Elizabeth Gilbert - Stern Men

Kitty was sitting on the chair Ruth had brought in, lighting a cigarette, and Ruth went over and sat on her lap.

“Get off my goddamn lap, Ruth. You got a bony ass, just like your old man.”

“How do you know my old man has a bony ass?”

“Because I fucked him, stupid,” Kitty said.

Ruth laughed as if this was a big joke, but she had a chilling sense that it may have been true. She laughed to cover her discomfort, and she jumped off Kitty’s lap.

“Ruth Thomas,” Kitty said, “you don’t know a thing about this island anymore. You don’t live here anymore, so you have no right to say anything. You aren’t even from here.”

“Kitty!” Mrs. Pommeroy exclaimed. “That’s nasty!”

“Excuse me, Kitty, but I do so live here.”

“For a few months a year, Ruth. You live here like a tourist, Ruth.”

“I hardly think that’s my fault, Kitty.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “It isn’t Ruth’s fault.”

“You think nothing is ever Ruth’s fault.”

“I think I wandered into the wrong house,” Ruth said. “I think I wandered into the house of hate today.”

“No, Ruth,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “Don’t get upset. Kitty’s just teasing you.”

“I’m not upset,” said Ruth, who was getting upset. “I think it’s funny; that’s all.”

“I am not teasing anyone. You don’t know anything about this place anymore. You haven’t practically been here in four goddamn years. A lot changes around a place in four years, Ruth.”

“Yeah, especially a place like this,” Ruth said. “Big changes, everywhere I look.”

“Ruth didn’t want to go away,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “Mr. Ellis sent her away to school. She didn’t have any choice, Kitty.”

“Exactly,” Ruth said. “I was banished.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Pommeroy said, and went over to nudge Ruth. “She was banished! They took her away from us.”

“I wish a rich millionaire would banish me to some millionaire’s private school,” Kitty muttered.

“No, you don’t, Kitty. Trust me.”

“I wish a millionaire would have banished me to private school,” Gloria said, in a voice a little stronger than her sister had used.

“OK, Gloria,” Ruth said. “You might wish that. But Kitty doesn’t wish that.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Kitty barked. “What? I’m too stupid for school?”

“You would have been bored to death at that school. Gloria might have liked it, but you’d have hated it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gloria asked. “That I wouldn’t have been bored? Why not, Ruth? Because I’m boring? Are you calling me boring, Ruth?”

“Help,” Ruth said.

Kitty was still muttering that she was plenty goddamn smart for any goddamn school, and Gloria was staring Ruth down.

“Help me, Mrs. Pommeroy,” Ruth said, and Mrs. Pommeroy said, helpfully, “Ruth isn’t calling anyone dumb. She’s just saying that Gloria is a little bit smarter than Kitty.”

“Good,” said Gloria. “That’s right.”

“Oh, my God, save me,” Ruth said, and she ducked under the kitchen table as Kitty came at her from across the room. Kitty bent down and started whacking at Ruth’s head.

“Ow,” Ruth said, but she was laughing. It was ridiculous. She’d only come over for breakfast! Mrs. Pommeroy and Gloria were laughing, too.

“I’m not fucking stupid, Ruth!” Kitty slapped her again.

“Ow.”

“You’re the stupid one, Ruth, and you aren’t even from here anymore.”

“Ow.”

“Quit your bitching,” Kitty said. “You can’t take a slap to the head? I got five concussions in my life.” Kitty let up on Ruth for a moment to tick off her concussions on her fingers. “I fell out of a highchair. I fell off a bicycle. I fell in a quarry, and I got two concussions from Len. And I got blown up in a factory explosion. And I got eczema. So don’t tell me you can’t take a goddamn hit, girl!” She smacked Ruth again. Comically, now. Affectionately.

“Ow,” Ruth repeated. “I’m a victim. Ow.”

Gloria Pommeroy and Mrs. Pommeroy kept laughing. Kitty finally quit and said, “Someone at the door.”

Mrs. Pommeroy went to answer the door. “It’s Mr. Cooley,” she said. “Good morning, Mr. Cooley.”

A low drawl came through the room: “Ladies…”

Ruth stayed under the table, her head cradled in her arms.

“It’s Cal Cooley, everyone!” Mrs. Pommeroy called.

“I’m looking for Ruth Thomas,” he said.

Kitty Pommeroy lifted a corner of the sheet from the table and shouted, “Ta-da!” Ruth waggled her fingers at Cal in a childish wave.

“There’s the young woman I’m looking for,” he said. “Hiding from me, as ever.”

Ruth crawled out and stood up.

“Hello, Cal. You found me.” She wasn’t upset to see him; she felt relaxed. It was as if Kitty had knocked her head clear.

“You certainly seem busy, Miss Ruth.”

“I actually am a little busy, Cal.”

“It seems you forgot about our appointment. You were supposed to be waiting for me at your house. Maybe you were too busy to keep your appointment?”

“I was delayed,” Ruth said. “I was helping my friend paint her kitchen.”

Cal Cooley took a long look around the room, noting the dreadful green buoy paint, the sloppy sisters wrapped in garbage bags, the sheet hastily tossed on the kitchen table, the paint on Ruth’s shirt.

“Old Cal Cooley hates to take you away from your work,” Cal Cooley drawled.

Ruth grinned. “I hate to be taken away by old Cal Cooley.”

“You’re up early, buster,” Kitty Pommeroy said, and punched Cal in the arm.

“Cal,” Ruth said, “I believe you know Mrs. Kitty Pommeroy? I believe you two have met? Am I correct?”

The sisters laughed. Before Kitty married Len Thomas-and for several years after-she and Cal Cooley had been lovers. This was a piece of information that Cal Cooley hilariously liked to imagine was top secret, but every last person on the island knew it. And everyone knew they were still occasional lovers, despite Kitty’s marriage. Everyone but Len Thomas, of course. People got a big laugh out of that.

“Nice to see you, Kitty,” Cal said flatly.

Kitty fell to her knees laughing. Gloria helped Kitty up. Kitty touched her mouth and then her hair.

“I hate to take you away from your hen party, Ruth,” Cal said, and Kitty cackled fiercely. He winced.

“I have to go now,” Ruth said.

“Ruth!” Mrs. Pommeroy exclaimed.

“I’m being banished again.”

“She’s a victim!” Kitty shouted. “You watch yourself with that one, Ruth. He’s a rooster, and he’ll always be a rooster. Keep your legs crossed.” Even Gloria laughed at this, but Mrs. Pommeroy did not. She looked at Ruth Thomas-concerned.

Ruth hugged all three sisters. When she got to Mrs. Pommeroy, she gave her a long hug and whispered into her ear, “They’re making me visit my mother.”

Mrs. Pommeroy sighed. Held Ruth close. Whispered in her ear, “Bring her back here with you, Ruth. Bring her back here, where she belongs.”

Cal Cooley often liked to affect a tired voice around Ruth Thomas. He liked to pretend that she made him weary. He often sighed, shook his head, as though Ruth could not begin to appreciate the suffering she caused him. And so, as they walked to his truck from Mrs. Pommeroy’s house, he sighed and shook his head and said, as though defeated by exhaustion, “Why must you always hide from me, Ruth?”

“I wasn’t hiding from you, Cal.”

“No?”

“I was just evading you. Hiding from you is futile.”

“You always blame me, Ruth,” Cal Cooley lamented. “Stop smiling, Ruth. I’m serious. You always have blamed me.”