by Joy Elbel
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was fishing to find out my relationship status. Don’t be stupid, Ruby! He was just being friendly and that’s all I wanted him to be. From this close proximity, though, I could now smell his cologne—a musky, woodsy scent. This guy was perfect in every way. Somehow, I found enough courage to speak without stumbling this time.
“Yeah, he gave it to me for my birthday last year.” Which was the truth—minus the fact that he was dead and I was single. Admitting I was technically single would have made me look desperate, like I was trying to flirt with him. Which I wasn’t. Still, my heart raced when I spotted a brief flicker of disappointment flit across his beautiful face. But whatever I saw—or thought I saw—was gone in an instant as he regained his cool exterior so quickly that I decided I most likely imagined anything else.
“I thought so,” he said casually. “Well, you better have that fixed. Brody’s Jewelry is downtown on Main Street. They could probably have it done for you in no time at all.”
From the second I laid eyes on him, I tried so desperately to hide any sign of emotion. But when he smiled at me so sweetly, so innocently, I couldn’t help myself. I smiled back at him. Like I hadn’t smiled at anyone but Lee. Flooded with guilt, I toned down my smile to the kind you give a stranger when they hold the door open for you at the mall. A slightly creepy and way less hot stranger. I had to get away from this boy before I really did something embarrassing. Thanking him again, I turned toward the door.
“Um, so do you want me to keep the key to your heart?” he called.
Dammit!! He made me so nervous that I actually forgot to take the charm out of his hand!! Oh, but that wasn’t the only charm I needed to worry about. He was irresistible and dangerous in the best kind of way. He turned me into a complete blundering fool in a matter of seconds. Okay, so turning me into a blundering fool wasn’t exactly hard to do but I usually didn’t react this way to boys. What was it about this guy? Oh yeah, he’s totally hot, he smells great, and he’s charming as hell—no girl would have a hope of getting out of this situation unscathed. But I had to fight the strange attraction I had to him. Pull it together, Ruby!
I pivoted around slowly on my heel trying my best not to look as flustered as I felt. He was still standing there with his palm outstretched and a grin on his face. Reaching out to pluck it from his hand, I pretended that I was playing the game Operation. It was the only game I was good at. There was only one piece in that game I never seemed able to remove successfully. The Broken Heart. But the odds were with me, so I was confident that I could pull off this maneuver without embarrassing myself any further.
Not wanting him to think I was intentionally trying to touch him, I attempted to lift it carefully with the short stubs that I called fingernails. Just when I thought I was home free, my fingers trembled and the tips brushed his palm lightly. Again, I felt that same electric shock that I felt when he touched me the first time only it was stronger now without the fabric of my hoodie to absorb it. I lingered for a second longer than was appropriate then caught myself and pulled away. His eyes locked with mine and I could see that, whatever it was, he felt it too. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. My brain reverted to something primal, something instinctual and I made the only move that made sense. I ran out the door and left my Norse god standing there staring blankly after me.
3. Rosewood
Once I was outside the diner and far enough away from him that I could breathe normally, I figured his effect on me would diminish. I was dead wrong. I practically floated through the gravel parking lot as though my feet weren’t touching the ground. Who was that mystery boy in the diner? He was so beautiful and his touch was literally electrifying! Was he some kind of superhero or something? Of course not—superheroes didn’t exist. Or did they? He was definitely super and finding my lost charm made him a hero in my opinion anyway. The charm Lee gave me. Dammit, I had to stop thinking about the Norse god! I crawled into the back seat to find Mimi awake now and thoroughly un-amused by her confinement. I opened her carrier and she made a beeline for my lap. As I stroked her soft fur, she started to purr. I knew how she felt because I felt like I was purring on the inside. And it had to stop. Right. Now.
