Little Red Gem (4 page)

“
Babe, please,” Leo
begged. “It’s cold and the middle of the night. Come inside and
we’ll even break the rule about spending the night together and
continue this conversation in the morning. Did I tell you the cabin
has a hot tub?”

Through half-closed
eyelids I snuck another look at him. Dammit. He was even more
gorgeous this way. And then I smelled it.

Faint, but at this close
range I detected the sickly-sweet scent of alcohol. At once, I took
him in with a fresh set of eyes. His lopsided grin, his messy hair,
the gentle way he swayed as if he was floating on the
wind…

“
Leo, have you been
drinking?”

He took a hasty step back.
“What? No.” He quickly lowered his voice to a normal octave. “No.
Absolutely not, babe.”

“
You’re lying. You said
you were here to write songs. You said the cabin was a great place
to work uninterrupted because it didn’t get cell service. If I go
inside and see bottles of alcohol—”

I took a step sideways and
Leo staggered in that direction to block my path. “Babe, let’s not
fight. I haven’t been drinking, okay? Simon found an opened bottle
of red wine in one of the cupboards. As he poured it down the sink,
he clumsily spilled some of it on my sweater. See.”

Leo grabbed a handful of
his sweater. I noticed the stain; it’d been too difficult to see
earlier in the dim light. I noticed something else, too.

“
That’s the sweater I
bought you for our second date. You’ve ruined it.”

The sight of the stain
drove me to tears. Leo hurried to embrace me and I instinctively
sought comfort in his arms. As much as I would have liked to have
stayed there, I didn’t want to get hurt any more either.

Sniffing back tears, I
stepped out of his embrace and gave him a weak smile. He let out a
held-in breath, as if deciding I’d forgiven him, and then I
surprised us both when I shoved him hard in the chest. He wasn’t
expecting the move, plus I was sure he was plastered, so he fell to
the ground. I bolted for the Jeep, almost ripping the door off its
hinges. I jumped in and turned the key I’d left in the ignition.
Instinctively, I must have known I’d need to make a quick getaway.
Almost like I’d come looking for the fight I knew I’d
get.

I rammed my foot on the
accelerator and flicked the headlights on. But I was so hyped up on
anger that instead of the lights coming on, the wipers rubbed
noisily against the windshield. In a panic I sobbed and swore and
fumbled for the light switch.

At last, I found the
switch and the road in front of me lit up. The car lurched forward,
though I hadn’t realized I’d pressed down on the pedal. When I
tried to ease up, I found out that my feet weren’t taking orders
from my brain. They just wanted to go-go-go.

The tires spun and
darkness quickly gobbled up the car’s headlights, making
negotiating the potholes along Deer Grove Road impossible. Four
more miles of this pogo-style driving until I reached the sealed
roads of Providence, if I made it without popping a tire, that
was.

Mist swirled amidst the
beams of light. Prison spotlights would be welcomed right about
now, but they’d have hardly made any difference; I struggled to
distinguish anything through a river of tears.

I swiped at the tears at
the same time that something jumped in front of the car – deer or
wolf – yet whatever jumped out was gone in a flash. Still, the
mistake was made. I’d swerved. Not supposed to swerve on a dirt
road, wet road, snow-covered road, or one with supposedly oily
patches.

Gripping the wheel came
automatically, although the car wouldn’t straighten. A
thud
from behind caused
a scream to leap out of my throat.

The Jeep moved sharply to
the right. Slamming my foot on the brake, I grabbed tighter onto
the steering wheel. I pulled to the left, to the right, left again.
I had no idea why the car wasn’t operating properly.
I’m turning the wheel,
I
screamed inside. Why was it not working!

Thud
. The car jerked another few feet. This time I was pushed
forward till my chest pressed against the steering wheel. Next, the
car dipped and plunged headfirst down the embankment with the
headlights lighting up the way. Everything happened so incredibly
fast yet with such incredible slow clarity.

Branches thick as a
baseball bat smashed into the windshield. Limbs the thickness of a
power pole crushed the doors.
Thud
.
Thud
. Each impact was like a
wrecking ball hitting the car. With me inside. With me inside and
not wearing a seatbelt.

A limb caught the driver’s
window, shattering the glass into a silvery web. A million stars
flew across my vision, bursting into the sky like snowflakes. And
then the lights went out.

Chapter
Three

Light crept in under the
cracks of my eyelids. Letting the first warriors of sun in through
partially slit lids, I slew them one after the other until I
realized they’d keep coming while I did nothing about closing the
blinds. I gave up and lay there, trying to take comfort in the
warmth of the sun’s rays, but they did nothing to shake the chill
in my bones, settled in from last night’s argument with
Leo.

The details were a little
foggy, but whatever else had happened after I’d crashed the car, as
I lay in bed I realized I should have been comatose with pain. I
could only surmise that nothing was as painful as having one’s
heart ripped out and one’s hopes and dreams shattered.

Sudden insight caused me
to sit up. And grin. If I was tucked up in bed, and if I didn’t
remember putting myself here, then Leo must have.

Designed to ward off a
chilly night, the quilt wasn’t designed to conceal an extra body,
so when I lifted the cover I was devastated to find I was alone in
my bed, though not surprised; Leo only slept over in my
dreams.

Noises drifted up from the
kitchen. Maybe Leo had dropped me off last night, decided it was
too late to drive the twenty minutes in the dark back to Capers
Cabin, and he’d slept downstairs on the sofa. Then, he’d risen
early to cook us breakfast to make up for the fight.

My smile disappeared. Mom
had curled up on the sofa last night and she might have decided
against climbing up the stairs into bed. Plus, Leo only made
breakfast in my dreams. Dad’s leaving us had hit Mom hard, leaving
her with a strong aversion to allowing happy couples inside her
home. She had no objections to Leo and I dating, in fact she quite
liked him, provided I never brought him home or flaunted our
happiness in her face.

