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"Hey, hey, hey." Tilly puts both hands in the air like stop signs. "Hold on just a minute. We never got to see your boyfriend while he was here." She turns to Ruby. "Is he gone already?"
"My boyfriend? You mean Dexter?" Ruby shakes her head. "He's definitely not my boyfriend." She laughs.
"He wants to be." Tilly is watching Ruby closely. "He's totally into you."
"Tilly!" Ruby waves a hand. "It's not like that. We're working together on a book."
"Uh huh."
"And we're collaborating closely, which mightlooklike something more than it is, but I can promise you--"
"You can promise me that you'll be dating him by the end of your birthday party on a boat. He is invited, right?"
"Well..." Ruby has imagined this, of course. She is a red-blooded woman, after all. She's envisioned herself in a backless dress, hair pulled up, legs bare, with Dexter at her side. Maybe he'll even toast her privately as they stand at the railing of the boat together, watching as the sun sinks into the water and leaves the sky streaked with pink and orange. Maybe he'll ask if he can be the first to kiss her as she enters her fifties. Perhaps he'll invite her to come back to Christmas Key with him after her party, and...
"I haven't even considered it," Ruby lies easily. "But I should probably invite him. Of course I'll invite him."
Tilly rolls her eyes, and Vanessa grins with satisfaction like she's watching the heroine get the guy in a movie.
"This is going to be the best party ever," Vanessa gushes, walking through the bookstore with her note pad in hand. "I can't wait. I'm going to post so many pictures on Instagram." Tilly rolls her eyes again as Vanessa's voice trails after her; she's in the back room of the shop now, still talking. "And maybe there'll even be some cute, single men at the party. Ruby," she calls out, "will there be any cute, single men?"
Ruby smiles to herself as she logs into the computer on the front counter. She's already planning to do her very best to make sure that there are some available and appropriate singles at the event.
"I'll do my best," she calls out to Vanessa. "I promise."
"And don't forget what you promised me," Tilly says, tapping the counter again with her short fingernails. "Dating Dexter. End of party. Make it happen."
Tilly walks away without another word, leaving Ruby watching her with amusement. Did she really promise to date Dexter? She doesn't think those words came out of her mouth, though she's entertained by Tilly's aplomb, as usual.
And frankly, she wouldn'tminda birthday kiss from Dexter. Or whatever. Something along those lines. Maybe. Who knows?
Laughing at herself, Ruby starts scrolling through the spreadsheets of inventory on her computer, but she can't stay focused because she's already got Dexter on her mind.
Chapter17
Banks
Banks walks and walks when he leaves the baby shower. He does not care where he's going, and he does not care that the sky is leaking on him. He walks past the Lincoln Memorial and along the banks of the Potomac, head bent against the spring rain and hands shoved into his pockets. He walks so far that his best choice is to cross the Inlet Bridge and wind around the Tidal Basin, passing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the Japanese cherry trees, and he ends up at the Washington Monument. At some point he turns off his phone and ignores the missed calls and messages from Sunday. He knows this is dumb and juvenile, but he also knows that he's in no state to talk to the woman he's falling in love with, and that his mind is too muddled with confusion to make any sense of his own feelings.
At the Washington Monument he takes cover under a tree, sitting at its base with just a cover of new spring leaves between himself and the misty rain, and it suits him just fine. Banks pulls a knee up and wraps an arm around it as he watches people under a rainbow of umbrellas, wandering, taking photos and videos, and sipping coffee from to-go cups. He feels at home in Washington, and somehow the fact that he knows its every nook and cranny is soothing and reassuring; no one and nothing can pop out of a corner that he's unfamiliar with, and nothing can catch him off guard here on what he considers his home turf.
The cloudy, cool spring afternoon reminds him of the last day he spent with his mother. A little girl in pink rain boots covered in Hello Kitty faces runs by in the grass, her father close on her heels, and this makes Banks smile.
His mother had been such a strong force in his life. She had been strength and truth and beauty for all of her days, and her mere existence had somehow tempered the cold, authoritarian form of love that Banks and his brother had gotten from their father. When his mother had gotten sick, Banks had felt as though the sun dipped behind a cloud, never to return again. Watching her suffer from an aggressive form of breast cancer had been cruel; if anyone on the planet deserved a soft and painless death, it was Elizabeth Banks.
"Mama," Banks had said, sitting near her bedside on her final day, though he had not known that would be the last sunrise and sunset of her life. "I'm here."
Neal, Banks's brother, was en route from California with his wife, having traveled back and forth during the course of their mother's illness to take care of his own life, family, and job. But Banks had been close enough--he'd traveled from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia in less than two hours by train--that he'd been there as often as possible to hold her hand, accompany her to her chemo appointments, and to look after her basic needs. But now those days were done and Banks was only needed at her side for comfort, to hold her hand when the pain got too intense, to bear witness as she cried out for her children, for her own mother, and (inexplicably, in Banks's mind), her late husband, the Sergeant Major.
"I'm here," Banks had whispered again, watching as the rain tick-tick-ticked against the windowpane and a gray cat curled up at his mother's feet, refusing to leave her side. She'd called the cat Puddle, as in "You're just a big puddle of fur," but Banks thought the name was undignified and refused to call him anything but Sir Puddington III, much to his mother's glee. She'd laughed at that until laughing hurt her bones too much, at which point Banks had relented and just called the damn cat Puddle.
"Henry," his mother had said, squeezing his hand so lightly that it felt like a wispy dandelion brushing across his knuckles. "Can you bring me a glass of wine?"
Henry nearly laughed out loud. "Wine? I'm not sure it mixes well with morphine, Mama." He'd frowned, not wanting to say no to any of her requests--not now, not ever.
Elizabeth laughed a little, her eyes half-open. "Does that really matter now? Maybe merlot and morphine are the greatest combination in the world, and I'm about to be the one to discover it." She giggled.
Banks thought about this, and he realized then that she was right: what did it matter at that point? He got up and went to the kitchen, scavenging in the cupboard for an open bottle of anything. Finally, he pulled a bottle of pinot noir from behind a collection of oils and vinegars, uncorked it, and poured two fingers into a glass. He took it to his mother only to find that Puddle had moved up to curl in next to her ribcage, where he was now purring contentedly.
