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Looks were exchanged all around the table as Ruby stood. She knew instantly that something was wrong.
Sitting on the couch in her private living area, with framed photos of her family on the polished credenza, Ruby had tucked her hands between her knees and felt her body turning in on itself protectively.
“Ruby,” Helen said, sitting close enough to her to reach out and put a hand on Ruby's back, which she had. "You need to listen carefully, okay?"
Ruby had nodded; she knew instinctively what was coming.
"Jack has been in an accident on the Bay of Biscay. He was in Bordeaux, and something happened."
"Why was he in Bordeaux?" Ruby asked, frowning. The fact that her husband had been in an accident hadn't fully settled in yet. "He was supposed to be in London."
"Ruby, I'm not sure of all the details yet. I just know he was in a small airplane over the Bay of Biscay, and he had to make a water landing.”
Jack had gotten his pilot’s license at seventeen, and after a stint in the Air Force, Ruby considered him one of the best—if notthebest—pilot she’s ever known. His ability to just take a plane out had been entirely curtailed by his position as President, and how he’d managed to get airborne in a small plane on his own was as much of a mystery to Ruby at the moment as anything else that Helen was saying.
“Wait—a plane crash?" Ruby stood up and walked over to the credenza, pacing absentmindedly. Later, she would look back on this moment and not remember her reactions or responses. How does one appropriately process the news that their husband has crashed into a body of water in a country that he wasn't even supposed to be visiting? "Jack's plane crashed? I don't...I'm just..." Ruby put her head in her hands and stopped pacing. She closed her eyes. "What was Jack doing flying a small plane? He only ever flies Air Force One..." Nothing was gelling in Ruby's brain. "France?"
Helen stood and walked over to her, taking Ruby by the shoulders. "You need to listen to me, Ruby. I'm serious. Jack died in this accident. He was alone. I don't have all the details yet, but you need to understand that this is going to move fast. The world will know in a matter of minutes that the President of the United States has died, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. Are you hearing me?"
It was a valid question, because Ruby found that both her hearing and vision were shutting down. The light was dimming and a loud buzzing was filling her ears and overpowering her brain. Helen continued to hold her by the shoulders, and at this point, she gave her kind of a hard shake.
"Ruby, do you need to sit?" Helen asked, her face and voice full of concern. "Here, sit on the couch." Helen led her back to where they'd been sitting just minutes before and Ruby sank onto the cushions gratefully, letting her head fall to her knees.
After a few minutes of breathing as Helen rubbed her back, Ruby lifted her head, feeling a sense of calm wash over her. While this had always been an outcome that shedidn'twant to experience, it was one that she'd been prepared for many times and in many ways. Being married to the President meant that you were intimately familiar with all of the horrible things that could happen to him and to your entire family, but you lived each day by pushing it to the back of your mind and essentially suspending your disbelief.
"Okay," Ruby said, breathing in and out one more time and centering herself. "I'm ready. I'm here." There were tears inside of her, and there was panic waiting to bubble to the surface, but instead of giving in to that feeling, she stayed as quiet as possible. She needed to be present to find out what happened next. "I'm with you."
"I'm told that the airplane has been recovered, as has the body."
Ruby nodded slowly. Instinct kicked in then and she began to understand what was happening. “His body has been recovered," she repeated, nodding slowly. She needed her girls. No, she needed to understand everything before sitting down and talking to Harlow and Athena. She needed all the information first.
Helen looked at her knowingly. "There's more to this story, and I'm sure we'll hear it eventually, but for now, I need you to be briefed and ready for the onslaught. Because therewillbe an onslaught. Everyone will want a piece of you. Everyone will want a story, a tip, a comment, a photo, or something to report."
"There will be no comment—at least not for a while," Ruby said firmly. "I need to think. I'm going to need a lot of time to think before anything else happens."
“Of course.”
“I need the girls,” Ruby said, already in crisis mode. She stood up again, unable to stay seated.
“They’re both en route. They’ve been told nothing but that there’s a situation at the White House, and they’re both being driven rather than flown so as to keep them safe from any news for as long as possible.”
Ruby had been grateful for Helen’s friendship and for her professionalism at that moment, and once she knew for sure that her daughters were on their way, she allowed herself one frustrated, sad, angry sob before pulling herself together again.
She sits on the bench now, remembering as much of it as she can: the meeting that had been interrupted by Helen; the walk to her private living space; the news delivered to her like a bomb that had exploded in the middle of their lives. Ruby has no idea how she sifted through it all, or how she survived the relentless speculation of a 24/7 news cycle that never dropped the topic—not even for one minute. But she has survived it, and she sits here on Shipwreck Key now, watching a sunrise as the street behind her comes to life in anticipation of Pirate Days.
Ruby stands and puts her purse over one shoulder as she walks back to the sidewalk, leaving the beach and the ocean behind.
“Morning, stranger,” Bev Byer calls out. He’s in front of The Frog’s Grog with a hose, cleaning off the sidewalk. “You ready for the pirate invasion?”
Ruby laughs and walks over to him. He stops spraying the sidewalk. “Is it really an invasion?”
Bev considers this. “Of sorts. You’ll see people dressed like runaway cast members fromPirates of the Caribbean, but most people will just buy a t-shirt and call it good. Every adult stops in for at least one grog.”
“That’s a lot of limes.”
“Indeed it is,” he says, nodding at the open door of his bar. Ruby can see straight through to the counter, where Tilly is stationed, squeezing limes with a sour look on her unmade-up face. She looks like a much younger girl without the red lips, dark eyebrows, and heavy foundation that she usually wears.
Ruby lifts a hand and waves at Tilly, who scowls back at her. “I see you’ve got my sunniest employee hard at work in there.”
