Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter 24

Part IV

The Standoff

I have noticed Ruby’s tears, but I was struggling to stick to my story, like a marathoner closing in on the finish line. When I return my focus to our little fireside, I find her holding a soggy wad of Kleenex and trailing streams of mascara. I feel like I’ve been a sadist, intentionally inflicting pain on her, and I kneel at the foot of her chair to beg forgiveness.

“I’m so sorry, Ruby.”

“You’re sorry,” she sniffles. “You’re sorry. Jesus. I knew it was coming all along, and yet… I’m destroyed. This image of you in the living room with that poor Army kid. Channy! How can you stand it?”

“But Ruby…”

“And me! Me with my petty bohemian dump stories. Boo-hoo for Ruby, she lost her boyfriend. I am such a dork!”

“It’s all the same… stuff, Ruby. It’s all grief and loss. It’s not a competition.”

She manages a laugh. “It was on Halloween.”

“That was different,” I say. “You were being a flaming bitch. Did I ever thank you for that?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Thank you, Ruby, for being a flaming bitch.”

She manages to laugh and cry at the same time. “My standard fee is forty percent.” She pulls out a fresh tissue and rubs it all over her face, like she’s erasing a chalkboard. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with her.

“Want a cookie?”

Ruby peers above her Kleenex with wide eyes. “Cheesecake?”

I stand up and muss her cutesy hair. “Cheesecake it is.”

I have officially proclaimed my widowhood, and I’m feeling like Ruby did about her euthanized career – relieved, liberated, and determined that my next dream had better behave itself. I nibble on a peanut butter cookie and feel the waves of heat from the fireplace as Ruby cleans up her plate. She wipes her mouth, touches up her lipstick, and gives me a grateful smile.

“Do we have time for dinner?” she asks. “Let me buy you dinner.”

“Sure. Mexican?”

I gather my jacket and purse, Ruby deposits her sob-wad in the trash, and we head outside, where it’s already dark.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she says, “but I invited David to karaoke.”

“Why would I mind?”

“Oh, there could be reasons,” she says, and flips her hair in the manner of a young Shirley MacLaine.


As a matter of fact, there is something awry about David. He isn’t smoking. At all. And then he turns in a song slip: “Unchain My Heart,” the Joe Cocker version. Fortunately, I’ve got some time to adjust to this new reality. All my regulars are here, as well as a few newcomers, and we have a rotation that is downright robust. It could be that everyone has finally recovered from the holidays, and decided it’s okay to get on with regular life.

I’m about to get things rolling when I’m approached by a tall, stout man with gentle silver trimmings. He bears the expression of a schoolboy about to request a hall pass.

“Hi. Our book only had one song slip. Do you have a stash up here?”

“Sure.” I pull a dozen from my shelf. “Here. What do you sing?”

He smiles, almost shyly. “Oh, I don’t. I mean, not here. I’m an opera coach. I’m here with my partner, Russ, who sings Elton John, Neil Diamond, those kind of things.”

“Does he sing opera?”

This brings another sort of smile, close-mouthed, sly. “Won’t even go to the opera.”

“A gay man who doesn’t like opera?”

“I know! Another perfectly good stereotype, shot to hell. My name’s Cordell, by the way.”

A few singers in, it’s readily apparent what Cordell sees in Russ. He is a quiet man, in every way – moves quietly, stands quietly – but once the lyric screen comes on he’s in his element, giving a thoughtful, polished reading of Neil Diamond’s “The Story of My Life.”

The boyfriend – my boyfriend – is sitting in the deep corner, next to the jukebox. I’ve been adding up the high school musicals, the way he dances, the lovely tenor resonance of his speaking voice, and hoping he might turn out to be a singer, but so far he’s given no indications. Tonight, he seems content to sit and admire, and to be prepared should I sneak his way for a kiss.

But it’s back to work for the heartstricken. After Ruby knocks us out with “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” up comes little brother, looking disheveled despite his neatly combed coif and brand-new ultrasuede shirt. When the piano breaks in, he reels out one arm and it begins to shake. Then he raises the other arm like a revival preacher, sings the first line in a throaty rasp, cranks his neck hard against one shoulder and rolls his eyes back in his head.

