Ruby had one shoe on and a woman she had never met telling her she was brave.
“She’s sent it twice,” Ruby said. She stood in the middle of her bedroom with her phone held away from her, as if the message needed room. “The same thing. Do I answer twice?”
“You could put your other shoe on first.”
“That’s how you would handle fame?”
“I’d have a person for the shoes.”
Ruby lifted her bare foot toward June. June flicked the silver sandal off the bed at her.
It landed strap first in Ruby’s open bag. They both stared at it.
“Years of wasted practice,” Ruby said. “And that was your talent.”
June bowed from the chair and nearly hit her forehead on Ruby’s wardrobe. The Sunday light caught the dust on the mirror and made Ruby look surrounded by sparks. She had stopped crying hours ago, apparently. Now she kept receiving things that made her want to start again.
The video had been up since late morning. June had seen the first few seconds on the bus: Ruby, close to the camera, saying that she had spent too long protecting a man who was happy to let her look foolish. June had stopped it there. She knew the face Ruby made just before tears and hated seeing it reduced to something she could hold in her hand while someone beside her ate crisps.
She had messaged, Coming over. Ruby had replied, Don’t cancel tonight. I need to leave the house.
So they were going to the cinema, as planned. There was an old romantic comedy in the small screen, and Nina had promised to find them the two seats whose springs didn’t complain. Afterwards they would stand in the foyer arguing about the ending until somebody needed to lock up. June worked there; on a Sunday off, she still chose to go there. Ruby found this both touching and faintly tragic.
“The woman says she’s had exactly the same experience,” Ruby said.
“Has she?”
“Apparently. And someone else says I should do a whole series.”
“About this man?”
Ruby dropped into the corner of the bed. “Not just him. Things you put up with. The little things.”
June watched her thumb stop over the screen. Three weeks ago Ruby had gone to another audition and come back pretending not to mind. They had sat in this room and performed the woman who had told her, warmly, that she had a wonderful face for comedy. Ruby had wanted to know which part of her face had eliminated her from serious work.
Now people were listening.
“Does it feel good?” June asked.
Ruby glanced up, caught. “A little. Is that horrible?”
“No.”
“I keep thinking someone will say I’m being ridiculous.”
“People say that about women putting pockets in dresses. You can’t wait them out.”
Ruby smiled. Then she looked at the dress June was wearing.
“Stand up.”
“What?”
“That zip has done its usual thing.”
June stood. Ruby set the phone face down and went behind her. The dress always caught just below the shoulder blades. June had been telling herself for two years that she would take it to someone who could fix it.
Ruby freed the fabric with a nail and pulled the zip up.
“There. Beautiful. If you lean on the wrong wall, call me.”
For a moment her hands rested on June’s shoulders. It was an old habit, giving the finished person a little squeeze, as though June were a present Ruby had wrapped.
“Are you really all right?” June asked.
“I’m better than I was this morning.”
“You can tell me about him.”
Ruby went to her mirror. “I don’t want to use up the evening. Look, which earrings?”
June pointed to the little gold hoops. Ruby chose the long green ones.
“Why do you ask?”
“To find out if you’ve changed.”
They had met eight years earlier at the cinema. June had been trying to explain to an angry man that a film in black and white wasn’t a technical fault. Ruby, who was behind him in the queue, had leaned forward and said, with perfect seriousness, that the colour was an optional upgrade. June had made a sound she could not defend as professional. When the man had gone, Ruby had bought two ice creams and waited until June’s break.
There had been more complicated reasons to be grateful since. June liked that the first one was still so stupid.
Ruby retrieved her bag and led June out of the bedroom with the other sandal on. June picked up their coats. In the narrow hall, Ruby tested the serious face she intended to wear when people asked how she was.
“Thank you. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
“Too much,” June said.
Ruby lowered her chin. “Thank you. I’m finding my strength.”
“Much worse.”
“I’ve eaten. I’ve washed. I’ve applied mascara. There’s nothing more you can ask of me.”
“That one.”
They laughed on the stairs. Ruby lived above a dry cleaner’s, and the warm chemical smell always made June think of arriving early to parties. Outside, Ruby hooked her arm through June’s. The evening was cool enough that they could walk close without sticking together.
Halfway to the cinema, Ruby’s phone rang. She silenced it.
“Who?”
“Someone from work. She’s seen it.”
“You’re allowed to answer.”
“I want to get there with you.”
June pressed her arm against Ruby’s. It was such a small thing to say, and it gave her the evening she had wanted.
Nina was waiting at the cinema entrance with a torn programme in her hand.
“The distributor has described this as a sparkling examination of marriage,” she said. “It is about a woman marrying the wrong twin.”
“Marriage can be examined that way,” June said.
“Sparklingly,” Ruby agreed.
Nina hugged Ruby. She didn’t ask about the video straight away, which June appreciated. Instead she told them that a woman had asked whether the film was suitable for somebody who disliked misunderstandings.
“Why did you let her in?” Ruby asked.
“She’d already bought a ticket.”
Ruby became the woman immediately: lips tight, one finger raised, prepared to stop the film the moment someone failed to explain a twin. Nina bent against the door laughing. June attempted the other twin, who she decided had never learned to turn his neck.
“You look injured,” Ruby told her.
“It’s a romantic condition.”
“Can you cure it before you’re allowed to speak to customers again?” Nina asked.
Inside, a young woman near the posters recognized Ruby.
She hesitated first, looking from Ruby to her own phone. Then she came over.
“Sorry. I saw what you posted. I just wanted to say—you shouldn’t have had to sit there on your birthday waiting for him. That was awful.”
Ruby’s face softened. “Thank you.”
The woman asked if she could hug her. Ruby said yes. June stepped aside with both coats over her arm.
Birthday?
Ruby’s birthday had been last month. They had eaten noodles in a little place with steamed windows, just the two of them. Ruby had dropped a dumpling into her handbag and insisted the bag was now too expensive to throw away. She hadn’t been waiting for a man. She and June had gone to the last showing here afterwards and complained together about the heroine’s coat.
The woman went back to her friend. Ruby reached for her coat.
“What birthday dinner?” June asked quietly.
“In the video.”
“We were together on your birthday.”
“I know.”
“So why does she think you were waiting for him?”
Ruby looked toward the two women, who were whispering now. She led June a few steps toward the stairwell.
“I changed some details.”
“That isn’t changing the restaurant. That’s a thing that didn’t happen.”
“I had to protect someone.”
“Who?”
Ruby rubbed the mark her ring had left on her finger. “Someone who doesn’t need everybody looking at him. Please, can we watch the film? I’ve spent the whole day in this.”
June could have stayed by the stairs and made Ruby answer. Nina was looking over from the box office, checking whether they were coming. The woman who had hugged Ruby smiled at her again.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” June said.
Ruby took the coat. “Yes.”
In the dark, Ruby found June’s hand when the wrong twin first appeared. It was what they did when a film was especially bad: one squeeze meant Did you see that? Two meant There can be no defence of this.
June squeezed back once.
She laughed at the joke that followed. She even forgot the woman for a few minutes. Then Ruby’s phone lit up in her lap, and Ruby turned it over carefully, hiding the light.
There was a whole story on that phone. June was going to listen to it.