Ruby Read online

  She pulled off her sunglasses and started to cry, emitting real tears from her eyes at will as if she had some sort of a reservoir of tears stored just under her eyelids to be dipped into at a moment's notice.

  "I didn't want to do it, especially right here at our home, but she insisted and I wanted to do what you said: make her feel wanted and loved as soon as I could. Now I'm in trouble," she wailed.

  Shocked by what she said, I tried to meet her eyes and hold them, but she refused to look at me, afraid once she did, she couldn't look away.

  Daphne widened her eyes and nodded at my father who shook his head.

  "I didn't say you were in trouble. I just said I was disappointed in you two, that's all," he replied. "Ruby," he said, turning back to me. "I know that alcoholic beverages were common in your

  household."

  I started to shake my head.

  "But we have a different view of that here. There's a time and a place for imbibing and young girls should never do it on their own. Next thing you know, one of your boyfriends gets drunk and everyone gets into the car with him and. . I just don't like to think what could happen."

  "Or what young girls can be talked into doing after they've consumed alcohol," Daphne added. "Don't forget that aspect," she advised my father. He nodded obediently.

  "Your mother is right, girls. It's just not a good idea. Now, I'm willing to forgive everyone, put this bad incident aside, as long as I have your solemn promise, both of your solemn promises, that nothing like this will occur again."

  "I promise," Gisselle said quickly. "I didn't want to do it anyway. I had a terrible headache this morning. Some people are used to drinking a lot of alcohol and some are not," she added, throwing a glance at me.

  "That's very true," Daphne said, glaring at me. I looked away so that no one would see how much I was fuming inside. The heat that built itself up in my chest felt as if it could burn a hole through me.

  "Ruby?" my father asked. I swallowed hard to keep my tears from choking me and forced out the words.

  "I promise," I said.

  "That's good. Now then," he began, but before he could continue, we heard the door chimes. He looked at his watch. "I expect that is Ruby's art instructor," he said.

  "Under the circumstances," Daphne said, "don't you think you should postpone this?"

  "Postpone? Well . ." He looked at me and I looked down quickly. "We can't just turn the man away. He's giving his time, traveled here--"

  "You shouldn't have been so impulsive," Daphne said. "Next time, I would like you to discuss it with me before you give the girls anything or do anything for them. After all," she said firmly, "I am their mother."

  My father pressed his lips together as if to shut up any words in his mouth and nodded.

  "Of course. It won't happen again," he assured her.

  "Excuse me, monsieur," Edgar said, coming to the doorway, "but a Professor Ashbury has arrived. His card," he said, handing the card to my father.

  "Show him in, Edgar."

  "Very good, monsieur," he said.

  "I don't think you need me for this," Daphne said. "I have some phone calls to return. As you predicted, everyone and anyone who knows us wants to hear the story of Ruby's disappearance and arrival. Telling the story repeatedly is proving to be exhausting. We should have it printed and

  distributed," she added, spun on her heels and marched out of the study.

  "I've got to go take a couple of aspirins," Gisselle said, sitting up quickly. "You can tell me about your instructor later, Ruby," she said, smiling at me. I didn't smile back. As she left the study, Edgar brought in Professor Ashbury, so I had no time to tell my father the truth about what had occurred the night before.

  "Professor Ashbury, how do you do?" my father said, extending his hand.

  Looking like he was in his early fifties, Herbert Ashbury stood about five-feet-nine and wore a gray sports jacket, a light blue shirt, a dark blue tie, and a pair of dark blue jeans. He had a lean face, all of his features sharply cut, his nose angular and a bit long, his mouth thin and smooth like a woman's.

  "How do you do, Monsieur Dumas," the professor said in what I thought was a rather soft voice. He extended a long hand with fingers that enveloped my father's hand when they shook. He wore a beautifully hand crafted silver ring set with a turquoise on his pinky.

  "Fine, thank you, and thank you for coming and agreeing to consider my daughter. May I present my daughter Ruby," Daddy said proudly, turning toward me.

