The Loves of Ruby Dee Read Free

soaked with sweat, and so was his shirt. Sweat, around the gal, seemed in poor taste.
    “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go wash up. Just sit down, if you’d like. Lonnie’ll have the drinks in a minute.”
    He went back through the door and pulled it closed behind him. It had not been this awkward when he’d hired the four other housekeepers, he thought. Of course, none of those housekeepers had been like this gal.
    Each of the previous housekeepers had been on the far side of fifty and quite substantial in frame, and one of them had been a man. One of them, the second one, had been almost a man, and Will had had high hopes for her. She had been a solid chunk of a commander in Big Smith overalls. She hadn’t been much for cleaning, but she could flat-out cook, and she’d matched Hardy curse for curse and chew for chew. The old man had been sufficiently impressed by her size not to threaten her physically. But one afternoon he had found a girlie calendar from somewhere and waved it in her face. He had actually chased her with it out across the yard, no mean trick for a man with a cane.
    Ruby Dee D’Angelo, Will thought, was more like the girl on the girlie calendar than a housekeeper.
    “Did you know we don’t have any matchin’ glasses in this house?” Lonnie said. He had two glasses on the counter, filling them with soft drink while he sipped beer foam from a third.
    Will stripped out of his shirt, threw it on top of the washer and stepped to the sink, then stuck his hands and arms under the faucet flow. Lonnie poked at an ice cube in one of the glasses.
    “I hope you washed your hands,” Will told him.
    “I washed my hands. I’m not a heathen. No matter that I live like one half the time, with nothin’ but jelly glasses to drink out of. It seems like people who have two pickup trucks worth thirty grand plus apiece in the garage and are sellin’ some bulls for ten grand apiece could at least afford matching glasses.”
    “What we don’t have is time and inclination,” Will said. “Shit! We don’t have soap, either.” He pumped the silly little plastic bottle furiously, but all it did was spit at him. “Squirt me some of that dish soap, Lon.”
    “Well, when the gal goes for groceries, you tell her to get some glasses, too,” Lonnie said, squirting the green liquid into Will’s palm. “It’s embarrassin’ having to use jelly glasses when people come by.”
    "Yeah...and how often do people come by?”
    People weren’t given to visiting the Starrs. Once in awhile a couple of Lonnie’s buddies would show up, but they always hung around out at the arena. Will couldn’t be called a socializer, and if the old man had anything at all to say to anyone, it wasn’t good.
    Will worked up suds, and the water ran dark. He stuck his head down and rinsed his face, threw water on the back of his neck. Lonnie handed him the towel, and he dried his face vigorously.
    “Miss D’Angelo isn’t gonna have time to do any shoppin’. She isn’t stayin’.”
    Will said it straight, going on the supposition that the sooner dealt with, the sooner done with. When he looked up, his brother was staring at him.
    “You’re not even gonna give her a try, are you? You get one look at her, and you make up your mind to that.” Lonnie shook his head angrily. “I told you that you should have gone down and interviewed her yourself in Okie City. It makes damn little sense to bring her all the way up here for nothin’. That isn’t a nice thing to do at all,” he added righteously, which was pretty silly. Lonnie threw around righteousness the way some people did their socks, using it when it suited him.
    “She came up here on provision, and she’s been well paid for her time and trouble,” was Will’s answer as he finished drying his hands and arms. “Besides, I interviewed the four before her, and none of them turned out to be what we hoped when they got on the job. I didn’t have time to go chasin’ down to