And nothing!
The train sped past her and the rumble receded. Dazed, Ruby sat up. She found herself looking at the back of the receding train. The lit-up sign on the back of the last car said “M”, and just under that was the word, “EXPRESS”. Ruby looked up at the platform from which she’d come. There was a sign there. It said “Local Trains Only”.
“Damn!” Ruby told herself. “I goofed again!”
The crowd was still at the edge of the platform. “Come on, girlie, take my hand,” the man was coaxing.
“Call a policeman!” a woman was insisting. “That girl is trying to kill herself.”
“She nearly gave me a heart attack,” another woman complained. “She ought to be arrested.”
“Ahh, if she wants to jump, it’s her business,” another male voice opined.
“Yeah, but what a waste of pulchritude,” a younger man said, eyeing Ruby’s breasts appreciatively as she sat up.
“I’m going for a cop,” still another man said firmly. “She doesn’t look like she’ll come up from there. I’m going for a cop before it’s too late.”
Ruby heard that. She looked at the crowd on the platform. She knew she’d be too embarrassed to ever face them. She’d sooner die than face them. But with that man going for a cop, there might not be time to die. She bolted across the tracks, between the pillars, and across the tracks on the other side of them, and then pulled herself up on the other platform. A train had just pulled in on the other side of that platform. Ruby dived into it just as the doors were closing.
She found a seat and took it. She sat with her eyes shut, filled with self-disgust at her ineptitude, unable to see anything behind her closed lids but Bill’s face. Wallowing in her hurt, she let the train carry her along.
At some point, she must have dozed off. The next thing she knew someone was shaking her gently by the shoulder. “End of the line, miss. End of the line.” She opened her eyes and found herself looking into the not unkindly face of a subway conductor. “End of the line,” he repeated.
“Oh. Thank you,” she said automatically.
“You miss your stop, miss?”
Did I miss my stop? All of them! I missed all the stops in my life. I even missed the last one. A few times now I’ve missed it. But I won’t miss it again! “No,” she told him. “I didn’t miss my stop.”
“This is the end of the line.”
“Is it? That’s just fine. That’s just where I was going. To the end of the line.”
The trainman scratched his head as he watched her get off the train. Then he shrugged and signalled the engineer. A moment later the train pulled away.
Ruby found herself on an elevated platform. At some point the train had emerged from the bowels of the subway to run along the elevated tracks. She walked over to the side of the platform away from the tracks and looked out over the low wall there.
She could see that she’d come all the way out to the city limits. She could even see the lake from here. The lake! Well, why not? Death by drowning was as good as any other way!
Ruby walked down the elevated stairs and out into the street. A sparse cluster of stores and then nothing but houses, widely spaced, lots of empty lots between them. It was dinner time now and the neighborhood was deserted. Ruby walked straight toward the lakefront.
When she got there, it too was deserted. She walked to the foot of the pier and stood there looking out over the water for a long time. Then she began to take off her clothes.
This is silly, she told herself. If I’m going to die, what difference does it make whether or not I get my dress wet? Nevertheless, she continued to strip down to her bra and panties. Then she neatly folded the clothing she’d taken off and set it down in a neat pile a little back from the edge of the pier.
Ruby lowered herself into the water. Ordinarily, she would have dived, but under these circumstances diving seemed too frisky and lighthearted an act to perform. The water just reached her breasts, the ripples she made causing it to just lap at the tips. She looked down at her scarlet nipples, distended and visible now where the water had turned the bra transparent. They ached slightly, the way they used to ache when Bill would fondle them so that they would quiver with passion. The memory made her bite her lip to hold back the tears. Head high, she walked out into the lake.
When she’d walked as far as she could, she started to swim. She swam slowly and steadily for a long time. Her limbs grew heavy and her muscles weary, but still she swam. Finally, she knew she could go no farther. Lassitude engulfed her as she felt herself start to sink. She breathed in slowly, sucking water into her lungs. She felt herself dropping, felt the lake closing over her. Ruby let herself ease into the blackness until blackness was all there was. And then there wasn’t even that. Then there was nothing . . .
The two hands were squeezing Ruby's naked breasts as if they were rubber balls and the hands were engaged in some sort of rhythmic muscle exercise. They were the first thing Ruby became aware of, even before she opened her eyes. When she did open them, they focussed on her bra, crumpled up and lying near her head.
She felt the pressure of a man’s weight atop her body and she heard his heavy breathing. For a moment, she was back in bed with Bill, lying in his arms, being possessed by him, being seduced by him and knowing that this was just the prelude to the betrayal and the hurt. “No!” She’d meant to shout it, but it came out weakly, a murmur of protest.
“Hey there.” The hands closed over her breasts and turned her over. An arm reached behind her to support her in a sitting position. “How you feeling?”
Ruby found herself looking up into a young face, freckled, weather beaten, not handsome, but pleasantly ugly. For a moment the face too reminded her of Bill. “What do you think you’re doing to me?” she said.
“Trying to squish the water out of you,” he said, grinning. “You must have swallowed half the lake.”
“I don’t care! Get your hands off me!”
“Sorry.” He took his hands away, and she just managed to keep her balance and keep from falling over backward. “You’re still pretty weak,” he told her.
“I’m all right. Who are you?”
“Al Wainwright. I was fishing out there when I saw you going down. You’re the only thing I caught all day.” He grinned. “You shouldn’t have tried to swim so far,” he added.
“No kidding?” Rudy said sarcastically. “So you pulled me out and now you’re a big hero, huh?”
“I pulled you out.” Al looked puzzled at her tone.
“Thanks a lot,” she said flatly.
“You’re welcome, I guess. But tell me, what the dickens are you so hostile about?”
“Men. You’re all alike. You pull a girl out of the water, and what’s the first thing you do? I’ll tell you. You take advantage of the fact that she’s unconscious by copping a feel. That’s what.”
“Copping a feel? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about those roaming hands of yours. That’s what. The first thing you do is undress me, and then --” That reminded Ruby of her half-dressed state, and she grabbed for her bra and began putting it on. But the bra didn’t help. It was sopping wet. Her breasts were clearly visible through it.
Al was human enough to stare even as he was defending himself against her accusation. “I was not getting fresh!” he insisted. “I was giving you artificial respiration. And judging from the amount of water you brought up, it’s a lucky thing I did.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I was!” he told her hotly.
“All right. So thanks. You’re a hero. You saved my life. I’ll be eternally grateful.”