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Ruby tips her head to one side. “I think so. I love my bookstore, and my house is perfect. My girls seem to like it there, so I know they’ll consider it a second home base as time goes on. And Sunday Bond is moving down soon—she bought a place of her own,” she says, cutting a glance at him. She’s giving him a scoop and she knows it, but it’s not like Dexter is a tabloid journalist or anything. “This is completely off the record, of course, but she’s leaving Peter and starting over on Shipwreck, so I'm going to be there for her as much as possible through all that.”
Dexter has an extremely practiced poker face, which he employs now. “Hmmm,” he says, nodding noncommittally. “Sounds like a good move for her. And you’ll have one of your close friends there, which will be nice, right?”
"Of course. I'm finding that the older I get, the more I need strong, loyal, interesting women in my life." Ruby stares at the plastic flamingo in front of the house next door to Dexter's as she talks.
"Still completely off the record, naturally, and just out of pure human curiosity, but do you think there'll ever be another man in your life?"
A feeling washes over Ruby that she can’t quite describe. It’s one of awareness, mostly—awareness that she’s taken her own life off its old course and sent it in a whole new direction. It would have been so easy to just stay in D.C., and to get a townhouse or a condo in Georgetown so that she could attend the functions that everyone still invited her to attend. She would have spent weekends sharing brunch with Sunday or Athena, and sprinkled in a trip to New York every few weeks to see people there and to visit Harlow. Of course she never needed to work or get a job again—everything Jack had became hers when he died—but falling asleep thinking of the bookstore and of how to make it profitable has her brain working in ways that feel invigorating. She’s taking charge of everything in her life, including her role in Dexter North’s book.
Ruby takes a deep breath. "Who knows? I'm not even fifty yet, and now that Jack's been gone for a year I can finally start to breathe again. I don't think I'm done with love. Jack didn't break me, and—with any luck at all—I still have half my life left to live."
"I love your optimism," Dexter says, watching her profile with open admiration on his face. "Sometimes other people do break us a little, and it's hard to imagine getting back out there again. I think it's great that you haven't closed that door."
Ruby nods and then turns her head to look at Dexter. “You know,” she says. “In the end, this book might screw me over. I might be giving people far too much insight into my marriage or my life, but in a way, it feels good.” A gust of wind from the ocean blows across the plot of tiny homes, sending sand across the wooden walkway and lifting Ruby’s blonde hair from her shoulders. “You asked me before what I had to give up to be First Lady, and it’s pretty much everything. You tuck away your own hopes and dreams, your thoughts, opinions, and plans. You are essentially at the whim of a machine that only wants you to be one thing: perfect. Or as close to perfect as possible. Hair done, clothes that always send the right message, a smile for the world no matter how much you don’t feel like smiling. I’ve missed having a voice and I’ve missed being Ruby Dallarosa, which is who I’m starting to feel like again rather than just being Ruby Hudson, First Lady.”
Dexter watches her intently. “I’m not recording this,” he says, “but I kind of wish I was.”
Ruby shakes her head. “I just said those things for you, not for everyone else. I want you to understand why I was so eager to come here and talk to you. I think I'm ready to be the real me again.”
Dexter looks at her with a serious expression, like he’s about to ask her for a deep, dark truth. “Does the real you feel like having a cheeseburger at Jack Frosty’s?”
A slow smile creeps across Ruby’s face as she nods. “Yeah, the real me does,” she says. “And a beer.”
* * *
The next twenty-four hours are over in a flash and Ruby is back on Shipwreck Key feeling windswept and happy. She loved Christmas Key, and the thought of partnering with Vance from A Sleighful of Books to come up with events and ideas excites her. Talking to Dexter felt liberating, and even watching Banks switch gears and relax as he talked to the locals had made her happy.
After having a cheeseburger on Main Street with Dexter at Jack Frosty’s, and then chatting with the islanders at the Ho Ho Hideaway that night as she sipped fresh coconut rum and danced to music that took her back to her college years, Ruby felt like she’d been on a true vacation. No one had asked her for an autograph or a photo, and no one treated her like an outsider. It was the most refreshing forty-eight hours she's spent in ages, and Ruby is ready to keep thinking about Dexter's book and her part in it.
