Speculos

Chapter Four

"Well chica, are you gonna party down there all night?"

Relief and annoyance wash over me simultaneously, and I feel my body deflate as the nerves leave me. I begin to un-wedge myself from under the bed.

One of the loops of my jeans hooked on a stray mattress spring. I try to untangle myself, but I start to bellow still hooked under the bed, "Ruby! What the hell!"

"What are you doing, baking a cake down there?" Her voice shakes with unspoken laughter, which really only annoys me more.

"I'm," stuck, like really stuck... "looking for something."

 "Hair get caught?" She asks knowingly. "That's why I cut mine actually—"

"No. Of course not."

"Mhm, sure." She elongates that last word to make it clear she doesn't believe me in the slightest.

"Belt loop." Thank you very much. The bed quakes with laughter.

I finally wiggle free and get up onto the bed, next to Ruby. I grab the flashlight and point it at her accusingly. I do a double take. She's dressed in all black, including a hat with a light and thigh high boots. "What is this? A Marvel movie?" I smirk despite my annoyance.

She smacks me in the leg. "What about you?" She looks me up and down with disgust. "This is not how you dress to break and enter! All that television that we watch really is wasted on you, isn't it?"

"I have a key. It's my house... I don't think this is technically breaking and-"

"So what are we looking for anyways?" She cuts me off.

"We are looking for nothing. I'm looking for something." I explain slowly, but as per the usual she just stares at me until I concede. A brilliant tactic on her part. "Okay, okay, we are looking for information about the time she spent away from Doily." I sigh.

"Oh, good." She rubs her hands together. "I've been dyin' for years, waiting for you to get curious enough to start snooping."

In cliché teenage fashion I put my hand on my hip and roll my eyes, but Ruby is so excited to be nosing around that she doesn't even notice. "I'll check the kitchen. Be on the lookout for secret compartments." She mock whispers excitedly. I can practically hear the Mission Impossible theme song playing in her head.

"It's my mom's bedroom, not National Treasure."

"Something big is about to happen here. I can feel it in my bones," she looks at me over her shoulder. "Plus it's a good night for a little magic, don't ya think?" She winks a me conspiratorially.

I pause while she just continues traipsing out to the hall. Normally something like "I can feel it in my bones" doesn't worry someone. Especially coming from a 70-something year old flower child.

But I knew better than to just let it go, because her bones seemed to have an innate ability to foresee the future. I'm pretty sure that her bones felt chickenpox on school picture day coming a week ahead of time, and boy do I hear "I told you so" enough to never forget it.

The proof is framed and sitting on her nightstand.

Still remembering every "I told you so" - and there are several- and holding the flashlight in my mouth, I start pulling worn socks and Fruit of the Loom panties from my mother's top drawer. I throw it all back in there and continue emptying the drawers and impatiently replacing their contents when no clues pop out in front of me.

I get to the last drawer in the whole bedroom and begin pulling out more pairs of "mom" jeans than any one woman ought to own. I pull out the last pair of jeans, and look at the drawer. As empty as my hope for figuring all this out.