County Line (16 page)

Downstairs, the music stopped. A moment later, Bella stumbled against the telephone stand in the front hall, then climbed the stairs and continued down the hall. The Studio door clicked shut. Probably done for the night. At least she hadn’t peered through Ruby Jane’s door pretending to be someone’s mother.
Sleep tight, baby girl. Don’t let the bedbugs bite
. Ruby Jane went to her doorway and listened. From behind her mother’s closed door, she heard a strange, foreign sound.

Crying.

Bella had never been one to waste tears on an empty room. Hers was a life lived on an imagined stage, Blanche Dubois yanked from a New Orleans terrace, Scarlett O’Hara airlifted against a matte-painted plantation backdrop and dropped in all her dramatic glory onto the streets of Farmersville. Bella Denlinger didn’t cry behind closed doors.

Ruby Jane changed from shorts to jeans and pulled a hooded sweatshirt over her singlet. Erratic thoughts churned through her like muddy water down a sink hole. She ran down the stairs and out the front door, didn’t pause for a jacket.

A dark shape hunched behind the Vega’s wheel. “Jimmie!” He turned, his face a pale oval among shadows. She felt a flash of relief, but at the sight of her he scrabbled at the steering column. The starter clicked and screamed. She called his name again. The Vega’s capricious engine roared to life. She was already turning back as he pulled away. Into the house, down the hallway. Fear hammered in her chest. She spilled the contents of her mother’s purse across the kitchen counter and grabbed the car keys. Ruby Jane didn’t have her license; she didn’t care. She banged through the back door. From the house, her mother shouted. Ruby Jane lunged to the Caprice, cracked her forehead on the doorframe. Blinded by shattering light, she fell into the seat and found the ignition with her hands.

“Ruby! Don’t you
dare
—!”

The rain began as she turned the key. She blinked tears from her eyes and dropped the shifter into reverse. The rear wheels threw gravel and the muffler shrieked across the curb. She threw the car into gear and stomped on the gas. Bella appeared in the street behind her, arms flailing. She stumbled and fell—Wyeth’s Christina in the field. Moments later, Ruby Jane had looped through town and headed west on Gratis Road, following the bouncing red will-o’-the-wisp of Jimmie’s taillights.

- 15 -

First Day of School, September 1988

“You’d think your brother could stop by on his way back.”

It was six-thirty, a grey morning—the first day of school. Ten days after she chased Jimmie into a stormy night.

“He’s got a lot to do. His classes start on Monday.”

“He found time to drive to the Jersey shore with his no account friends.”

Jimmie hadn’t gone to New Jersey. That had been his excuse for leaving home early.

“I would have done his laundry. He must have brought lots of laundry back from the beach.” Bella hadn’t done laundry since Ruby Jane grew tall enough to reach the dials on the washing machine. “He stopped at your grandparents’ house, but he couldn’t be bothered with saying goodbye to me.”

“Why did he do that?”

“How should I know? They were in London. Dorothy fixed him breakfast, and then he left.”

Dorothy was the live-in cook. Ruby Jane didn’t want to know why Jimmie visited their grandparents’ house during his pretend trip to New Jersey, but if all he got was breakfast, maybe it didn’t matter. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. Why should you say anything? You always defend him. What chance do I stand against that?”

Ruby Jane took a bowl from the dish rack. Bella draped herself across the opposite counter, temple to Formica, arms stretched over her head. Her grey roots showed through the henna.

“I’m going back to my maiden name. Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Isabella Bidwell Denlinger, like the day I was born.”

The sound of her mother’s voice drew a tight line of tension across Ruby Jane’s shoulder blades.

“You don’t have an opinion? If anyone, I’d think you would have an opinion.”

The sugar canister was empty. Only a crystalline crust coated the bottom of the sugar bowl. Ruby Jane rooted through the cupboards. Powdered sugar, brown sugar. No plain old white sugar. It was like living in the third world.

“I’m talking to you.”

“I heard you.”

“Nothing to say about my plan?”

“Whatever.”

“Denlinger is a more refined name, don’t you think? Perhaps you could be a Denlinger too. It would please your grandfather. Ruby Jane Denlinger.”

“Nothing pleases Grandfather.” Though that might change with Dale gone.

“You could change your first name too. Pick something more sophisticated than that white trash nonsense your father insisted on.”

“I like my name.”

“You might need another one. You never know who’s going to come looking for you, baby girl.” Bella laughed, a tittering falsetto, a little bit hysterical. “What say you to
that
?”

“I say it would be nice if we had some goddamn sugar.”

“Language, young woman! Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

She took a bite of sugarless Cheerios. The milk was right on the edge. “As if I could forget.”

“What was that? You mustn’t speak with your mouth full.”

“What kind of a person says ‘mustn’t’?”

Bella pulled herself off the counter and crossed the kitchen, opened the cupboard above the fridge. Ruby Jane had dumped all but a splash out of the Jim Beam bottle the night before. Bella swirled the thin line of liquor, puzzled. “I have no idea why you’re like this. Where are you going with that cereal?”

“I have to get ready for school. The bus will be here in twenty minutes.”

“There’s no rush. That nice girl from your team called. Clarice? She said she would pick you up this morning.”

Clarice Moody was nice the way a raccoon on a chicken bone is nice.