This is all making me nervous, but then I catch Ruby wearing a mischievous grin, and it comes to me. David is having no epileptic fit, he’s simply doing an excellent Joe Cocker impression. He also has a great voice – which, considering his gene pool, should be no surprise at all. After screaming the last note, he receives an uproarious applause and exits the stage, back to his shy, off-kilter self.

Still, something’s amiss. As Shari claws her way through “Piece of My Heart,” the ice cubes of déjà vu are tobogganing my spine. David’s playful freakout seems weirdly familiar. It only gets worse when Kai appears at my side, wearing a look of intense awareness that is wholly out of context.

“Keep an eye on that dude,” he says. “Something very unstable about him.”

I turn my face to sneak a kiss – which is all that I truly care about at this moment – and find myself watching Kai’s butt, traveling away from me. Not an unpleasant sight, but not what I had in mind. Wednesday Thursday Friday!

The snub continues when I sing “Not Too Much to Ask” by Mary-Chapin Carpenter – a wise, tender love song meant expressly for my boyfriend’s ears. When I turn to aim the crucial line at Kai’s table, Kai is staring at David, and wearing an expression like a guard dog on the point. What is this? Is this National Guard Sunday?

Fortunately, David heads outside for a smoke (finally!), which scatters the tension – although I’m likely the only person who knows the tension’s there. In any case, at least I’m able to finish my goddamn song, and get my goddamn applause (although I’m feeling pretty goddamn surly about it). When Russ sings “Your Song,” and Cordell gives him an adoring gaze, I’m feeling more than a little jealous.

Ruby gets me back on track when she does a Sinatra arrangement of “Let’s Fall in Love,” complete with the old-fashioned Broadway intro. Then the Coast Starlight (a tribute to Hamster’s previous career) rolls in with a snifter of brandy – an unusual choice, but heaven on the throat. It’s also got a note, which reads, simply, Everything OK? Which means that I’m not the only one picking up on the strange vibe.

With all this subterranean hullabaloo, I am savoring my secret knowledge of David’s next selection. I am forever astonished at the ability of certain rock guitarists to develop their own instantly recognizable sound, and this one is a prime example: “Whole Lotta Rosie” by AC/DC, featuring the thumbprint vinegar explosions of Angus Young. The buzz of my small arena is immediate. Fortunately for everyone, David opts for the better part of valor, staying on the low octave instead of attempting the savage upward leap of the heavily drugged Bon Scott.

Then comes the solo, and I’m beginning to catch on to David’s game. He prefers to mimic people who have a proclivity for spazzing out. All in a sweep, he grabs our toy guitar and hustles to the dance floor, striking each imaginary note as he matches Angus’s waggling, tremorous gait, lacking only a foot less height and the shorts-and-tie schoolboy uniform to complete the illusion. Karz is rustling with appreciation, and it escalates when David falls to his knees for a finishing back-bend. Then he has to get up and relocate the microphone so he can get on with the vocals. He ends the song by retrieving the guitar and delivering Angus’s final fussilade like he’s raking the crowd with gunfire.

Bedlam. Absolute bedlam. In what is supposed to be a non-competitive forum, there are times when a particular singer is master of the evening, and David has already won tonight’s crown. He exposes an actual symmetrical grin and departs the stage. Ruby greets him with a hug, and I sense that there’s something more in David’s performance than singing, antics and fake guitar. It’s a kind of coming-out party.

“Shari,” I say. “Get up here and calm these people down.”

“Oh thanks,” says Shari. “What’m I? Boring?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.” I punch the button on “You Can Sleep While I Drive” by Melissa Etheridge, and Shari responds with her predictable excellence. Alex hits the floor with his latest partner, an astonishing Latina with raven hair down to her waist, and they manage to turn an acoustic ballad into a tango. I always wonder if Alex is getting any sex out of these excursions. I hope so. But then, perhaps it’s the nature of those who are having sex to be generous in their carnal wishes for others. I look around for my partner, and can’t seem to find him. Then the Starlight pulls in again with a one-word note: Sidebar, which means I need to report to Hamster for a conference. I wait until I’ve got Harry going with “Devil Woman” by Marty Robbins, then head for a stool next to our mini-Rainier, where the boss is blending a strawberry margarita. He speaks in his inside voice.

“I’m a little worried about your boyfriend.”

“Kai? What for?”

