“Then at least let me drive you to your stop. It’s on Whitting, isn’t it?” A few times, in the late afternoon or early evening, I had driven past her waiting there.
“You don’t need to,” she said.
“No, I insist.” I laughed a little. “I’d like to do
worthwhile with my night.” When she climbed in the car, I had the distinct sense that she was humoring me.
We drove in silence—the NPR show I’d been listening to had come on with the ignition, and I’d switched it off in case it wasn’t to her liking (Charlie referred to the station as National “Pubic” Radio)—and as we were approaching the corner of Montrose Lane and Whitting Avenue, I said, “Would
be interested in going to the theater with me? Our tickets are for
and they’ll go to waste otherwise. But please don’t feel like you have to—it’ll be a bit of a rush to get there.” She didn’t respond immediately, and I wondered if I should explain the play’s plot or author, or if it would be presumptuous to assume Miss Ruby hadn’t heard of Chekhov.
“I don’t know that I’m dressed right,” she finally said, and I looked over, worried that she would have on the black dress that was her uniform—I wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to go to a play in a maid’s uniform—but I saw that beneath her raincoat, she was wearing red slacks and a black sweater.
“No, you’re fine,” I said. “I’m a little overdressed, to tell the truth. Have you been to the Marcus Center?”
“Jessica went with her school to hear the Christmas carols.” Jessica was Miss Ruby’s granddaughter, the daughter of Yvonne, and I knew both of them lived with Miss Ruby; Jessica’s father was not in the picture. Yvonne had actually helped at a few parties Charlie and I gave early in our marriage, while she was in nursing school, and now she worked downtown in the ER at St. Mary’s. Yvonne was a sunnier woman than her mother, and I’d always liked her, and Ella was crazy about Jessica, who was a few years older. On the days Miss Ruby brought her granddaughter to the Blackwells’ house, if Jessica was out of school but Yvonne had to work, the two little girls would spend hours playing with Barbies in Priscilla’s kitchen. It struck me then that I hadn’t seen either Jessica or Yvonne for quite a while, not since before Harold and Priscilla had left for Washington. I said, “Is Jessica still at Harrison Elementary?”
“Yes, ma’am, she is.” A bit uncertainly, Miss Ruby added, “I suppose I could go to that play.”
I was shocked and delighted, but I intentionally remained low-key. I said, “Wonderful,” and then, as I accelerated, “Jessica was always so bright. Am I right in thinking she’s about to finish fifth grade?”
“She’s in the sixth grade with Mr. Armstrong,” Miss Ruby said. “Straight A’s on her report card, vice president of the student council, and she’s a leader in the youth group at Lord’s Baptist.”
“That’s fabulous,” I said. “Where will she go for junior high?”
“She’ll be at Stevens.”
I made a conscious effort not to react negatively. Stevens was, without a doubt, the worst junior high school in Milwaukee. We lived in the suburbs, and Ella went to private school, to Biddle Academy, but you didn’t have to be a faithful reader of
to know what dire straits the city’s public schools were in, and Stevens was in the direst: The year before, a gun that a seventh-grader had brought to school somehow went off between classes, and within the last month, two ninth-graders had been expelled for selling crack. (Ninth-graders! And for God’s sake,
It reminded me why I’d taught younger kids, though I couldn’t have fathomed anything like that in the seventies.) “What’s Jessica’s favorite subject?” I asked.
“I guess it’s English, but she’s good at everything.” Miss Ruby pointed. “You want to save time, you should take Howland Boulevard.”
“That’s great she’s doing so well,” I said. “How’s Yvonne?”
“Not getting any sleep since the baby came. He sure does like to be held.”
“Oh my goodness, I didn’t realize Yvonne had had a baby. When was this?”
“Antoine Michael,” Miss Ruby said. “Turns two months old on the first of June.”
“Miss Ruby, that’s so exciting. I would love to see him.” I had thought my fondness for babies might be a thing I got out of my system after I had one myself, but it had never passed. I still was fascinated by their tiny fingernails and noses and earlobes, the perfect softness of their skin—they seemed magical, from another planet. When Ella became a toddler and then a child, I loved every new stage, she was always funny and charming and of course infuriating, but I admit that I mourned a little when she was no longer a newborn; that transition had been the hardest. “Maybe Ella and I could swing by some afternoon,” I said, and when Miss Ruby didn’t respond, I added, “Or let’s find a time for your family to come to our house. Would lunch a week from Sunday work? Or”—I didn’t know what time the Suttons finished church, so perhaps Sunday wasn’t ideal—“what about Monday? Next Monday is Memorial Day, isn’t it?”
“I suppose we could come.”
“Oh, Ella will be thrilled. Now, is Yvonne—is the baby’s father—”
“Clyde, he lives with us, too. He and Yvonne got married back last summer.”
“Miss Ruby, I had no idea so much was going on in your life! How did Yvonne and Clyde meet?”
“He’s at the hospital, too, down in the cafeteria.” Miss Ruby chuckled. “Sold Yvonne her pie and coffee, if that
