Love and Death in Blue Lake (6 page)

****

Spence said he’d rather have a check written from the local bank. He also said he could not move a sale as quickly as she’d requested, but he had permission to execute a temporary “rent to own” so she could move in anytime. Courtney’s mother handed over the money, no questions asked, huge smile giving away her happiness. Courtney, still in a state of disbelief in her actions, went to the bank and deposited the money. Then she went to the real estate office in town and signed the papers. Edward was coming out of the dry cleaner, pressed checked shirts slung over one shoulder. He looked up at the sign, although everyone knew Sanchez’s was next to the real estate office and always had been.

“Buying property?”

Suddenly she felt dizzy and clutched a lamp post. What would it mean to say yes, what would then come after? She’d been gone too long. This was not her home anymore. She loved her life exactly as it had been. Before Edward kissed her. Hadn’t she?

He was at her side in two steps, his hand cupping her elbow.

“You okay?”

“I bought Doc’s old place. I might be losing my mind.”

“Oh that. No, you’ve always been a little nuts.”

Edward, always with the joke to deflect from the serious situation at hand.

But then he got serious. “Is it the baby?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. But maybe…” She thought it was very sweet that he cared about the baby. If only it was
his
. God, he was right. She was a little bit nuts. This was happening way too fast.

He had told her almost nothing about himself, but he knew everything about her past, present, future. He had followed her career, told her so. But would he let her in? Would he say one thing about the music or why he didn’t drink anymore or a special woman? Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe nobody, not even she, got in. Her fault? Maybe. He’d asked her for four days, but that was before the baby.

She stood, shook him off.

“Sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, oh yeah, I’m fine.” Her phone chimed. A text. She checked. California.

“See you later, then,” Edward said. And before she could stop him, and why would she anyway, he was gone.

Seeing Xander’s name, she knew. He was not The One. Edward was The Only One Ever. Damn. Her eyes swam with tears as she blinked to read his text. Something about how much he loved her.

She didn’t reply. She’d just bought a house. Spence had promised to fast track the sale. The family needed the money. Even if the paperwork took time, she had the rent-to-own agreement and could establish residence sooner that way. How long until she could get her license to practice here? She had to find out. Make it all legal and right.

Courtney got in her car and headed toward Port Huron. She needed a bed. Two beds. It was time to stop sharing a room with Ruby in her mom’s house. She’d tried to find her daughter earlier, but her mom said she’d taken off with her guitar. Courtney looked toward the beach and punched in the line for Ruby’s cell.

“I bought us a house.” Courtney heard the waves in the background. Ruby was at the beach. “Where are you? In town? By the park? Do you have a cover up? Flip flops?”

“Mom, what? A house?”

“Maybe we need a vacation place. A place of our own.”

“Yay!”

“So you want to come furniture shopping with me?”

“No, I’m, um, I have a thing. I’ll pick out some stuff online and send to your phone, okay?”

“Okay, but what is this ‘thing’?”

“Grandma said it was fine.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m taking guitar lessons, okay?”

“Oh.” Courtney thought for a minute. Edward would not take on Ruby. Never in a million years. “With who?”

“Sorry, Mom, my battery is, like, dying. I have to find those pics to send you. Do
not
choose a bedroom for me!”

The phone went off, the radio went on.

In Port Huron, she found a furniture store and picked out stuff, including things that looked close to Ruby’s pictures, asking for Monday delivery. “Not a problem,” the guy said, taking her credit card.

At dinner that night, her folks were beyond pleased that she was moving back to Blue Lake. Gwennie had heard the news and brought over a huge stack of shelter magazines that the sisters went through after dinner, Courtney picking out paint colors and ripping out pictures of furniture and appliances. Ruby shrugged when Courtney asked how she liked the retro-looking kitchen appliances in one of the magazines. “Just get us in there, so I can finally get some rest. You snore, Mom!”

“I do not!”

Nobody said anything about Xander. He’d never even tried to get to know her family. Never came for a visit, even at Christmas. It was like he didn’t exist here. It felt so easy to erase him.

Ruby asked to be excused. “I’m going to call Juanita and tell her every single thing to pack.”

