Little Red Gem Read Online Free PDF Page 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.