The Ruby Notebook (33 page)

Sunlight pours through the window, through the facets of a heart-shaped ruby on the gold ring on Madame Chevalier’s finger. Held up to the sky, the stone casts a pool of red light onto my own bare hand in my lap.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she whispers, elated.

I nod. “Where did it come from?”

Like a giddy girl, she tells me how Vincent came into her apartment this morning, creaked down to one knee, and slid the ring ceremoniously onto her left ring finger. “A dream come true,” she says.

My eyes wide, I glance at Vincent, who is just out of earshot, in the kitchen, preparing tea. “Are you—are you getting
married?
”

“
Oh, la la la la! Mais non!
” She lowers her hand, pressing the ring to her heart. “He said, ‘Violette, will you accept this symbol of my true love?’ ” She giggles and looks toward the kitchen, where Vincent is clinking and clanking around. “I finally found the courage to take your advice, Zeeta. I decided to make every day a song, no matter how many songs are left for me. I painted him a message, like you told me, a silly, girlish thing with hearts and roses.”

As if on cue, Vincent emerges with a tray crowded with a teapot and three cups, a little pitcher of milk, a sugar bowl, tiny spoons, and a small bowl of birdseed. As he walks toward us, he gazes at the ruby hanging loose on Madame Chevalier’s gnarled old finger. “Looks lovely on you,
chérie.
”

Madame Chevalier holds it to the light again and says, “Vincent, tell Zeeta how you found this ring.”

“
Eh bien, dis donc!
” he says, setting down the tray and brushing a few pigeon feathers from his sleeve. “It’s quite a story.” He pours each of us a cup of tea, and offers Maude—who is perched on the railing—a handful of birdseed. Finally, he settles in his blue velvet chair, letting his short legs dangle there, not quite touching the floor. “Yesterday morning, Violette sent me this message.” He pulls it from his pocket. “May I?” he asks Madame Chevalier.

“
Oui. Bien sûr,
” she says, blushing.

He hands it to me. It’s a watercolor painting of his face and hers framed in a window with Maude on the railing and hearts and stars and roses floating around them and
Je t’aime
written at the top.
I love you
.

A smile spreads over my face.

Madame Chevalier matches my gaze, her eyes aglow. “I painted it weeks ago, after you urged me,
ma petite
. But it took a while for me to find the courage to send it with Maude’s vial.” She lets loose a laugh. “Tell her the rest,
chéri,
” she urges Vincent.

“Well, I wanted to give Violette something special in return.” He smiles at her adoringly. “So I dug out that old jewelry box—remember I showed it to you, Zeeta?”

“
Oui
. The one that plays
‘La Vie en Rose.’
” I can picture it clearly: the red velvet inside and smooth dark wood outside, and how, when I opened it, the song burst out, in a sudden shower of tinkling notes.

Madame Chevalier begins humming the melody with her eyes half closed, the way old people sometimes do, as if they’re waltzing in their minds. She keeps humming in a kind of dreamy sound track to Vincent’s story. “Yesterday, I took out the jewelry box. I was cleaning the velvet inside when something rattled in there. I found my tweezers and pulled it out.”

“This ruby ring!” Madame Chevalier bursts out, holding up her hand.

“In the shape of a heart!” Vincent adds. “The perfect thing to give to
la femme de ma vie.
” He gazes at her face, as if he
could never get enough of it. “So I shined it up and brought it here this morning.”

Maude flutters onto his shoulder, looking satisfied. Madame Chevalier reaches out and sets her jeweled hand on Maude’s back, gently.

Vincent rests his own hand over Madame Chevalier’s, and Maude gives a sweet, warbly coo. “To think,” he says, “all those years, this jewelry box was just sitting in my shop, and it took me until now to find the heart that was in there all along.”

On the way out of Madame Chevalier’s apartment, I think about hidden treasures, about all the different ways to make every day a song, about how maybe it’s never too late. I think about the wide-open doorway out of my prison of
ifs
. There’s no real reason I can’t fix what I messed up. Even without magical waters. I have nothing to lose by telling Wendell how I feel. Telling him I might have a center after all, a constant Zeeta, one who loves him.

This decision leaves me humming, as though a thousand pigeon wings are fluttering inside me, about to take flight.

I will tell him. I will tell him. I will tell him!

He’s probably out sketching fountains. I figure if I wander down enough side streets, I’ll find him. The backstreets are mostly empty except for pigeons and gurgling fountains. Cheery flowers overflow from window boxes and music
drifts out from open windows—Middle Eastern tunes with strong drumbeats that make me feel as though I’m dancing instead of walking.

I plan out what I’ll say. I’ll tell him about the hidden heart ring. I’ll ask him to forgive me. We’ll kiss and it will be all ruby sunlight and silvery feathers.

There’s a tap on my shoulder.

I spin around. “Jean-Claude! You scared me.”

“
Désolé
. Can I walk with you?”

“I guess. I’m just wandering. What about you?”

“I’m headed to Monoprix for toilet paper.”

I laugh. Something has shifted. He would never have admitted going to the French version of Walmart to buy toilet paper to me before. It would have clashed with his troubadour image.

“Hey,” he says. “Have you seen Amandine around? She’s been elusive lately.”

“No.” I try to sound casual as my heart sinks. “She’s probably with Wendell.”