“Hold on, honey. You don’t want to go back to San Diego for school?”

“Naw. I think it would be cool to start over here. Or did you forget I start high school this fall?”

“No, I didn’t forget…I just…” Now was not the time to mention the baby. “Won’t you miss Xander? Your friends?”

Ruby snorted. She tossed her hair and left the room.

“Come back.” Courtney jotted a quick list and handed it to Ruby. “For Juanita. This stuff too.”

Her mom and dad had finally finished the dishes and came to sit in the front room with their daughters.

“I’m calling movers to come in, box, and ship. Just have Juanita get everything together when Xander’s in L.A. this weekend.” She would have to call him first and tell him that he could stay in the San Diego house for one more month and then the lease was up to him. She would not be coming back. What would he say about the baby? He’d been pleased when she took that pregnancy test and it came out positive. But they hadn’t discussed financials, and that was huge. She didn’t want to continue to support him while his ex-wife lived in over-medicated splendor in Beverly Hills.

“So when I start high school, it will be here.” Ruby was back, assuring Courtney that Juanita had it under control. “I told her we’d give her excellent references and a big bonus.”

“Good thinking.” Courtney felt that now she had her family’s blessing, she must surely be doing the right thing. Ruby had wrapped her head around the new situation with aplomb that belied her age. Courtney hugged her daughter. “I’m so glad you’re taking this so well. It’s really cold here in winter.” All talk of “vacation home” had disappeared. They were staying. Courtney felt as if she were escaping from a life she had never really wanted. Xander had been the one who had moved in on her six years ago. No invitation necessary. She’d been living a version of her life another person had created. Not that it had been a bad life—she’d done very well as a life coach with impressive credentials—but this was her own vision. A new start.

“Are you kidding?” Ruby jumped up and down with irrepressible enthusiasm. “I can’t wait for snow!”

Courtney knew she’d have to tell her parents and her daughter about the baby, but that could wait a day. Or two. After the reunion on Saturday.

Her mom was saying that she and Dad had talked it over and wanted to have the house painted for her as a house-warming gift. They knew a painter who could use the work. Courtney handed over the color swatches she and Gwennie had collected.

****

Eddie left the dry cleaner and was getting into his truck in the town lot when he’d spotted a girl who could only be Ruby on the beach, flirting with some older guys who were pretending to admire her guitar. They weren’t local, and their eyes were not on her guitar. He felt immediately protective, knew at once the girl with the guitar was Ruby. She was California sun-tanned with long shiny dark hair when every other girl on the beach was a pale blue-eyed blonde.

Courtney had been on his mind, he’d just seen her, spoken to her, and now here her daughter was, getting into trouble. Apparently, Courtney didn’t realize that the town had changed since they were kids, and that fourteen-year-olds had, too. He hung his plastic-wrapped clean shirts on the truck hook and went down to the beach, taking the guitar from Ruby and asking the guys if they knew she was only fourteen. They left soon enough.

“Why’d you do that? My grandma’s at the hair salon. She said I could come down here for an hour. Just because you’re married to my mom doesn’t make you my dad.” She grabbed for her guitar, and he gave it back to her, stunned she knew about him. Recognized him.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t think, well, Ruby, I’m Eddie.”

“My mom calls you Edward in her journals.”

“So that’s how you know we’re still married?” This girl was all Courtney as far as attitude. He liked her sass. Some of that had gone out of Courtney and into Ruby. Or maybe it was just the age. “Your mom would be pissed if she knew you were reading her diaries. She didn’t even want me reading them.” He’d forgotten all about how Courtney wrote back then, just scribbling, she called it. He’d never looked. If she wanted him to know something, she’d tell him. When she’d left, she’d taken the diaries with her. And apparently she’d kept them all these years. “Anybody else know? Your grandparents?”

“Xander.” Eddie nodded, but Ruby, lost in thought, didn’t notice. “My mom doesn’t know I know. She doesn’t know I know anything. Except we’re moving here. She told me that. But not about the b—uh, anything else.”

