Stay(89)

“It’s just a recommendation, Ma. I don’t have to do it.”

“Your father will not like this.”

No shit. I don’t say that part out loud. I don’t want her putting soap on my tongue again.

“What won’t I like?” Dad’s stern voice makes my insides jump.

Ma jumps as well. “Kenneth! Welcome home.” She steps over to peck his cheek. “I saved you a plate. Sit.”

He goes to the wet bar at the window, and ice clinks in a crystal tumbler as he pours his daily scotch. “Ruby?”

My stomach clenches. “Yes, sir?”

“What is your mother saying I won’t like?”

Blue eyes fix on me, and I wonder how he can make me feel so cold with just a look.

“We had an art assignment at school. My teacher sent home a note.”

His brow lowers, and my frozen insides splinter in painful shards. “A reprimand?”

“A recommendation.” I speak fast. “She wants me to take this art program. I told her I wasn’t interested.”

He goes to the letter my mother left on the table and scans it even faster than she did. “Art.” His perfectly straight nose curls. “What gets into these teachers? What kind of job would you get with a degree in art?”

Swallowing the pain in my throat, I nod. “I know, right?” My voice sounds too small.

“What’s this?” He reads out loud. “See portrait. What portrait?”

“It’s nothing.” I stand, collecting my plate. The last thing I want is to continue this conversation.

“Ruby Banks, what portrait?”

Depositing my plate in the kitchen, I go to where I left my school things in the mud room. My art folder is in the back of the long cubby behind my raincoat. I take it out and carry it slowly to the dining room where he now sits at the head of the table, holding his scotch.

My mother stands behind his right shoulder, and a steaming fresh plate is in front of him.

“It’s nothing, really.” I hold out the brown folder.

He takes it, and my breath stills.

My stomach is sick.

What will my father see when he looks at my representation of his face? Will he see the anger and disapproval always looking back at me? Or will it do something to his heart, break the stone wall around it? Or will he only see what he sees every day in the mirror? Are disappointment and frustration how he views the world?

The heavy brown cover opens, and his expression doesn’t change as he studies the lines and shading, the positive and negative space.

My clasped hands squeeze tighter. I don’t want him digging deeper, turning the page and seeing my attempts at copying Klimt or Degas.

The truth is, I agree with Ms. Hughes. I’m so proud of my art. The portrait of my father is an amazing likeness, even if it is distant and cold. When I’m drawing, I feel like I’m alive, and the harder I work, the more it turns out exactly as I’d hoped.

It’s exciting and fulfilling…

I don’t want him to take what I love and kill it.

He closes the cover and tosses it aside. “A useless degree.”

“I told her I wasn’t interested.” I speak quietly, submissively.

He hates that.

His eyes don’t leave his plate. I watch as he slices a sticky dumpling with a knife and fork and puts the piece in his mouth. My father refuses to use chopsticks.

“That is all.”

I’m dismissed, and my artistic dreams fall away, like the portrait inside that folder.

Like the letter, which is never returned.





1





Ruby


Twelve years later…





“I’ve hit rock bottom.” I flop on the couch in Drew’s office at the Friends Care clinic where we both work.

Yep, I’m a licensed therapist… with two clients, both shared with Drew, who has like twenty.

So I’m not the resounding success I’d expected, but Drew keeps telling me it takes time to build my practice, especially in a town the size of Oakville…

Trust me, based on the dating scene alone, I get it.

“What’s wrong now?” She stands and walks to the closet at the back of the room.

“HookUp4Luv matched me with Ralph Stern.”

“The Almond King!” My best friend laughs for the first time in a week. “Did you know he has a plan for revolutionizing Oakville’s economy?”

Clutching my forehead, I groan. “Gah—yes! He’s told me his plan five hundred times.”

“Almonds are the fruit of the future.” She pauses. “Are they fruits or nuts?”

“Who knows? They grow on trees…”

“I’ll tell you who knows.”

“Don’t say his name.”

“The future king of your little almond patch.”

“If you’re referring to my vagina, that’s just gross.” She laughs more, and I feel a twinge of guilt. “Am I being a bitch?”

“Umm… No.”

“Good. Because Ralph is a hard no.”

It’s not that he’s a bad guy. He’s just so… so… Sheldon Cooper. Still, my mom is in my head giving me a disapproving look. Be kind to everyone, Ruby Banks.