And yet my immediate, most prevalent instinct was to pick the best girl for the job. I’d pick the right girl for the part and only later I’d wonder if I’d also picked the best in bed, the hottest ass, the pertest breasts. It felt very strange. But not unpleasant. In an odd way, those were some of the times when I felt closest to Scott. He’d really listen to my choice, my reasons why a redhead could never be a believable lion tamer. I felt so close to him.

And with Ruby in my apartment and under my wing, I felt close to him again.

She asked me to help her pick a piece for an audition she had three days after Christmas. She didn’t seem to me to be in any state for it. Her skin was still a wreck and she was so overexcited about the role that she was bouncing around the room, incapable of memorizing her lines. She desperately wanted to do this play off Broadway, something her agent would never have told her about, let alone let her go up for.

It was a tragicomedy the writer had penned about the film industry and he said he had created the female lead with her in mind. He had sent her a note suggesting it would be a perfect opportunity for her—“and not just in reference to the iconic bubble your agent seeks to trap you in.” He said he thought she was a brilliant actress and that she reminded him of Simone Signoret. It was the French name-drop that set her off.

Although I tried to dissuade her, she insisted on reading from Medea.

“But it’s for a part in a comedy.”

“A TRAGIcomedy,” she replied pointedly, obviously reading a different play from the one I had. There was a lot of swearing, falling over, drug deals gone “hilariously wrong,” and some onstage sex for good measure.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Ruby? I don’t even think it’s that funny.”

“It’s not funny. That’s what I keep telling you.”

The day of the audition she couldn’t eat, which was something of a relief because it meant she didn’t throw up either. Her hair was almost all its real color, a beautiful dark brown that only made her frazzled skin look worse. We pulled on our boots and mittens and I even tied her scarf in the doorway before we rode the subway downtown. There was a man play-acting being destitute but honest and Ruby watched his performance intensely.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I am sorry to interrupt your journey. I am collecting money for babies with AIDS.”

Ruby pulled out her diary and scribbled down “Babies with AIDS” in her girlish script.