The first person Ruth finally confessed her secret to was Wendy. She knew things, she always knew what to do. Ruth had to wait until she saw her at school, because there was no way she could talk about this on the party-line phone without having her mother or someone else overhear.
"You have to tell Lance," Wendy said, then reached over and squeezed Ruth's hand.
That made Ruth cry even harder. She shook her head. The cruel world and its impossibility swam in front of her. Lance didn't love her. If she told him, he would hate her, Dottie would hate her. They would kick her mother and her out of the bungalow. The school would send Ruth to juvenile hall. And her life would be over.
"Well, if you don't tell Lance, I will," Wendy said.
"Don't," Ruth managed to choke out. "You can't. I won't let you."
"If I don't tell him, how else will he realize that he loves you?"
"He doesn't love me."
"Sure he does. Or he will. Lots of times it happens that way. The guy finds out a baby is coming, and them boom-love, marriage, baby carriage."
Ruth tried to imagine it. "Yep, it's yours," Wendy would say to Lance. She pictured Lance looking like Rock Hudson when he learned Doris Day was going to have his baby. He would look stunned, but slowly he would begin to smile, then grin like a fool and race into the street, unmindful of traffic or people he bumped into, people who shouted back that he was nuts. And he would yell, "I am nuts, nuts about her!" Soon he was by her side, on his knees, telling her he loved her, had always loved her, and now wanted to marry her. As for Dottie, well, she would soon fall in love with the postman or someone. Everything would work out. Ruth sighed. It was possible.
That afternoon, Wendy went home with Ruth. LuLing worked the afternoon shift at a nursery school and would not be home for another two hours. At four, while they were outside, they saw Lance stride to his car, whistling and jingling his keys. Wendy broke away from Ruth, and Ruth ran to the other side of the bungalow, where she could both hide and watch. She could hardly breathe. Wendy was walking toward Lance. "Hello?" she called to him.
"Hey there, girlie," he said. "What's up?"
And then Wendy turned around and fled. Ruth started to cry and when Wendy came back, she consoled Ruth, telling her she had a better plan. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll take care of it. I'll think of something." And she did. "Wait here," she said, smiling, and ran up to the back porch of the cottage. Ruth dashed into the bungalow. Five minutes later, the back door to the cottage flew open and Dottie raced down the porch steps. Through the window, Ruth saw Wendy wave to her before walking away quickly. Then came pounding on the door to the bungalow, and when Ruth answered, Dottie was there, grabbing her by both hands. She stared into her eyes with a stricken face and whispered hoarsely in her milk-and-metal voice, "Are you really-?"
Ruth started bawling, and Dottie put her arm around her shoulders, soothing her, then squeezing her so hard Ruth thought her bones would pop out of their sockets. It hurt but also felt good. "That bastard, that dirty, filthy bastard," Dottie kept saying through gritted teeth. Ruth was shocked to hear the b-word, but even more so to realize that Dottie was angry-not with her, but with Lance!
"Does your mommy know?" Dottie asked.
Ruth shook her head.
"All right. For now, we don't need to tell her, not yet. First, let me think how we 're going to take care of this. Okay? It won't be easy, but I'll figure out what to do, don't worry. Five years ago, the same thing happened to me."
So that was why Lance had married her. But where was the baby?
"I know how you feel," Dottie went on. "I really do."
And Ruth cried even harder, bursting with more feelings than she ever thought a heart could hold. Someone was angry for her. Someone knew what to do.
That night, as her mother cooked with the windows cracked open, loud voices punctured the air above the sound of spitting oil. Ruth pretended to read Jane Eyre. Her ears were straining to hear the words from outside, but the only thing she could make out was Dottie's high-pitched shriek: "You filthy bastard!" Lance's voice was a low rumble, like the revving of his Pontiac.
Ruth went into the kitchen and reached under the sink. "I'm going to take out the garbage." Her mother gave her a raised eyebrow but kept cooking. As Ruth approached the cans by the side of the cottage, she slowed down to listen.
"You think you're so hot! How many others have you screwed?… You're nothing but a thirty-second wonder-yeah, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!"
"What makes you the goddamn expert, I'd like to know!"
"I do know! I know what a real man is!… Danny… yeah, him, and he was good, Danny is a real man. But you! You gotta stick it up little girls who don't know any better."
Lance's voice rose and broke like a crying boy's: "You goddamn fucking whore!"
When Ruth went back into the house, she was still shaking. She had not expected everything to be so crazy and ugly. Being careless could cause terrible trouble. You could be bad without even meaning to be.
"Those people huli-hudu" her mother muttered. She set the steaming food on the table. "Crazy, argue over nothing." And then she closed the windows.
Hours later, as Ruth lay wide awake in bed, the muffled shouts and screams suddenly stopped. She listened for them to begin again, but all she detected were her mother's snores. She arose in the pitch dark and went into the bathroom. She climbed on the toilet seat and looked out the window across the yard. The cottage lights were burning. What was going on? And then she saw Lance walk out with a duffel bag and hurl it into the trunk of his car. A moment later, he spun the tires on the gravel and took off with a roar. What did that mean? Had he told Dottie he was going to marry Ruth?
The next morning, Saturday, Ruth barely touched the rice porridge her mother had heated up. She waited anxiously for the Pontiac to return, but everything remained quiet. She slumped onto the sofa with her book. Her mother was putting dirty clothes, towels, and sheets into a bag draped over a cart. She counted out the quarters and dimes needed for the laundromat, then said to Ruth, "Let's go. Wash-clothes time."
"I don't feel so good."
"Ai-ya, sick?"
"I think I'm going to throw up."
Her mother fussed over her, taking her temperature, asking her what she had eaten, what her stools looked like. She made Ruth lie down on the sofa and placed a bucket nearby, in case she really did get sick. At last her mother departed for the laundromat; she would be gone for at least three hours. She always pushed the cart to a place twenty minutes away, because the washers there were a nickel cheaper than those at the closer places and the dryers didn't burn the clothes.
Ruth put on a jacket and strayed outside. She slid into the chair on the porch, opened her book, and waited. Ten minutes later, Dottie opened the back door of the cottage, climbed down the four steps, and strode across the yard. Her eyes were puffy like a toad's, and when she smiled at Ruth, the upper half of her face looked tragic.
"How ya doin', kiddo?"
"Okay, I guess."
Dottie sighed, sat down on the porch, and dropped her chin onto her knees. "He's gone," she said. "But he's going to pay, don't you worry."
"I don't want any money," Ruth protested.