B0075M2D1U EBOK (4 page)

“
What’s the matter?” Anya gently asked.

“
This is just craptastic. How am I gonna get there? I will look like a complete loser if I ride up there on my bike!”

“
No worries,” Jeremy piped in, “I can take you. I’ll borrow my mom’s car.”

I gratefully looked over at Jeremy, a huge smile spreading across my face, “Thankyouuuu! You’re the best!” I jumped up to give him a hug. Almost as soon as I wrapped my arms around him, I pulled away and looked at him seriously, “Wait a minute. You are not crashing my date with Mr. Hotness,” I warned.

He looked hurt. “Geesh! What kinda friend do you think I am?”

“
The kind that will ogle and make inappropriate comments to my date! That’s the kind of friend I think you are!”

“
You know me too well,” Jeremy finally laughed.

“
I know!” Anya interrupted. “We’ll all go. Don’t worry Ruby, we’ll just drop you off, then we’ll make Jeremy drive us over to the Burger Hut so you can have some alone time with Mr. Dreamy.”

“
Uh. That’s Mr. Hotness,” I corrected, as I smiled at her.

“
Whatev,” Jeremy said, looking annoyed again, “But someone’s buying my dinner if I’m driving everyone all over town tonight.”

“
I’ll buy your burger,” Brennan finally spoke up.

“
You can buy me
mor
e than a burger.” Jeremy coyly teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

“
Uhhh. No. I think I’ll just stick with the burger,” Brennan nonchalantly answered. I rolled my eyes. I don’t think Jeremy got that Brennan was just not into him that way. But whatever.

“
I swear, I need food this instant or I’ll faint,” Anya complained.

“
Okay! Okay! Let’s go up to Dairy Queen. Ice cream is my favorite kind of lunch,” I said. We gathered up our towels and headed up the beach to the main road. “Oh crap!” I said, “I left my shoes. Hang on, I’ll be right back!” I jogged back towards the driftwood and reached down to grab my shoes. I saw Nick Martino and his friends messing around in the water and just as I was turning to head back towards my friends, I caught a glimpse of that smooth gliding hump out in the distance again.

What in the world was it? I had forgotten all about it, especially since my interlude with Nick, but there it was again. I strained my eyes to see if it would appear again, but nope. Nothing was there. Brennan and Jeremy started yelling my name, “COME ON RUBY! What is taking you so long?!” I shrugged it off and ran back towards my friends, answering, “Coming!”

After all, there were bigger things on the horizon for me than staring at some dumb, dark hump in the water…like ice cream…and pizza with Nick Martino.

Chapter 4

“
Sweet stars of Mars, Ruby! You can put away more ice cream faster than any human I know.” Brennan incredulously observed as I licked the last spoonful of my large, fudge, chocolatey ice cream concoction. “Nice, Brennan. You sweet talk to all the ladies like that?” I replied, as I closely examined the inside of my cup, trying to scrape out any remaining melted ice cream circling at the bottom. Luckily, Jeremy didn’t catch the “
human
” remark Brennan made. Or, if he did, it merely thought Brennan was being a wise-ass, which he usually is.

“
No,” he shook his head. “But I don’t see any ladies around here either.”

Anya shoved at his shoulder. “Grow up, Brennan!” She shook her head and gingerly licked her soft serve plain vanilla cone. We were all sitting at a small square table in the Dairy Queen, each of us on one side of the table. Jeremy mentioned going to the adventure golf place in Cadillac on Thursday, because it was half-off that night. I am all about cheap. Between saving for a car and my ice cream addiction, I didn’t have much money to blow. Cadillac was the next town over, about 15 miles away, and we often drove there to hang out. I longingly looked at my empty ice cream cup and used my finger to scrape out any remaining melted ice cream from around the sides.

“
Done.” Jeremy declared, as he slammed his empty peanut butter ice cream cup down on the table and reclined back against his chair. Brennan had finished his in about six minutes, but nobody seemed to tease him for wolfing down his ice cream. How come just because I was a girl and liked to eat ice cream, it was such a big deal? “Hey,” I said, licking my finger clean, “I heart me some ice cream. What can I say?”

“
You can say that this is
the
best lunch,” Jeremy said as he leaned back farther in his chair, folded his arms behind his head, stretched out his legs and stared up at the ceiling tiles of the restaurant.

