mother replied. ‘And all I did was talk to her about Matty. It was good for us both. You may find it easy to close off your emotions, but not everyone else can do that,’ she finished, sounding hurt.
Yeah, he wasn’t buying that either.
As usual his mother was avoiding the actual problem to take a detour into yet another conversation about his ‘withholding issues.’
‘And how was it good for you, Mom?’ he asked, changing the subject right back again. He was pretty good at playing the deflect-and-rule game, after all, he’d learned how from a master. ‘You actually want me to buy you gave a crap about Matthew Devlin when you had refused to speak to him for over thirty years?’
‘I didn’t refuse to speak to him, he refused to speak to me,’ she said, still sounding hurt. ‘For a very good reason. I did something unforgiveable.’
So what else is new, Mom?
‘Whatever,’ he said, already bored. The details of his mom’s feud with his uncle had jack shit to do with him. And while it was super rare for his mother to admit culpability for anything, he still wasn’t buying the contrite routine. ‘Just don’t call her again.’
‘But I wanted to visit The Royale when I’m in town,’ she said. ‘I’d love to meet Ruby. She sounds adorable. And I wanted to talk to you both about—’
‘Wait up. Wait a damn minute,’ Luke cut in as every one of his freak-out vibes freaked out. ‘Did you just say you’re coming to London?’
Hell, no. This could not be happening. He thrust his fingers through his hair, the mild headache caused by the emo-fest this afternoon morphing into an all-out migraine.
‘I’m going to be in London next week,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my one-woman show at the National in June for a limited run. They had an unexpected gap in their schedule. I found out about it, made the suggestion to my agent, he talked to Gypsy’s Broadway producer, and the general manager at the National. It just seemed so fortuitous. I’m celebrating thirty-five years in the business this year and I wanted to come back to my home town during our break on Broadway. Especially when I discovered my first-born was in town, too. We start rehearsals in a couple of weeks.’
No. No. No.
