Page 32 of The Fadeaway

“I do agree, but I feel like I’ve been waiting forever to talk things out, and waiting longer is hard.” Ruby pours a packet of sugar into her cup of tea and stirs. “I don’t want to wait. I’m ready to hear what you have to say.”

Dexter’s nostrils flare slightly as he inhales. He doesn’t look angry, just conflicted. “I hear you, and believe me, I want to grab you and kiss you and take you home with me for another night—or forever—but I still think this trip is something you need to complete without me mucking it up.”

Ruby ignores the fact that Dexter has insinuated that he might muck anything up, because he’s essentially told her everything that she wants to hear: that he wants to hold her, kiss her, love her,bewith her. She smiles, and tears of happiness prick at the backs of her eyes.

“So…you don’t want to tell me that it’s over between us?”

“Ruby, it was never over between us. You got really in your head about the notion that I needed or wanted someone who could give me children, and yeah, of course that’s something worth thinking about, but it’s never been the issue that my heart hinges on. I’m someone who believes far more in love and happiness in the now. After all, no one is guaranteed a tomorrow. And you make me happytoday.”

Dexter reaches across the table subtly and takes Ruby’s hand in his. He winds his fingers through hers and they hold one another’s gaze, forgetting for a moment that other people are there and that anyone could be watching and taking notes on the love life of the former First Lady. In fact, Ruby pushes it from her mind altogether, because she honestly doesn’t care. Her life is hers now, and she gets to live it however she wants to.

“You make me happy today too,” she says in a voice that’s almost a whisper.

Dexter holds her hand tightly as he leans forward. “Then go and do what you need to do, and let’s spend Christmas together—can you do that? Maybe you could come here and we could do Christmas in New York?”

Ruby’s face falls. “I’d love to,” she says. “I would, but I’ve already invited Helen Pullman and her husband down for the holidays, and both Athena and Harlow will be there as well. Do you think you can come to Shipwreck?”

Dexter’s mouth quirks in a half-smile. “I think that could be arranged,” he says. “But let’s worry about details in a few of weeks. Right now, you need to hit the road again. And you have your mom’s memorial to do as well.”

“I do,” Ruby confirms. She nods grimly. “All of this discovery I’m doing right now is kind of keeping my mom alive for me, and I’m worried that actually holding a memorial for her will be my first realization that she’s truly gone. I’ve kept myself on the move here, and that makes it easier for me to forget.”

Dexter is still holding her hand and looking at her pensively. “I heard something once that I think is true,” he says. “I might be paraphrasing slightly, but the idea that we only have a relationship with someone while they’re alive is all wrong. Our relationship doesn’t die with them, it just changes. It shifts.”

Ruby thinks about this. “You’re so right,” she says. “My dad has been gone for almost forty years and while I miss him and I mourn the relationship I might have had with him as an adult, I do still have a relationship with him in some ways. Part of who I am is because of him, and the fact that he loved me as much as he did really informed my entire life.”

“And the same goes for Patty,” Dexter says.

Ruby is having a hard time holding back her tears now. She nods. “Hey,” she says, squeezing his hand and jiggling it a bit on the table to let him know she’s changing topics. “What about the book? We haven’t talked about it at all lately. Where do things stand?”

Dexter lets go of her hand and pulls his leather satchel from the back of his chair, where it’s been hanging. “Actually, I have the first five chapters here for you,” he says, sliding out a manila folder and setting it on the table between them. “I could have just emailed it, but I wanted to print it out for you so that you could read it and write on it or mark it up however you see fit.”

Ruby stares at the file on the table. This is the first five chapters of the book she and Dexter have been working on for more than a year now. It’s the culmination of their discussions, her tears, their heart-to-hearts, and everything that Ruby wanted to say about Jack. This book was also the source of her separation from Dexter, if she’s being honest, as they’d grown so close that he lost his ability to be objective and his editor had some real concerns about whether or not he’d be able to deliver a biography about President Hudson while he was falling in love with Ruby.

“I’m looking forward to reading it,” Ruby says carefully. She slides the folder towards her and holds it in her hands. It’s heavy with the weight of Dexter’s words, and she knows that this book has cost both of them in many ways, while also bringing them to each other. She would go through it all again just for the chance to have met Dexter. “Thank you.”

Dexter is looking at her seriously, watching her as she holds the folder in her hands. “Getting a little space and perspective while I worked on this was necessary, Ruby. I’m sorry if my leaving hurt you, but I really think the book is going to be better for it. I’m eager to know what you think.”

Ruby slips it into her shoulder bag and stands. “I should probably grab Banks and get to the airport,” she says. “Austin awaits, and if it’s anything like the rest of this trip has been, I’m about to find out some things about my mother that I never knew.”

“I hope you do,” Dexter says, standing and helping Ruby slip into the coat she’s slung over the back of her chair. “If the people we love stop surprising us, then life gets pretty dull.”

Ruby tugs at the collar of her jacket and buttons it. “The people I love never stop surprising me,” Ruby says. “And I hope that I occasionally surprise them too.”

As if to prove her point, Ruby takes a step towards Dexter, grabs the lapels of his jacket, and pulls him to her sharply. With no regard to anyone else in the cafe, she tugs him closer and then puts her lips to his, lingering in a long, chaste kiss that’s filled with unspoken promise.

“See you at Christmas, Dexter North,” she says, grabbing the handle of her suitcase and dragging it behind her as she walks straight out of the cafe. She doesn’t even bother to look back because she already knows that he’s standing there, watching her with a smile.

Ruby

Austin is as fun and quirky as Ruby has always known it to be, and while she’s officially there to meet with Zoe and Theodore Westover—and hopefully with Lyle Westover, who is living at Fair Skies Village—she spends the first day walking around downtown, eating from the food carts, and buying a pair of cowboy boots embroidered with a rainbow of flowers.

“Are you sitting outside with a margarita?” Harlow asks her mother as they FaceTime that afternoon.

Ruby sucks her slushy red drink through a straw with glee. “Yup,” she says. Banks is getting her another order of carne asada tacos with cilantro and lime, and she’s enjoying the way the November breeze caresses the back of her neck. The food carts are actually old Airstream trailers circled in an open lot, and someone has strung ropes of miniature Edison bulbs over the picnic tables. A young family sits at the table next to Ruby’s.

Harlow and Athena are both on Shipwreck Key for the time being, running the bookstore in her absence and most likely raiding her pantry and staying up all night watching movies together. Ruby loves how close her girls are, and while she laments the way their father’s death and their own personal trials have upended their lives, she knows how smart andresilient they both are. They’ll get their feet under them again, and until they do, they are both always welcome on Shipwreck Key—or anywhere that Ruby goes.

“Here you go,” Banks says, setting a basket of tacos on the picnic table.

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