Bouncer Post #87

Title: RUBY OVER THE RAINBOW

Genre: Women's Fiction

Word Count: 90,000

Query:

Born and raised in Emerald, Kansas, Ruby O'Deare embodies the American dream. She’s a debt-addled young lawyer, addicted to American Idol and googling the statistical failure rate of condoms. When someone murders her only client, Ruby suspects Ozcorp, a local mall management corporation with the moral compass of Enron, is behind it.  The police refuse to investigate -- after all, Oz signs their paychecks -- but Ruby can't let it go.  She embarks on an investigation of Ozcorp and its newest development.  Along the way, she befriends a few misfits on the margins of Emerald's society, and finds a sense of community and purpose. By the time she digs through the varied layers of Ozcorp's corruption, she gives up on the bullshit-laden version of the American Dream that has been animating her lifeless career and secedes from the union of those who still think "Over the Rainbow" exists. Plus, she finds a really cute boyfriend.

Oh, and she also discovers that condoms are not 98% effective after their expiration date. Still, Ruby throws caution to the gale force winds of Kansas and fights corruption ... in her new maternity pants.

First 250: 

Ruby needed a handful of Ibuprofen and five or ten more hours of sleep. Or maybe just a time machine. She groped blindly in the direction of the nightstand for a bottle of something to kill the pain and knocked over – a box of rubbers, glow in the dark.  Also in residence on the nightstand, a copy of the Economist and a Farmer’s Almanac. On the wall, a framed landscape she didn’t recognize, not John Cusack holding a Boom Box as she expected. 

The last thing she remembered from yesterday was speaking in front of the Zoning Commission. In that memory, she had been wearing her best approximation of a power suit while giving a local developer hell. Now, she felt like she’d just returned from a survivalist expedition in Death Valley. Her eyelids raked over her eyeballs like sandpaper. Had someone roofied her last night? She wasn’t the kind of girl who woke up in strange beds. The dog-eared copy of the Farmer’s Almanac and matching comforter and dust ruffle didn’t seem to fit the Frat Boy MO, but still. 

Before moving onto the awkward introduction and coffee (she prayed) that would come next, Ruby took inventory. Naked. Legs unshaven. Hair like the before shot in a Pantene commercial. Breath like a small animal had died in her mouth. It wasn’t good, but whoever was in the kitchen had already seen it all. Plus, she almost felt too shitty to care. 

Almost.