Below, a cup clattered as
if being placed in the sink, followed moments later by a click
which I recognized as the front door closing. I rolled around on my
stomach to face the window and caught sight of Mom scurrying down
the path. Stopping at the street, she looked left and right –
didn’t glance back at the house and certainly didn’t glance up at
the window where she must have known I was watching. She crossed
the street and headed into town with the urgency of a postman with
a dog on his trail.

“
Sorry, Mom,” I
whispered.

Guilt for stealing and
totaling her car took a swipe at me, and rightly so. The hike to
the tourist office in town where Mom worked took fifteen minutes,
even at her brisk pace, and in the distance dark clouds were
gathering as if conspiring to drench her. Secretly, a small part of
me hoped the skies would open and saturate her. As much as I loved
my mother, there were times, such as now, when the blame for my
corrupted attitude on love sat solely on her shoulders.

“
Love can make you do
crazy things, Ruby.”
Mom’s pearl of wisdom
gifted to me on my tenth birthday sprang to mind. It was nice, if
not ironic, that I could at least identify with her contribution to
my birds-and-the-birds lecture. Still,

I kept my ears peeled out
for signs that someone else lurked in the kitchen.

Only the
tick-tick-tick
of the
clock in the foyer drifted up the stairs. Such a shame that Leo
wasn’t pottering around the house looking for places to hide,
waiting to pounce on me and apologize in his special way. I could
have used a cuddle.

Groaning, I pulled the
quilt over my head. Way to go Ruby Parker. My insistence on
crashing the boy’s weekend of song writing had resulted in my new
crazy-single-girl status. I thumped my pillow, telling myself I
shouldn’t blame Leo for dropping me off and going back to the
cabin. I’d known for a week that his band, Volt, had plans to be
locked away in order to compose songs for an upcoming recording
session. I’d shown up under the influence of teenage hormones
demanding Leo prove how much he loved me.

Turned out the answer was
not as much as I’d thought.

Angrily, I danced about
the room throwing clothes in the air until I noticed, to my utter
dismay that I still had on the same clothes as yesterday. Leo must
have been in a real rush to dispose of his crazy ex-girlfriend to
do the dump and run.

The idea of being anyone’s
ex-girlfriend clutched at my heart so tightly that I fell down onto
my bed to catch my breath. After a minute, logic told me I could
undo any damage caused by our argument with a well meaning text. I
rummaged around in the usual spots for my cell phone – under the
pillow, side table, under the bed – and tears welled in my eyes
when I couldn’t locate it. My cries become howls when I realized
that Leo and the guys had purposely chosen the cabin to write songs
because it didn’t get cell reception. They’d wanted no
distractions. And I’d given them a distraction the likes of which
was possibly at this very minute being converted into
lyrics.

Oh, Leo, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry, I’m sorry.
No phone. No car. No
apology. No way of knowing if he would ever speak to me
again.

I gave up searching for my
phone, realizing it had probably fallen off the dash and shattered
when I’d plunged the car into the hollow, and instead, I gazed out
the window and let the implication of last night’s argument sink
in. I had grown up without a father, vowed to avoid doing that to
my own child at all costs, and now I’d gone and broken that vow
because I’d acted doubtful, impatient, and irrational.

No wonder I couldn’t look
at my reflection in the mirror as I stormed out of my
room.

***

I lived four blocks from
the heart of town, and to get there on foot I followed a mental map
which zigzagged down streets that were planted row upon row with
Victorian houses. On Main Street, while waiting for a car to pass,
I noticed the sign on the museum display board.

DAVID PARKER ART
EXHIBITION. DIRECT FROM JAPAN. EVERY DAY IN APRIL.

So nice of you to stop by
and say hello, Dad. Via your art show.

Sarcasm aside, I hadn’t
seen the man in years and I was surprised by the overwhelming sense
of loss that flooded me. I should have hated him. I
wanted
to hate him. But
Leo had astutely pointed out that there was one man in your life
you couldn’t help but love from the day you are born. Leo also
astutely pointed out once that I didn’t really hate my dad. He was
right, of course. My dad was no monster hiding in the closet. He
was just absent.

The sense of being late
spurred me from dwelling on the past to focusing on the future. I
charged passed three stores that stocked an array of clothes,
shoes, handbags, scarves, hats, and jewelry that my friends and I
sardonically called Catwalk Lane. At the end, I paused a moment to
take in my home town.

Providence New was the
actual name of our town, after Providence Old was flooded to create
a dam alongside the gold mine stamps and machines, though everyone,
even the mayor referred to the town as Providence. The dam had long
ago been transformed into a fish pond and a few original buildings
and old mine shafts remained to entice kids to the woods though
more for the scare factor than for the history lesson. We had
burger joints, hair salons, cinemas, arcades, and dry cleaners. The
usual stuff. ‘Chocolate box’ was usually the term that rolled off
tourists’ tongues.

I pressed on and came to a
store whose window contained things that glittered but were not
considered ‘bling’. Crystals twinkled at me. Wind chimes danced. A
carving of jade with trickling water cascading over its edge
promised tranquility.

A sigh escaped. Did I
really want to be doing this today? My heart was in tatters and I
was standing outside a psychic shop when I should have been doing
everything in my power to make up with Leo. I’d have forgotten all
about this appointment if not for the gift certificate taped to my
dresser mirror with the post-it stuck to it. On the post-it in
Leo’s hand writing were the words: DON’T EVEN TRY TO GET OUT OF
THIS. I’d promised Leo I’d keep the appointment. In a way, I felt
that by coming here I could make it up to him for being a total
idiot last night.