Chapter 8

Ru pulled into her driveway a little after 6:00. The sun was starting to fade behind the horizon, and she was both exhausted and starving.

Pushing open the front door, she found Piper there to greet her. “Hello, kitty. I’m sorry. Mommy had to stay late at work to set up her classroom.” She bent down to scratch her pet beneath her chin, dropping her bags on the floor as she did so. She’d come back and take care of that later, but first she needed to make sure Piper had some food and water in her bowls.

Her cell phone rang as she was filling up the water dish. Glancing down at the name, she groaned. Should she take it now or put it off? “Better get it over with,” she mumbled, slogging back into the living room as Piper dug into her fresh bowl of food. “Hello?”

“Where have you been?”

Not even a greeting. Certainly no, “How was your first day back at work?” Dropping onto the couch, Ru said, “I’ve been working. Did you try to call me?” She was pretty sure she didn’t have any missed calls.

“I told you on Friday I needed you to call me as soon as you got home on Monday to talk about Melissa’s birthday party.”

“Right. I just walked in the door.” Her mother’s admonitions didn’t make much sense. Her first question implied she thought this was a landline, and Ru hadn’t been answering it until just this moment. But her second point made it seem like she’d been sitting there forever, not calling her. Just the illogical mind of one Liddy Brown.

“Don’t try to tell me you’ve been working all day, Ruin. I know better than that.”

The use of her full first name made Ru cringe. No one in the world called her that except her mother—and sometimes her sisters if they were angry. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded cheerful somehow. She’d found that arguing with her mother was never a good idea, even when Ru was more than certain she was right. Facts in books didn’t stand a chance against the logic of Liddy.

“Melissa is coming in from New York on Friday, so I will need you at my house no later than 4:00 so that you can start decorating. It’s a surprise, so don’t mention anything to her.”

The second part wouldn’t be a problem because she never spoke to either one of her sisters unless she was forced to do so. “Mom, I don’t get off work until 3:45. I can leave straight from there, but it will take me close to half an hour to get to your house.”

“See if you can leave early. This is important.”

“So is my job.”

“Ruin, we’ve been planning this party for months! She’ll be thirty. That’s a very important year. You find a way to be here on time.”

Thankful that her mother couldn’t see her rolling her eyes, Ru said, “Fine. What do I need to bring?” Her mom began to rattle off a list, and five items in, Ru realized she’d need to write this all down. If she forgot something… it would be a problem. After the list was complete, Liddy launched into her plans for how to decorate. Ru listened, thinking, That’s what she must’ve meant by we’ve been planning for months. She’d been planning.

“Now, Danielle won’t be here until 6:00, but that can’t be helped. She has rehearsal.”

Sure, she can be late, but I can’t take time to drive there. “Okay.”

“I expect Melissa will arrive sometime about 7:00. I’ll need you to stay and clean everything up after the party, though. If you don’t, Melissa will try to do it, and that would just be ridiculous.”

Fighting the urge to mention everything her mother did or said was ridiculous, Ru said, “I can do that.” She didn’t have plans on Saturday anyway, unless she wasn’t finished setting up her classroom yet. “Anything else?”

“Don’t forget!” Her mother said it as if Ru was known for having short-term memory loss.

“I won’t.”

“Bye.”

Her mother disconnected the call, just like that—abrupt and cold, like most everything else she did where Ru was concerned. Ru tossed her phone across the couch and slipped out of her shoes. It was one of those days when her head was already spinning, and now, having to deal with Looney Liddy wasn’t helping any.

Piper popped up onto the couch, and she began to stroke her fur. “At least you love me,” she muttered as the cat nestled into her lap.

She knew it wouldn’t do any good to feel sorry for herself, but she often wondered what it would be like to have a mother who loved her. Sometimes her friends at work would get calls from their moms, or talk about going shopping on the weekends. Some of them said their mom was still their best friend. Ru had never had any of that. For as long as she could remember, it was quite clear that Liddy could hardly stand her. While she thought part of it might have something to do with Ru being accident prone, even before she’d started short circuiting appliances, Liddy had treated her differently.

But then, she was different. By the time she’d joined the single mother’s family, she already had a five-year-old and a four-year-old. Her husband had walked out on her a few years before. God only knows why, Ru thought, reveling in her own sarcasm. Liddy’d said more than once that if she hadn’t been receiving money from the state, she’d toss Ru out on her rear.

With a sigh, Ru looked down at Piper and ran her hand across her fur. Even today, Cutter had asked about her name. “What kind of a name is Ru?” she asked aloud, and the cat tossed herself onto her back, looking for her belly to be scratched, oblivious to the sadness in her owner’s voice. “It’s the kind of name your mother gives you when you ruin everything.”

She could hardly explain that to Cutter, though. Thinking of him brought her back to other events of the day. How did someone so good looking, so charming, end up in Reaper’s Hollow? He was definitely proving to be a distraction for some of the other teachers, but Ru was focused on what Candice had mentioned. They did have some similar qualities. Hair coloring, eyes. Even the fact that they were both taller than average. Not knowing where you came from sometimes made it difficult to think about anyone romantically.

“Not that I need to be doing that,” she also said to the uninterested cat. “Can you imagine? Me with Cutter? Please.” She only received a purr in response. “Maybe he’ll ask Candice out.”

She stroked the cat a few more times before pulling herself up off of the second-hand, sage green sofa she’d found on Craigslist and heading into the kitchen, finally paying attention to her rumbling stomach. Cooking would be hard—she didn’t need to lose an appliance today—so she decided to make a sandwich and eat some leftover potato salad. She’d have to open the fridge, but the pot holders would make that doable.

“After this, I’m taking a nice, long, relaxing bath,” she said, staring down at her kitty. Ru took her plate and headed to the living room, thinking a mindless sitcom might help her to forget about her mother, her past, and the handsome new teacher across the hall. “I’m sure he’s not thinking about me,” she said, tearing off a piece of turkey and feeding it to Piper, who purred in agreement.