by Joy Elbel
“Thank you,” she said as a single tear fell down over her wrinkled cheek. Throughout my entire conversation with his grandmother, Clay stood silently by my side. The moment that tear fell, he approached the counter where she stood and reached out as though to brush it away.
“Oh, it just got so cold in here! Did you just feel that breeze? It feels more like December than late March.” She opened up a binder full of pictures of flower arrangements and flipped to the page showing the corsages. “Here, why don’t you start looking at these while I go get my sweater from the stockroom? I’ll be right back.”
Clay lowered his arm and watched wistfully as his grandmother walked away. “She has no idea that I’m here. I thought maybe if I touched her, she would be able to feel me, you know? Instead, I just made her cold. Being dead sucks, Ruby.”
“I’m sorry, Clay,” I replied out loud. When I realized what I’d done I immediately clasped my hand over my mouth. “Do you think she heard me?” I whispered.
“No, you’re safe. Her hearing was never the best and to be honest with you, I think her memory is far worse than I remember it being. Even if she did hear you, I doubt she would remember it long enough for it to matter.”
“Okay, as long as you think I’m safe. I know you wanted to make some sort of connection with her, but I really don’t need to have any more people thinking I’m a freak.” I paused momentarily when I heard her voice floating out from the stockroom.
“Now where did I put that sweater I was wearing this morning? I don’t see it anywhere. Oh, never mind—there it is right there. If it had been a snake, it would have bit me!”
I felt a wave of panic wash over me. Someone else was in the shop, someone else could have overheard me! “Don’t worry—she always talks to herself,” Clay said, apparently reading my mind. “Trust me when I say that you’re safe—Scout’s Honor.” He held up the hand signal and I relaxed. Crisis averted.
Before I had a chance to reply, his grandmother reappeared behind the counter. “Have you decided which ones you like, honey?” she said pointing to the binder that I hadn’t even glanced at yet.
“No, not yet. I’m still looking. My dress is going to be red and I would kind of like something a little different as far as flowers go. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Why yes, I do. I know of a very special flower that grows right here in Charlotte’s Grove. It’s called the Heart of Scarlet Rose and it would be just perfect with your dress. I don’t carry them here in my shop but I can order some for you from the Wakefields. They live in that big mansion on the outskirts of town. You know which one I’m talking about, don’t you?”
I started to laugh. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I know it quite well. The Wakefields actually sold that house a year ago and my parents are the ones who bought it. And you’re right— the Heart of Scarlet would be the perfect flower for me.”
“They sold that beautiful mansion? Recently? They had some fancy name for it—what was it again? Royal Oak?” “Rosewood,” I replied, “And no, we’ve been living there for almost a year now. The roses are still there, though. My stepmother takes care of them now. I’ll bring some in for you to use for our prom flowers.”
“Yes, please do! Those are the most perfect roses I’ve ever seen. If the Wakefields hadn’t charged me so much for them, I would have made a killing selling those things. I used to get so many requests for them on Valentine’s Day but very few people were willing to shell out that kind of dough for them. Eventually, I just stopped taking orders for them. The flower business isn’t what it used to be, honey. Not enough people send flowers these days.”
She was such a sweet old lady and I felt so bad for her. Her business was in the toilet, her grandson was dead, and her daughter was the town drunk. How did she deal with all of those things and still make it through the day? I could see why Clay loved her so much. She was a very strong lady—stronger than I could ever hope to be.
“No, they don’t.” I glanced at Clay and saw that he looked like he was about to cry. He wanted to come see her but I don’t think he ever thought about how hard it was going to be on him. When I left, he would be leaving with me and she would never know that he visited. I would have to bring him back again someday soon but for now, I could tell that he’d had enough. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. I’ll stop by again another day.”
Clay reached out to her again but retreated when she pulled her sweater closer around her chest. He may have been afraid of the things that he did when he was still alive but I no longer had any doubt. He had a warm heart and I believed in him even if he didn’t believe in himself.
“It’s been a pleasure talking to you, too, Rosie! Make sure to take care of those Scarlets for me.” I nodded and waved as I walked out the door. Clay lingered for just a second and then followed me out onto the sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” I asked, knowing that deep inside he really wasn’t.
“Yeah, I really don’t want to talk about it, though. Let’s go back to Royal Oak now.” He chuckled ever so lightly over the misnomer but we both knew there wasn’t anything funny about it. His grandmother wasn’t doing well—it was obvious. How she managed to keep that business going all by herself with a memory like hers was beyond me.
“There’s one other place I want to go before we head home. Which way to Spring Avenue?” “That way,” he replied, pointing toward the far end of Main Street. “But trust me—there isn’t anything I want to see over there and it’s a rough section of town. A beautiful girl like you could get herself into a heap of trouble driving around alone in a neighborhood like that.”
Beautiful. Clay thought I was beautiful. The word rolled off his tongue so nonchalantly that he didn’t even realize he’d said it. It was nothing like the many times that he’d lightheartedly flirted with me. This felt real, like he didn’t say it to be flirty—he said it because he meant it. Was it better for me to come right out and address the issue or to continue pretending that there wasn’t an issue to address? Better or not, I knew which choice was the easier of the two.
