Ruby Unscripted by Cindy Martinusen Coloma Page B

conversation), Felicity agreed to go to the prom with Josh though she really wants to go with Harlen . . . stuff like that.
    I keep looking at the photograph. It’s distracting me from the 1918 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb student in Yugoslavia. Finally I run downstairs with the picture in my hand.
    â€œMom, do you know a Beatrice or someone with the initial E ?”
    She’s working on her laptop, sitting on the couch with papers spread all around her. The fire crackles, and part of me thinks to come downstairs and do my homework at the coffee table near her.
    â€œUh, E ? There’s Ernest Hemingway,” she says, her eyes not moving from the screen. Her reading glasses are inching down her nose.
    â€œI mean in our family. Or someone Aunt Betty would know.”
    â€œHmm. Aunt Betty’s name is actually Beatrice. Why?”
    â€œMom, Mom!” Mac comes running from outside. “Ruby, Ruby!”
    â€œWhat, what!” I say.
    â€œCome out here quick. You need to see this guy.”
    Mom and I give each other a knowing look and sigh, then get up and hurry to the front door. Just then a guy makes a circle and waves, riding a sort of motorized unicycle with a headlight and what appears to be a solar panel rising above him on a metal bar. He tips his hat at my stare and is gone before I can wave back or smile or respond at all.
    â€œOnly in Marin,” Mom says.
    Back inside, I show Mom the picture. She studies it and reads the back. “This is interesting.”
    â€œDo you think this is Aunt Betty?” It’s strange to imagine my quirky old aunt as this young, thoughtful woman.
    â€œThe photograph looks like it’s from around the fifties or maybe older. So it could be her.”
    â€œDid she go to France when she was young?”
    Mom sits back on the couch and picks up her laptop, then pauses. “You know, I think there was some scandal with Aunt Betty when she was in her early twenties. She ran off to Europe or something. We’ll have to ask her when she returns. If she’ll tell us.”

    I survive Day 4 of Marin High.
    Lunch with Frankie and his friends helps a lot, except for Blair.
    â€œSo you’re a Christian?” she asks with a short laugh.
    For a second, I hesitate. Usually I might be embarrassed or intimidated by such a question, but she makes me want to fight back. “Yeah.”
    â€œAnd why would that be? Why are you a Christian?”
    Frankie comes to my rescue. “What are you, Blair, darling?”
    â€œI’m Blair. I believe in me,” she says with confidence, and the conversation thankfully goes another direction.
    Then I see Super Jock across the quad. He followed me around earlier, again calling, “Hey, New Girl.” When he sees me sitting with Frankie and friends, a surprised expression comes over his face. I think he’ll leave me alone now.
    A strange pride surrounds me as I sit with Frankie and friends at lunch. Maybe it’s that I’m hanging out with the kind of people I’d be terrified to sit with before. Maybe it’s just that I’m no longer sitting alone.

    Hours later, when I arrive at work, I see a check with my name on it. My first job, my first check. It’s for $87.50 after taxes. I want to kiss it and jump up and down. Instead I slide it into my purse and get my apron, already picking out things to spend it on.
    The first three hours of work slide by. My favorite trio of old men is there, as usual. They sit around talking about their most recent marathons or news and politics or their aches and pains. And they love flirting with me, which is quite humorous since they’re certainly all over seventy.
    I’m cleaning beneath a small table where a cute little kid made a very uncute mess when I hear some girls talking at a table nearby.
    â€œI’ve seen her before,” I hear someone say.
    Wet globs of cracker are stuck to the