Caged (5 page)

And I slowly started to panic.

My legs soon realized that running was in our collective best interest and off we went. As I began to run I hoped the malevolent energy around me would lessen but it didn’t. With my increasing panic came increasing speed. I hurdled over objects in the street and wove through parked cars like a heat-seeking missile aimed straight for the warmth of home. I didn’t look back anymore, knowing that whoever was throwing that energy my way would inconveniently not be seen. Common sense dictated that it would be best to take out my earphones, but the thought of hearing my pursuer disturbed me too much. Beyond that, I needed the adrenaline rush that Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” was giving me, although the title wasn’t very reassuring.

I was about two minutes from home when I neared Market Street. There would be people out for sure on a Saturday night, so I thought I’d be in the clear. I rounded the corner to see precious few walking the streets. It was an improvement, but not what I’d hoped for.

As I neared home, I reached around to my bag in a desperate effort to find my keys, all the while chastising myself for not having them already in hand. Personal safety was never my strong suit and I was painfully aware of it at that moment. After two blocks of searching, I managed to pull my keys from the bag, only to immediately fumble them. They flew through the air in slow motion as I helplessly watched them crash to the pavement and skid underneath a parked car.

“Shit!” I muttered angrily to myself.

My timing couldn’t have been more off. At that particular moment the street was clear of any life that I could see. Still, I felt that negative energy there, nagging at me. It wasn’t getting stronger, but it wasn’t getting any weaker either. Having no other options, I threw myself onto my hands and knees, trying to figure out the best way to retrieve my keys from under the high-end Mercedes that was running some wicked defense. When I realized I couldn’t reach them any other way, I flopped down on my belly and wiggled under the perfectly engineered undercarriage, midway back towards the far tire.

“Gotcha!”

I had my keys in hand and was ready to inelegantly worm my way back out the way I’d come in. I turned to check my trajectory and felt ice immediately shoot through my spine. In my line of sight was a very large and very manly pair of shoes. As I lay there sweating, trying to concoct a plan, my attention snapped to the two pairs of equally masculine shoes on the other side of the car. Great…they’re multiplying!

“Hey, Jay? Did you park the car on a girl again?” an unfamiliar voice shouted.

“Nope. This one wasn’t there when I pulled up,” replied the man I assumed was Jay.

“Have no fear gentlemen, I know this one. I seem to get this view of her
often
.”

Sean…

I launched myself from under the car to see him smiling down at me first before his gaze drifted over the top of the car to his friends. I was certain they were finding great amusement in both the situation as well as my general appearance. I was covered in sweat and dirt, and wet from the puddle I’d managed to land directly in under the car.

“Is there a reason you were getting familiar with my exhaust system? You wouldn’t happen to be a fan of German engineering, would you?” Sean asked.

“Actually, I am,” I replied with a haughty tone. “I dropped my keys…I had to get them. This is
your
car?”

“It is,” he said. “One of them, anyways. We were just heading home. Where are you headed looking so…” he asked, gesturing at me strangely. I couldn’t tell if he was amused or confused by what I had going on.

“Home,” I replied, trying to wipe some of the nastiness off of my shirt.

“You seem stressed. Something wrong?” he asked with obvious curiosity.

“Uh, no. No, everything is fine,” I said unconvincingly. I did realize as I was saying it that the energy that had me diving under his car was gone. Completely. “I’m just hungry. I need to go home and eat something.”

“Do you need a ride?” he asked while looking me up and down, no doubt assessing the damage my dirt-covered body would do to his car’s leather interior.

“Nope. I’m good. Thanks,” I blurted as I started off down the street.

“Do you need an escort?” he asked, my back still facing him.

“Not necessary,” I said without looking over my shoulder. Mortified didn’t begin to cover what I was feeling at the time. I wanted, just for once, to not make a
complete
ass of myself in front of him, but that seemed too much to ask.

He said nothing in response, but I heard the growl of his car’s engine as it started up. I continued down the street at a brisk pace; running was out of the question as my body was way too spent. The threat appeared to be gone anyways.

The Mercedes purred as it pulled up slowly next to me, the window lowered so he could speak.

“Be sure to keep a firm grip on those keys,
Ruby
.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,
Sean
,” I said, forcing a smile.

He smiled back, turning up the stereo as he pulled away. While his speakers pumped The Fray’s “I’ll Look After You”, the words hauntingly echoed through the street. And my mind.

I guess he believed in theme songs too.

7

And so my “relationship” with Sean grew. I found myself not-so-randomly running into him here and there. He found himself popping up gallantly when I needed something, and annoyingly when I wanted desperately to be alone. He was irritating in a charming way, making me want to both strangle him repeatedly and gaze into his amazing green eyes, losing myself in them. I couldn’t have been more awkward around him; he was completely unnerving.

I eventually stopped putting much thought into the deeper questions that surrounded him and moved in a different direction. If interrogation wasn’t going to be effective, I would try a different tactic altogether. I would try to be his friend. It was a stretch for me, taking me way outside my beautifully crafted comfort zone, but necessary to accomplish what I wanted.

Over the weeks of coincidental run-ins, we learned more about each other. For all the oddities plaguing our situation, I found that he really filled a void that I hadn’t known was there. Being around him felt right and I wanted to leave it at that, but it wasn’t that simple. Through a stroke of genius I realized that my best strategy would be to exploit our friendship. I would slowly lull him into complacency so I could subtly start to extract answers from him without him being any the wiser. Indulging a curiosity over coffee, an innocent question over lunch, these were things that friends shared. And share he would.