  Because of his narrow cheeks and the way his forehead sloped sharply back into his hairline, Professor Ashbury's eyes appeared larger than they were. Dark brown eyes with specks of gray, they seized onto whatever he was gazing at and held so firmly he looked mesmerized. Right now they fixed so tightly on my face, I couldn't help but be selfconscious.

  "Hello," I said quickly.

  He combed his long thin fingers through the wild strands of his thin light brown and gray hair, driving the strands off' his forehead, and flashed a smile, his eyes flickering for a moment and then growing serious again.

  "Where have you had your art instruction up until now, mademoiselle?" he inquired.

  "Just a little in public school," I replied.

  "Public school?" he said, turning down the corners of his mouth as if I had said "reform school." He turned to my father for an explanation.

  "That's why I thought it would be of great benefit to her at this time to have private instruction from a reputable and highly respected teacher," my father said.

  "I don't understand, monsieur. I was told your daughter has had some of her works accepted by one of our art galleries. I just assumed . ."

  "That's true," my father replied, smiling. "I will show you one of her pictures. Actually, the only one in my possession at the moment."

  "Oh?" Professor Ashbury said, a look of perplexity on his face. "Only one?"

  "That's another story, Professor. First things first. Right this way," he instructed, and led the professor to his office where my picture of the blue heron still remained on the floor against his desk.

  Professor Ashbury stared at it a moment and then stepped forward to pick it up.

  "May I?" he asked Daddy.

  "By all means, please."

  Professor Ashbury lifted the picture and held it out at arm's length for a moment. Then he nodded and put it down slowly.

  "I like that," he said, then turned to me. "You caught a sense of movement. It has a realistic feel and yet. . . there's something mysterious about it. There's an intelligent use of shading. The setting is rather well captured, too. . . . Have you spent time in the bayou?"

  "I lived there all of my life," I said.

  Professor Ashbury's eyes lit with interest. He shook his head and turned to Daddy. "Forgive me, monsieur," he said, "I don't mean to sound like an interrogator, but I thought you had introduced Ruby as your daughter."

  "I did and she is," Daddy said. "She didn't live with me until now."

  "I see," he said, gazing at me again. He didn't seem shocked or surprised by the information, but he felt he had to continue to justify his interest in our personal lives. "I like to know something about my students, especially the ones I take on privately. Art, real art, comes from inside," he said, placing the palm of his right hand over his heart. "I can teach her the mechanics, but what she brings to the canvas is something no teacher can create or teach. She brings herself, her life, her experience, her vision," he said. "Do you understand, monsieur?"

  "Er. . yes," Daddy said. "Of course. You can learn all about her if you like. The main question is do you believe as some already have exhibited they do, that she has talent?"

  "Absolutely," Professor Ashbury said. He looked at my picture again and then turned back to me. "She might be the best student I've ever had," he added.

  My mouth gaped open and my father's face lit with pride. He beamed a broad smile and nodded.

  "I thought so, even though I'm no art expert."
r />   "It doesn't take an art expert to see what potential lies here," Professor Ashbury said, looking at my painting once more.

  "Let me show you the studio then," my father said, and led Professor Ashbury and me down the corridor. The professor was very impressed, as anyone would be, I imagined.

  "It's better than what I have at the college," he whispered as if he didn't want the college trustees to hear.

  "When I believe in something or someone, Professor Ashbury, I commit myself fully," my father declared.

  "I can see that. Very well, monsieur," he said with some pomposity, "I accept your daughter as one of my students. Provided, of course," he added, shifting his eyes to me, "she is willing to accept my tutelage completely and without question."

  "I'm sure she is. Ruby?"

  "What? Oh, yes. Thank you," I said quickly. I was still absorbing Professor Ashbury's earlier compliments.

  "I will take you through the fundamentals once again," he warned. "I will teach you discipline, and only when I think you are ready, will I turn you loose on your own imaginative powers. Many are born with talent," he declared, "but few have the discipline to develop it properly."

