Page 13 of The Fadeaway

"Nope. Never."

Ruby huffed in disbelief. "That's got to be a lie."

Patty shook her head. "Absolute truth. I graduated high school in 1967, and I never once ditched a class to go and watch a boy ride a skateboard in the sun," she said with a wink.

This infuriated Ruby that her mother might have known why she was skipping school. "I bet you did other dumb stuff. Did you smoke cigarettes?"

"Of course," Patty said with nonchalance. "And sometimes I told my parents I was going to a sleepover at my friend Ellen's, but instead Ellen and I would go to a party in the woods and drink beer with college boys. But I never skipped school." She took another sip of her wine and leaned back in her chair. "I know kids never learn from their parents' mistakes," she said carefully, watching Ruby. "But if you take anything away from this conversation, let it be that cigarettes are a nasty habit, andthat teenage girls drinking with college boys in the woods is never a great idea."

"Did you ever drink and drive?" Ruby narrowed her eyes. She knew how strongly Patty felt about Ruby drinking and driving, or about her getting in the car with anyone who had. Up until that moment, it had seemed to Ruby that her mom was simply caught up in the current fever of the message being delivered by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and like any teenager, Ruby heard her mother's pleas, but she pretty much let them go in one ear and out the other. After all, she was still only thirteen--no one was offering her alcohol yet, and no one who'd been drinking was offering to drive her anywhere.

Patty reached for another taco, her initial hunger slightly dulled by three tacos eaten in quick succession. "I've made plenty of mistakes," Patty said calmly. She pushed her last taco towards Ruby, who was still only halfway done with her first one. "And some of those mistakes are mine to keep to myself." She leaned forward then and reached for Ruby's hand, taking it in hers against Ruby's will. "Just know that everything I do, I do because I have so many hopes and dreams for you. I want you to know that you can doanythingin life, and that I'm so proud of you. You're a good girl, Ruby Dallarosa. A wonderful girl."

Ruby, who had been expecting more of a lecture than this, felt her eyes burn. She'd forgotten to bring a glass of water to the table, and now she felt like she had a piece of crunchy taco shell stuck in her throat.

Patty closed her eyes for a long moment, still holding her daughter's hand. "Ruby," she said. "There will be many things we don't know about each other throughout the course of our lives, and that's as it should be. A mother can never know every facet of her daughter's life, and a daughtershouldn'tknow every bit of her mother's. It would be too much. We get to be in each other's lives, and if we're lucky, we'll even be friends. But wedon't get to have full access to one another--that's just how it goes, and it will be like that for you and your daughter someday as well.”

"I'm never having children," Ruby said, shaking her head. "We watched a video in health class this year of a woman giving birth, and it was disgusting. The camera was, like,rightbetween her legs." Ruby made a face like she might vomit.

Patty chuckled and squeezed her daughter's hand. "Okay," she said gently. "But someday you might change your mind for any number of reasons, and if you do, it will be wonderful. And terrifying. And you won't always get it right, but you will do everything with love, which is really the only way to do anything. Do you see?"

Ruby thought about it;didshe see? Her mother worked long hours and slept hard every night, then got up and made sure that Ruby lived in a world that was as close to perfect as she could make it. She was giving Ruby a top notch example to learn from: a woman who would not be stopped by life’s curveballs, and who threw herself into every single thing she did. That was love, right? And Ruby's dad, who she missed every second of every day, had made up jokes and songs and had listened to anything Ruby wanted to tell him about--he'd done all that with love too. Now that she thought about it, love was everywhere: her English teacher writing encouraging notes on her essays, telling Ruby she could be a great writer if she wanted to. Kit skipping class and getting into just as much trouble as Ruby so that Ruby didn't have to go to the skatepark alone where all the rowdy boys were hanging around, smoking cigarettes. That was loveandfriendship, wasn't it? Maybe her mom was right…

Ruby shrugged and took a huge bite of her taco. “Well, I guess,” she said after chewing and swallowing (talking with food in her mouth would have horrified her mother—even the versionof Patty sitting there without shoes on at the table). “Maybe I’ll change my mind about having kids, but I doubt it.”

Patty gave a throaty laugh. “That’s fair, Bibi,” she said, using Ruby’s nickname, as she occasionally did. And even though Ruby had been mad at her mother for days, she suddenly didn’t mind the familiarity of her nickname. “You’re a woman who is going places,” Patty said, standing up and stretching next to the table. She reached for the empty plates and for her wine glass, and padded into the kitchen on stocking feet. “But for now,” she called over one shoulder, “the only place you’re going is upstairs to shower before bed.”

Ruby rolled her eyes and stood up. She knew better than to argue with Patty when they were just getting back on good terms. “Okay, Mom,” she said, pushing in her chair and turning out the light over the table. “Thanks for the tacos.”

Patty said nothing, but Ruby could hear the sound of water running in the kitchen and of her mother singing a Whitney Houston song softly to herself as she opened and closed the refrigerator and the cabinets.