But when she wakes up the next morning it’s to middle of the night texts from both of her daughters, three messages from Sunday, and several emails and messages from Ursula with information about news outlets requesting a comment.
“What the…” Ruby sits up in bed, scrolling through everything she missed while sleeping. “No,” she says, closing her eyes and falling back on the pillows. "No, no, no."
One of Athena’s texts is a link to an online story, and her stomach flips just reading it, not to mention looking at the photograph that someone had obviously taken of her on Christmas Key, laughing and riding shotgun with Dexter in his golf cart on Main Street. The photo looks like it was taken from the sidewalk, and the graininess of the shot makes her think it’s from the smart phone of a curious civilian, and not the work of a professional.
Former First Lady Ruby Hudson Canoodles on Christmas Key and Conspires to Write Tell-All Book.
Ruby sighs. It is what it is at this point, but she’d certainly hoped to keep the fact that she's talking to Dexter North to herself for as long as possible.
With a few muttered curse words, she tosses off her blanket and gets out of bed. She’s annoyed. This is not a new sensation, having someone watching her every move, but she’d let her guard down on Christmas Key. And maybe she’d even overshared with Dexter. Should she have really spoken about her desire to love again and to be her old self? Suddenly everything she’s doing feels questionable. The sensation of taking her life back and of making her own choices feels corrupted, and a small part of her even considers slinking back into the shell that she wassupposedto stay in. There are plenty of people who won't like her talking to Dexter North, and she could easily hide out on Shipwreck Key forever and stay mum on everything.
Ruby shakes this thought off immediately, thinking of the book club and of her daughters. She thinks of how hard Marigold is working to make sure that women in the middle of their lives still have voices that are heard, and she knows there's no way that she'll actually just sink into silence and disappear. There’s no way Ruby wants to live the next fifty years of her life in a color-coordinated pantsuit and pearls, smiling placidly. She’s not taking Jack’s secrets to her grave, and she’s not going to live in shame because of his choices. It won't happen, but in some ways it is tempting.
Ruby pulls on a pair of sweatpants and slides on her glasses. She needs a cup of coffee before making any rash decisions.
After that, she’ll be ready to face the world.
Ruby
Harlow jokingly refers to her mother's book club gatherings as "the meeting of the minds," which tickles Ruby. She knows that Harlow is only ribbing her anyway, but it's so much more than that. Already, Ruby looks forward to seeing Molly, Heather, and Marigold sitting around the back room of the bookstore, and to having Tilly and Vanessa there, Vanessa perched on the edge of her chair like a young woman who isn't quite sure that she's really been invited to join the grown ups, and Tilly slumped in hers with a brooding look like a kid beingforcedto sit at the grown up table against her will.
"Okay," Heather says, holding a cup of tea over her saucer at the start of their next book club meeting. They've decided that this meeting will be simply tea and cookies, and Ruby is using the box of blue and white chinoiserie-patterned china that she brought with her from the White House. "Let's debrief. We're all dying to get down to business."
Ruby allows a small smile, thinking of how the very word "debrief" feels presidential, but instead of discussing matters of national security, they're a group of wonderful women chatting about a two-day trip to a little island that's decorated for Christmas, and a meeting with a dashing man who wants to dissect every detail of Ruby's life.
"Well," Ruby says, dropping one cube of sugar into her hot tea with a pair of miniature silver tongs. "First of all, Christmas Key is amazing. I loved it there and I would go back in a heartbeat." There are murmurs of agreement from the other women. “But next we need to address the rumors, because I feel like my face is plastered everywhere, and I think it would be silly to not mention it.”
“I saw it,” Molly says, holding her teacup not daintily by the handle like the other women, but with one hand wrapped around the delicate bone china like she’s holding a thick ceramic coffee mug. “What kind of people have nothing else to do with their lives but run around taking photos of other people who are just minding their own business? ”
