Little Red Gem (19 page)

THAT U AUDREY

Giddily, I clutched the
phone to my chest. A whole other dimension separated us, yet Leo
and I were connected spiritually, telepathically, emotionally,
wherever this connection came from, I was convinced it
existed.

GOOD GUESS I texted
back.

Leo texted back SWEET
DREAMS AUDREY
and I realized I could live
a thousand lifetimes and never would I have known such physical and
emotional torture like I did now. I would never be Leo’s Little Red
Gem again. Not while I was Audrey Adams. And Audrey Adams was the
only person I could be.

I didn’t hear again from
Leo. I also didn’t sleep a wink that night.

***

The next day rushed by in
a blur. Every minute was spent counting down the hours till I could
set eyes on Leo again. I didn’t even stop to think how disappointed
my mother would be with my obsession over Leo.

“
Men always do the
running.”
Said during one of Mom’s book
club luncheons.
“They run to you when they
want you, and they run the other way when they don’t. Don’t ever
give them the satisfaction of seeing you run in any
direction.”

Much of my inner strength
was sculpted from my mother’s advice. None of that strength resided
in me today. Like a slow moving beast I dragged my feet through the
corridors and only snapped out of my funk when Hannah showed
up.

“
You’re obsessing over
Leo, and that’s totally understandable, but it’s also crazy. He’s a
senior.”

I glared at her. “What
makes you think I’m obsessing over him? And don’t call me
crazy.”

She counted on her
fingers. “You act like a girl obsessed. You’ve ditched your
girlfriends. You’re dropping behind in class. You’ve lost tons of
weight. And my ultimate proof is that I saw you with him at lunch
yesterday.”

“
He was my half-sister’s
boyfriend. We’re practically family.”

Hannah’s gaze was lethal
enough to cut through steel. “Family doesn’t look at each other the
way you look at him. I’m worried you’ll get hurt. Cleo says you
should never, ever, ever get involved with a boy who’s lost his
girlfriend.”

“
I don’t expect you to
approve or understand.”

“
Oh, I
understand.”

Hannah stormed off and I
shrugged my shoulders. She was Audrey’s best friend, not mine.
Still, I recalled how I was at her age so I made a mental note to
buy her a gift so she wouldn’t hate me enough to sabotage my plans
by blabbing to everyone in school how infatuated I was with Leo.
That would have given him a reason to avoid me worse than if
someone spread a rumor that I had head lice.

At 3:20 p.m., I leaned my
bicycle up against the side of Leo’s house and rang the buzzer. The
tune playing was
Greensleeves
and I was overcome with the impulse to spin like
one of those ballerinas inside a jewelry box.

Mrs. Culver opened the
door and looked at me quizzically.

“
Hi, Mrs. Culver,” I
gushed breathlessly. “Is Leo home?”

She opened the door wider
and turned her head slightly. She sang out in a loud voice, “Leo,
you have a visitor.”

When she turned to me she
wore a confused look on her face.

“
Is everything all right?”
I asked.

“
I didn’t notice before
how alike you and your sister are. Ruby used to spin like a
ballerina on the porch, too, whenever she rang the
bell.”

Leo bounded down the steps
and swiped a jacket off the coat rack, slipping into it by the time
he’d reached the porch. “Come on, I need your help.”

Part of my reason for
coming here was to drag Leo out of his depression. Yet it was
obvious that yesterday was a blip and he was back to his old self.
He grabbed my arm and literally dragged me down the
path.

“
Where are we going?” I
asked.

“
I gotta do something and
I can’t do it on my own.”

He steered me into his
mom’s Toyota and we were off with a screech of tires. I bit my
tongue not to nag him about his reckless driving, which is what
Ruby would have done.

Leo and I had been going
out for six months but we’d known each other for years. So I was
totally surprised he could surprise me. He didn’t drag me to
Rock-A-Lilly’s like I’d expected. Instead, he pulled the car into
the mall parking lot. Leo hated shopping. The only way to get him
there was under the pretence of shouting him a double-chocolate
milkshake at Wendys.

He acted like he was under
the influence of a sugar high as he steered me through the shops.
Finally, he pulled to a stop out in front of the jewelry
store.

“
Leo, what are you doing?”
I asked.

Whatever it was, I got
quivers in my stomach, warnings, although I didn’t know why I’d be
terrified of standing out front of the jewelry store. Whatever he
was keen to show me sent every alarm bell in my head into
overdrive. I’d drooled at this store window even before I’d
officially fallen in love with Leo. My insides were churning like
something bad was coming.

“
Let’s go grab a
milkshake,” I said, trying to drag him away.

“
Please. I can’t do this
on my own.”

Leo’s shoulders drooped
and then he leaned in close like he was trying to figure out how to
pass through the glass. Curiosity won out and I leaned over his
shoulder to mentally inhale the sight of pendants, brooches, rings,
earrings, charm bracelets. Even the cuff links attracted my eye. Of
which Leo would never in a million years wear, so why were we
here?

Leo grabbed my hand and
pulled me into the store. Then he dragged me to the counter, my
head reeling in worry and confusion. I was in a jewelry store with
the man I loved. This was every girl’s dream. But the image also
had the shadow of something dreadful hanging over it.

Leo handed a slip of paper
to the saleslady and she spent a minute in the tiny back room, only
to emerge wearing a beaming smile on her face.

“
Is this the lucky girl?”
she asked.

Leo’s face blanched. So
did mine. The saleslady must have gotten the hint there was nothing
‘happy occasion’ about our presence because she whipped a sheet of
silver wrapping paper out from beneath a crystal paperweight in
dead silence.

Leo’s voice cracked when
he interrupted her. “Don’t bother wrapping it.”