“Then I must hurry if I’m going to miss her, mustn’t I?”

— + —

Clarice found her anyway. Off the bus thirty seconds and Clarice fronted her in the main entrance of Valley View High School. Home of the Spartans. Moira Mackenzie and Ashley Wourms attended her to either side. “Why weren’t you home this morning?”

Ruby Jane adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Your mother said she told you.”

She mimed tipping a glass to her lips. “My mother says a lot of things.”

Clarice pinched her lips in a sharp little rose. Everything about her had an edge, from her chin to the straight cut of her black bangs. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow then. Starters need to ride together. It’s team building.”

Ruby Jane didn’t know if Clarice was offering her a compliment or bowing to the inevitable. Moira, nearly as tall but bulkier—Mothra to Clarice’s Femzilla—was a natural forward, but her lack of a shot allowed opposing teams to ignore her when she had the ball. Her strength was defense, crashing the boards and intimidating shooters with her frightful eyebrows, perfect as a tattoo, and a joyless grin so taut her skin seemed on the verge of tearing. Ashley was more airy, a solid point guard with perpetually hurt feelings whose vanilla hair scattered individual photons. At the post, Clarice could count on Ashley for the pass, no matter how ill-considered; she led the team in both assists and turnovers the previous season. Together the two epitomized Clarice’s concept of teammate: supporting cast to the one and only star.

“The bus is when I do my homework.”

“We won’t have homework for at least a week.” Clarice and her minions turned in formation and weaved through the chattering throng. Ruby Jane dropped her pack on the floor and leaned against the cool cinder block wall across from the main entrance—office to her right, stairway and the door to Mrs. Arnold’s math dungeon to her left. Last year her JV teammates would have joined her. As juniors they’d now gather in the upper class corridor between the cafeteria and the gym. Ruby Jane felt safer with the D&D boys who loitered near the trophy case and chattered about hit points and quantum mechanics. She ignored their furtive stares. She wasn’t first tier in the social hierarchy—no Clarice Moody or Ashley Wourms—yet still something of a pretty girl, the girl who jumped from JV to varsity midway through her sophomore year because of her ability to sink the outside shot. Fifty-five percent from the field, forty-two from three point range. A lot of people said she’d start this year. But this year was separated from last by more than summer break.

Though the first team meeting was Thursday, formal practice wouldn’t start for a few weeks. Coach liked to get the girls together right away. Gave him a chance to make his speech, the one about how everyone starts at zero, anyone can make the team. Frosh or senior, didn’t matter—performance and teamwork win a place on the team. Nonsense, of course. Three or four girls were on the bubble, but the varsity core was set—a young team, with Moira the only senior likely to start. Ruby Jane figured she’d rotate in off the bench at first, get good minutes and score some points. But she’d start as soon as she demonstrated last year wasn’t a fluke. The morning Jimmie fled, she’d gone to the court at Farmersville Elementary and shot for hours, counted her misses in single digits.

“Whittaker.”

Sure enough. “Hi, Coach.” She’d had him for health her freshman year. Tall and thin like his favorite players, he was a better coach than teacher. Ruby Jane was grateful she’d never have to face another term of
that
fourth period. “Take out your notes and copy this down.” Every day, all semester long, the monotony interrupted by the weekly tests—open note. The only way to flunk his class was to have lousy handwriting.

“You know about the shoot-around during lunch period, right?”

“Sure.”

Coach had brought an athletic renaissance to Valley View Girls Basketball, district runner-up three years earlier, in the regionals the next two years. Last season, Clarice had sprung up to six-one and gained the inside presence to control the key. Ruby Jane showed she could score from the perimeter. Shut down one, get eaten alive by the other.

But Ruby Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to play anymore.

“You’ve missed work-outs the last week or so.”

“Sorry, Coach. Things came up.”

“I understand you’ve been shooting up at the school in Farmersville.”

“Yeah.”

“You found time for that.” His tone was less accusatory than disappointed.

“I needed to stay near the house. In case …” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have anything to add.

“Of course.” Coach’s voice softened a bit. “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”

“Yeah.”

Coach was silent for a moment. People were squealing and laughing in the hall. First day of school, welcome back. “I haven’t seen you in
forever
.” Forever defined as
since last weekend at Pizza Palace
.

“You haven’t heard from him?”

The front doors opened and another pack of students came in, buses still arriving.

“I’m sure it’s not easy, but people have been surviving broken homes for ages.”

In other words,
buck up, trooper!

“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m available.”

“Thanks, Coach.” Ruby Jane almost laughed to imagine that conversation.
My father knelt in the mud and begged for his life
. Should she find the nerve to make such a confession, Coach would only worry about how the experience affected her shot.

He headed off to find more team members to motivate. But Ruby Jane could see him look back over his shoulder, concerned. “Without my outside threat,” he was probably thinking, “Clarice will have to carry the offense.” Ruby Jane knew what Coach knew, what Clarice Moody would never admit—she let the double team fluster her. Ruby Jane smiled as she remembered the story of Clarice falling apart in the regional semi last year. Two Femzillas from Piqua ate her alive. Ruby Jane hadn’t been able to play: she’d had to drive a bleeding Jimmie to the emergency room—despite not having her license—after another fight with Dale.