“Wendell?” He seems startled. “Really?”

“They do art stuff together,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Haven’t you noticed?”

His face reddens. “She’s too young for him.”

Now, this is a side of Jean-Claude I haven’t seen before. “She’s the same age as me, Jean-Claude.”

“It’s different.” Then he says, “It’s just—not fair.”

“Fair?” I give him a sideways look.

“It’s that—we don’t make as much money without Amandine. We take rent money from the change we collect, and she’s not contributing when she’s off with that guy.”

I press my lips together. This is the most riled up I’ve ever seen Jean-Claude.

“
Pffft,
” he says, blowing air through his lips. “
Ça craint.
” This sucks.

“Yes, it does,” I say, noting that his cool façade is completely gone.

“Amandine’s the heart of Illusion,” he says, his voice heated. “She can’t just run off. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Why do you think, Jean-Claude?”

After a few blocks, he calms down, but still seems distracted. We head down Rue de la Verrerie, past cafés and pizzerias and seafood restaurants and
crêperies
, as he points out restaurants he likes. “The buckwheat crêpes there are the best,” he says, gesturing to a hole in the wall with a yellow awning. “Try the chicken ones, with creamy béchamel sauce. And the cider is
trop top.
” Suddenly, he stops.

He’s staring at something. At a couple, sitting on the side of a fountain.

Wendell and Amandine. A sketch pad lies open on Wendell’s lap and a matching one lies on hers. Amandine’s head is close to his, and she’s whispering something in his ear. Now her hand is on his braid. And now on the small of his back. And now he’s moving his hand to her back. They are kissing.

They are
kissing
.

I look at Jean-Claude. He’s frozen.

Before Wendell notices me, I hurry away, in the opposite direction. Blindly, I turn down one side street after another, wanting to get far, far away from them. I don’t know where to go, what to do, what to think. There’s just this heavy feeling, a feeling that it’s too late.

I turn onto a narrow street, deserted except for a silver cat. I sink onto a stoop, press my palms against the sobering, cold stone, and close my eyes. The words run loops in my mind.
It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late
.

A
t some point, I hear footsteps approaching. I open my eyes and see Tortue standing a few feet away in his Pierrot costume, the perfect tear on his right cheek. He looks how I feel.

Somehow I’m not surprised to see him. Or embarrassed that he sees me in this state. He’s almost familiar now. Like a piece of clothing you’ve had for a while that you think you don’t like at first but that grows on you.

“Tortue,” I say. “How did you know I was here?”

“I saw you back on Rue Granet. You looked upset, Zeeta. I didn’t know if—” He hesitates. “Are you all right?”

“No. Actually, I’m not.”

The look on Tortue’s face is possibly one of concern, but it’s hard to tell with his painted-on mask. He stays at a
distance, looking uncertain. The bells of the clock tower chime. One, two, three, four. He takes his hands from his pockets, raises his palms. “Can I do anything?”

I shake my head.

Tortue sits on the stoop one door down from mine. He’s so still, sitting there like a statue. He doesn’t say anything else. I squint up at a rectangle of red fabric—a sheet, maybe, flapping like a bright flag in the breeze from a fourth-story window. I hear my breathing, ragged.

“You don’t have to stay,” I say finally.

He looks at his scuffed white tennis shoes. “I don’t want you to feel alone.”

I let out a slow breath, feeling just the tiniest bit better. I want to thank him for being here, for his quiet, earnest presence. Instead, I open my notebook. “Tortue, do you think there’s a
grand amour
for each person?”

He pauses to think. Faraway sounds drift into the narrow street—the distant roar of a motorbike, children’s shouts and laughter, a ball bouncing, rhythmically smacking the pavement. Finally, he says, “Yes. Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

“And what if you screw up that chance?”

He’s looking at his gloves now, tugging at the fingers. “We all make mistakes,” he says. “Have regrets. Miss opportunities. Maybe the best we can do is learn from our past. Fix things if we’re lucky enough to get a second chance.”

I put my hand to my necklace from Ecuador, rolling the smooth seeds between my fingers, considering his advice.
“When I broke up with Wendell,” I say, “I was confused. And scared. And momentarily dazzled by Jean-Claude.” My voice is calm, assured, stating these facts that suddenly seem so simple. “I made a mistake. I was stupid. Wendell’s the one I belong with. He’s always been the one.”

Tortue nods. “Jean-Claude is your Harlequin. And Wendell is your Pierrot.”

“And I’m the fickle Columbine?”

“Maybe you’ve been exploring, trying things out, like she did.” Tortue pauses, staring at green leaves peeking over the rooftop. “But I think we all have a Pierrot and a Harlequin inside of us. Perhaps Jean-Claude is a Pierrot to someone else. Our inner clowns emerge at different times, with different people.”

I have to smile. Inner clowns. Layla would love this.

A trace of a smile peeks through Tortue’s mask. “Now, me,” he says, “because of my illness, I go for months feeling like Pierrot, months like Harlequin.”

I’m still smiling, just a little. “And who is your Columbine?”

“I found her once and lost her. But it’s not too late for you, Zeeta.” And then, in a soft voice, he begins singing a kind of lullaby.

As he sings, I can’t help but think Layla was right about clowns. I should give them more credit.