Page 38 of Things We Do in the Dark
The social worker wasn’t strong enough to hold Joey back. As the police car pulled away with her mother inside it, Joey wriggled out of the woman’s sweaty grasp to chase after it in her bare feet, screaming for Ruby all the way down Willow Avenue until the car and the lights and her mother disappeared.
The newspapers would report the scene as heartbreaking. But for the residents who lived at 42 Willow Avenue, it wasn’t exactly surprising. They’d known for a long time that something wasn’t right. They’d seen the bruises and the hollowed-out look in the girl’s eyes as she stood next to them in the elevator. They’d heard the shouting and the sounds of things crashing from inside Ruby’s apartment at all times of the day.
“Well, it wasn’teveryday,” Mr. Malinowski was overheard saying to the police the night of Ruby’s arrest. He was the building superintendent who lived on the first floor. “I mean, was she skinny? Sure, but a lot of girls are at that age. Did I once see a bruise on her cheek? Sure, but she’s a kid. Did I ask if she was all right? Of course I did, and her mother said she fell off her bike. What was I supposed to do, accuse her of lying?”
Except Joey didn’t have a bike. Nor did she have a skateboard, or Rollerblades, or any of the other things that had supposedly caused the purple welts that occasionally popped up in different places on her face and body.
“She did have a bandage around her arm once,” said Mrs. Finch, who lived down the hall from them with her unemployed adult son. She was eager to talk to the police since she was the one who had finally called them. “The girl looked embarrassed, said she tripped and fell, that she was a klutz. I always knew something wasn’t right. But I never actuallysawher mother do anything, so what could I do? And besides, it was none of my business. Okay, fine, I admit I never liked the woman much. She was a floozy, always wearing those short skirts and high heels, her tatas up to here, and every few months a different boyfriend. But the girl is what,twelve? Thirteen? If something was going on, she should have said so, or how else is anyone supposed to know?”
But they knew. Of course they knew.
The murder trial that followed was big news. Charles Baxter, the president of the large bank where Ruby worked, had died of exsanguination as the result of multiple stab wounds. Sixteen, to be exact, but it was the slice across the neck that ultimately killed him. Afraid to ask an adult what exsanguination meant, Joey looked it up in the dictionary. It turned out to be a very fancy and interesting-sounding word for something that just meant “blood loss.”
Her mother’s beauty only fueled the publicity. Ruby Reyes’s long, glossy black hair and seductive smile were at the center of every article, every TV news report. They even gave her a nickname: The Ice Queen. She was thirty-five at the time of her arrest, but she could have passed for ten years younger.
“If I didn’t have you,” Ruby always said to her daughter, “I could tell people I’m twenty-five. I hate that you look like me.”
Joey never doubted that she was the worst thing that ever happened to her mother. Just like her mother was the worst thing that ever happened to her.
After her mother’s conviction, Joey was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Maple Sound, a small town two hours north of Toronto. It was supposed to make things better. Flora and Miguel Escario had three small boys of their own, and they’d agreed to take in their niece when the social worker made it clear that it was either them, or foster care. Joey made the move a few days after her mother’s arrest. Finally, she would have a real family. It was a chance at a fresh start.
Except it wasn’t, because the kids at her high school knew exactly who Ruby Reyes was, which meant they knew exactly who Joey Reyes was. They knew because their parents read the newspapers and watched the news, as did their teachers. The new girl was the Ice Queen’s daughter, and the Ice Queen wasfresh off the boatand aslutand agold diggerwho hadmurderedsomeone. The story was horrific and titillating and oh so much fun to talk about, and so they whispered and gossiped and speculated until the bits of truth twisted into more interesting rumors,which grew into outright lies. There was no getting away from it, from her mother, from thestoryof her mother.
After graduating from high school at the age of eighteen, Joey moved back to Toronto. Two years later, she died at home, alone, in a fire. It was a tragic end to a tragic life, and in all the years Drew has worked as a journalist, he promised himself he would never write about Ruby, because of Joey. He knew there was no chance he could ever be objective.
But he’s not a journalist anymore. The newspaper he wrote for folded three years ago, forcing Drew to pivot hard if he wanted to continue paying his mortgage. He’s a podcaster now, andThe Things We Do in the Darkaverages three million listeners every season. People tune in for his opinions. And when it comes to Ruby Reyes being presented as a victim of anything, he has a shitload of things to say. At the age of sixty, the Ice Queen is getting a second chance at life, while the daughter she abused for years died at the age of twenty?
Drew isn’t just angry.
He’s fucking furious.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There’s only one parking spot on the street in front of Junior’s, and Drew snags it.
It never used to be this busy, but so much in the old neighborhood has changed since he last lived here twenty years ago. The video store where he and Joey used to work is gone. The Portuguese bakery is gone, too. But Junior’s is still here, and so is the Golden Cherry, right beside it.
He locks his car and looks over at the iconic neon sign and blacked-out facade of the former strip club. Drew has been inside the Cherry exactly once, for a bachelor party he didn’t want to attend, for a wedding that never happened. The Golden Cherry was popular back in the day, but when the strip club industry started to decline about ten years ago, the old “gentlemen’s club” was turned into an upscale nightclub. The owner took on a partner, but kept the original name. Other than a fresh coat of paint, it doesn’t look much different.
But Junior’s does. The best Jamaican restaurant in this part of the city, famous for its jerk chicken, curry goat, and oxtail, is three times the size it used to be. There was a time when Drew would eat here at least twice a week, but he rarely comes back to this neighborhood anymore unless he has to. In fact, it would be fair to say he avoids it.
Everything here reminds him of Joey.
He pulls open the door, and the bells overhead announce his entry.Gone are the days when the place was just a hole-in-the-wall with three tables and a busy takeout window. The restaurant, having taken over the bakery next door, is bigger and brighter, with fresh yellow paint, new green vinyl chairs, and glossy black tables. Samsung TVs are mounted in each corner of the dining room, and on the wall by the door is a giant framed photograph of a grinning Junior standing beside Usain Bolt. But while all these changes are good, Drew notices their prices have gone up. Their signature beef patties, which used to be 99 cents, are now a whopping $2.50 apiece.
He walks up to the counter and orders one anyway, then grabs a table while he waits for his lunch guest. As he savors the patty, which tastes exactly as he remembers, he watches the TV closest to him. Three pundits on CNN are arguing about something the US president just said, and while Drew doesn’t find American politics that interesting, the news ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen catches his eye.
PARIS PERALTA, CHARGED WITH FIRST-DEGREE MURDER, SET TO INHERIT $46 MILLION FROM LATE HUSBAND JIMMY PERALTA’S ESTATE
Forty-six million. Damn. So the wife probably did do it, then. Drew has never paid much attention to the trials and tribulations of celebrities, but the Jimmy Peralta murder is interesting. He just watchedJimmy Peralta Liveson Quan not that long ago, and is looking forward to the second special. Seriously funny shit, though the title of the first show is now ironic, and sad.
“As I live and breathe,” a delighted voice says.
Drew turns away from the TV to find a woman standing a few feet away with a big smile on her face. It takes a few seconds to place her, but when it comes to him, his mouth drops open.
“Charisse?” He stands, trying to reconcile this lovely woman with his memory of the gangly middle schooler whose dad forced her to bus tables here. “That you?”
“Drew Malcolm,” Charisse says, hip cocked. “What are you doing back in this neck of the woods?”