The saleslady was ever the
professional. Her face froze into a polite smile as she handed Leo
the pink velvet box, which he handed immediately to me. Yikes. I’d
expected the love potion to work, but not to this
extent.

“
You can have this,” Leo
said. “It was paid for weeks ago. I was waiting for the right time
to give it to Ruby but now there won’t be a good time.”

“
Don’t you want to keep
this as a memento?”

His eyes clung to
something unseen hanging from the ceiling. “I have enough memories
to last a hundred lifetimes. Sorry, I’ll be outside but take your
time, I know girls like looking through these places.”

Stunned, I watched him
leave, yet seconds later I pried open the box. Inside, hanging on a
gold key chain was a blood-red garnet. And wedged into the top of
the box was a note written in handwriting I recognized –
Leo’s.

I tilted up the box to
read the note:

A LITTLE RED GEM FOR MY
LITTLE RED GEM.

Chapter Nine

After the mall incident
where the meaning of the note became abundantly clear – in Leo’s
eyes I was not and never would be Ruby Parker – I sat quietly in
the car. Every time I opened my mouth, I clammed up. What would I
say if I could? Sometimes it was worthwhile saying nothing, rather
than saying nothing worthwhile.

When I got home, Teri at
least was sensitive to my mood and didn’t push me to talk. And when
I finally dragged my weary body up the stairs to bed, I still
couldn’t open my mouth without tearing up. In the end, I gave up
dwelling on the key chain, even though it swung like a pendulum
right in front of my eyes. I still hadn’t found my voice by the
time I crawled into bed.

I woke up the next
morning, even though I was sure I hadn’t slept a wink. Despite the
sleep-deprived blur in my head, one thing was clear; I had to hide
the jewelry box from Teri. Something told me she’d tell my dad and
this would add to his list of reasons to whisk me away from
Providence.

Dressing was a chore; I
was growing more and more despondent by the second. My inner voice
took up the chant of, “I am Ruby Parker, I am Ruby Parker”, and in
the background another voice took up another chant of, “You are not
Ruby Parker, You are not Ruby Parker”.

Less than an hour later, I
was hurrying through the school grounds toward C block when I
bumped into Natalie, Ruby’s best friend and fellow band
member.

“
Oh, I’m sorry,” I
gushed.

Natalie clutched her
textbooks to stop them falling to the floor. I was prepared to cop
an earful from a senior, especially Natalie who could be a bitch
when she wanted to, yet she didn’t appear angry.

“
Audrey, I’m glad you
found me,” she said. “I want to apologize for my rudeness the other
day. Shanessa and I should have let you buy us coffee. Is it too
late to accept your offer?”

Natalie smiled at me. I
could tell her fake smiles from her real ones, and this one was
genuine.

“
I’d like
that.”

“
Great. Stop by Art Café
this afternoon. It’s where we tend to be all the time
lately.”

The bell rang and Natalie
wiggled her fingers at me and headed off in the opposite direction.
I was flattered she would want to hang with me, but now that the
idea of coffee with Natalie and Shanessa had had time to blossom, I
should have told her I had plans. Keeping up this charade of
pretending to be Audrey was exhausting.

Kids peeled themselves off
walls and scrambled off to class. Running to make my first class, I
slammed straight into a door that had opened unexpectedly. I
squealed out as needles of pain lacerated my face. My hands flew to
press gently on my nose. I removed my hands, relieved they weren’t
bloodied. But my nose stung like nothing on earth.

“
Who’s the idiot
responsible for breaking my nose?” I growled.

The pain was already
subsiding, but my anger wouldn’t placate so easily. I went inside
the room only to see it was empty. I sped off down the hall not
wanting to be late for class and kept back.

And I rammed straight into
the water fountain. My hip banged into the metal container. My foot
got wedged up under the rim. Audrey’s runners were acting like they
were possessed or something.

That word ‘possessed’
struck a nerve. At home, cutlery used to drop out of my hand even
before I’d connected. Knowing what I knew now, I was reconsidering
whether my clumsiness had anything to do with me at all. Maybe
poltergeists existed and they were haunting kitchens, bathrooms,
and the halls of Providence High.

The last echoes of the
bell died and I knew I was going to be late. I ran along the
corridor.

And I tripped
over.

I tripped over nothing.
Now I
knew
I was
in the presence of poltergeists. There was no other explanation. As
a ghost, I’d banged against windows to get Audrey’s attention. This
ghost may have been invisible to me; didn’t mean it wasn’t there
and trying to get my attention.

Not Anne. She couldn’t
leave the cabin. Which meant only one other person.

“
Stop messing about,
William. I have to get to class.”

I slid into the classroom
with a stern look from Mr. Musgrave and only my pride injured. For
the moment anyway. On my way to my desk, something stuck its foot
out and tripped me up. I sprawled face first onto the floor. My
text books spilled onto the floor. Everyone burst out laughing yet
thankfully there was a rule about cell phones not being allowed in
class or they were confiscated, so nobody could ruin my reputation
further by plastering my spill onto YouTube.

“
Settle down,” Mr.
Musgrave said wearily. “Someone help Audrey with her
books.”

Hannah rushed over to help
me, wearing a dark scowl on her face. “Stop being a klutz. You’re
embarrassing me.”

I clenched my teeth. “I’m
not doing this on purpose.”

Mr. Musgrave started the
lesson, and I sat down making sure I grabbed a tight hold on the
chair with both hands so my tormentor couldn’t get his thrills from
pulling the chair out from under me. But my crazy tormentor found
other ways to embarrass me. Throughout the rest of class my pens
fell off my desk, people bumped into me (I could tell from the
puzzled looks on their faces perhaps the connection wasn’t
intentional), and when something burped in my ear and every head
spun to accuse me of the act, I grasped from the shade of red of
Hannah’s face that our friendship was on tenterhooks.