Ruby smiled to herself, feeling relieved that she and Patty had—in their own way—cleared the air between them. Things weren’t perfect yet, but they were getting back to normal.

Rather than walking down to State Street on the morning of the will reading, which Ruby could have easily have done if she’d given herself an hour to amble down there, she pulls her mother’s white Mercedes S-Class coupe convertible out of the garage, backing carefully down the driveway as she looks both ways for kids on bicycles or pedestrians with dogs on leashes. The car is beautiful, and somehow the tan leather interior stillsmells like Patty just drove it off the lot, even though the car is five years old. Ruby knows her mind is elsewhere, and while Helen offered to drive her to the meeting and have coffee in a cafe until Ruby finishes, she feels like she really needs to do this alone.

She woke up that morning with the memory of her adolescent scuffle with Patty over skipping school playing in her mind, and she laid in bed for the better part of an hour just remembering the times that she and her mother had not seen eye to eye on things, but had figured out how to navigate each situation just the same. She only hopes that she’s done as good a job with her own girls, letting them be themselves while still learning how to adapt and compromise so that they can mesh with friends, family members, and love interests. It’s tough, learning which parts of yourself need to change and which parts you should cling to firmly, but she believes that Harlow and Athena have grown into self-aware, self-confident young women who can both hold their own and also be flexible when necessary.

That was always the hardest thing with Patty: learning how to be flexible with her. She expected nothing but the best from herself, and therefore from those around her, and being the daughter of a woman with so much stamina and such strong convictions hadn’t always been easy.

As Ruby swings the Mercedes into a parking spot a block from State Street and puts up the roof, she remembers a time—much like the one where she’d been grounded—where she and her mother had gone rounds and ultimately given one another the silent treatment for a while. It had been around the time that Ruby started acting in commercials and driving around L.A. to audition that she and Patty had come to an impasse. In Patty’s mind, her daughter’s time would have been better spent working as a legal assistant or even as a barista, which wouldhave afforded her the time to focus on her homework rather than forcing her to waste afternoons stuck in hours of traffic, only to then wait for hours in a hot building for her turn to audition for bit parts or commercials, sitting with her back against a wall as she highlighted parts of her textbooks in preparation for essays and exams.

It had been one of Ruby’s favorite parts of her life, but in Patty’s eyes, she was spreading herself too thin in pursuit of something that didn’t matter. It was only when Ruby had landed a Levi’s spot and pocketed nearly twenty thousand dollars for her trouble that Patty had softened her stance.

“I suppose the money would come in handy,” she’d said, looking up from the novel she was reading next to Ruby poolside at the Hotel Bel Air, where they’d checked in for a girls’ weekend to mark the anniversary of Ruby’s father’s passing. “Your dad’s life insurance policy has provided us with enough that UCLA is totally paid for, but having money in the bank for your future is a good idea. A woman never knows when she might need some cash on hand.”

Ruby had rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses and flipped the page of herPeoplemagazine, but she was secretly happy that Patty had come around. They’d spent the rest of the weekend drinking mimosas, having lunch by the pool, and telling stores about Ruben Dallarosa that made them laugh and cry in equal measures. But the months leading up to that breakthrough had been rough, marked by Patty pointing out her displeasure at Ruby shuttling “from Hell’s Half Acre to Timbuktu and back” in order to potentially secure a few bucks acting as a cheerleader in a beer commercial, or a young mother pushing a fake baby in a stroller through the aisles of a grocery store. She’d repeatedly said that if Ruby wanted to, she could be arealactress, and that it would be no trouble for her to connect her daughter to an entertainment lawyer, an agent, or someone already in thebusiness who wouldn’t mind taking on a mentee, or, at the very least, answering a few questions from a budding actress.

But that’s not what Ruby had wanted, she recalls now, stepping up onto the curb as she holds the strap of the purse she’s slung over her shoulder. The sun is high in the sky, warming her blonde head from above, and she gives a half-smile at the memory of her mother wanting her to aim higher, dream bigger. It was just that being a “real actress” wasn’t appealing to Ruby. Making a chunk of money here and there for a job that might last a day or two was what she wanted to do, and it gave her time to attend classes, do homework, throw dinner parties with her roommate, and date Kingston Riley, which had been another point of contention between Ruby and Patty.

“Good morning,” Ruby says to Reggie as she walks into the lobby of Berkshire, Hallywood, Briar, and Lane at nine-fifty, leaving herself ten minutes to get situated before the meeting at ten.

“Mrs. Hudson!” Reggie says with a huge, white smile. “Alan is waiting for you. Would you like me to show you back?”

“No, thank you,” Ruby says, holding up a hand so that Reggie won’t jump out of her seat. “I can show myself back. Is it alright if I stop in the restroom first?”

“Of course—second door on the right,” Reggie says, pointing. “Can I bring you a coffee?”

“Oh, please.” Ruby puts her hands together and makes a theatrical face like she might die without coffee. “Cream and sugar would be amazing, if you have it.”

---