Ruthless

Chapter 2

The apartment was dark by the time Ruth got home. She turned on the lamp in the hallway and threw her keys down next to it, making sure not to knock over the only photo in her apartment –a ten-year-old Ruth smiling brightly in the arms of her overalls-wearing grandmother. The white glow of the lamp illuminated the tiny, stark living room as Ruth made her way into the kitchen and opened the freezer. Neatly stacked boxes of Lean Freezine filled every inch of the frosty space. Ruth selected the frozen meal at the top of the pile, pulled off the cardboard, threw the plastic wrapped contents into the microwave and punched in seven minutes.

She let her long wavy hair out of the tight bun that held it captive, leaving it to hover in a state that was neither up nor down. She wandered into her bedroom and kicked off her black stilettos, which brought her back down to her slightly below average height of five feet and three inches. She discarded her jacket and unbuttoned her blouse, then unzipped her high-waisted pencil skirt and let it drop to the floor.

After collecting the skirt and jacket and arranging them on a hanger, she opened her sizable closet and wedged them in between three other suits waiting to be delivered to the dry-cleaners. The narrow space in her closet reserved for dry-cleaning was getting harder and harder to preserve. Her latest shopping spree had caused her arsenal of designer apparel to overflow from its allocated area at the other end of the closet. An outfit was like a suit of armour to Ruth; the more expensive and stylish, the more protection it provided.

She walked in her underwear into the ensuite bathroom and discarded the last of her clothing on the floor before turning on the shower and stepping under the steamy water.

Afterwards, Ruth threw on a grey tracksuit with the Techniche insignia on the front pocket. The company had given them out to employees who had competed in the half marathon last March. Ruth hadn’t competed; she had acquired this one from an assignment who had come insixth place. During their brief meeting directly after the marathon presentations, the tracksuit was thrown with some force at Ruth, along with some pretty abhorrent swear words. It had seemed a shame to let it go to waste. 

Ruth ate her dinner on the cream two-seater sofa in front of the TV. Her lamb and feta ravioli was tasteless and dry but it served its purpose, which was to provide a meal that she didn’t have the time or the know-how to prepare herself. It was the routine that followed dinner that she really looked forward to.

Ruth poured the remains of an open bottle of Argentinean red wine into a fishbowl-sized glass and collected her keys and a pack of cigarettes from the hall table. She kicked her apartment door closed behind her and made her way down the corridor towards the two flights of stairs that led to the complex lobby. Ruth always preferred the stairs to the building’s single elevator. In most cases, it took longer for the elevator to arrive at the second floor than it did to walk down herself.

The apartment complex was on the high end of the market, by San Francisco’s standards, due mainly to its location on Nob Hill. It had a private garden at the rear and garage parking. You could even see the Golden Gate Bridge from the roof deck but Ruth’s favourite thing about the place was that she could walk the three blocks to and from work in under fifteen minutes.

Shane, the apartments’ gangly concierge, kindly got up to open the glass door leading to the garden, when he saw Ruth descending the stairs. He worked the late shift at the complex every night of the week except Sunday. Ruth and Shane would exchange pleasantries most nights when she came down and some nights he would join her in the garden for a quick cigarette.

“Are you coming out tonight, Shane?”

“Not tonight Ms Wroth. I’m expecting Mrs James to call any minute to confirm whether her intercom is working again,” he said in his monotone surfer drawl.

“Oh okay,” Ruth said, biting her lower lip gently. Outside of work associates, Shane was one of the only people that Ruth regularly spoke to. He was a sweet kid.

A pale half-moon dimly lit the garden as it shimmered through the fog of the crisp night air. Ruth padded out onto the grass in her wool-lined moccasins, leaving dark footprints in the dew. She took a generous sip of her wine and then opened her cigarettes. She pulled one out with her teeth and then switched the keys in her hand with the lighter in her tracksuit pocket. This routine made Ruth feel secretly wicked. She often pondered what the staff at Techniche would think if they knew of her one small vice. Maybe they’d realise that she was more like them, that she wasn’t just a puritanical robot.

The manicured garden was a ‘No Smoking’ zone and as much as Ruth wanted to ignore the signs, as much as she wanted to take her small rebellion one step further, she could not overcome her need to follow the rules; she made her way to the rarely used side entrance of the complex garage at the far corner of the yard.

As Ruth stepped down the few concrete steps into the humming fluorescent light of the basement garage, she lit the cigarette between her lips and inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes and let her shoulders fall from their usual rigid posture. As she slowly exhaled, a dull thud echoed through the lot. Her eyes sprang open and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention.

Is someone else out here?

Ruth slowly surveyed the cramped car bays in front of her but saw no signs of life. She turned and shielded her eyes as she squinted back through the entrance to the garden but the bright lights overhead prevented her from seeing anything but misty darkness outside.

“Hello?” She called through the spiral of cigarette smoke released with the word. She strained her ears for a response but heard only the humming of the lights above.

Probably just Mrs Drummond’s cat again.

Ruth allowed herself to relax and take another drag of her burning cigarette. She washed it down with a healthy gulp of wine as she wandered further into the garage, passing the first row of cars on her right. She’d memorised the make and colour of the residents’ cars in row A, B and C and now she was working to master the final row – D. It was just a little game she played to pass the time while she finished her cigarette. Ruth decided to test herself, so she took one last peek at row D then closed her eyes. 

“Honda Civic, blue. Mrs Goldman. Toyota Prius, green. Mrs James...”

Ruth’s voice echoed off the thick concrete walls, masking another incipient sound.

“Miata, silver. Mr ah... Mr...”

Ruth noticed that the humming of the fluorescent lights seemed to be getting louder. She opened her eyes and refocused. A red Ford Mustang idled softly in front of her, only several feet away. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the driver, but the cab was too dark. She had never seen the car before. It looked brand new and a little too extravagant for the small garage.

Damn. Someone has upgraded. Now I’ll have to figure out who, and relearn their row.

Ruth waved at the car apologetically and took a few steps sideways to give it enough room to pass. She lifted her shoe and stubbed out her cigarette on the sole. She would go back to the garden and hopefully catch a glimpse of the driver through the glass door as they walked through the lobby.

As she examined the crushed butt and watched the last red cinder fade to black, she had a moment to process another sound – a sort of squealing.

The car’s front bumper struck her behind the knees and sent her legs flying out from under her. Her back and head slammed against the car bonnet as it ploughed through her. The wine glass in her hand shattered with the blow sending the wine and shards of glass spraying into the air. Ruth had no idea how long she was carried before a hard brake sent her hurtling towards a thick concrete pillar.