A. Michael - Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

Finally the day came, where she pulled up outside Mollie’s flat to find Esme sitting on a suitcase, surrounded by three black bin bags.

‘Hey munchkin, ready for adventures?’ Evie scooped her goddaughter up into her arms and swung her round. Esme regarded her seriously, pulling down her dark rimmed glasses to the end of her nose for effect.

‘Don’t you think I’m getting a little old for that now? I am ten!’

Evie grinned and squeezed her, ‘I know, but adults keep doing embarrassing things so they can pretend you’re not growing up. Just go with it. It stops me feeling old.’

‘You are old,’ Esme said mercilessly, attempting to help drag a bag to the car, ‘but that’s okay, you’re still pretty.’

‘Well, gee, thanks. Didn’t your mama teach you looks aren’t the most important thing?’ Evie heaved the case into the car boot, suddenly realising an epic game of luggage Tetris was going to be necessary to get everything into her little Ford Fiesta.

‘Yes, but Nanny says if you’re not pretty, no one marries you, and you die alone eaten by cats who try to steal your peach schnapps.’

Evie felt her head hurt, and looked over at Esme, whose little face curled into a mischievous grin, her blue eyes wide and innocent. ‘You’re going to give your mother a heart attack one of these days.’

‘Yeah, but we’re not staying with Nanny any more, so I figure it’s important to get one more in for the road.’

‘You have seriously been hanging out with me too much, kid.’ Evie ruffled Esme’s hair, to her irritation, and opened the back door for her, ‘Your chariot, m’lady. Anyway, where’s your mum?’

‘They’re having one final argument. I think it’s how they say goodbye,’ Esme shrugged and pulled a book from her Frozen backpack, ignoring Evie instantly.

Evie ventured closer to the front entrance of the flat, and heard the telltale signs of screaming and shouting. Pretty typical with Mollie’s mother.

‘I’ll see you at Christmas – try not to drink yourself to death before then, you selfish cow!’ Mollie’s voice echoed, followed by the thump of feet thundering down the staircase.

She appeared before Evie, frazzled, her hair in a messy bun and her eyes red.

‘It’s good to see you,’ She tried for a smile, and watched as Evie raised an eyebrow. ‘No, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s get going.’

She slid into the passenger seat, turning around to talk to her daughter and then, seeing she was engrossed, turned back. ‘So here’s a very important question… can we stop and get pancakes on the way?’

Esme looked up, suddenly completely alert, focused on Evie as she pretended to mull it over.

‘Depends if anyone knows any good road trip songs to speed us on the way to the pancake place,’ she said, starting the engine.

***

‘Tell me about Ruby,’ Esme demanded from the backseat, apparently bored after their pancake stop. ‘Was she always so… sparkly?’

Evie and Mollie exchanged a look. If ten-year-olds knew who Ruby Tuesday was, it was from the drinking and drama and bad language. By the end she’d looked like Rock’n’Roll Heroin Barbie, existing through sheer force of will. And yet everyone loved her brokenness, how it slipped through into her songs.

‘Well, yeah…’ Evie thought about it, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘She always seemed to sparkle. It was the leftover fairy dust from all the mischief she caused.’

Evie winked at Esme in the mirror, but Mollie frowned.

‘She wasn’t some sort of benevolent Peter Pan character, she was a real person.’ She turned in her seat to face her daughter, ‘Once, she told me we were going to study in the library because she wanted help in History, and we ended up auditioning for A Streetcar Named Desire.’

‘You were Blanche in that, weren’t you?’ Evie exclaimed.

‘Yep, and Ruby was purposefully bad, ended up doing props instead.’ Mollie shook her head, ‘She knew I’d been too scared. She wanted me to have the light on me, be the centre of attention. Forced me into it.’

‘So she taught you to be brave and go after your dreams?’ Esme surmised, fingers interlocked beneath her chin like a tiny amateur psychologist, ‘Interesting.’

‘She more… tricked me into it. For my own good.’

Esme frowned, ‘Does that make her good or bad?’

‘That makes her Ruby,’ Evie laughed. ‘It was the same with me, I couldn’t afford the art supplies to do a drawing class in Northampton. You needed your own tools, and I needed the class for my uni applications…’

‘You did go to that, I remember meeting you for coffee afterwards,’ Mollie interrupted.

‘Yep, Ruby got me all the supplies. I was so embarrassed. So grateful. Until I realised she’d shoplifted them.’

‘She stole!?’ Esme said, aghast, hand to her mouth in a way that Evie was sure she had spent time perfecting in a mirror.

‘She did!’ Evie laughed.

‘Which is really, really bad!’ Mollie interjected sternly.

Esme rolled her eyes, ‘Duh, Mum. Obviously.’

‘She did a bad thing, but she did it out of love for a friend,’ Evie shrugged. ‘That’s what Ruby was, a patchwork of good intentions, bad choices and terrible impulse control. She wanted people to achieve their dreams.’

‘And that’s why we’re going to London,’ Esme finished, cleaning her glasses on the bottom of her Fame t-shirt. ‘So you and Mum can start an arts place with yummy cakes and cool art and dancing and plays.’ She paused, frowning at her glasses, then putting them back on and meeting Evie’s eyes in the mirror. ‘I think there should be a book corner.’

‘That’s a great idea Ez!’

‘I know,’ the little girl shrugged, and went back to her book.

Evie raised her eyebrows at Mollie, who shrugged and threw up her hands.

‘Eves… what if we’re making a mistake?’ Mollie said quietly, staring out at the road ahead.

‘We’re not!’ She took her eyes off the road to glare at her friend, ‘Just think of this as another Streetcar situation. Ruby knows what she’s doing.’

‘Ruby didn’t know us as adults,’ Mollie shook her head, her blonde curls shaking sadly.

‘Lucky we weren’t smart enough to outgrow our dreams then, isn’t it?’ Evie said brightly, and turned on the radio, trying to ignore the tiny thud of guilt that jabbed her whenever she thought about how much they had to lose.

***

‘No need to thank me,’ Ruby said, dumping the plastic bag on the bed. Evie looked at her warily, and then went to open it. Inside were pencils, charcoal, colouring pencils. A sharpener in the shape of a teddy bear and a collection of rubbers in neon colours .

‘What is this?’

‘You shall go to the… art… drawing class thingy!’ Ruby said, as if waving an invisible wand. ‘I knew you couldn’t go to the class without art supplies. So there they are.’

Evie raised her eyebrows and felt her chest constrict a little, ‘Rubes…’

Ruby waved her hands in front of her, ‘Nope, no soppiness. You know I don’t do all that icky stuff.’

‘Oh shut up, dork!’ Evie pulled her into a hug, ‘How did you even afford this?’

Ruby’s hair tickled her nose, and smelled like a strange mixture of rosewater and Charlie body spray. She clutched at her delicate waist, rocking a little.

‘Best not to ask,’ came Ruby’s reply, and Evie pulled back, raising an eyebrow.

‘Rubes, a handful of pick‘n’mix at Woolies is one thing – did you steal this stuff?’

Ruby twirled a strand of hair, ‘Steal is such a strong word…’