  "She does," my father assured him.

  "We'll see, monsieur."

  "Come to my office, Professor, and we will discuss the financial arrangements," my father said. Professor Ashbury, his eyes still fixed on me, nodded. "When can she have her first lesson with you, Professor?"

  "This coming Monday, monsieur," he replied. "Although she has one of the finest home studios in the city, I might ask her to come to mine from time to time," he added.

  "That won't be a problem."

  "Tres Bien," Professor Ashbury said. He nodded at me and left with my father.

  My heart was pounding with excitement. Grandmere Catherine had always been so positive about my artistic talent. She had no formal schooling and knew little about art, and yet she was convinced down to her soul that I would be a success. How many times had she assured me of this, and now, an art instructor, a professor at a college, had taken one look at my work and declared me very possibly his best candidate.

  Still trembling with joy, I hurried upstairs to tell Gisselle, my heart so full, I had no room for anger anymore. I gushed out all the professor had said. Gisselle, trying on different hats at her vanity table, listened and then turned with a look of puzzlement on her face.

  "You really want to spend hours with a teacher after spending most of the day in school?" she asked.

  "Of course. This is different. This is. . . what I've always dreamt of doing," I replied.

  She shrugged.

  "I wouldn't. That's why I never pushed for the singing teacher. We have so little time to have fun. They're always finding things for us to do: teachers pile on the homework, make us study for tests, and then we have to fit our lives to our parents' schedules.

  "Once you get to know some of the boys and make some friends, you won't want to waste your time with art instruction," she declared.

  "It's not a waste of my time."

  "Please," she sighed. "Here," she said, tossing a dark blue beret at me. "Try this on. We're going to the French Quarter to have some fun. You don't want to tag along looking like someone just born," she added.

  We heard the sound of a car horn, a funny bleep, bleep, bleep.

  "That's Beau and Martin. Come on," she said, jumping up. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along, not showing the slightest regret for the things she had said to our father and Daphne about me only a short while ago. Lies did float about this house as lightly as balloons.

  "You're not going to lie to us again about which one of you is which, are you?" Martin asked, smiling as he pulled open the door to Beau's sports car for us.

  "Now that you're looking at me in broad daylight," Gisselle retorted, "you surely can tell I'm Gisselle." Martin glanced from me to her and nodded.

  "Yes, I can," he said, but he said it in such a way to make it hard to tell if were complimenting her or complimenting me. Beau laughed. Annoyed, Gisselle declared she and I would sit in the back together.

  We squeezed tightly into the small rear seat of Beau's sports car and held our berets on our heads as he shot away from the curve. Speeding down the street, we screamed, Gisselle's voice louder and more filled with pleasure and glee than mine which was driven by a pounding heart as we spun around a turn, tires squealing. I imagined we made quite a sight, twins, their ruby red hair dancing and flicking like flames in the wind. People stopped walking to pause and watch us rush by. Young men whistled and howled.

  "Don't you just love it when men do that?" Gisselle screamed in my ear. With the sound of the engine and the wind whistling by us, we had to shout to be heard even sitting next to each other.

  I wasn't sure what to say. On occasion in the bayou, walking to town, I recalled men driving by in trucks and cars whistling and calling to me like this. When I was younger, I thought it was funny, but I remembered once being frightened when a man in a dirty brown pickup truck not only called to me, but slowed down and followed me along the road, urging me to get into the truck with him. He claimed he would give me a ride to town, but there was

  something about the way he leered at me that set my heart thumping. I ended up running back toward home and he drove off. I was afraid to tell Grandmere Catherine because I was sure she would stop letting me walk to town by myself.

  And yet, I also knew there were girls my age and older who could parade up and down the street day in and day out and never get a second look. It was flattering and threatening at the same time, but my twin sister seemed to draw satisfaction from this attention and looked surprised that I wasn't having a similar reaction.

