Before You Knew My Name (47)

‘Divorced,’ Sue answered when current relationship status came up.

‘Divorced,’ Josh nodded when Ruby turned to him (noticing, for the first time, the slate grey of his eyes, the glassy ocean of his stare).

‘Anxious-Avoidant,’ Lennie added, making them all laugh, so that Ruby’s pause went unnoticed before she answered ‘Terminally single’, her hand reaching for her phone, which hadn’t buzzed in twenty-four hours.

I’ll get to know them all, Ruby thinks from her bed tonight, plucking at the strings of her strange afternoon, allowing herself to feel excited at the prospect of the next Death Club meeting. Her first official one, as Lennie pointed out over brunch, before rattling off a list of fancy places they might choose to meet at. Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle, Oyster Bar at Grand Central. The recently reopened Tavern on the Green, or that hidden prohibition bar with the bathtub, which no one could remember the name of. Restaurants and bars Ruby had read about in top ten guides, and seen little point in visiting on her own.

‘Pass,’ Josh had said to most of the suggestions, rolling his eyes. ‘Will you ever stop thinking your life is an episode of Sex and the City, Lennie?’

‘No,’ she’d answered with a grin. ‘Besides, it’s better than thinking it’s an episode of Law and Order—which used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid, by the way. Ruby just found a dead body, people. We need to lighten things up a little here.’

‘Says the woman who started a Death Club,’ Josh had snorted, and I thought, in that moment, that I might be a little bit in love with all of them. The way the Death Club members teased each other, the way they all listened intently as Ruby told them about finding my body, even Lennie, who had heard the story just days before. They never once looked away from Ruby’s earnestness, never dismissed her feelings when she admitted she would give anything to know more about me, and I liked that so much. I liked the way they didn’t judge her or tell her to get over it, not even Sue, who seemed more serious than the other two. It made me think of those friends I’d imagined for myself, the people I was supposed to meet, and I was glad for Ruby, at least. To get to tell her stories, make her plans.

Something else, too. They know things, Ruby’s new friends. Maybe not as much as Noah does, but a lot—about New York, and death, and dead girls. Josh, especially. When Ruby said she struggled to understand how no one had come forward to identify me—‘Surely somebody misses her?’—and Lennie wondered about how anyone could remain anonymous in this age of social media, Josh informed them that more than half a million people go missing across the country every year, with many disappearances initially unreported.

‘If someone is estranged from their family,’ Josh continued, ‘if they don’t have many close ties, or it’s simply assumed they’re off somewhere doing their thing, it might take a while for someone to raise the alarm. It’s unusual to have a contemporary Jane Doe case, for sure. But not impossible.

‘You’re just lucky she’s white,’ he added, as they were packing up to leave the restaurant. ‘With that whole “Missing White Woman” thing, your Jane is getting a lot more media attention than most, Ruby. Someone is bound to make the connection soon enough.’

Given the look on his face, Ruby wasn’t sure if Josh meant this to be of comfort to her; she is reminded of his words now (perhaps I gave her a nudge), and she opens her laptop, types in the phrase he’d put air quotes around. The first search result is for something called ‘Missing White Woman Syndrome’, followed by dozens of links referencing variations of this term. Ruby takes a deep breath and dives in.

Here’s what we learn: A disproportionate amount of media attention is given to incidents of violent crime involving middle to upper class white girls. Turns out, when something bad happens to young women, race and so-called class play a part in how, or even if, our stories get told. As she trawls through research papers and political blogs and protest pieces, a bleak reality is laid out for Ruby; it’s likely this Jane is receiving media attention, including the growing interest of national news outlets, because she is young, pretty—and white. As if that combination is the best proxy for vulnerability and innocence. As if skin colour might determine how sorry we should feel for someone, and how much justice they deserve.

Ruby’s stomach churns as she comprehends the significance of this insidious bias; she should have known that even death would have its hierarchies and prejudices.

As she reads into the night, Ruby also thinks about her own complicity here, confronts it, as she recalls those high-profile crimes that have made the front pages not just across America, but back in Australia, too. In every case that has seeped into her consciousness—enough for her to remember a name, a face, a story—the victim is a young white woman.

How had she not noticed that only some people are deemed worthy of having their stories told? There must be so many biographies buried in the ground, she realises, so many unspoken names. All because an arbitrary line gets drawn between the right kind of victim, and the wrong kind. And that ‘wrong’ kind of victim becomes invisible.

Something Ruby Jones starts doing from this night on: she goes looking for the dead. She searches out names and faces, she reads obituaries and crime reports and historical accounts, and the names engraved on statues and park benches. New deaths, old deaths, she does her best not to discriminate, as she stops over the name of every deceased person she encounters, takes the time to speak their names out loud.