Ruby by Ann Hood
chapter one
Dear Amanda
OLIVIA HAD SO many things that she wanted to tell the girl who killed her husband that she wasn’t even sure where to begin. For example, she wanted the girl to know that she, Olivia, had once been someone who used to hum in public places, in an absent way that made people scowl at her. Still, she found herself doing it as she waited in line at the post office or for a spot at an ATM. She had been a hummer all her life, even humming in appreciation when she ate something she found especially delicious. During the trailers at movies, someone always shushed her, or turned to glare. “Sorry,” she’d whisper. But before she knew it, she was humming again. Maybe if she hummed an actual tune, she’d often thought, people would not mind so much. But she hummed randomly, absently, without direction.
She wrote:
Dear Amanda, since you killed my husband, I don’t hum anymore. My mother used to say that I hummed before I even talked. I hummed one way for yes and another way for no. I hummed something that meant good night and something that meant bye-bye. In my baby book—and my mother kept scrupulous records of everything from bowel movements to ounces gained each month—under the column that says “First Words,” my mother wrote that I didn’t talk; I hummed. So for thirty-seven years, I’ve hummed my way through life. And now I feel like I can’t even remember how to do it. If I press my lips together and try, I sound like I’m strangling.
But humming wasn’t what Olivia really wanted to talk about with the girl, Amanda. So she tore up each new letter and threw it away.
Olivia was a milliner. She made hats and sold them in a small shop on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. Long before Amanda killed her husband by running him down while he was jogging, long before Olivia even had a husband, she had this shop. It was sandwiched between an occult store and a store that over the years changed from one that sold used clothing to one that sold used books, until finally it was once again a store that sold used clothing.
Olivia’s shop was called the Rose Tattoo because she was unable to remove those words from its one front window. The old Rose Tattoo sold memorabilia of famous gay men—like James Dean and Tennessee Williams. People still came in and asked for a James Dean calendar or postcards of Liberace’s piano-shaped pool without even noticing the antique hat forms Olivia had bought at a flea market, or the hats that sat on top of those forms. Other times, people came in to get tattooed, thrusting pictures of Yosemite Sam or floral arrangements at Olivia and asking how much. They pointed to shoulders, hips, ankles. “How much for one here? Or here?” She always apologized and opened her arms to point at her hats. “I make hats,” she would explain.
To reach the Rose Tattoo, one had to walk down five steps and then turn right. The steps led to the occult shop, with its magical candles and books and tarot-card readers. Olivia always paused and waved to whoever was at the cash register. Over the years, she’d come to know them all. While she unlocked the grate over her shop’s door, the guy who ran the used-clothing shop would open his own door and say, “Oh, it’s you. You scared the shit out of me.” Then he’d go back inside his shop.
This trio of stores was hidden from view at street level. But there were signs with big arrows pointing the way. Often, Olivia had to rouse someone sleeping off a binge of some kind in the little walkway in front of the stores, or ask the young teenagers who liked to congregate there and smoke pot and read out loud books they’d bought at the occult store to please leave. But once she stepped inside, she did nothing but make, trim, design, and sell women’s hats. The shop smelled vaguely of falafels from the restaurant above it and of wet wool and incense and mothballs. To Olivia, it was the most wonderful combination of smells anywhere. She was certain that if someone blindfolded her and led her here, she would recognize it instantly by its unique aroma.