Hamster tugs at his soul patch (a recent project). “During David’s little guitar-god act – very entertaining, by the way – Kai came over here like the watchman on the Titanic and insisted that I call the cops. I laughed, of course, and I said, ‘Come on, he’s not that bad.’ And Kai said, ‘But can’t you see? He’s about to blow a gasket – there’s no telling what he might do. No one ever catches this shit until it’s too late.’ And he was completely serious. I told him if he really wanted to report a crime that had not yet happened, he was free to go outside and make use of the pay phone. I don’t think he did, but now he’s out in the parking lot, pacing back and forth like he’s on fucking guard duty.”

For your average citizen, the use of the f-word is no big deal (especially in a bar), but for genteel Hamster, it’s a signifier of greater-than-usual anxiety. At the moment, however, I can do nothing, because Harry has reached his ending, and the applause is tugging at my leash. I catch the briefest glimpse of Kai, pacing the perimeter of his T-bird, huffing a loop of vapored breaths, then I get Caroleen started on her ever-apt standby, “Mama, He’s Crazy.”

At this point, I’m getting a little pissed off. It’s a busy night, dammit, and mama’s gotta pay the rent. Psycho boyfriend will just have to wait. So I take solace in the rising green tide of my tip jar, and try my damnedest not to look out the window. Meanwhile, David’s next turn is rapidly approaching.

On the other hand, I’m rather looking forward to David’s turn, because it’s “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. He delivers an impressive take on David Byrne’s radioactive vocal style, and then begins to incorporate the wacked-out choreography from the concert film: the repeated forehead-smack, the construction-site arm-crank, the long-armed snake-wave from right hand to left. He even evokes the Paul Bunyan-size suit by draping his corduroy sportcoat over his head. He’s winning ever more brownie points from the congregation, who begin to clap as he performs a Devo-style pogo across the dance floor. His journey comes to an abrupt halt, however, when he arrives at a strange obstacle.

It’s Kai. He’s standing utterly rigid, like a man trying to explode himself from the inside out. His arms are out and down in an inverted vee, his back bolt-stiff, and I can see the veins in his forehead. He is two feet from David, staring so intently you would think he was attempting telekinesis. David is frozen, afraid to look away. The song fades out, and silence seeps into the room like a cold tide. Kai raises one arm in a threatening manner, but then he seems to snap out of it. He looks around the room, all of us plastered in our places like a snapshot, then discovers his own right hand held in a fist over his head, and suddenly he’s off for the door in a quick-march. I rush to the window to see him jump into his T-bird and squeal from the lot.

It’s a hard sell, but I decide to pretend that nothing has happened, and I line up “Black Horse and a Cherry Tree” for Shari. The rest of the night is a long, musical blur.


Ruby does me the great favor of seeing her brother off (apparently, he also drives!) and waiting till I’ve loaded up my CDs before coming to my truck for the post-op.

“What the hell was that?”

“Wish I had the least idea,” I say. “You got a smoke?”

“You smoke?”

“I do now.”

She pulls out a couple of her “recreational” cigarettes and lights us up. I try my best to look like a veteran.

“I realize that David makes people nervous,” she says. “But I’ve never seen him turn someone into a statue. Any luck with the cell phone?”

I take a deep, poisonous drag and let it out with my words. “Nothing but voicemail. He’s not answering, Ruby. What the fuck?”

“Don’t get upset now. I’m sure there’s a…”

“I’m not upset. I’m pissed off!”

I am a one-woman meteorology course, smoldering like a volcano even as I watch the plains of water beneath our vantage point and feel like I’m under the surface, dying of hypothermia. But reason arrives like the good cop and talks me back down. There are no answers here, no legitimate evidence. So perhaps it’s time to change the starting point.

“Roo-bee?”

“Yes’m?”

“Do I know your brother from somewhere?”

She leans against the seawall and sends out a stream of smoke. “The boy does cause a ruckus everywhere he goes. The night they finally arrested him, in fact, was right here in Gig Harbor.”

“Really?”

“And, let’s see… what else? Oh yeah, in his homeless days, he had a friend who worked in the merchandising department of the Seattle Supersonics. Whenever they traded a player, he’d give some of the replica jerseys to David.”

I toss my cigarette and take Ruby by the shoulders. “Super!”

Ruby looks at me with great puzzlement. “Yes, it was… very nice of him.”


