Little Red Gem (21 page)

William dutifully slipped
in behind the curtain, which he wrapped around his head, and then
he poked his head through a small opening and pouted. “My dear
Ruby, I am so sorry for what that nasty spirit did to
you.”

While Teri was at the
counter filling in the hospital forms, William did everything he
could to make me laugh, but my current mood wasn’t open for comic
relief.

“
Why didn’t you stop the
poltergeist from attacking me?” I whispered.

“
They are uncontrollable.
Does it hurt?”

I held up my newly
mummified arm. “Of course it hurts. But worse than a broken wrist,
you’ve given me your curse.”

William gave up playing
with the curtain and tossed it aside. I flashed him my angriest
look to warn him to stay hidden out of Teri’s view. At least he
took the hint; he stayed out of Teri’s line of sight.

“
What makes you so sure
you are cursed?”

“
Auditions are in two
days. I’ve finally come up with an awesome plan that will get Leo
to see it’s really me inside this body, except I need both hands to
perform. My life is ruined because you didn’t stop the poltergeist
from attacking me.”

Teri paused in filling out
the hospital forms and turned to face me. “What’s up,
honey?”

“
Nothing. Testing out my
arm.”

I slowly and painfully
moved my newly plastered arm through the air and she nodded
absently; already her attention was back on filling out
forms.

William moved in front of
a machine and it
beeped
. He moved to the left and it
whooped
. He moved back and forth,
sending the machine into a crazy fit of
beeps
and
whoops
. I drained batteries and he
sent machines haywire. The negative drain our unearthly presence
had on the living world was a warning that we didn’t belong. But I
wasn’t about to quit my mission before I quit this
world.

William gave up annoying
the machine and moved closer to the window. “Anne has asked when
you are returning to the cabin. She misses you. Oh, and, in case
you had forgotten, Audrey is still trapped in the
hollow.”

“
I hadn’t forgotten. I’m
simply focusing on the important stuff at the moment.”

William raised an eyebrow
and looked down his slender nose at me. “Like how the love spell is
working and how Leo is falling for you?”

“
Oh, sure, you can spy on
me while I cast a love spell but not while a poltergeist is
attacking me?”

“
You are obviously in no
mood for a condescending ghost so I shall bid you
adieu.”

Teri appeared just as
William disappeared. On the drive home, I was stuck mulling over
how I was going to accomplish the task of performing a love song
with only one hand. The piece I’d considering playing had the
potential to work on an electric piano – at the flick of a switch
the piano could be converted into a mini string ensemble – making
the sound no less hauntingly beautiful, yet the pout of my lips
exposed to me how much I didn’t want it to
sound
like a piano, I wanted it
to
be
a
piano.

“
You okay,” Teri asked,
snapping me out of my daydream. “Aside from the broken wrist, you
seem preoccupied. I didn’t mention anything last night, but you’ve
been quiet for two nights in a row. I’ve got to suspect something’s
up.”

“
It’s been a tough
week.”

She took her eyes off the
road for a second. “You want to talk about it?”

“
No. Thanks for asking,
but I gotta sort some stuff out.”

After a few more minutes
of silence, Teri said, “Does this have something to do with the
love spell?”

“
Not sure.”

William had hit a nerve
speaking about the love spell working. I, too, was convinced Leo
was falling for me. Yet this insight, instead of thrilling me,
opened up one more bed of denial that I now had to lay in. I’d
chosen to ignore that I was in Audrey’s body which meant the love
of my life was in love with someone else. What stronger proof was
there that he didn’t love me as much as I’d thought? Had I returned
from the grave for nothing?

***

The pain was unbearable. I
couldn’t sleep because no matter what position I lay in, my entire
arm throbbed as if rats gnawed through the bone. The digital clock
read 10:30 p.m. Drats. No more Advil until the morning. Surely they
didn’t have teenage patients with broken wrists in mind when they’d
set the daily maximum allowance for over the counter pain
killers.

I reached for the phone
and dragged it as close as I could without pulling it out of the
power socket. It was an effort to move my fingers across the screen
to send a text.

SORRY ABOUT NO SHOW. HAD
DRAMA IN PE.

I hit SEND and waited a
whole minute for the reply.

WHO IS THIS.

I pretended to bang my
head against the headboard. I should have realized this was
Audrey’s number, not mine. No way would Natalie have recognized
it.

AUDREY.

OH YEH HEARD ABOUT DRAMA.
HOW IS WRIST?

BROKEN.

OUCH. QUESTION. CAN U
SING.

I hadn’t really expected
this conversation to go any further than one text and one reply,
but now I was glad I’d texted. We were obviously thinking about the
same thing. Reach For The Stars auditions.

WHY.

NEED 3 FOR AUDITIONS ON
SUNDAY.

Either Natalie or Shanessa
had written a song for the auditions without me, or they were
performing one of Violet Dreamy Youth’s songs that required three
vocals. I didn’t care which song they’d chosen, I was determined
we’d be performing the song that whirled around in my
head.

I texted back: WHEN DO WE
REHEARSE.

GRRR HALF HOUR BEFORE
AUDITION. ONLY TIME COULD GET STUDIO.

Was she serious? We’d need
at least a week to be brilliant, a few days to be great, and a day
to be good. Half an hour was nowhere near enough time to reach the
hearts of a thousand people. Lucky for me I only had to reach
one.

***

The following morning was
Saturday. Usually the highlight of my weekend, those special
moments were ruined the moment I’d died, but a broken wrist laid
waste to any backup plans. So I was lazing on top of the bedcovers
reading a book when Teri popped into my room.

“
Leo has dropped in to say
hi,” she said.