“
Yes, I’m sure your mother would approve of such a choice too,” Anya teased.

Jeremy sat forward in his chair, “I don’t see what’s wrong with ice cream for lunch.”

“
Me neither!” I interjected, as Jeremy started ticking off points on his fingers, “One: it’s dairy, which is one of the main food groups. That also means it has calcium and vitamin D, all good for you. Two: it’s also a protein and mine had peanuts, which is more protein. And there are tons of health benefits to chocolate, don’t you ever watch Oprah?”

“
Apparently, not as often as you do,” Anya smiled while licking her vanilla cone.

“
How can you not be done already?” Brennan whined at his sister. “Kansas over there finished hours ago!”

“
Hey! My name is Ruby, not Kansas. Lame
Wizard of Oz
reference, Brennan. Very lame. You can do better than that, can’t you? And so what if I enjoy my ice cream a little faster than most people? We can’t all be tiny, little waifs like Anya or Jeremy,” I retorted.

Jeremy kicked me under the table, and Brennan chuckled.

“
Okay, okay, I’m almost finished,” Anya said. “Now. What are you going to wear tonight?” she asked.

The boys rolled their eyes. I kicked back at Jeremy under the table. “Oh please, Jeremy. If I let you, you’d be in my closet picking out my outfit!” I exclaimed.

“
Touché.” Jeremy replied with a raised eyebrow. Brennan just sat there and shook his head. “Can we leave now?” he asked again.

Exasperated, Anya finally said, “Oh, why don’t you boys go throw stones in the water or something!”

I cleared my throat. “Um. I think you mean,
skip rocks
, Anya.” She sheepishly grinned, “Whatever.” She waved her hand at us as if she didn’t care, “Just… run along boys. Pick us up at the cottage at 6:45 sharp. Brennan, I will make you eat dirt if you are late. I need to help Ruby get ready for her date. We’ll raid my closet, Ruby, I’m sure I have something. Now you two…leave.” She shooed them away from our table with her hands. I smiled. She really did seem ten years older than all of us sometimes. Just like a mother hen or something. I could always count on Anya to stick up for me or take care of me when I needed it.

“
But it’s not even three o’clock yet!” complained Jeremy, “How long does it take to get ready for a date?!”

Brennan snickered, “Oh. With Kansas Ruby? Hours, Jeremy. Hours.”

“
Shut up
Brennan.” I scowled at him. Geesh, I already had one annoying little brother at home. Why did I put up with another one?

Chapter 5

Anya and I went our separate way from the boys and headed back to the cottage where she and Brennan “lived.”

“
I’ve just gotta call my house and let ‘em know what’s going on,” I said to Anya as we walked up across the long, white porch. Anya and Brennan’s cottage was a craftsman style house, with stone pillars, white siding and a huge white porch that wrapped around the entire house all the way to the back, overlooking the lake, complete with big pots of red Geraniums every four feet or so. It was definitely one of the nicer cottages on the lake, not quite as grand as the beautiful old homes on the bay of Traverse City, but quaint and cozy. It blended in quite nicely with the other homes around it, as it was from the same era. But the inside…now that was a different story. Anya opened the door and ushered me inside first. I made my way through the open space to the phone that was sitting on the granite counter in the kitchen. Their cottage was absolutely beautiful. A wide-open floor plan decorated in hues of white, sand and a pale lime-green. The back of the house was almost entirely windows and offered tremendous views of the water. Espresso dark wood plank floors were a stark contrast to the sand colored walls and white cabinetry and furniture. The front door led immediately into the open space of the living room and dining area, with the kitchen off to the right side and only separated from the main living space with a huge island and bar stools. Directly to the left were two bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. To the right was yet another bathroom, a laundry room and a staircase that led upstairs to their sun room. Now, most people have a sun room off the back of their house, but not Anya and Brennan. Nope, theirs was upstairs. The entire second floor, actually. And again, the entire back wall and most of the roof were glass windows or solar panels.

Upstairs was a magical place – it was their very own garden room. Potted plants, trees and flowers of every kind landscaped the interior space. There were even small palm trees up there! Palm trees for Pete’s sake! In Michigan?! It was crazy. But because the room was like a tropical climate in itself, beautiful hydrangeas, hibiscus, lilies, birds of paradise, and about a hundred other types of flowers bloomed there, all year long. It was really something to see, their indoor, botanical cottage garden. It was like their own personal battery recharging station. Most fairies couldn’t live more than a day or two away from the forest or their own world of Fey. Even though Anya and Brennan were stronger than the other fairies I had met, they still felt drained from time-to-time, especially on extended visits. But, with their little upstairs oasis, they could stay human-sized and grab a few volts, so to speak, right in their own house.

