Free Staying True - A Contemporary Romance Novel by Suzie Carr Page B

again?”
    “Friday night it is.”
    She cleared her throat. “I’ll see you
then.”
    “Right. See you then.”
    After hanging up, a giddy rush
coursed through me. Talk about a sweet distraction.

 
     
    Chapter Six
    Ruby
     
    I contemplated asking Grampa if I
could live with him. I didn’t want him to view all of his hard work raising me
as a failure though. So, I slept in my car for the next three nights. Each
morning, I simply entered a new gym and asked if I could take a guest tour.
Each one allowed me access to it all, even the showers. For food, I volunteered
at soup kitchens. I could handle this homeless thing. No rent. No furniture
required. Shower and eat for free.
    On the fourth morning, after
scrunching up into a ball for six hours, I woke up with another stiff neck and
not being able to wriggle my toes. This scared me. I loved my toes.
    Placing my pride aside, I called
Marcy and Rachel.
    Just like loving family, they
welcomed me to live in their home with them.
    “You can have this room on the left,”
Rachel said, escorting me down the hallway of her and Marcy’s condo. “It’s got
a nice view of the water.”
    “I can’t thank you enough.” I placed
my luggage down near the twin bed.
    “I changed the sheets so they’re nice
and fresh for you.”
    I looked around my new bedroom, a
sunny room with tangerine-colored walls and paintings of the sea. I handed her
the five hundred dollars I had borrowed from Grampa. “I hope this is enough?”
    She placed it back in my hand. “Keep
it. When you’re working, you can pay us.”
    That very day I went job searching
again. This time, I applied at retail stores, at pet stores, at garden centers,
even at the breakfast restaurant where I ate with Grampa on Sundays. I went to
the beauty supply shop and applied there, too.
    The receptionist wore pink braces on
her teeth. She smiled and her mouth looked like bubblegum.
    “I love your braces,” I said.
    “Thanks, hun.” She scanned over my
application. “My younger sister is a breast cancer survivor.”
    “Younger?” This girl couldn’t have
been more than twenty-five.
    “Yup. She just turned twenty-three
last month. Her boyfriend discovered the lump, and next thing she had a double
mastectomy.” She continued scanning my application as though she just told me
that grass grew green.
    “Poor thing.”
    The girl stopped scanning and just
stared at me. Her jaw hung and her pink braces sparkled under the reflection of
the overhead fluorescents. “Her new ones are beautiful.” She glanced down at
her flat chest and shrugged. “A hell of a lot better than mine.”
    “Will she be okay?”
    “She’ll be fine.”
    “That puts things into perspective.”
    “Yep.” She twisted her mouth and
studied my history.
    I prayed she’d look right over the
unemployed part. “I mean just this morning, I stressed about my frizzy hair.
How foolish, huh?”
    She dropped my application to the
counter and picked up a bottle. “Just stick some of this Moroccan oil on it,
and it’ll be good as new.” She opened up the lid, squirted a few drops into her
palms and massaged them together. Before smoothing onto my hair she sniffed it.
“Smells like eucalyptus.”
    How could she think about shiny hair
at a time like this when she sported pink braces and mouthed the words cancer
and sister in the same sentence?
    “So do I get the job?”
    She shrugged and picked up my
application again. “Not sure, Ruby.” She placed heavy emphasis on my name as
she scanned my application. “Why did you leave your last job? You left that
blank.”
    “Looking for a better opportunity,” I
blurted out.
    “Here?” Her lips curled up into a wry
smile.
    I glanced around at the chaos of hair
and nail products. “Well why not?”
    “Says here you are a masseuse. You’re
never going to like it here.”
    “Of course I will.” I leaned into the
counter. Hire me, damn it!
    “A better opportunity, huh?”
    Adrenaline pumped through me.