Then she watched a redwood and glass contemporary that was isolated down a dirt road next to the seminary. After that, it was the stone guest house of one of the mansions that sat perched on rocks above the ocean. And then she returned to Eastward Look and watched a small Tudor-style home with a playhouse in the backyard that was an exact replica of it. Ruby watched all of these houses, made notes in her notebook, then moved on.
The first time Olivia saw her doing it, at the bungalow, she had wondered if Ruby was planning to rob the house. She had imagined her making note of when the family was away, their daily routine, the possibilities of the goods inside: big-screen TVs, video cameras, fine jewelry.
But her pattern wasn’t consistent with that, Olivia realized. She didn’t watch them in a way that would allow her to know the family’s comings and goings. And she never went to the windows to look inside. She just sat at a safe distance, sometimes halfway smiling as she watched, sometimes her lips moving as if she was telling a story to someone.
Once, Olivia looked for that notebook. But Ruby always carried it with her. What could the girl possibly be doing? Olivia wondered. She was convinced there was an ulterior motive, and that it was not a good one.
Ruby sat on the low wooden fence that ran across the yard of a house kitty-corner to the one she was watching. That one, hers, was painted a happy yellow with green trim and shutters. There was a tangle of bikes of all sizes in the driveway, and tomatoes growing plump and red on vines in a fenced-off square in the side yard. Olivia watched Ruby watching, saw her scribble in her notebook, frowning in concentration as she wrote. The house was on a road that was a good shortcut to the beach, so it seemed natural that Olivia might be walking past, even though she had followed Ruby here, had watched as she headed carefully to this spot and took her place on the fence that gave her a clear, uninterrupted view of the yellow house.
“Hey,” Olivia said, “funny meeting you here.”
Ruby squinted up at her, suspicious.
“How did you find me?” she asked, closing her notebook firmly and holding on to it.
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. I was going to take a walk on the beach.”
The girl was still studying her in a way that made Olivia feel caught. She sat beside her on the fence and then she, too, had a good view of the yellow house.
“Cute, huh?” Olivia said, nodding her chin in the direction of the house.
Ruby turned her attention back to the house, too.
“Do you know what I think?” Ruby said. As usual, she didn’t wait for an answer. “I think the owners went to Brown or somewhere like that. And the mother, she played field hockey and the father played lacrosse and they got married outdoors somewhere, under a big striped tent, and there were lots of hors d’oeuvres, fancy ones, not pigs in a blanket or anything wrapped in bacon, but something else, like maybe baked cheese. You know they do that. They wrap it up and make the crust all fancy, with little leaves or something on it, and they bake it and you spread it on little pieces of bread. And I think they worked hard at solid jobs, maybe in a bank or someplace, and then they had three children in a row, all boys, and the mother stays home and makes sauce from real tomatoes and maybe even her own pasta.” She looked at Olivia, blinking. “You can do that, you know. In a special machine. Cut out different shapes and everything. I saw it on the Home Shopping Network.”
Olivia laughed. “Now how do you figure any of that just from sitting over here looking at a house?”
Ruby shrugged and then got off the fence. “Have fun at the beach,” she mumbled.
“Do you want to come?” Olivia asked her.
“Got to go,” Ruby said.
As Olivia watched her walk away, she couldn’t help but think that somehow she had disappointed Ruby.
She gave the girl a hat, a pale pink straw hat with a short brim and a top that resembled a muffin. It had a black ribbon around it that ended in a triple loop. Olivia had named the hat “Nicotiana.” It was from her flower series; she named all of her hats.
The girl took it reluctantly. “A hat?” she said. “I don’t know.” She twirled it around and around in her hands, studying it.
“I made it,” Olivia said. “That’s what I do. I’m a milliner.”
That seemed to worry the girl even more. “A milliner?”
“That one is called ‘Nicotiana.’ It came in a light blue, and off-white, too. I have series, you know. This was from my flower series.
“Like nicotine?” Ruby said, brightening.
“Yes.”
“Cool,” she said, and put it on.
It was really the wrong hat for her. Pink was a bad color on her, and the small brim made her face look too round and too big.
“Perfect,” Olivia said.
Ruby went into the tiny lavatory downstairs and stared at herself in the mirror. “God!” she gushed. “It’s great. It’s so cool. Sophisticated, huh? Don’t you think?”