“I guess,” Olivia said.
“You don’t like parties, do you?” Ruby said.
Olivia pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car, leaving the high beams on.
“I want to show you something,” she said, motioning for Ruby to follow her.
They stood in the darkness, the two headlights making a funny alien glow. Behind them, crickets chirped so loudly that when Olivia spoke, she had to raise her voice.
“This is where it happened,” Olivia said. She pointed to the spot in the road where David’s body had flown over that blue Honda Civic.
“No shit,” Ruby said, awed.
“Are you going to leave me?” Olivia said. “Are you going to keep that baby? Because if you are, just go now. I cannot do it. I cannot have you promise me this and he about it.”
“I’m not leaving,” Ruby said.
“I mean,” Olivia said, “you have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“I’m not leaving,” Ruby said again.
“Well,” Olivia said.
Her heart raced foolishly. She got back in the car. When Ruby slid in beside her, Olivia said, “Well. You’d better not.”
The car in the driveway was unfamiliar. So was the woman sitting on the front steps smoking a cigarette.
The woman stood when she saw Olivia and Ruby. She was tall and slender, blond. She wore khaki trousers and a white scoop-neck sleeveless shirt.
“Finally,” she said, looking past Olivia and Ruby, as if someone else should appear.
“Where is he?” she said.
“Who?” Ruby asked her.
The woman threw her hands in the air. “This is so typical,” she said. “I wrote him in January and told him I’d be coming through on my way back to New York. I told him to let me know if it would be a big deal for me to stay.” She looked behind them again. “Do you know how long it takes to get back from Central America? I’ll tell you how long. Forever.”
Olivia said, “I’m a little confused. Who are you looking for?”
She imagined it might be Ben. Or maybe the old couple who used to own the place.
“Are you Olivia?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Rachel,” she said. “The one he was buying the hat for,” she added.
“Oh no,” Olivia said.
“It is a big deal, right?” Rachel said.
She bent to pick up her duffel bag, but Olivia stopped her.
“It’s just so typical of David,” Rachel began. “I told him in the letter to leave a message with my service if there was a problem. It’s not like you can get messages in Honduras, you know.” She shook her head. “That’s David for you.” Then she noticed Olivia’s face. “What?” she said.
“David’s dead,” Olivia said, and the words, spoken so often today, did not come out any easier.
chapter seven
True Colors
OLIVIA KEPT REFILLING Rachel’s glass with water, which the woman gulped down noisily. As soon as the glass was empty again, Rachel held it out to Olivia for more.
But finally, Rachel paused and said, “Dead. Jesus.” She didn’t put the glass down. Instead, she held it in both hands and looked into it as if it might hold some answers.
Olivia wasn’t sure what to say, so she gave Rachel the details: jogging, curve, blue Honda Civic. With each detail, Rachel’s eyes widened.
“Jesus,” she said again, looking up at Olivia. “Death waits at our door, but we don’t actually expect it to come inside.”
Inside, Olivia cringed. Who actually said things like that?
But clearly, Ruby was impressed. “Wow,” she said. “That’s heavy. Are you a poet or something?”
Olivia had forgotten Ruby was even there.
Rachel, too, seemed to see Ruby for the first time.
“Is she yours?” she asked Olivia.
“She kind of wandered in one day,” Olivia explained, shrugging.
Clearly, that wasn’t good enough for Rachel, who sat frowning at Olivia. Olivia considered what she knew about Rachel. She was a mountain climber, a doctor, the woman David had loved before Olivia. She was from the Bay Area, too, had actually gone to Berkeley with David and Rex. In fact, Rachel had moved back to San Francisco. Olivia remembered the computer-made change of address card she’d sent, how she’d cleverly imposed her image on it, her head already in California, her body stretching across the country, her feet still in New York. “Who has time to do things like this?” Olivia had said when she saw it. David had smiled knowingly. “Rachel can do more in a day than anyone I know.” And Olivia, already jealous of all the years Rachel had had with David, had muttered, “Well, goody for her.”
Now, she was, sitting right across from Olivia, glaring.
“She’s a runaway?” Rachel said.
Rachel spoke in the clipped, matter-of-fact voice of someone who was confident and self-assured. Olivia could imagine her giving a fatal diagnosis to someone, delivering bad news.
“Ha!” Ruby said. “I didn’t have to run away. My parents kicked me out.”