He figured Ruby didn’t need to know he knew about the baby. It was hot in the sun. He was used to being behind the bar this time of day. “Well, if your grandma says it’s okay, I guess you’ll be fine. It’s just…tourists. Until you get to know the locals, people aren’t gonna be looking out for you.”

“How’d you know me?”

“Your mom showed me twenty-five pictures of you on her phone.”

Ruby nodded. “Hey, will you give me lessons? Some girls I was talking to said you teach people how to be musicians. Like, real ones.” She strummed a few chords to that old song “Ruby, Ruby,” but she didn’t sing any words, just grinned at him and said “Hey, hey,” at the perfect time with sweet clarity. Girl knew her roots.

Eddie liked that. She had talent; he was willing to bet on it. But he could not get involved. “Sorry, kiddo. I don’t think your mom would like that.”

“She already said it was okay.”

Eddie doubted that. He just shook his head and walked back to his car. “Careful now, you hear?”

****

Eddie watched his staff handle shift change. He’d offered the bar for a party tonight. All graduates from the nineties, not just his class. He had free drink tickets for them, a buffet full of food, a hand-picked band. Extra staff were at the moment being organized by his manager. Amid all this Ruby walked in and sat right down at the bar. She put her guitar on the seat next to her, like it was a third person. The two live people stared at each other across the thick wooden barrier for a few minutes.

“My grandma dropped me off. She said you better give me lessons or your name is mud in this town.”

Eddie laughed. If Courtney’s mom said it was okay, then he surrendered. He’d always admired that woman and never been intimidated by her. Now Courtney’s dad was another story, but that was ancient history. The man had mellowed from all accounts. Not that he ever set foot in Fast Eddie’s. He shook his head at Ruby as a smile couldn’t help twisting up his face. “From the sound of it, you don’t need to know any chords.”

“I don’t. But I want to try out for
American Prodigy
next year, and I need stage presence. Grandma says you teach that kind of thing. Plus you gotta say yes cuz I figure besides me, you are the most important person in my mom’s life. She’s been different since we got back. We’re staying, you know.”

Eddie took that in. He wondered if it would really happen or if this Xander guy would lure them back to the land of never-ending sunshine.

“Your grandma know about the baby?”

“I—I shouldn’t have said that.” Ruby blushed. Maybe he could teach her a few things about what emotions to let out and which ones to conceal. Fans wanted happy confidence, not nervous tension.

“No, don’t worry, kid, you didn’t. Your mom told me.” He didn’t know why this girl got to him. She looked like him, hell, she even had a part of him, a younger version of himself with her musical ambition. “And your mom says it’s okay, about me taking you under my wing?”

“So, that’s yes? You will?” She’d placed her guitar on the stool next to hers.

Again, he wished she was his daughter. Ruby laid it on the line. Just like her mom. Eddie was not used to doing that. People told him their problems. He listened. But Ruby didn’t have a problem. She was making observations and planning for a future. She seemed far too astute for a girl her age.

“You want a cola or something?” By law, she shouldn’t be sitting here at the bar, but he happened to be good buddies with the police chief in town, and the place hummed with a few locals and daytime drunk tourists, so he wasn’t worried.

In response to his offer, Ruby made a rude noise, but he saw that it was fake, followed by a well-rehearsed line. “I don’t drink that crap.” Then a surprise. “Wanna get out of here? I need to see this glass house you live in.”

“Absolutely not. I always give lessons here at the bar. You learn stage presence on a stage.” He nodded toward his state-of-the-art platform. Then he rethought his words. She was underage. In a bar. Maybe not the best environment for Courtney’s daughter, or anybody’s daughter, for that matter. “Oh hell.” He didn’t like all these people coming to his house, which for all that it was built of glass was still in the middle of nowhere, his solitary sanctuary. But what was his choice? Say no and see those eyes fill with tears? “Okay, yes, under one condition. Call your grandmother and tell her where you’re going.”

She hopped off the bar stool, took out her phone, and walked toward the stage, speaking into it clearly enough so that he knew she was really on the phone with Courtney’s mother. Where Courtney was, he had no clue. And he wasn’t going to ask.

Chapter Four

“Wow this is awesome.” Ruby slowly twirled, taking in the big room with wide-eyed wonder.