Ruby Tuesday

Not only is Harriet the other woman, she's only a few years older than Richard's daughter. Richard's wife has filed for divorce, and Richard has moved in with Harriet, who isn't too happy about any of this. Rated for language, adult situations, and violence.

I own this story, the plot, and its characters.

*

Prologue .

*

Through the peephole's fisheye lens, I watched a slightly lumpy dark-haired teen squirm on her feet, squinting to either side with obvious discomfort. She wore a Ramones shirt but had probably never listened to any of their songs, and dark blue jeans and Converse. Plum-colored hair and a nose ring finished off her appearance.

She bore a distinct resemblance to Richard. That makes sense, I thought, upon realizing that this was Richard's daughter, Stephanie. How the fuck did she find my apartment? What was she doing here?

I stood there for a suspended moment, knowing that my quiet refuge was barricaded only just barely by the door, and that once I opened it the floodgates would shatter and I'd be carried away.

No, I corrected myself, it would be better if I didn't answer in the first place; surely, whatever I said would be twisted and I was in no state to resist being taken advantage of.

I backed away from the peephole.

“Harriet? Look, I know you're in there! I watched you go in!” Her voice was muffled behind the walls, but still perfectly audible. She banged on the door, and I flinched at the loud noise. “Come on, you're the chick banging my dad, right?”

Fuck her! Thuy and Mike were bound to hear, and while I wasn't terribly worried about them since they were up-to-date since last night, it pissed me off.

I had a moment of inspiration, and I snatched up my dictation machine and switched it on. I slipped it and my keys into my back pocket and laid a tentative, steadying hand on my front door. The device was coldly comforting.

“Hold on,” I said, and pushed my way outside, expecting to face resistance or attempted forced entry. Stephanie stepped back, startled, her hand raised mid-bang. “I really think you ought to go home. It's not a good idea for you to be here.” I shut my door, and it locked itself.

Stephanie scowled at me.

“Shut up, don't tell me what to do.”

“Look, I understand you're angry, but—”

“Look, I don't fucking care that you're screwing my dad,” she interrupted sharply. “He's been happier for the past couple of months than I remember him being for a long time.”

I was uncomfortably silent, had no idea what to say to that.

“I am not screwing your dad,” I said flatly. “I have never once had sex with him. I didn't know he was married. And now that I know, I'm not having anything to do with him.”

“He filed for divorce yesterday,” Stephanie said.

“Oh, fuck me!” I cried, wanting to beat my head into a pulp. “God. Please, leave me alone! Go home!” There was no way this situation could get any more fucked!

“Will you shut up and listen to me?”

I lapsed into silence, crossed my arms, and shrugged.

“He likes you,” Stephanie said. “Like, really likes you.”

“It'll take more than liking somebody to fix this,” I said darkly. “This ain't high school. Because you like each other isn't a cure-all. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.” She stared at me bitterly.

“I'm what, only five years older than you are?”

“So you do like my dad?” she shot back.

“This isn't appropriate to be talking about it with you, I'm sure it's probably illegal somewhere, and I'd like you to leave. Please leave, or I'll have to call the police.” I pulled out my cell phone and threateningly demonstrated my finger poised on a speed dial button.

Stephanie retreated with a frustrated scowl, but turned around at the stairs. She left me with this parting asseveration.

“I'm just saying, you're better to him than mom!”

I felt something inside me snap and I think I almost fainted. Horror, fear; lightheaded revulsion directed at myself—nausea welled up in my stomach and shame blitzed me. Did Stephanie understand what she was saying? Was it a trick, to see if I was some kind of husband-stealing opportunistic gold-digger? Why was she saying those things about her own parents?

I unlocked my door and slipped inside, almost completely insensible, almost in tears.

After a long minute, during which I burst into real, painful sobbing, I remembered that my dictation machine was still running. I pulled it out and turned it off, and almost gave in to the urge to destroy it—what was I going to do, run it back twenty years later when all this was behind me and it had fermented enough to become tragic comedy?

It seemed like ages later when I heard knocking at my door. Slowly, I got up and almost fell against the door, and lifted my eyes to the peephole. If it was the wife or—

“Fuck off!” I barked, my voice roiling and guttural with tears. I should call Mike, he'd take care of Richard for me, and I would never have to leave my apartment.

Evidently, Richard heard me, and leaned back. It was then that I noticed he had a suitcase and a big brown paper bag with him. He had an aquiline face dominated by pale gray eyes that turned up at the sides, and even now seemed impossibly well dressed.

“Would you talk to my face?” His voice was tired, aggressive; he was in no mood for my shit—well, fuck him. I yanked open the door.

“Okay. Fuck off!”

He stood a head and shoulders taller than me, long and lanky, a bit wrinkled with patches of gray hair, and he liked to look down his nose at everyone, which included me, but this had never particularly stung before. It had always felt flattering that he didn't gut me like a fish.

It struck me how diminished he appeared.

“I fucked up,” he said. A few seconds of silence went by. Did he expect me to fill it?

“Yes, you did,” I agreed. I braced an arm against my door frame. Stay out.

“Sylvia kicked me out of the house,” he said curtly.

I stared back at him, a single eyebrow upraised.

“Your daughter said you filed for divorce,” I retorted. At the flicker of surprise in his eyes, I continued. “She showed up a little while ago here. What do you think you're doing here?”

Richard cleared his throat.

“I have no idea where Steph got the address from.”

The both of us jumped when a low-pitched, loud voice interrupted.

“Are you okay, Harriet? Need any help?” The words were obscured by a heavy Eastern European accent, but other than that his grammar was near-native quality. It was Sasha, a neighbor of mine. He stood at the mouth of the stairwell, and a few steps above him was Thuy, bent down and looking on intently. Sasha's eyes darted concernedly between Richard and I.

Sasha wasn't big or tall, but his expression was anything but friendly.

Richard took a circumspect half-step back.

“I'm fine, thanks,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. I can handle this.”

Sasha hesitated for a long moment before putting a foot on the upward-bound staircase. He took one long glance back at me and slowly went up, up—he was out of sight. Thuy followed him.

“I didn't file for divorce,” Richard said. “Sylvia served me papers. We're going to court.”

“Richard, I swear, I feel like I'm the one who should be forty-two,” I snapped. “Go back to your wife and try to work it out.”

“My marriage is over,” he said evenly. “We both knew it was over. It was over a long time before you ever came into the picture. I don't love Sylvia any more. We hadn't even had sex in almost eight months before I met you—”

“We've been...”

“And it had become a chore to do it once a month before that, for a year. We thought we'd try to stay together for Stephanie's sake.”

I was quiet, and a distant crackle of thunder in the distance brought me around. I did not like my decision.

“You can stay the night—on the floor.” I didn't have a bed, my temp apartment was too small. Instead I slept on a futon that doubled as the only seating, except for two chairs at the foldup bridge table that I bought for five bucks at a yard sale. Everything else I owned either still lived with my parents or had been sold for money.

It was far different from Richard's expensive wine and cheese-hosting home, and he was definitely a little out of place in his expensive suit.

“Have any Pink Floyd?” he asked, and I pointed at the iPod stereo on the kitchen's miniature, blue formica counter top.

“Go ahead and look. I probably do.”

He set his paper bag down beside my little sugar jar and leaned his suitcase against the wall.

“I brought Chinese take out,” he said. “You've been crying.”

I looked away sullenly, as I sat down on my futon without saying a word. A terrible dread came over me and I wrapped my arms around myself as if they were some form of protection. How in the world was I supposed to proceed, now?

Hang on a minute, I'd missed something back there. He said his wife had served him papers.