  Our tour of the French Quarter was quite different from the one my father had taken me on, for with Beau, Martin, and Gisselle, I was shown things I hadn't seen even though we were walking on the same streets. Maybe it was because we were there at a later part of the day, but the women I saw lingering in the doorways of jazz clubs and bars now were scantily dressed in what at times looked like no more than undergarments to me. Their faces were heavily made up, some using so much rouge and lipstick and eyeliner, they resembled clowns.

  Beau and Martin gawked with interest, their faces frozen in licentious smiles. Every once in a while, one would lean over to the other and whisper something that set them both laughing hysterically. Gisselle was always jabbing one or the other with her elbow and then laughing herself.

  The courtyards looked darker, the shadows were deeper, the music was louder. Men and in some places, women, hawked from doorways of sparsely lit bars and restaurants entreating the pedestrians to come in and enjoy the best jazz, the best dancing, the best food in New Orleans. We stopped at a stand to buy poor boy sandwiches and Beau managed to get us all bottles of beer even though no one was of age. We sat at a table on the sidewalk and ate and drank, and when two policemen came walking down the other side of the street, my heart thumped in anticipation of all of us being arrested. But they didn't seem to notice or care.

  Afterward, we rushed in and out of stores, amusing ourselves with the souvenirs, the toys, and novelties. Then Gisselle directed us into a small store that advertised the most shocking sexual items I had ever seen displayed. You were supposed to be eighteen or over to go into the store, but the salesman didn't chase us out. The boys lingered over magazines and books, smirking and giggling to themselves. Gisselle made me look at a replica of a man's sex organ made of hard rubber. When she asked the salesman if she could see it, I ran out of the store.

  They all followed a few moments later, laughing at me. "I guess Daddy didn't take you in there when he showed you the French Quarter," Gisselle quipped.

  "How disgusting," I said. "Why would people buy those things?"

  My question made Gisselle and Martin laugh harder, but Beau just smiled.

  At the next corner, Martin asked us to wait while he approached a man dressed in a black leather vest with no shirt beneath. He ha
d tattoos on his arms and shoulders. The man listened to Martin and then the both of them walked deeper into the alleyway.

  "What's Martin doing?" I asked.

  "Getting us something for later," Gisselle said, then looked at Beau, who smiled.

  "Getting what?"

  "You'll see," she said. Martin emerged, nodding with satisfaction.

  "Where do you want to go now?" he asked.

  "Let's show her Storyville," Gisselle decided.

  "Maybe we should just go down to the nice stores and arcades at the ocean," Beau suggested.

  "Oh, it won't hurt her. Besides, she needs an education if she wants to live in New Orleans," Gisselle insisted.

  "What is Storyville?" I asked. In my mind I imagined a place where people sold books and items based on famous tales. "What do they sell there?"

  My question threw the three of them into another fit of hysterics.

  "I don't see why you should laugh at everything I say and ask," I said angrily. "If any of you came into the bayou and went out in the swamp with me, you'd ask a lot of dumb questions, too. And I assure you, you'd be a lot more frightened than I would be," I added. That wiped the smiles and laughter off their faces.

  "She's right," Beau said.

  "So what. You're in the city now, not the swamp," Gisselle said. "And I, for one, don't have any intention of ever going to the bayou.

  "Come on," she added, grabbing my arm roughly, "we'll take you up some streets and you tell us what you think is sold there."

  Her challenge restored the smile to Martin's face, but Beau still looked troubled. Unable to cast off my own curiosity now, I let Gisselle take me along until we reached a corner and looked across the street at what seemed to me to be a row of fancy houses.

  "Where are the stores?" I asked.

  "Just watch over there," Gisselle pointed. She indicated an imposing four-story structure with bay windows on the side and a cupola on the roof. It was painted in a dull white. A luxurious limousine pulled up at the curb and the chauffeur stepped out quickly to open the door for what looked to be a very

  distinguished older man. He strutted up the short set of steps to the front of the house and rang the bell. A moment later, the large door was pulled open.