8

When I was in need of the perfect vintage get-up in Portsmouth, there was really only one place I went to.
Better With Age
was a trendy boutique not far from my own shop. It carried not only the hottest vintage finds ever, but also mixed in new stuff from local and undiscovered designers, as well as top shelf jeans. I could tell a lot about a store by the jeans they sold.

The owner, Veronica Marks, aka Ronnie, was a petite, good-looking, forty-something single mom who may have spent a little too much time in her younger years partaking in the overindulgence of the eighties, and all that that implied. She was quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and a Pitbull when it came to her teenage daughter Peyta. She was a walking contradiction with her Greenpeace ideals and Kabbalah excerpts plastered all over the shop, and a front counter that housed her Glock 9mm. I idolized her. She was the closest thing I had to a friend before Sean.

I pushed through the entrance to her store and smiled at the expected sound of tinkling bells. A flash of brown hair popped up from behind the counter to greet me. Ronnie appeared to have another one of her “I just wanted to try something different” episodes; her formerly shoulder-length, red hair was shorn to a pixie-cut and dyed chocolate brown. The new hairstyle was stunning with her bone structure, but it took me a minute to fully absorb the change as it completely altered her looks.

“Ruby Tuesday, what can I do for you today?” she asked, smiling as she made her way towards me. ”I just got some amazing new shirts in. They’re still in the back. You want me to grab them for you?”

“Sure. I’m game.”

A widespread smile overtook her face as she turned and went through the beaded curtains leading to the stockroom. I rummaged through the racks until she came out with both arms full of fabulousness. She laid it all down on the counter and started organizing it by size, speaking aloud as she did so.

“Nope…that won’t fit. Bad color. Too short…oooooh, but this one is perfect,” she said as she pulled a cream blouse out and held it up to admire the sheer fabric. “Now, you need some different pants to try this on with,” she mumbled while looking down at my yoga capris. She had a valid point. “I’m going to pull some jeans for you. And I’ve got those knee-high riding boots you’ve been eyeing for weeks still in your size. I’ll get them for you.”

I took the blouse over to a mirror and held it up against me to see if the color would wash me out more, or play into the creaminess of my skin.

“What’s the occasion, anyways? Something special I should know about?” she called out, her voice echoing from the back room.

“No. Not really,” I replied casually.

“Baloney! Something is up with you. This is the sixth time you’ve been in here this month alone. What’s with the sudden interest in your appearance? You’ve got impeccable style, girl, but let’s be honest, you don’t exactly rock it out 24/7,” she said as she gave me the once over. Again.

“Hey, sometimes a girl just wants to be comfy!” I retorted.

“That’s my point. You seem to be more interested in not being comfy. Present outfit excluded. So who is he?” she asked.

“He who?”

“Whoever it is that’s making comfy less of a priority.”

“Nobody, Ronnie, really. I just felt like beefing up the wardrobe,” I said.

“If that’s the story you’re sticking to…” she said, trailing off.

“It is. Give me those jeans so I can go try this thing on. Weren’t you getting boots for me?” I asked with my most demanding tone.

She smiled.

“Peyta must have moved them. I’ll have to go back and rummage around. Worst case scenario I’ll text her to find where she’s stuffed them. Damn teenagers. I really should fire her,” she said with a wicked smile.

“Let me know how that goes for you. Seventeen-year-old daughters are notoriously unforgiving,” I tossed at her as I walked over to the curtained changing area. I heard her laugh heartily as she disappeared into the back again, in search of the Frye riding boots.

As I changed into the handpicked outfit, The Dave Matthew’s Band’s “Crash” came over the speakers in the shop. It was clearly a sign. I’d always had this theory that it couldn’t be a bad day when that song came on the radio. I smiled to myself in the mirror as I pulled the blouse on and arranged it so it sat perfectly on my frame. A pair of cognac-colored boots were thrust into the dressing room just in time.

“Thanks,” I told the disembodied arm.

“You’re welcome. I forgot that Peyta wears the same size as you. I think she was hiding them for herself. You’ll never believe where I found them,” Ronnie replied, chuckling to herself.

As I unzipped the boots to put them on, the jingling bells signaled another customer entering. “Can I help you?” Ronnie asked, sounding a little sweeter than usual.

Hot guy for sure.

“Got any vintage rock shirts? Preferably something from the seventies?”

Oh. My. God.

“Sure. Over there in the corner. I have some in the back too. I’ll go pull them for you,” she said, sounding all too happy to oblige.

As soon as the coast was clear, I stuck my head out to see Sean standing where Ronnie had directed him, rifling through the tees.

“Do you work on your stalker qualities, or are you just stalker-tastic by nature?” I asked him while his back was facing me.

“Ruby,” he said without turning around right away. When he finally did, the remnants of a smile were barely visible on his face. “Nice outfit,” he said, giving me elevator-eyes.

“Evasion and flattery will get you nowhere. Do I need a restraining order or what?” I asked, trying desperately to stifle the grin that was tugging on my lips, threatening to expose my true sentiment.

“Maybe,” was his only response.

“I found these four in the back. They look like they should fit you,” Ronnie said as she shot through the strings of beads.

“It’s not for me, but thanks. The size should be fine.”

“Is it your boyfriend’s birthday?” I asked, mockingly.

“Don’t worry, Ruby, he’s just a friend. You know it’s you I really want,” he kidded. I turned eighty shades of red.

Ronnie cocked her head to the side as she watched us, clearly amused with something as the right corner of her mouth twitched and turned up. I rolled my eyes at her and bit the proverbial bullet.