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“No, no,” Ruby says, shaking her head and brushing the call off. “I’ll deal with everything else later. What the hell happened in there? Did she freak you out? Tell you something bad? I wasn’t sure how I felt about this whole fortune telling business in the first place, but now I’m sure it’s bad news. Look at you, Sun!”
“I’m okay—I promise. It was actually really good. Ignore the tears, because they’re cathartic.”
Ruby looks unconvinced, but steers Sunday to a little wrought iron bistro table outside of The Scuttlebutt and forces her to sit. “Tell me what happened.”
Sunday reaches for Ruby’s iced coffee and takes a long pull from the straw before settling in. “Okay, so she knew right away that I have two kids—“
“Everyone knows that,” Ruby counters, looking dubious. “You’re an extremely public figure.”
“Wait, there’s more. She knew that I’m not on speaking terms with one of my kids, and she knew that I came from somewhere that relies entirely on water.”
“Tangier Island,” Ruby says softly, nodding.
“Exactly. And she said she knew that someone was going to use my past against me, or tell my tale…or something. And that basically I need to go back there with my girls and let them know who Itrulyam. Because I’ve never done that. They don’t really know anything about my past.”
Ruby is watching her face and listening intently. “So you’re going to take Olive and Cam back to Tangier with you?”
Sunday blows out a long breath through pursed lips, making her cheeks look like a puffer fish. “Well, I’m going to ask them to come. I can’t make them do anything—they’re grown women. But I hope they’ll want to.” She turns her head so that she’s looking out at the water, which is glittering in the midday sun. “I guess if I had the chance to go back to where my mom was from and to learn what had made her the way she was, I’d want to take it.”
“But that’s from the perspective of a woman in her mid-fifties who knows the value of that opportunity. Olive and Cam might not be able to see yet how important this is—for youorfor them.”
“That’s true,” Sunday says, looking forlorn. “But all I can do is ask. I can make all the travel plans, pay for the trip, and keep my fingers crossed that they’ll come.”
Ruby intertwines her right hand with Sunday’s left one from across the little table and looks her in the eyes. “Well, all I can say is that I think it’s incredibly brave, Sun. Peter hasn’t left you with much of a choice in the matter, but even without him being a pain in the ass, it takes courage to unpack things that haven’t seen the light of day in a while. I’m behind you all the way.”
Sunday picks up the iced coffee from the table, wrapping her hand around the cold condensation that’s dripping down the outside of the cup. “Some of these things haven’t seen the light of dayever,” she says, sipping Ruby’s cold coffee again. “But Ella told me not to let anyone else bury me under the weight of my own past, and come hell or high water, I’m gonna make sure no one does.”
Ruby
Ruby has checked into the Conrad Downtown in Manhattan with Banks in tow, and is unpacking her toiletries and filling the drawers of the dresser with her satin underthings and all of her foldable clothes as she thinks about Sunday. Ruby had left for New York City and her meeting with Dexter North on a Tuesday morning, but had made Sunday promise to tell her everything about her upcoming trip to Tangier Island. So far Sunday has only been able to get Olive to agree to the trip, but she and Olive are both working on Cameron, and with any luck at all, they’ll fly to Virginia and take the ferry to the island together before the end of the week. Ruby has her fingers crossed that it works out, as she knows how much it means to Sunday to confront the things that haunt her from her past, and to do it all with her girls at her side so that she can hopefully heal the rift that’s grown between her and Cameron.
Her cell phone dings on the bed as she walks across her hotel room in the white slippers that were sitting beneath a fluffy white robe that’s hanging from a hook next to the glass-enclosed rain shower.
The message is from Dexter:You made it! I’m finishing a meeting here. What time should we plan to see one another?
She stares at the screen, reading and re-reading his message as she tries to decipher his meaning. He said “plan to see one another” when he could have just as easily said “meet up” or “get together and start talking.” But maybe she's splitting hairs when she doesn't need to be. It’s entirely possible that Dexter simply typed whatever came to mind first, and that he had no intention of stressing the fact that they’re about to see one another again in person.
Any time is good for me--I have no other plans for this trip but to see you. She hits send before overthinking how much this sounds like she's flown up to New York to go on a date with Dexter North. And in truth sheshouldask to meet Ursula, her Manhattan-based virtual assistant, for a cup of coffee or to take her to lunch, but she thinks it's also fine not to. She and Ursula have a warm working relationship, but she knows that them meeting face-to-face isn't an imperative, nor is it expected.
Therefore this tripisabout seeing Dexter and working on their book together.His book, Ruby reminds herself,not "our" book.
She's about to drop her phone on the bed and go back to unpacking her belongings for her four-day stay when it dings again.
How about if I message you when I'm in a cab coming your direction. I'll meet you in the lobby and we can do a late lunch at a place I know.
I'll be here, Ruby types, then sets her phone down again.
She walks to the window of the hotel and looks at the street below, watching as people travel to and from work, into and out of stores and cafes, living their lives and doing the things that people do. Ruby loves New York--the energy, the nightlife, the culture of a city where people come to get things done. New York is not a city built for mere survival, and the thing she loves most about being there is the current of electricity that runs through everything: the traffic, the subway screaming in and out of the stations, the people crossing the streets between honks and shouts from cab drivers, the theaters, concerts, and art galleries--all of it thrums with life.
Ruby pulls a chair and a table over to the window and for the next two hours, she sits with a cup of coffee that she brews in the little Keurig on the dresser. Between chapters of the book that she's reading for book club, she watches the slice of sky between the buildings across the street and casts glances at the humanity teeming below on the ground.
She's lost in thought when her phone pings again:Be there in ten minutes. Meet in the lobby?
Ruby stands and slips her feet into the ankle boots she's brought with her. She feels a thrill at the prospect of a bright blue fall afternoon spent outside on the streets of the city, and all of a sudden, she's hungry, too.
On my way down,she writes.See you soon!
* * *