Next: The Black Horse and the Cherry Tree


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Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty-Four, Part 3

Channy

The Visitor

Harvey began sending emails as soon as he arrived – which surprised me. I thought he’d be too busy, but it turned out that a lot of his duty was spent waiting around. And writing, in stripped-down language, of the casual terrors of Iraq.


First day on patrol, spotted a couple Iraquis approaching the checkpoint. We have orders to shoot anyone who passes the periphery without properly identifying themselves. Everybody’s pretty jumpy from all the IEDs (that’s Improvised Explosive Devices). I had this one tall guy in my sights – to be specific, I had the red laser dot on his heart. He looked down and saw the dot, and was smart enough, and calm enough, to turn so I could see his contractor’s badge. I have no idea what he was doing out there, but I’m sure glad I didn’t have to shoot him.


“Whatcha readin’ there, Channy?”

Debbie snuck up behind me at the pool table, holding a huge glass of Coke.

“Oh, hi. Letters from the front. Wow, listen to that: ‘Letters from the front.’”

“Is he doing all right?”

“Harvey’s hard to figure out. He’s either terribly excited or terribly afraid. Me, I’m just terribly terrified, and I have way too much time to imagine all the grotesque possibilities. And being alone has never felt so lonely.”

Debbie rested a hand on my shoulder and studied me through her thick glasses. “You know, that brings me to an interesting subject. J.B. and I have been asked to do a couple nights a week at this Mexican restaurant in Lakewood, and frankly neither one of us has the energy for it. However, now that we’ve made the transition to a fully computerized system, we’ve got enough old-fashioned CDs and surplus equipment to send someone else to Lakewood. Namely, you.”

The idea was pure gold, and I knew it. “Really? You’re sure?”

“Sure. We would ask, like, thirty percent for using the equipment.”

“God, Debbie. That is so perfect. You don’t know how perfect that is. When do I start?”

“Next Thursday, if you like.”

I hugged her so tightly I thought I might hurt her. “Oh, Debbie! I like I like I like. Save me from myself.”

“You got it, kiddo.”


Had to clean up after a car bombing in a village square. Pretty horrible stuff. A Humvee unit was out on “hearts and minds” duty – go out and wave to the natives while you’re wondering which one of them is going to kill you. Found a Lt. Cooper who bled to death, both arms blown off at the elbow. Ten feet away, I found a bottle of bubble-blowing liquid. They were blowing bubbles out the window, something for the kids. The bomb also took out his three comrades, and 14 villagers.


La Palma restaurant had a decidedly funky location, tucked into the corner of a ginormous shopping center parking lot, next to a transit center with a dozen bus stops. The lounge was funky, too: Aztec legends depicted in black velvet paintings, and a great old bar with ceramic tile arches. The room was long and narrow, and I was exiled to the far end, a stage divided from the main area by a low wall with a tile counter. I was afraid that my customers would feel like they were singing from a cage.

That is, if I had any customers. My major concern was that no one would show up at all, that I would have to fill four hours all by myself. I waited half an hour just to make sure I wasn’t pushing things, then I sang a sound check: “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. When I returned to the soundboard, I found an actual song slip. The singer was Shane, a big guy with an Irish complexion and dyed blond hair. I’d seen him earlier, working on a book of drawings in the corner, and frankly hadn’t expected much. As it turned out, he was quite the Dean Martin buff, and he worked through half the list – “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” “Everybody Loves Somebody,” “An Evening in Roma” – as I tried to keep up with him with the songs I’d sung at Kerby’s. A couple of the barflies finally got soused enough to give it a shot, and we forced the bartender, Paul, to try “La Bamba” despite the small impediment of zero singing talent. By the end of the night, I had five new friends and some assurance that I did not entirely suck at this job.

The next night, I had a rotation of ten. The manager of the restaurant seemed happy.


You might think from all these exciting tales that life here is constantly involving, but believe me, it ain’t. We spend most of our days in excruciating boredom, and we are definitely not free to just go for a walk in the countryside. Killing off time has become an art form unto itself. Thank God for video games. No Zero Squadron, but I’m beginning to realize what a big fat lie that game is, anyway.

However. Be careful what you wish for. The insurgents like to keep us on our toes by lobbing random mortars at our compound. Captain Lukafour was at the mess last week, looking in the fridge for a soda, and the next second he’s a pile of charred meat.