“But I won’t actually be alone, now will I?” I said as I fired up the Neon and pulled out onto the street. I wasn’t good with confrontation, not good with it at all. Difficult conversations were simply just too difficult for me sometimes. If I could find out exactly how Clay died, he would be able to move on and there would be no need to have “the talk” with him. Once again, I asked, “Which way to Spring Avenue? And be specific—I’m not so good with directions.”
“Girls,” he mumbled not so quietly to himself. “They never listen to anything you tell them, do they?” Without missing a beat and acting like his previous comment couldn’t possibly have been audible to anyone but himself, he replied, “Go straight through this light until you get to the intersection, then make a left. Follow the road for about three quarters of a mile then make another left. At the top of the hill, make a right and you’ll be on Spring Avenue. Go down the hill and my house is the third one on your left.”
“Boys,” I quipped back sarcastically, “They never listen to anything you tell them, do they?” Acting like I had no clue that he heard that question, I then said politely, “You need to give me the directions one step at a time—navigating while driving is almost as impossible as parallel parking in my book.”
Clay cracked his first real smile since walking into the flower shop. “And you wonder why I call you Dominatrix? Right there is a perfect example of why! You are not the average teenage girl, Ruby. You—” he said then paused thoughtfully before finishing his sentence, “are dangerous.”
While describing me as dangerous could mean any number of different things, my gut reaction was to not inquire as to what he actually meant by it. “If you don’t want to see how dangerous I can really be, you’ll hurry up and tell me which direction to go before this light turns green.” Honesty was not the best policy in these awkward situations— avoidance was.
A few minutes and multiple sarcast
ic comments later, I finally saw the sign for Spring Avenue. As soon as I made the turn, it became obvious to me that this part of town definitely qualified for the title of Wrong Side of the Tracks. The houses were all of decent size but in various states of disrepair. When I saw couches on nearly every front porch, I shook my head in disbelief. About every other home had tires or some other random automotive part placed as strategically as most people planted garden gnomes. No wonder his mother drank to excess. If I lived in a neighborhood like this one, I would need some sort of escape from reality, too.
“Which one is yours?” I asked without acknowledging the fact that he had already told me twice in the last few minutes.
Clay sighed heavily and gave me an eye roll that, if it hadn’t been directed towards me, I would have been proud of. He pointed toward a green two story house with a tattered NASCAR flag hanging from its cluttered front porch. “That’s it right there. And there’s my mom passed out on the couch as always.”
There was so much junk scattered about on the porch that I didn’t even notice that a woman was indeed lying face down amongst the rubble with an empty beer bottle still clutched in her hand. I knew what his answer was going to be but I asked the question anyway. “Do you want me to go wake her up? You know, just so you can hear her voice again?”
“Hell no! Waking her up when she’s in this kind of state is dangerous, Ruby. Especially since she’s been drinking beer this early in the day. My mother hates beer. The only time she drinks it is when she hasn’t made enough tip money down at The Crow Hole to buy anything better. Trust me—if you try to wake her up, you’ll take a mean right hook to whichever body part is closest. I learned that lesson the hard way years ago.”
The Crow Hole? I wasn’t even going to ask. I assumed it had to be a bar. No one in their right mind would name a restaurant that.
“Oh.” How else could I reply to hearing that his mother was physically abusive to him when she was drunk? Saying I was sorry felt lame and he probably didn’t want to hear an apology from me anyway since I wasn’t the one who should be sorry.
“So now that you’ve seen my crappy house and my drunk ass mother, are you ready to go now? It looks like there’s trouble brewing up the street.”
I tore my eyes away from the hot mess sprawled out on her front porch to see what he was talking about. Three men in their early twenties were arguing in the front yard a few houses down from Clay’s. Even though it was late March and the sky was decidedly overcast, two of them were wearing nothing but baggy jeans and a bad attitude. The third was fully dressed and seemed to be the one on the defensive end of the altercation. I didn’t care if they were only arguing over whether or not to put garlic powder in the spaghetti sauce—the dispute was intense enough that I didn’t want to be within one hundred miles of it.
“Yeah, I’ve definitely seen enough. I was hoping maybe we would run onto Jeremy but we’ll have to come back some other day. Let’s get out of here.” I attempted to swing the car into reverse and head back out the way we came but a beat up Chevy pickup pulled up behind me and honked its horn impatiently. I had two options—try to parallel park to get out of the truck’s way or barrel forward down the street and past the ensuing brawl. Severe driver’s anxiety made the decision for me. I put the Neon back into drive and stepped on the gas despite Clay’s fervent objections.
“Ruby, what do you think you’re doing? You don’t want to get caught in whatever is happening down the street—trust me on this one. The two big guys are Shane and Dylan. I have no idea who that other guy is but I feel sorry for him. You do realize that you’re probably about to come face to face with my killers, don’t you?” he said in a panicked tone.
“I know!” I sputtered back at him in frustration. “But if I don’t get out of that truck’s way, he’s probably going to kill me!” I took a deep breath and reeled myself back in. “They have no idea who I am or that I am connected to you in any way. When you panic, I panic—you got that? Stay calm and just let me drive us out of here, okay?”
