Thrown-away Child

jumpers, hands insolently on their hips, as if they were the models they saw in the fashion magazines. And a snap of Ruby at nine or ten in her Sunday-go-to-church clothes. And that high school graduation portrait, Ruby in her angora sweater and her Afro. The cat-eye specs were gone by then.
    “Look at this one,” I said to Ruby, pointing to another snap of her in her high school years. “What’s this?”
    “Nothing.” Ruby flipped the page.
    “Let’s see.” I turned the page back.
    “Please, Hock. Enough!”
    “Oh, that one’s when Ruby went to her prom,” Mama said. Ruby glared at her. “Don’t she look gorgeous in that green satin dress, though? I like the way she done her hair for the prom. Wasn’t like a bush.”
    “Gracious, big sister, you surely must have won all the votes for the title of ‘Miss Tits’ that night,” Janice said, recognizing the photo even though she was looking at it upside-down. Suddenly, a lot of Ruby’s little boy cousins who had been wrestling on the floor became interested in the family album. “Look how you forgot about wearing a bra under that scoop-neck drapey thing. And who’s that boy in the lime green thing with the big velvet lapels? Probably he rented it out of Petey’s Tuxedo Emporium over on Claiborne at the overpass.”
    “Shoo, you ought to know Claude Bougart when you looking at him,” Mama said. “That fine yellow boy they call Booger, he had the glad eye for both you girls one time or the other.”
    “Well, I called him Claude—and he was an awful nice guy.” She said to Ruby, “Guess what happened to Claude.”
    “Just tell me, why don’t you?”
    “He’s a policeman.”
    “Where? Here in New Orleans?”
    “That’s right, Ruby. Your prom date is now Patrolman Claude Bougart of the NOPD.” Janice smiled a mouse-snatcher smile, letting the irony sink in. She asked me, “Isn’t that just a remarkable coincidence, you and Claude being officers of the law and all?“
    “Remarkable I don’t know,” Ruby said. “But if Claude’s single, maybe you should give him a call sometime.”
    “Why’d I do that?”
    “Claude being a BMW and all.”
    “Oh, you!”
    What happened next was a remarkable coincidence. This being in the person of the next guest to walk through Mama’s front door. Not so much a guest as a family friend who had not been around to call in some time.
    An older version of the Claude Bougart from the prom picture now stood in front of Ruby and me. Bougart was wearing neither a lime green rental tux nor police blue. Instead he wore a Saints warm-up jacket, a T-shirt, and neatly pressed jeans. He took off his baseball cap as he entered the parlor. I have to like a man who wears a baseball cap.
    “Evening, Miz Violet,” he had said, greeting the head of the house. He nodded hello to a few more whom he knew. Then he crossed the room toward Ruby, as if hypnotized.
    He gave me a look of passing wonder. But it was clear to the point of awkward that Ruby was his true focus.
    Ruby broke a weighted silence.
    “It’s been so long, Claude.” Ruby held out her hands. Claude bent down and kissed the backs of her fingers. Janice let out a swoony sound at this. Ruby smiled at her, and something in code passed between sisters. “Tell me what I want to hear, Janny.”
    “I’m jealous.”
    “Thank you, Janny.”
    “All this time, Ruby...” Claude stopped. His voice did not crack, but maybe it would have if he had not paused. The poor guy sounded as if he had just run up and down Gibson Street about ten times. “I just want to say, Ruby—if pretty is a minute, you’re a whole hour.”
    “Oh!” Janice said, clutching at her heart, obliging Ruby again. “I am so jealous!”
    “Claude Bougart, you’re still the charmer,” Ruby said. “Tell me what’s new in your life.”
    “Not so much.”
    “I hear you’re with the police department.“
    “That’s true.” There was nothing close to pride in Claude’s voice as he said this. Which I could understand after meeting Eckles and Mueller, which I could further understand, given the equally odious thought of King Kong Kowalski in my own department. know you’re living up in New York. What else is new with you?”
    “Well,” Ruby said, taking my arm, “you see why we’re here visiting.”
    “No…” Claude stopped talking then, frozen by the sad truth that Ruby Flagg was spoken for. It was not hard to read Claude’s mind.
    The tension was thick between Claude