Sorry. I don’t mean to be crude. But it’s hard. My commander, Bucksy (have I told you about him? He is absolutely the best), he told me after the attack, “You wait, Harv. Tomorrow morning, there’ll be two dead Iraquis outside the fence. I don’t know how it happens, but it does.”

Sure enough, I’m on guard duty the next morning, and there’s a couple extra body bags ready for transport. Couple of guys walk up, give the bags a kick and say, “Wake up, motherfucker!” Pretty cold, but I gotta admit, it made me laugh.


I began to develop a group of regulars, and the manager, Cesar, asked me if I wanted to make it three nights instead of two. With Harvey’s combat pay coming in, I decided to use my karaoke money to buy the CDs and equipment from Debbie and J.B. It felt good, finding a job I enjoyed so much, and a way to hedge our bets.

It was morning, early September. The valley was groggy with overcast. I had just rolled out and put on some coffee when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to a young man in full Army dress. He was tall, with a chin so sharp and closely shaven that it seemed more like a weapon. I was just fuzzy enough that I had no idea what he was doing there.

“Hello?”

“Morning, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Chanson Lebeque?”

I was struck by the way he pronounced my first name in the correct French fashion. “I… well, yes.”

“Ma’am? Could I come in for a moment?”

“Um, yes, okay. Would you like some coffee?”

He stood in the living room, almost at attention, as I went to the kitchen and filled a mug. A shaft of frosty light cut through from the kitchen window, settling on one half of the soldier’s face. In that one blue eye, behind all the military polish, I could see just a hint of fear.

My legs gave way, and I clung to the edge of the counter. My soldier was there in a flash, propping me up, helping me to the couch. A minute later, as the clarity began to return, I looked into his young, young face and offered a one-word question: “How?”

“Sergeant Lebeque died of an apparent suicide. They discovered his body next to a river behind the base, in a grove of eucalyptus trees. He was killed by one of his own bullets, discharged by his own rifle.”

Later that morning, I wandered over to the Kerby’s parking lot, gathered two fistfuls of grass and stood at the fence for an hour, pleading with Ben and Bessie to come to me. When I felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned and buried my face into someone’s chest. I remember the smell of his leather jacket. When I finally looked up, it was Rob, the owner of Kerby’s, who had come to open the bar.

Harvey’s bullets were designed to pierce tank armor. I was strongly advised not to view the body. I signed a release for his cremation, and attended a burial at the cemetery at Ft. Lewis. That afternoon, I gave notice on the house, and placed Harvey’s belongings in a storage unit. Debbie and J.B. wrote off the last few payments on the karaoke equipment. Two days later, I was loaded up, headed for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The transition was so seamless, it made me question my pronouns. Had I been hedging our bets? Or hedging my bets?

Next: Oddball Brother

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty-Four, Part II

Ruby

I marked my time with Scootie by that maple tree, the one I could see from his elevator. At this time, it was just beginning to bud, which probably meant early March. Which meant we’d been together a year and a half. Everything else was unchanged. We had fabulous, messy sex. We did artsy, creative things together. And I still had no clue as to the true nature of our relationship. We still saw each other only once or twice a week. But I had managed to grow comfortable with this. I began to think of it as the best kind of relationship; the infrequency made our time together that much more valuable. Say this for the female mind: it possesses a virtuosic ability to rationalize.

I was also afraid to mess with the one thing that was going well for me. Same deadend receptionist job. Same invisible turndowns at the auditions. And deep at the core, the same dark dread: that I would pass from the Earth without leaving a single mark on the history of the American musical – that throwing away my roles at the Greenstreet Theater had been a reckless, childish act. And the worst thought of all, that I was just as talented as I thought myself to be – and that the only thing keeping me from success was the failure to find someone who had the eyes and ears to recognize this.

That night, however, Scootie had lined up some excellent consolations. He had arranged for the Italian restaurant across the street to deliver an entire meal to his loft – place settings, silverware, butter dish and all. The fare was Caesar salad followed by seafood fettucine (mussels, clams, crabmeat) in a white cream sauce. Dessert was a canoli on a bed of whipped cream in the shape of a cross. We were sipping ten-year-old tawny port when Scootie’s expression took a sudden change.

“I have to stop seeing you.”

I laughed, and stopped, and laughed again, but Scootie’s expression stayed the same.

