Little Red Gem

by D L Richardson

  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 k
nowing 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.

  Besides, something had drawn me here and it wasn’t letting go. I had to find out why.

  The storefront was prettily decorated with paintings of ivy wrapping around the painted-on trunks of painted-on trees. Inside, shelves were formed from recycled windows including colored-glass windows that had once belonged to a church. Each wall was painted in a different scene – a green forest, a pink sunset, an underwater scene, and a dragon’s fiery lair. The tourist brochures claimed that the paintings on the walls depicted the four elements – earth, air, water, and fire. Mom was always bringing home brochures from work. I swear I knew everything about this town except how to love it.

  In a wispy-styled font above the door was the name of the store – MYSTERIES. A painted moon sat at its left and a sun sat at its right. The owner, Teri Adams, though her customers called her Miss Teri, had made a pun out of her name. I couldn’t argue with puns, only inwardly groan at them like the rest of the planet. I also couldn’t argue with the obvious; my parents had called me Ruby because I was born with a luscious patch of deep red hair. There ought to have been a law against stating the obvious.

  Before I could press the buzzer the door swung open and a vaguely familiar face greeted me. I blinked rapidly, as if the art of blinking triggered the area of the brain skilled in sorting mental images. Yep, this was Teri Adams, AKA Miss Teri the clairvoyant. Her flouncy dress and messy, curly hair only heightened the aura of tranquility she radiated. I imagined cinnamon and other spices, though possibly because I’d spied donuts on the counter and I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.

  Miss Teri eyed me suspiciously. My surprise at being here outshone hers. I’d won a psychic reading in a local radio competition by accident after I’d phoned the station to find out about another competition being held in Providence, and I’d happened to be the tenth caller. I wasn’t into the occult, but I was into free stuff. Besides, Leo had demanded – by way of his post-it note – that I visit the psychic as payback for making him go with me to the annual cheese fair a few weeks earlier.

  Waiting in the doorway, I quickly calculated whether to take a chance on this woman’s perceptive abilities, or remove chance from the equation and steal the nearest car, drive to the cabin, and find out for myself if Leo and I were officially over?

  Teri settled the decision for me when she waved a hand in the air. “Come inside. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is a house of good spirit.”

  Why would I be afraid?

  A loud hiss at my shoulder made me jump. I spun to see a giant cat on top of a bookcase arching its back and growling. Wild bears were less intimidating. I sensed I’d come off the worse if I tangled with Teri’s cat so I hurried inside and kept away from the wall. Teri swung the door which launched the cat into the air where he expertly landed on all fours on top of the counter, before diving under a pile of boxes.

  “Don’t mind Oleander. He senses things other cats don’t.”

  Sneaking a look behind, in case I’d accidentally let in a snarling, rabid hellhound, I saw nothing to cause the cat to act so violently toward me. The insult stung; animals usually adored me. To add further insult, the cat stuck its head out a box and let forth a series of meows from deep within hell’s bowels, warning me to stay away. I’d have been stupid to ignore the hint, so I gave Oleander a wide berth again, almost crashing into shelves and display counters to follow Teri across the swirly-patterned carpet, passed shelves of candles, crystals, and fairy figurines, and finally through velvet drapes of the deepest purple.

  She stopped and pointed to a chair. Obediently, I sat down. Teri stayed standing. Her eyes traveled over my face, my hair, my clothes. I took in Teri’s slept-in hair, her brightly colored dress, her sandals adorned with jewels and shells. Our eyes met somewhere in the middle. With a frown, she honed her wizard-stare on my crumpled dress and I inhaled sharply at the critique. She’d have resembled a dishcloth, too, if she’d suffered my bad breakup.

  Teri continued staring until it finally dawned on me that she was looking for payment. I reached into the tiny pocket of my dress and pulled out the folded-in-quarters gift certificate. Teri took little notice of it, so I smoothed out the piece of paper and slipped it along the tablecloth and wedged it under the crystal ball.

  Little by little she eased into the chair on the opposite side of the table.

  “Are you comfortable?” she asked.

  I nodded. The small back room was neither hot nor cold. She ran her hands along the fabric, smoothing the cloth as though she was avoiding eye contact. She’s nervous! This only confirmed that coming here was a huge waste of my time.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she said, and immediately laughed it off. “Of course you don’t want anything. What am I saying?”

  Okay, so she could read minds; I wasn’t thirsty. But I told myself not to be too impressed. The number of choices in that area wasn’t that exhaustive.

  “Do you have a specific question you’d like to know the answer to?” Teri asked, gliding her fingers over the crystal ball and s
neaking a look at me from beneath her long lashes.

  “Ummm, not really. This is my first reading.”

  Hardly fair to lure me here only to give me one question, though. Still, I only needed the answer to one question, didn’t I?

  Maybe Teri could tell me what Leo couldn’t.

  From the corner of my eye a familiar face popped into view. Audrey Adams. We weren’t friends but I knew her. She was the clairvoyant’s daughter. She was also my half-sister.

  My father, David Parker and well-known, wealthy portrait painter, was Audrey’s father. Dad had left me and my mom when I was two years old. The memories were vague, but my mom told me I’d cried nonstop and that I wouldn’t accept her cuddles or kisses for weeks. He’d moved in with Teri Adams, who’d speedily become pregnant with Audrey. They’d married and Audrey and I had spent the next eight years playing happy sisters every alternate week, which, according to Mom, only exacerbated my temper tantrums. Not long after Audrey’s tenth birthday, however, my dad flew to Japan to put on an art exhibition. While there, he fell in love with the curator, a tiny raven-haired beauty who went by one name – Mishi – and he started a new phase of his illustrious career. Teri had resorted to her maiden name, Mom had made snide remarks about how the psychic hadn’t seen that one coming, and Audrey and I had no more reason to hang out.

  Teri smiled and seemed to relax a little. “I can give you a general reading. The first readings are often the most informative. I’ll begin with tarot cards, unless you’d rather I start with numerology or astrology.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Or, if you’d rather I exchange the reading for something else, I’d be happy to do so.”

  “I want the reading. Please.” Not like I could operate a crystal ball.

  Teri carefully folded and set aside a piece of orange cloth that had been used to shroud the cards. She handed the deck to me and said, “When you shuffle the cards, be calm. Focus on the cards. And only stop when you feel the energy tells you to stop.”