Read Online The Diviners by Libba Bray - Free Book Online Page B

stepping on my feet with those boats o’ yours.”
    “Boats!” Tears stung at her eyes. She swung at him and stumbled, exhausted by the effort.
    “Come on, Ruta. Don’t be that way. Let’s go home.”
    “I ain’t going nowhere with you. You’re a bum.”
    “You don’t mean that. Here. Sit with me on this step. We can catch the train in the morning.”
    The exhaustion she’d fought for so long finally caught up with her. “I ain’t goin’ back like this, with everybody laughing at us likeI ain’t nothin’ special and never will be!” she half sobbed. But Jacek didn’t hear. He’d already fallen asleep on the stoop of a flophouse. “You can live there for all I care!” she shouted.
    The tracks of the Third Avenue El formed a cage over Ruta’s head as she walked south on the Bowery looking for an El entrance where there weren’t bums lying on the rickety stairs, just waiting. With each exhausted step, she felt the bitter disappointment of returning empty-handed to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where her family lived in a two-room apartment in a crumbling building on a street where nearly everyone spoke Polish and the old men smoked cigarettes in front of store windows draped with fat strands of kielbasa. It was a world away from the bright lights of Manhattan. She looked uptown, toward the distant, hazy glow of Park Avenue, where the rich people lived. She just wanted her piece of it. None of this answering the telephone switchboard at a second-rate law office every day, making barely enough to go to the pictures. Ruta was only nineteen years old, and what she knew most was want—a constant longing for the good life she saw all around her.
    Ruta Badowski. Ruta. She hated that name. It was so Polish, brought over by her parents, but she’d been born here, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. She’d change her name to something more American, like Ruthie or Ruby. Ruby was good. Ruby… Bates. Tomorrow, Ruta Badowski would quit her job at the switchboard and Ruby Bates would take the bus to Mr. Ziegfeld’s theater and audition to be a chorus girl. One day, her name would be in lights, and Jacek and the rest could watch her from the cheap seats and go chase themselves.
    “Good evening.”
    Ruta gasped; the voice startled her. She squinted in the gloom. “Who’s there? You better get lost. My brother’s a cop.”
    “I’ve always had a great appreciation for the law.” The stranger stepped from the shadows.
    Her eyes must’ve been playing tricks on her, because the man seemed almost like a ghost in the light. His clothes were funny—hopelessly out of date: a tweed suit even though it was warm, a vest and suit jacket, and a bowler hat. He carried a walking stick with the silver head of a wolf at the top. The wolf’s face was set in a snarl and its eyes were red like rubies. Ruby—ha! That gave her a small shudder, though she couldn’t say why. It occurred to her that she wasn’t in a safe place. These dance marathons were usually held in bad neighborhoods, where they wouldn’t draw too much attention from the city.
    “This is a dreadful place for a young lady to be walking alone,” the stranger said, as if he’d read her thoughts. He offered his arm. “Might I be of assistance?”
    Ruby Bates might be on her way to being a glamorous star, but Ruta Badowski had grown up on the streets. “Thanks all the same, mister, but I don’t need help,” she said crisply. When she turned to go, her ankle gave way, and she winced in pain.
    The stranger’s voice was deep and soothing. “My sister and I run an establishment nearby, a grand boardinghouse with a kitchen. Perhaps you’d care to wait there? We’ve a telephone if you wish to call your family. My sister, Bryda, has likely made paczki and coffee.”
    “Paczki?” Ruta repeated. “You’re Polish?”
    The stranger smiled. “I guess we’re all just dreamers trying to find our way in this extraordinary country, aren’t we, Miss…?”
    “Ruta—Ruby.