“Fine,” Clay replied while nervously running his hand through his hair. “Just whatever you do, keep your eyes forward and don’t make eye contact.”
“I can do that,” I said as I made my way down the street with every intention of following Clay’s instructions. But as often happens with my intentions, something went dreadfully wrong.
The largest of the three men suddenly lunged at his target and shoved him hard in the chest, knocking him straight into my path. I stomped on the brakes—my heart pounding in my chest—and prayed that I wasn’t about to run him over with my car.
I got the Neon stopped just in time—sort of. While I didn’t hit the unidentified victim, he did fall backward and straight onto the hood of my car. I had no choice but to sit there and wait for him to get up. I had no choice but to be a sitting duck.
As the man on my hood struggled to regain his footing, his attacker approached, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him forward. I sat there paralyzed with fear. The only thought that ran through my mind was that I wished that Zach were with me instead of Clay. Zach was capable of protecting me, Clay wasn’t. Then I saw it—the one thing that made me grateful that Zach was nowhere near.
The man looked nothing short of psychotically dangerous. A thick, black tribal tattoo started at his fingertips, ran the full length of his arm, and wound around his back to the other side of his neck. His eyes were as dark as his hair, brooding and full of anger. As scary as he looked though, his appearance wasn’t what made me glad that Zach wasn’t around. It was because now with a clear view of him, I could see that the attacker had a handgun tucked into the back of his pants.
With all the countless times that Zach had nonchalantly declared that he would take a bullet for me, guns were higher on my fear list than ghosts were these days. Clay sat beside me repeatedly warning me not to make eye contact but it was too late. I’d already seen his face and his weapon and he knew it.
Feeling the urge to start hyperventilating, I began to breathe in and out slowly to try to stay calm. It wasn’t working very well for me. By the time he approached my window, I must have looked like I was nine months pregnant and wildly trying to adhere to my breathing exercises. I kept my head down until there was a sharp rap on my window.
“You saw nothing!” he snarled and pointed at me with a menacing, tattooed finger. “Nothing! Now drive!” I nodded enthusiastically, hit the gas pedal hard, and squealed tire out of there. Yet again, danger found me when I wasn’t even looking for it. And as always, I made the mistake of looking it square in the eye.
15. Dream a Little Dream with Me
“OMG, Clay! You don’t think they’ll try to follow us, do you?” I asked as I glanced frantically into the rearview mirror. “Stop that! If Shane sees you looking back at him, he definitely will!” Clay exclaimed as he turned around in his seat to get a better look at what was going on behind us.
“Well?” I prompted impatiently, “Are they coming after us or what?” After a few seconds of excruciating silence, Clay finally settled back into his seat and answered me. “No, they aren’t worried about you. Whatever they were arguing about seems more important to them right now. Us driving through there when we did distracted them long enough for that other guy to get away. They got in Dylan’s truck and went the other direction. Didn’t I tell you we shouldn’t come down here? Why don’t girls ever listen?”
Giant eye roll. Really? I almost get killed just driving down his street and he’s going to spout that tired old line back at me? Boys! Why do they always have to prove that they’re right? If I could have kicked his sorry ghost behind out of my car, trust me, I would have. Scout’s Honor.
“Save your monologue about the ineptitude of the female species for some other time, Clay. I’m tired and I’m hungry. I simply don’t have the will to argue with you right now. I’m driving us back to Rosewood.”
“No, you can go home if you want to. As a matter of fact, I think that�
�s the safest place for you to be. But I need to be alone tonight. I’m spending the night at the lake so I can do some thinking. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
There wasn’t even a chance for me to try to convince him otherwise. As soon as the words left his mouth, he vanished.
I debated long and hard about whether or not I should tell Zach what happened on Spring Avenue. Lying to him didn’t feel right to me anymore—not that it ever really felt right in the first place. But telling him the truth meant that I was going to start worrying that he would insist on being by my side at all times. I couldn’t shake the terrible thought that entered my mind when I saw that Shane had a gun. Flashbacks to that night in the theater bell tower had me terrified that Zach might end up getting shot because of me after all. For his sake, I decided that it was time to stop putting myself into dangerous situations. No danger to me meant no danger to Zach. As long as I kept my nose out of Shane’s business, I was probably safe. Decision final. If I stopped playing amateur detective, Zach and I would both be safe and he would never need to know what happened tonight.
Zach and I only talked for a few minutes before I got into bed that night. He and his dad had another blowout that he didn’t want to discuss. I suspected that it had something to do with the fact that I was giving him the money to buy a new car so I didn’t press the issue. I was completely exhausted when I said goodnight to him but wide awake the second my head hit the pillow.
There were so many different things on my mind. School was getting tougher by the day and not only because of how people were treating me, either. Every teacher seemed to be throwing out their toughest assignments at the same time. There were papers to be written, tests to be taken—all while I tried to stay invisible to practically everyone. How ironic. As much as I hated being able to see them—Clay excluded, of course—I now wished that I was a ghost.