A woman strolled down First Avenue wearing the chunky type of necklace that was all the rage these days. Ruby shook her head knowingly. Doesn’t matter how pretty the necklace is. If you start out butt-ugly, then put a necklace on, you’re butt-ugly with a necklace.
Yet there was something about the necklace. Even though it looked as cheap as Jolly Ranchers strung together, it was colorful and fun. The next time Ruby went to Target, she scanned the jewelry wall and picked out her own Jolly Rancher wannabe necklace.
Ruby wore the necklace the next time she went to the Cherry Street Coffee House. Perched on a pillow in the bay window, she watched the people walk by and said gleefully to herself, Butt-ugly with a fluffy hairdo. Butt-ugly with a leather jacket. Butt-ugly with a baseball cap. Butt-ugly with red spiked heels.
But then, she noticed a man who had stopped to read the menu near the café door. There was something about him. It wasn’t the tailored jacket, the gray silk shirt, or the herringbone pants. It wasn’t his self-assurance, or the slight dimple in his left cheek.
It was his nose. It was the most expressive nose she’d ever seen. If fact, she hadn’t even known a nose could be expressive until now. That man could be a nose model. In fact… Ruby pulled a magazine out of her bag and opened to the perfume ad on page 42. There he was. No doubt about it. Just his nose and a bottle of perfume made of red glass, cut like a ruby.