As we drove through town, my dad pointed out various landmarks and each one seemed to have a story attached. The bank fountain that he and Andy poured laundry detergent into, the park where he won the school district’s sixth grade spelling bee, the convenience store he worked at his senior year of high school. I leaned my head against the window and pretended to listen to every word. Instead, I was absentmindedly reading the signs above every shop. There was Roseman’s Floral Emporium—how amusing that someone with the name Roseman chose to work with flowers—the Bantam Theater and a quirky looking candle shop called Something Wick-ed. I loved candles and the name even more—it was a play on my favorite Shakespearean quote, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” After Lee died, I started turning out the lights just before bedtime and reading by candlelight, just like they did in Victorian times. It was a weird thing to do, I know, but life was simpler then and filled with romance. And without Lee, it was the only romance I would ever know.
Then I saw it. Right there on Main Street where he said it would be—Brody’s Jewelry. And that’s when it hit me. Mystery boy wouldn’t be a mystery for long—he lived in Charlotte’s Grove. The fact that we moved was something I hadn’t fully grasped yet. In my mind, this place wasn’t home and I was merely a passerby. But I wasn’t and neither was he. Would he be in any of my classes this fall? Part of me hoped that he would and another part hoped that maybe he was actually older than he looked and would be going to college instead. I really didn’t want to be in a relationship but if for some reason I ever changed my mind, I would definitely want a boy like him. He made me feel special, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. But he must have that effect on every girl, right? I pulled the tiny silver key out of my pocket and turned it over in my hand. Was I hoping to feel some of his energy emanating from it? Was that even possible? And what was that I felt when we touched? Did my lonely brain just imagine that powerful connection? I was already such an emotional mess and now he had me totally questioning my own sanity. I tucked the key back into my pocket determined to forget the encounter and forget about him.
I needed to think about something different so I went back to looking at the storefronts as we passed. After seeing several shopping plazas with absolutely no good stores in them, I got a sinking feeling that this was going to be one of those hick towns that didn’t even have a mall. One of those towns where women wore the same high-waisted jeans they’d been wearing since high school. Though I was no fashion diva, I certainly considered myself stylish so ‘mom jeans’ were simply not an option. I would have to get my license if only so I could do some proper shopping but until then, the internet was going to have to do. Near panic attack. They did have internet access here, didn’t they? Didn’t they?! Something better than the dreaded dial-up connection my dad liked to laugh about. If not, my life might as well be over. I could live without my phone now that there was no one for me to talk to anyway, but having no internet was unthinkable and a subtle form of child abuse.
As I watched, storefronts gave way to rows of houses and lawn by lawn they grew further apart. We were definitely heading away from town but what were we heading toward? This whole moving thing gave me an uneasy feeling. A feeling that had nothing to do with milking cows or decorating haylofts. No, it was something else, something I couldn’t identify. As we passed over a small bridge, I shivered. It felt like I was walking over my own grave. But as usual, Dad didn’t notice. He was too busy droning on about how his senior class painted the murals along the side of that river 25 years ago. Farm or no farm, I couldn’t wait to get out of that car.
My wish was about to be granted. All I could see were trees and a gate but my father pulled to the side of the road. He stopped the car and put i
t in park. I could see his reflection in the rearview mirror. He was smiling and there was a twinkle in his eyes. And that twinkle…annoyed me.
“Stay here—I’ll be right back,” he said as he got out of the car. I watched him as he crossed the road to the towering gate, undid the clasp, and swung it wide. I could now see that the wrought iron at the top was twisted and welded into a single word—Rosewood. Dad got back into the car and turned down the now visible gravel drive.
As we passed through the gate, I could see more detail. Each bar of the fence was carved into what looked like the stem of a rose, twisted and thorny, ending in a small metal blossom at the top. I’d never seen anything like it. Rosewood was a gated community of some sort and we were probably moving into one of the condos. That was a good sign. They don’t allow cows in condos now, do they?
