Page 41 of Things We Do in the Dark
On the afternoon that Joey was scheduled to testify for the prosecution, the courtroom was closed entirely. Joey was a minor, so the media was prohibited from publishing her name or any identifying details about her. Still, things leaked, and any details that the Canadian media couldn’t talk about, the American media was happy to provide. There was no publication ban in the US, so Drew’s uncle in Buffalo was tasked with mailing every article about Ruby that he came across to his nephew.
The murder of Charles Baxter was, in a word, gruesome.
The picture the papers used showed a man who appeared to have it all. Still reasonably handsome and fit at the age of fifty-six, Baxter looked exactly how you’d expect a wealthy bank president to look. At the time of his death, he’d been married to his college sweetheart, Suzanne, for thirty years, and they had a son and daughter who were both away at university.
Pictures of Ruby and her lover were often shown side by side in order to highlight the stark contrast between them. Baxter was gray haired and older; Ruby was gorgeous and twenty-one years younger. He was white and privileged; she was an immigrant from the Philippines. He lived in a five-bedroom home in The Kingsway; she was raising her daughter in a shabby apartment in Willow Park. He was the company president; shewas a customer service rep so many levels below him, it was amazing he even knew her name.
To make things even more titillating, the media also loved to show the picture of Suzanne Baxter standing right next to her husband’s mistress at the bank’s annual holiday party. Canadian Global threw a swanky black-tie dinner at the Royal York hotel each year, complete with champagne, filet mignon, and an eight-piece orchestra. A professional photographer was always on hand to capture memories of the event, and in all the photos Ruby was in, she was stunning. Tall for a Filipina at five eight, her long legs were on full display in her short, strapless gold dress. Her eyelashes were thick, her lips were red, and her long, shiny black hair spilled in perfect waves over her bare shoulders.
Suzanne Baxter, in comparison, was the same age as her husband and no more than five three, with teased blond hair. For the party, she wore a long red evening gown paired with a red sequined jacket. The wardrobe choice was unflattering. The jacket was too short and the dress too snug, highlighting the roundness of her stomach.
It had been so easy to villainize Ruby. This was long before #MeToo, and nobody seemed to blame Charles Baxter at all for the affair. Ruby was the other woman, a seductress, a home-wrecker who’d lured a happily married man away from his wife and family. She was obviously obsessed and clearly manipulative. She was Glenn Close inFatal Attraction; she was Sharon Stone inBasic Instinct. There were no other narratives. After her conviction, Suzanne was quoted as saying, “I wish she had never come into our lives,” as if her husband had been completely helpless, as if the affair—which lastedtwo years, by the way—had happened without his consent.
The story stayed with Drew long after high school, long after Ruby was convicted. Which is why, a few years later, he could not have been more shocked when Joey Reyes knocked on the door.
At the time, he and his girlfriend Simone were renting the basement apartment of a house owned by a man who spent half the year in India, leaving his twenty-year-old son to manage the property. The son never came around, more interested in his Camaro and the older Italian girlfriend his parents wouldn’t approve of than the needs of his tenants. Callswent unanswered after the oven stopped working and the freezer wouldn’t get cold enough to keep their ice cream from melting. When a family of raccoons made a home inside the chimney, Drew and Simone were forced to pay for a professional “raccoon removal” service themselves. The guy who showed up noticed the chimney was full of cracks and buildup, rendering the fireplace extremely dangerous. He told them that until it was cleaned and repaired, they should never light a fire in it, ever.
The place was a shithole, with peel-and-stick linoleum, no water pressure, and stained ceilings. But with student loans and credit card debt, it was what they could afford. Eventually, sick of being two months behind on every bill, Drew put an ad in the local paper that read “Roommate Wanted.”
The last person he expected to answer the ad was Joey Reyes.
She was a shell of a person, drowning in baggy clothes and long hair that she wore like a security blanket. She had a hard time maintaining eye contact, and her soft voice didn’t carry very far. But despite appearances, she was determined.
“I don’t have a job yet,” Joey said, standing across from Drew and Simone in the tiny kitchen with the black-and-white checkerboard floors. Beside him, Drew felt his girlfriend’s shoulders slump. “I just moved back to Toronto this morning and came here straight from Union Station. But I’ve got cash, and I can pay six months’ rent up front.”
Simone perked up again. “Six months? Up front? That should be plenty of time for you to figure out the job situation. Right, Drew?”
He wasn’t sure. Simone, who never read the newspaper and would’ve had zero interest in reading about criminals even if she did, did not recognize the shy person in their kitchen. Nobody would, as her name and picture were never published.
But Drew knew exactly who she was. It had been easy enough to figure out back when he was in high school. Willow Park Middle School was only a five-minute walk from Ruby’s building. It hadn’t been hard to dig up a copy of their yearbook, which included a photo of a pretty girl in grade 8 named Joelle Reyes, who, at the age of thirteen, already looked a lot like her mother.
At almost nineteen, she was a dead ringer for Ruby. It made Drewuneasy. It was one thing to meet the Ice Queen’s daughter. It was a whole other thing to let the girl move in.
He felt Simone’s elbow in his ribs. He knew they needed the money, and that it would take a person with extremely low standards to be willing to pay rent to live here. They weren’t asking much, but six months up front would get them current on all their bills and credit card payments.
“Welcome home,” Drew said to Joey. “By the way, we’re not actually allowed to have a third person living here. So if anyone asks, you’re just hanging out. Cool?”
“No problem,” she said. “I’m used to pretending to not exist.”
Joey moved in that afternoon. Or more accurately, she simply didn’t leave. Everything she owned in the world was in the duffel bag and backpack she had with her. Her bedroom, which was technically a den, was the size of a postage stamp. She seemed genuinely thrilled.
“I haven’t slept in a room by myself in years,” she said.
The following week, still struggling to find a job, Drew recommended Joey to replace him at the video store down the street. He’d gotten a paid internship at theToronto Tribune, and he started in two weeks.
“Gustav fired the last guy because a customer caught him watching porn on the store TV,” Drew said. “So as long as you never do that, you’re good. It’s the easiest job. It’s only busy on weekends, so during the week you can do homework, watch movies, whatever. Gustav is cool.”
“I’ll bring a book,” Joey said.
He glanced at the paperback on her bed. “What are you reading?”
“The Long Road Homeby Danielle Steel. It’s about a girl whose mother abuses her.”
Their eyes met. He waited to see if she might mention something about Ruby, but she looked away. It would be months before she felt comfortable enough to tell him anything, and even then, he would only learn about her life in fragments.
“I hated Maple Sound,” Joey said to him a couple of months later at Junior’s. “Worst town ever. My aunt and uncle never wanted me there, and the feeling was mutual. And my grandmother is an asshole.”
Drew, who’d been both of his grandmothers’ pets, couldn’t even fathom that. “So you’ll never go back and visit?”