I sat up and tossed the
book away in the same movement. “Tell him he can come
in.”

Teri glowered at me the
way a teacher about to sentence you to a month of exams glowered.
“He can talk to you in the living room.”

Dashing out of my room, I
found Leo sitting on the arm of the couch with a bunch of flowers
in his hand. I did a mad dash to take them from him.

“
Leo, they’re
beautiful.”

He remained on the couch
and I leaned in close, managing at the last second to remind myself
that his lips were not mine to kiss.

“
I can only stay for a
second,” Leo said. “I’m working at Rock-A-Lilly’s
today.”

“
Oh, last time we’d talked
about music, you’d practically given up.” I blushed to speculate
what, or who, had changed his mind.

“
Let’s say I’ve found a
new purpose. Anyway, I start work shortly so I’d better get going.
I only wanted to stop by and check how you were. It’s all over
school how Providence High has lost their only shot at winning the
regional finals for hurdles.”

“
Why would they say that?
You don’t jump hurdles with your hands.”

He threw back his head and
laughed. “You crack me up. You won’t be allowed to participate in
sports for a few weeks. School rules.”

“
That’s a relief. Still, I
hope they give hurdle number three a few weeks off as
well.”

Leo was still laughing
when I followed him out. I waited on the landing to admire his
butt, and as he headed down the stairs my dad came round the corner
and started on his way up. The only thing distracting me from
checking out Leo’s physical attributes was the armload of gifts my
dad carried. Resentment welled up inside. I already knew Dad loved
Audrey more than me, but did he have to flaunt it?

“
Hey, honey, your mom told
me about your accident.”

Leo paused at the bottom
of the stairs. Over Dad’s shoulder I spied him turn around to give
me a wave. Except it wasn’t a goodbye wave, but a
follow-me-when-you-can- get-away wave. I’d have followed him to
hell. Thankfully he only wanted me to go as far as Hollowglen
Road.

“
Audrey?” Dad
said.

“
Huh? Yeah, hurts on and
off. Hey, I’m gonna go out for a while.”

Dad paused in the open
doorway, following my gaze to where Leo’s dashing figure grew
smaller and smaller.

“
You’re too young to hang
around a senior.”

In the years I’d been
alive, my father had never once told me what I should and shouldn’t
do. I was a little taken aback. “I’m not too young.”

“
You’re only
fifteen.”

His smile was patronizing.
And so, did I notice, were his gifts. Dolls, board games, jigsaw
puzzles, water colors, blank canvases. How old did he think I was
I, ten?

He placed the gifts on the
dining table. “You’re hanging around Leo Culver. He’s not
suitable.”

“
He’s a friend. Friends
hang out with each other.”

Dad and Teri shared a
glance and my blood boiled. I’d copped his formidable stare before
and the memory of the time Leo had asked me to be his girlfriend
sprang to mind.

The music teacher at
Providence High School, Mrs. Sams, had decided Violet Dreamy Youth
was good enough to perform at Art Café. Her cousin owned the café,
so she’d organized a gig for a Saturday night, their busiest night.
We were ecstatic. Mostly because we were getting paid a hundred
bucks plus whatever amount of coffee and muffins we could
stomach.

“
We should wear either the
same dress in different colors, or different dresses but in the
same color,” Natalie gushed.

Shanessa liked the idea,
but in typical control-freak fashion she also suggested we each
dress in something that depicted the name of our group.
Control-freak or not, hers was a great idea. I drew out ‘Violet’.
Shanessa drew out ‘Dreamy’. And Natalie drew out ‘Youth’. To be
honest, we’d each gotten the theme which best depicted our
personalities. On certain days and under certain light my red hair
blazoned strips of the deepest purple. Shanessa’s dark complexion
and large brown eyes like a doe’s often caused people to dreamily
bump into things when she looked at them. And Natalie was the type
of fair-haired beauty who would be forever young.

We were nervous the night
of our first real gig, but we’d rehearsed often enough and had
performed in the old ladies home quite a number of times already.
We really had no reason to be nervous. Except we had every reason.
The gossip around town was a hotshot from a Los Angeles recorded
music company was staying at Providence on the night we were booked
to play. He was either visiting his grandmother or the art museum
or hunting in the woods, depending on who you listened to. None of
that mattered, except that he actually was here.

Everyone was invited to
the café (no surprise this was their secret plan – get the kids to
invite their parents and they’d have a huge crowd). Even Dad made a
special trip, though the announcement of an exhibition in a few
months was his real reason for stopping in. Mom had turned up but
sat at another table. Dad had sat at a table with Teri Adams, and
at the next table sat Mr. and Mrs. Culver. I knew the Culvers. More
importantly, I knew their son, Leo.

Since I was six I’d had a
crush on Leo Culver. So when he turned up at the café, I almost
died. Forget nerves over rumors about a music company hotshot
coming to watch us perform, my heart had hammered at the idea of
performing in front of Leo.

Whenever I performed in
public, I liked to pick a spot in the background to sing to. It was
as if Leo knew my little trick because he’d positioned himself
directly beneath the exit sign. Throughout the gig I felt his eyes
upon me. If the hotshot from Los Angeles showed up, I didn’t
notice, and I no longer cared. My eyes had stayed locked on Leo’s
all night.

Afterward, as I swung my
handbag over my shoulder, Leo had walked up to me and said, “Guess
what?”

I shrugged. “I
dunno.”

He pointed to my handbag.
It had been a birthday gift from my Mom. “Your bag says ‘Guess’ on
it, and I said ‘Guess what’? Get it?”

I chuckled despite not
wanting to. “I get it. Ha. Ha. Very original, too, by the
way.”