On both sides of the narrow drive were groves of enormous oak trees planted so precisely that they fell into perfect line with each other. They looked ancient and were probably standing guard here for over a century. When I turned my focus forward, I could see a huge mansion rising up through the line of trees. It was a Southern plantation style home like the ones you see in movies about the Civil War, the kind where life was a constant cotillion. It was so massive that no other houses were even visible. What would it be like to live in a place like that? I would probably never know but I used to dream about places like that when I was a child. Houses like that had history and secrets and hidden things. I read tons of mysteries over the years and the ones with settings like this one were my favorites.
The road turned into a circular drive as we neared the mansion. A barn stood to the right and it looked authentic, like it had been standing in that very spot since the nineteenth century. But who cares about barns—my eye was drawn to a bed of roses forming a concentric circle on the lawn. In the center of that circle stood a large stone fountain carved into the shape of a large blossoming rose. The water wasn’t flowing but when I looked at it, I imagined how impressive it would be with a bubbling spout reaching upward from the center. It was the kind of place where lovers should meet and exchange kisses in the moonlight. Sure, the stone was covered in a thick, furry coat of moss but I could see its true potential. Maybe someday I would get to know the owners and have a chance to see the inside of that place, a chance to sit by the fountain’s edge at night and pretend I wasn’t so alone. I’d lost a lot of things in my life but my vivid imagination wasn’t one of them. It was the one thing that could carry me through the darkness.
There was a blue SUV already parked in front of the house so my dad brought our car to a stop just behind it. A lady in her sixties got out of the car and made her way back to Dad’s window. She had blonde hair that was frosted white in spots and sprayed into a large helmet framing her face. Her clothes weren’t any more fashionable, either. She was wearing a purple jacket and matching skirt and the tank she wore under the jacket was too low cut for someone of her age. Her skin was tan—way too tan—with the look of stretched leather. Had she missed the memo about sun exposure leading to skin cancer? Her makeup was thick like she thought she could hide the ravages of time and over tanning by just applying her foundation with a putty knife. A cheap coating of magenta outlined her lips but the pièce de résistance though was her eye shadow. It was a tawdry shade of purple to match her outfit and had left the accepted boundaries to the point where it threatened to take over her whole face. And was that alcohol I smelled emanating from her vehicle? The vehicle that bore a vanity license plate that read ‘2 hot gramma’, by the way. Oh yes, there were only two words to describe her—geriatric cougar.
“Hi, Jason. I’ve been waiting for you.” She spoke in a Southern drawl that seemed too thick to be authentic. She touched my dad playfully on the shoulder as he got out of the car. “It’s so good to see you again,” she purred. Most women found my dad attractive so I should have been used to random women throwing themselves at him. It was incredibly weird though to see a woman old enough for Medicare trying to work her feminine wiles on him. I pictured Eve offering Adam a rotten apple and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
My dad usually didn’t notice when someone was flirting with him—or claimed he didn’t— but since this one was about as subtle as a flesh eating disease, he got the picture pretty clearly. He slipped his arm around Shelly’s waist as he introduced us.
“I want you to meet Shelly, my wife and my daughter Ruby. Shelly, Ruby, this is Gayle Kuhta. She’s the agent who hooked us up with this magnificent house.” Dad motioned toward the mansion that stood so grandiosely before us.
Kuhta. Nearly rhymed with cougar—how fitting! Once that tidbit of irony flitted through my brain and disappeared, more important things started to sink in. It couldn’t be for real—there’s no way we were going to be living here! I knew my dad made a lot of money as a doctor but that house had to be worth millions. It had to be some sort of sick joke. Either that or the inside was wretched and he bought it as a cheap fixer-upper. Great. Instead of milking cows, I was going to be hanging dry wall for the rest of my wretched existence.
The Cougar was so shameless that she gave Shelly and me no more than a curt nod and returned to flirting with my dad. “I’ve been looking forward to today ever since you signed the papers. Rosewood is an amazing home and it deserves to have an amazing man living in it. We are so lucky to have a skilled doctor such as you here in our humble little town.” Something told me that it wasn’t the way he held a scalpel that was getting her hot and bothered.
