Ruby didn’t leave June standing in the hall. She opened the door before June rang, then moved aside.
The drying rack was gone from the kitchen. There were no mugs waiting. Ruby stood by the chair June had used when Ruby told her about Sam and gripped its back.
“He’s told you,” she said.
“He’s told me he wrote it. That you gave him all my pages. That he knew they were mine.”
Ruby nodded, once.
June set her bag on the floor but kept her coat on.
“You said the story came from Sam.”
“Sam hurt me.”
“I know he did. I asked him. That isn’t what I’m asking now.”
Ruby looked down at the chair.
“I used what you sent me,” she said.
“All of it.”
“Yes.”
“Not a few phrases.”
“No.”
June felt the room begin to tilt in little ordinary ways: the table too close, the window too far away. She sat down because she didn’t want to fall. Ruby took the other chair.
“It was the foundation,” Ruby said. “Your account. We changed the places. Took things out. Put the dinner in. Made the ending bigger.”
“And you gave him my name.”
“It was on the pages.”
“You could have taken it off.”
Ruby nodded. “Yes.”
June looked at her. Eight years had given Ruby access to nearly everything June found hardest to say. She had mistaken that access for a place things could safely stay.
“When I sent it,” June said, “you told me I didn’t have to make it funny for you.”
Ruby pressed a hand against her mouth.
“I meant that.”
“Then you sent it to a man I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t think he’d become—”
“Don’t finish that.”
Ruby lowered her hand. June could hear traffic through the window. There was a little scratch in the tabletop she had traced with her finger on other evenings, waiting for tea.
“Did you know he told me he only performed?”
“Yes.”
“Before I repeated it to you that Thursday?”
“I knew you thought that. Afterwards I knew exactly what he’d said.”
“And you threatened him when I left.”
“I told him I could put the credit in.”
“Why?”
Ruby looked toward the hall. “I needed him to stop walking away from it. He was letting me stand there with everything. I thought if his name was on the writing, he’d help me make an account we could both give.”
“Without my whole story in it.”
“Without saying it was all yours, yes.”
June stared at her.
“I thought he wouldn’t risk telling you,” Ruby said. “Because then you’d know what he’d done as well.”
“You risked me finding out because you wanted the evening.”
Ruby’s face crumpled, but she answered. “I wanted to keep it. I thought he’d negotiate. It was a stupid gamble.”
June looked at the door. She wasn’t finished. Leaving would give her the chance to stop hearing, but it would leave things she still needed to know.
“When you said you were protecting somebody, were you protecting Sam?”
“After you asked, that was what I said.”
“And before?”
Ruby began to cry, silently at first.
“I meant you. I wasn’t going to name you.”
“You said him.”
Ruby looked down. “I wanted you asking about a man. Not about what I’d taken from you.”
June made a short sound that wasn’t laughter. “You didn’t need to protect me. You needed me not to recognize it.”
Ruby wiped her face with her sleeve. “I knew you’d recognize the words. I thought—I thought you’d see that they fit how I felt.”
“So you used Sam to make me believe the rest.”
“The kiss was real.”
“I know.”
Ruby stopped. She sat crying while June waited. June had comforted her through hurt before. Tonight she could not reach across the table.
“The feeling I brought to it was real,” Ruby said at last. “I thought that mattered enough. Then people believed the whole thing. I didn’t want to give it back.”
“You asked me to confirm it.”
“Yes.”
“And when I wouldn’t, you told people I knew the real story.”
Ruby nodded again.
June’s phone rang in her coat pocket. Eli’s name appeared on the screen. She let it stop. Then she wrote, Don’t call. Answer one thing by message: was the follow-up Ruby wanted about my relationship with you?
She put the phone on the table. Ruby looked at it, then away.
“The piece you talked about yesterday,” June said. “How much of it was about us?”
“That was the idea. A continuation. Friendship, new love. I thought people would want something hopeful.”
“Did he agree?”
“No. He wouldn’t write it.”
June’s phone lit up. Eli had answered: Yes. She wanted that continuation. I refused. We both worked on the original from your complete account. I should have told you. I won’t call again.
June read it and put the phone away.
“No further use,” she said to Ruby. “Of the pages. Of what I’ve said to you. Of my relationship. None.”
“All right.”
“And my statement isn’t a defence of what you did. The kiss happened. The hurt happened. Eli wasn’t your boyfriend. Those things stay true. But I was led to give that statement without knowing where the story came from. I’m saying that.”
Ruby leaned forward. “Could we work out—”
“I’m saying it myself.”
She stood. Ruby got up too, but stayed behind her chair.
“Will you come on Saturday?”
June looked at her in disbelief. Ruby began crying again.
“I don’t mean onstage. Just—please don’t leave me there with nobody.”
“You can’t ask me that tonight.”
June picked up her bag. In the hall she took a moment to find the door catch. She knew it always stuck. Her hand still fumbled.
Ruby stayed in the kitchen. June heard her say her name once, but she didn’t go back.
Outside, the dry cleaner was dark. June leaned against the wall for a few seconds before walking home. Her phone remained quiet in her pocket.