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Ruby stops cracking and looks at her mother. "You do?"
"I do." Patty drinks her coffee and then sets the mug back on the table. "I'm on a few dating apps, and I have a couple of regular gentlemen callers whom I can count on if I'm feeling...lonely."
"Mom!"
Patty laughs and it sounds like a cackle. "What, darling? What did you want me to say? That your old mom is feeble and alone and running through a jumbo pack of batteries every month?"
"Mom!" Ruby shouts again, this time sounding absolutely scandalized.
"Look, honey, at my age I have no compunction about getting what I want from a man--whatever that may be. I don't need to get married, thank the good lord, and I don't need to settle for anyone who isn't worthy of my time. I have the freedom to live on my own, pay my own bills, go where I want to go...and if I'm feeling lonely in any way, I can call up Henry or Yanni or Pedro and one of them is usually free."
"Oh my god," Ruby says. Her face blanches as white as the egg shells. "Yanni, Mom? Henry? Pedro? Who are these guys? Where did you meet them?"
"Strip club," Patty says dryly.
"Oh my god." Ruby is standing at the island, the omelettes forgotten. What the hell is going on out in California? Has she really dropped the ball this much with her aging mother that she's going to strip clubs with her septuagenarian friends? "Who took you there? It was Nancy, wasn't it?" Ruby picks up a whisk to whip the eggs in the bowl. "I bet it was Nancy," she says, conjuring an image of her mom's best friend, a woman who loves to offer to blow on men's dice when they go to the casino.
"Ruby, cool your jets." Patty waves a hand at her, frowning. "I was only kidding. I didn't go to a strip club with Nancy. She wanted to have her seventy-fifth birthday there, but I talked her into a weekend at the Bel-Air, and we paid the exotic dancers to come to us."
Ruby drops the whisk and puts both hands on the island, letting her head fall so that she's looking at the ground. She takes a few deep breaths. Finally, she giggles. Then it takes on a life of its own as her body is wracked with mirth. Her shoulders shake, and she lifts her head to look at her mom again, tears of laughter in her eyes.
"Mom," Ruby says, shaking her head and lifting a hand to wipe a stray tear. "I just realized that I was panicking for a minute as you said all this because I had to think of the fallout in the press.First Lady's Mother Pays for Lap Dance at Hotel Bel-Air," she says, making it sound like a headline. "But I'm not the First Lady, and none of it matters. We can all do whatever the hell we want now and just live our lives."
"Well," Patty says. "Make no mistake, honey, there are still plenty of eyes on you and there's still judgment in the air everywhere you go. I don't want to kill your fun, but that's just the reality of your position. However, you do not have to uphold the pristine behavior of a sitting First Lady, no. And I can be as incorrigible as I want, because I'm no longer the Queen Mum." Patty has long referred to herself as the "Queen Mum," insisting that being the mother of a First Lady is an actual job.
Ruby's laughter tapers off and she picks up a dishtowel and dabs at both eyes. "Were you evernotincorrigible?" she asks. "Running around with men like Yanni and Pedro?"
Patty sits up straighter, crossing her legs so that her satin robe falls away and reveals a tanned thigh, toned from years of tennis. It's covered in sunspots and lined with a few veins, but it's a strong leg, and Ruby admires her mother's enduring beauty for a moment. In her eyes, Patty is the world's most beautiful actress. A screen goddess from another time.
"Yanni is a perfectly lovely man. I'm sure you've heard his music."
"Mom." Ruby is stunned once again. Her mother never lets her down when it comes to doing things her way. "You're datingtheYanni? As in 80s keyboard god? The guy with the thick mustache who dated the woman fromDallas?"
"Dynasty," Patty corrects. "Linda Evans. And yes." She lifts her coffee mug again and looks out the window at the beach. "ThatYanni."
"And what about the other two?"
Patty blows out a long breath. "Henry used to run a modeling agency in Brazil before he sold it and retired, and Pedro moved here from Cuba with his family in the 70s. His wife died a few years ago."
"Ah," Ruby says, reaching for another egg. "A former model scout and a political refugee. And Yanni. I would expect nothing less."
Patty lifts an eyebrow at her daughter. "You should broaden your horizons, darling."
"Wait." Ruby holds up a hand. "Isn't Yanni only in his fifties?"
"I think you've lost track of time, Ruby. He's nearly seventy."
"So...younger than you?"
"That sounds like a tone of judgement from a woman who is also being courted by a younger man," Patty says.
"Touché," Ruby agrees. She picks up the dropped whisk from the countertop and starts to whip the eggs. Ruby slides a pat of butter into the pan on the stove and pours the eggs into it, letting it firm up as she tilts the pan slightly, moving the eggs around the hot skillet.
"So, I'm leaving three days." Patty stands and pads across the kitchen barefoot. Her robe floats around her as she does, and she pats the curlers on her head. "Will we have another chance before then to hear from Molly?"
Ruby laughs as she drops grated sharp Vermont cheddar and bits of spinach into the eggs, folding the mixture in half to make an omelette. "So you want to hear more, huh? Even though you think she's pulling your leg?"
"I didn't say that," Patty scoffs. "If I told half the stories from my own life no one would believe them." She sets her mug on the island and rests a hip against it as she watches Ruby cook. "When you get to a certain age, Ruby, people ignore what you have to say way too easily. I'm not discounting Molly's story, I'm just listening with an open mind and accepting that sometimes we embellish history--even if we do it unintentionally. But I sure as hell want to hear more."