“Scootie? Come on, finish the joke. You’re making me nervous. I didn’t know you could do such a vicious deadpan. You really ought to be a straight-man.”

He got up and walked away, holding his port like a worry-stone.

“No joke. No deadpan.”

He turned back around, and looked at me intently.

“Ten years ago, I was working at a theater center in California, and I fell in love with one of the trustees, a married woman. After a lot of backs and forths, she divorced, but she found that she didn’t want to get married again. She had things that she wanted to do with her life, and she wanted to pursue them freely. She eventually founded a non-profit network for international performing arts groups. I loved her, but I realized that I also had things to pursue, visions bouncing around in my head. I was able to establish my career in New York thanks largely to her generosity.

“Despite our claims to freedom, we are inextricably linked. And when our paths cross, we are automatically a couple. Juliana just wrote to say that her network is transferring its headquarters to New York. So she and I will be back together, and I… will have to stop seeing you.”

When I was a kid in Florida, I used to go boogie-boarding with my brother. I caught this one wave just as it was breaking, and it took hold of me, slamming me into the wash. There was no me left, just a bunch of limbs flailing one way and the next with no say-so from Central Command. This was how I felt, sitting before a whipped-cream cross at Scootie’s table. But it changed quickly. It became a fever, creeping over my body, hissing out in words that refused to become sentences.

“How… You can… I… Don’t…”

I stood from the table. The room shook at me.

“You… mother… fucker!”

I had to destroy something. It didn’t take long to find a target. Scootie had been working for a month on a mural with three figures: an evil robot clown in magenta, a shy junior executive in green, and an Easter Island god in gold. I located a dozen jars of paint on a nearby table, opened them up and hurled them at the mural, obliterating the figures in a storm of scarlet, ochre, mars black and cerulean blue. Then I turned to find Scootie calmly watching, arms folded, like a mother waiting out a toddler’s tantrum. This pissed me off even more, so I took a jar of lime green and poured it over his head. I’ll give him this much: he took it without flinching.

I slapped the paint into his jacket and said, “Fuck you, you fucking pig.” Then I grabbed my purse and left. I marched eight blocks in a righteous fury, and didn’t start crying until I arrived at my apartment door.

A year later, I received a check for $2,300. It was forty percent of two works: the canvas of our lovemaking, and the three slaughtered figures of our breakup. In the exhibit, the latter was accompanied by a coat rack holding the lime green jacket. If I had any pride, I would have torn that check into a thousand pieces. But I was a brutalized actor in a brutal city, and I was behind on my rent.


“Ruby! That is so harsh.”

“Hey! That’s my word.”

“Pssh, yeah. And now I know why.”

Ruby looks away nervously, then spoons the last dollop of foam from her cappuccino.

“That’s pretty much the end of my story. Don’t know what we’ll talk about now – except perhaps my Mexican cruise.”

She’s got me laughing again. “You are gonna milk that thing for all it’s worth.”

“I’m gonna leche that thing,” she says, then performs an uncanny cow impression – less “moo,” more “mrrr.”

“But I don’t get it,” I say. “Didn’t you spend about five more years in New York?”

“Five times nothing equals nothing. I kept auditioning. I kept demonstrating my uncanny ability to not get parts. I kept doing the day job. I’m an actress, honey – give me credit for not wanting to beat a dead story. In a way, though, those nothing years were the saddest of all. Here I set out to have a scintillating life on Broadway, and I end up with a black hole five years long. It was good to tell you about the other stuff, Channy – and I thank you for listening – but fuck New York. I’m in Tacoma now. And I’m going to…”

“Mexico, right. But… So you came out here to take care of your brother?”

“Yes. And I’m oddly grateful about that. The noble mission of saving David – fully funded by my relatives, I might add – gave me a way out of town without having to admit to abject failure. And it’s such a relief! From now on, I do not chase the dreams that don’t chase me. Give me the real stuff.”

I can’t help myself. I stand up and give Ruby a kiss on the cheek. “Congrats, sistah. You just graduated.”

“No more school? Righteous!”

“I’m gettin’ a cookie. You want one?”

“Yeah,” she says. “One of those pink sugar cookies. I’m feeling juvenile.”

We sit for a few minutes in silence, grinding our Valentine’s hearts into sweet sugar smoke. And I know that it’s time to get to the bad stuff.


Next: Mail from the Front

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