Most fairies didn’t come over to our world during the winter….no flowers, no life in the trees. Everything’s dormant – at least where we lived it was. But not in Anya and Brennan’s house. Of course, in the winter they didn’t come over as often…it was simply too cold for them to be here for long periods of time. Fairies don’t like the cold weather much. But with their personal paradise, they could make as many trips as they wanted. With fairy groundskeepers to maintain the place, it remained a beautiful haven for them year-round. Again, I had no idea how they could afford such a place, but my mother always told me it was impolite to ask people about money, including how much they had or what they earned. So I kept my mouth shut on the subject.

After I checked in with my mom and told her what was up, Anya pulled out the magazines. “Time to prepare,” she seriously stated while handing me a stack of them. She must have had every fashion magazine you could think of. We plopped down on the huge lime-green sectional sofa in her living room and started looking through them. “Why do you get all of these things?” I asked as I leafed through the magazines, feeling more and more unattractive as I stared at the perfectly unblemished models on all of the pages.

“
They can be very informative,” she smartly answered. “For example, do you
know
what men really want on the first date? It says all
kinds
of things they want, right here on page 73,” she said, pointing to the article. I shook my head. “Well. I don’t know about all this. I don’t even know how I’m gonna be able to
talk
tonight, let alone worry about what Nick might really want on our first date. I mean, I couldn’t even answer him when he asked me to meet him for dinner! Is this even a first date? To qualify as a date, isn’t the guy supposed to pick you up and take you somewhere? Is it a real date if I’m just going up to meet him at his work for a slice of pizza on his break?” The questions poured out of my head and my mouth in a seemingly never-ending waterfall. If I’m not choked with nerves and fear like I was in front of Nick, I’m usually doing the complete opposite, and talking non-stop until someone can shut me up.

“
Of course it’s a real date!” Anya shrieked throwing up her hands. “He likes you Ruby. I can tell. Besides, I can’t lie, remember? What I am telling you is what I believe to be true. Come on. You can take a nice bubble bath in my tub, and then we’ll do our nails and our toes, and then we’ll pick out the perfect outfit that will make Nick be drooling all over you like Jeremy drools all over Brennan.” I laughed, “Wow! That would be something if Nick would be as gaga over me as Jeremy is over Brennan.” Anya pulled me up by my hands and led me to her bathroom. After she filled her ginormous tub, she walked out of the bathroom to give me some privacy. She paused at the door, “I’ll be upstairs. Come find me when you’re done.”

“
Thanks, Anya.” I smiled gratefully at her.

“
Anytime.” With that, I heard her pad up the stairs to her private retreat while I sank down into the bubbles.

When I was good and pruney, and my nerves seemed mostly settled, I emerged from the huge tub and wrapped a giant white terry cloth towel around me. I finished drying off, slipped on the robe Anya had left for me and went to find her.

As I entered the warm, fragrant garden room upstairs, I was a little taken aback at what I saw. Even though I’ve seen it before, it amazed me every time.

Anya was sitting crossed-legged in one of the large rectangular planters filled with grass in the center of the room. (My mom would say she was sitting “Indian style,” but in school they made us say “criss-cross applesauce.” What the hell does that even mean? Criss-cross applesauce?) I shook my head and snickered silently at my own personal side thought. There were small flowers in bloom all around her. Her hands were placed palm-down, in the bright green grass and her eyes were closed. She looked so peaceful and serene. And she was
glowing
. I mean, literally, glowing. There was a slight glisten to her skin, and it seemed to be radiating a soft golden glow, almost like an aura. She looked like an angel, except she didn’t have the wings. Well. She did, but I couldn’t see them. Fairies wings weren’t visible to anyone, not even other fairies, when they were completely in our world and human-sized. Usually, when I saw Anya recharging in the garden or forest outside she was small…so the glowing, glistening, sparkling-thing wasn’t quite so dramatic. But sitting here, in the midst of this botanical beauty, she was stunning. She seemed so deep in meditation; I didn’t want to disturb her.