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She had accepted that about her own life.
She was fine with it.
The museum was shockingly cool and lit darkly in the entryway. The walnut floors were scarred and shiny, the chandelier that hung overhead worked—wavy glass, likely original. Ruby loved old glass. Imperfect, full of bubbles and wobbles. She heard footsteps coming from one of the back rooms, easy because the place was hushed like a church, and a moment later a woman with short, steel gray hair and loose-fitting clothing befitting a historian, in Ruby’s opinion, smiled as she approached her. “You’re early.”
“Hi, Dana,” Ruby said. “I couldn’t stay away, now that everything is set.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
Dana didn’t hug her. But Dana wasn’t... Huggy. Of course, Ruby also didn’t find her to be terrifying the way the rest of the town did.
Her eyes were pale and sharp, and her voice was clipped. She was obsessed with history, things in the past, and not at all as interested in things in the present. But, given her life, Ruby couldn’t blame her. Ruby didn’t pity her—Dana was far too sturdy for that. But she was... Aware.
Because along with her gauzy shawls, Dana had a grief that wrapped itself around her like a garment. It was just there. It didn’t matter if you knew her story or not. You could feel it. A part of her as much as her blue eyes or the lines around her mouth.
Ruby could remember feeling drawn to her from the first time she’d ever seen her. It had been at Pear Blossom Elementary when Ruby was in kindergarten, and a couple of kids from the high school had come in pioneer clothing to do a demonstration on what it was like in the Wild West days of the town. Ruby had been riveted. Gold panning, laundry, butter churning, tin punching. She’d wanted to learn more about all of it.
Dana had been the one overseeing the activities, and so Ruby had known she was the one she had to talk to.
She hadn’t even noticed other people avoided the unsmiling woman. She hadn’t even noticed she was unsmiling.
And she had come away from the meeting with a stack of brochures, which to young Ruby had meant the entire world.
Whether she had wanted one, Dana had earned a friend for life that day.
“We just finished a new display. But the whole back wing needs to be reset. I don’t know if you had any ideas.”
“Well,” Ruby said, thrown off-balance for a second, but realizing that she shouldn’t be that surprised that Dana had gotten right down to it. She wasn’t really one for small talk or chitchat. She certainly wasn’t going to ask Ruby anything about her time overseas. Unless it was to find out about which historical sites she had visited.
But she wasn’t going to want to know about Italian men.
Which was fine.
Ruby didn’t really want to share about that with her anyway.
Dana had long been like a family member to Ruby. But like a sort of distant, grumpy aunt.
“I thought that I would look and see what we have,” she said. “I want to see what kind of state the archives are in.”
“We haven’t had an archivist in official capacity, so I imagine you will find it...”
“Anarchist archival?”
“I think that’s slightly too exciting a word to use here.” Dana’s lips twitched with just the slightest bit of humor, and Ruby felt accomplished.
She did make people happy.
She was here for a reason.
“Well, I’m looking forward to gathering and reorganizing all of the resources. Looking at the catalog of artifacts and seeing what we can feature. Especially for the holidays. I think when tourists start to come in for Victorian Christmas we should have some kind of coinciding theme.”
“You do have ideas,” Dana said, and if Ruby hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought that her tone was approving.
“Yeah, I guess I have a few. Or rather, I have a direction.”
There was a staircase toward the back of the building, dark walnut steps and more of that bright white on the banister. The museum was large and cavernous. And very empty. But on a weekday that wasn’t unusual. Especially in the fall. Over summer, people came to stay, and again over Christmas, but otherwise there was a lot of weekend traffic. Very much the usual tourism cycle.
She followed Dana up the stairs and down the hall. And toward a part of the museum she had never been in before. The ceilings were high, the moldings ornate, and Ruby felt like she could easily compose poetry about them. Dana pushed the door open, and a rush of satisfaction washed over Ruby. It was a library. A proper library. With big, weighty bookshelves built into the walls. Each one of them absolutely filled to the bursting point. With folios filled with documents, books and artifacts that were on display.
