Chapter 2 - Ruthie's evening
Ruthie left her classmate with very mixed emotions. At the very beginning her reaction towards him was resentment. Because of him, she was about to lose one of the few small pleasures she had in life, the quiet two hours she spent in the nude under the shade every afternoon.
However, once Ruthie calmed herself down, she understood that Mike had to do his job, just like she had to do hers. He was totally unaware of the consequences of his actions in her life and she had to remind herself that he was not acting out of malice, at least not towards her. In fact, he had offered her the small favor of not ticketing her car, assuming that she had one. He cared about her enough to offer a privilege that apparently he would not grant anyone else.
No, he was not acting out of malice towards her, but most definitely he was acting out of malice towards the rich crowd that was abusing the lot. The truth was that Ruthie hated the spoiled elites every bit as much as Mike did. It would be nice to see them get theirs for once. Because of Mike Sinclair, the free parking the "beautiful people" on campus felt that they were entitled to would turn into an expensive hassle. Yes, it would be nice to watch the parking guy stick it to them.
She especially loved that moment when that frat guy had called Mike an "asshole" and he had a come-back that forced the other guy to shut-up. There were so many times that she would have wanted to do the same thing at her job, to tell those miserable sorority bitches, and the disgusting sluts with fake tits who fucked the football players, and the arrogant TA's who treated her like dirt...all of them...what she really thought of them.
Ruthie's mind replayed her interactions with her classmate several times over as she tried to figure him out. He was willing to talk to her, something that meant a lot to a person whose only other conversations that day had consisted of taking coffee orders and answering questions in class. Speaking to him, however briefly, had made her feel slightly less isolated. She had not been nice to him in class, but from what she could tell, he did not hold that against her. In fact, he had taken her advice and read the story she recommended. That was nice, having someone listen to her for once and care enough about her opinion to actually do something she wanted.
Suddenly Ruthie stopped in her tracks. She remembered the slip she had made about not having any friends. It was true, but why did she have to admit that, without even being prompted? Mentally she castigated herself, because she was always saying idiotic things like that. That slip was only the latest out of many that she made out of habit, the stupid things that came out of her mouth that made people roll their eyes and kept her isolated. What a stupid thing to say...I don't have any friends...
Ruthie's concentration began to drift. She was only partially in the real world as she walked to her afternoon class. Like a flock of agitated birds, thoughts circled around her mind, diving in and out of her consciousness. Her memory drifted to a customer who had snapped at her that morning, before shifting to a news story of a child's murder that had upset her. She noticed a flier for an evangelical group, which prompted her to think about religion. Her mind wandered to an assignment she had due the next week, and then to wondering what was for dinner when she got back to the dorm.
She entered the building and made her way to class. Being forced to focus on a lecture and class discussion forced Ruthie to clear her mind somewhat, but the background noise of her other thoughts did not go away entirely. It never did.
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Ruthie was a geology major, but the class she was attending that afternoon was a third-year literature course with the Spanish department. She had entered college speaking fluent Spanish and immediately tested into the third year of the program. She realized that she could take advantage of her language skill to get an easy double-major. She would take all of the literature classes offered by the department, throw in some Latin American history and political science classes, and that would take care of all her language and humanities requirements, plus getting her the extra major.
From the time that she was twelve up until the previous summer when she graduated, Ruthie Burns had been surrounded by Spanish. Her mother and her uncle's family originally were from Culiacan, Mexico and usually spoke Spanish at home and among themselves. Many of her classmates in high school spoke Spanish as their first language. At the insistence of her mother, Ruthie had taken the entire Spanish program in high school, which gave her a more formal knowledge of the language and compensated for the uneducated accents that surrounded her. As much as reading texts and conjugating verbs might have irritated Ruthie at the time she was doing it, she had to admit that all those classes in high school had benefited her upon entering college.
Ruthie's mind wandered again. The window of the classroom faced towards the south and she could see the hills the coastal range. Beyond those hills lay Santa Cruz and the elite suburbs that surrounded it. Further south the land flattened out and a person driving down Highway # 1 entered a totally different world once he hit Watsonville. Highway # 1 passed through miles of vegetable fields: asparagus, cabbage, and of course, artichokes.
Past all those fields lay Salinas. Salinas' claim to fame was calling itself "the artichoke capital of the world" and "the salad bowl of the nation". Wow, what a thing to be proud of, thought Ruthie to herself. Just north of town there was a big statue of an artichoke. She rolled her eyes every time she passed that stupid thing.
The only other brush with fame that Salinas could lay claim to was the author John Steinbeck. Steinbeck had written about the area in the 1930's and there was a museum dedicated to him in town. Unlike most of her classmates, Ruthie Burns actually knew who Steinbeck was and had read several of his books. When her class visited the museum, she was the only person in her group who showed any interest whatsoever in the displays. As for her classmates, Steinbeck was irrelevant. Central California was a very different place back when he had written from what it was in the 21st Century. The area now was populated by people who had come from a totally place and lived a totally different reality.
Ruthie's mind continued to drift. She thought about her mother, vaguely wondering if she already had gotten home from work. She had promised to call on Sunday, but already it was Wednesday and Ruthie still had not talked to her mom that week. She couldn't put it off any longer. As much as she dreaded calling home, she'd have to call that night.
I guess I shouldn't be so hard on her, thought Ruthie to herself. She did help me get out of Salinas. I suppose the least I can do is call.
Ruthie's attention finally returned to where it needed to be: the class she was sitting in. She was among students that were two or three years older than she was, but her knowledge of Spanish put her at ease with material that many of her non-native speaking classmates struggled with. For her, reading in Spanish was every bit as easy as reading in English. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Juan Rulfo, Ruben Dario, Jorge Icaza...it didn't matter...she knew the material, some of which she had read for recreation when she still was in high school. For example, as a junior she had discovered "Pedro Paramo" and spent days reading and re-reading a novel that seemed to speak directly to her.