My dad delicately changed the subject. “I’m excited to see how my girls react when they see the inside of this place. So if we could get the keys….”
The Cougar interrupted him with honey all but dripping from her tongue. “You don’t want me to give them the grand tour?” she cooed. “I know how much you enjoyed it. I’m eager to show you everything.” I’ll bet she is—the gross old skank! As she leaned in closer to my dad, my suspicions were confirmed. Yep, she definitely smelled like alcohol. It was barely even noon!
Shelly didn’t seem to care that ‘2 hot gramma’ was hitting on her man and eagerly requested a tour. “How much do you know about the history of Rosewood?” she asked in that too perky way of hers. Did she really want to spend another second with that foul old woman? I rolled my eyes in disbelief. And besides, anything she could possibly want to know about the house could be found at the library. Even my dad let out an exasperated sigh, quickly followed by his signature fake cough to try to cover it. Wow. Could he be any more obvious? How embarrassing!
But oblivious to his disinterest, The Cougar linked her arm with his and gave him what I think was supposed to be a seductive wink. I say ‘supposed to be’ because in reality, she looked more like she’d just suffered a stroke. Stroke or no stroke, though, it didn’t dampen her fake Southern charm as she drawled out her reply. “Everything there is to know. Are you ready for the tour?”
As she led us up the stairs to the massive front door, I had a weird realization. My future and someone else’s past both lay across the threshold. Our house in Trinity was the only home I’d ever known so I never felt like a stranger there. Here, it was like entering someone else’s life. That would have been a scary thought if it weren’t for the horrific year I’d just endured. A year I would never be able to forget no matter how hard I tried. It was a no-brainer—someone else’s past would suit me just fine.
Once inside the house, there wasn’t a doubt left in my mind that my theory of it being a fixer-upper was dead wrong. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful home I’d ever seen. So beautiful, in fact, that it almost seemed to glow from within. The floors were highly polished rosewood, according to The Cougar, imported from Europe in 1847—the year the house was built. The high vaulted ceiling open to the second floor was topped off with a gleaming crystal chandelier. I don’t know how I missed it from outside, but a circular stained glass window towered above the front doors, patterned with an intricately designed rose blossom. It was
like stepping into heaven itself. Bright rays of early summer sunlight sparkled through the colored glass and cast a scarlet tinged reflection on everything they touched. It was magical, like that scene from “The Wizard of Oz” when everything goes from shades of gray to a wondrous rainbow of color. Yes, until this very moment, I’d been living my life in black and white. Suddenly, I wanted to know everything about the house and I listened intently as The Cougar launched into the history of Rosewood.
“The foundation of this house was built on a tragic romance. Rosewood was built by Dr. Joshua Abbott Baker as a gift for his young wife Charlotte Mae. They met in Georgia when she was 12 and he was 22. Charlotte had the biggest crush on Joshua but she was just a child to him then. Their fathers were partners in the booming railroad business and equivalent to what would be billionaires today. Joshua was the youngest of seven children and the only one to survive after tuberculosis ravaged the family. Against his father’s wishes, Joshua chose to go to medical school instead of carry on the family business. He left the South to study in Philadelphia and was gone for seven years. When he returned to Georgia, he found that Charlotte was no longer a child and he was smitten. They courted briefly and when he offered marriage, she gladly accepted.”
The Southern accent grew as she told the story—for dramatic effect, I imagine. I was so enthralled with the story and with this place, though, that I was willing to overlook it. I stood amazed at the bottom of the grand double staircase which curved on both sides to the landing midway to the second floor. Carpeting of a deep crimson hue lined the steps and I could imagine what it would feel like to descend those steps in a floor length gown, fabric swishing around you with every step, descending to meet your beloved who waited patiently below. Life in those days was grand and romantic. Why couldn’t it still be like that? Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century and that I would have fit in much better in that time than I did in my own.