The Ruby Notebook Read online

  “Essalam alikoum,” I echo. We always switch between French and Arabic, which keeps me on my toes. I learned both languages in Morocco, but it’s been seven years since I lived there, back when I had my orange notebook.

  Ahmed’s friendliness makes up for what Cybercafé Nirvana lacks in atmosphere. He’s Moroccan, and he started giving me discounts once he heard my rusty Arabic. This place is right down the street from our apartment in the North African neighborhood, and sometimes, if I close my eyes and smell the tagine in the air—that pungent blend of lamb and almond and cinnamon—I feel as if I’m back in Marrakech.

  Well, except for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” playing on repeat on Ahmed’s computer. Nirvana is his favorite band. He’s always asking me to translate the lyrics, and doesn’t believe me when I assure him they make just as little sense in English.

  Ahmed swishes his head around, as though it’s a mess of stringy blond locks rather than his close-clipped, gelled helmet of silver-streaked black hair. “Oh, my. Two entire hours have passed since you e-mailed Wendell.” He glances up quickly with a teasing grin. He’s a neat man, decked out even on sweltering days in white, long-sleeve shirts, which complement his dark skin nicely, but make him look oddly formal. He wears a fancy gold watch that he never looks at since the time is always in the corner of his eye on the computer screen. He’s the age my father would probably be—midthirties to early forties. Whenever I meet someone like Ahmed, I imagine for a sliver of a moment that I could be his daughter.

  Ahmed smiles. “And what is the love of your life doing now?”

  “I think he’s at a pool party.” I like that I know where Wendell is at all times, even though he’s across the entire Atlantic. I’ve never been to his home in Colorado, but from what he’s described, I can imagine the sunshine and mountains. We met last summer in different mountains, on a different continent altogether—the Andes in South America. He’d been adopted from Ecuador as a baby, and sixteen years later, had returned to search for his birth parents.

  Ahmed gives a wistful shake of the head. “Oh, how I partied back when I was younger,” he says, deftly maneuvering his custom KnightQuest mouse. “Even played in a grunge band. We toured around a little.”

  “Really?” I have a hard time picturing Ahmed wearing anything other than his pressed cotton pants and button-down shirt.

  “Now I just listen to music,” he says. “The only remnant of my old life.” He blinks and shakes his head, as if waking himself up. “So, when will l’homme de ta vie be here?”

  “A week.” I can’t help smiling when Ahmed offhandedly refers to Wendell as the love of my life. One thing about living in a different country every year is that you have to jump in and make friends as fast as you can. And you can’t be too discriminating about age or gender—you just search out whoever has that spark, a certain je ne sais quoi. After only a week, Ahmed and I already joke around like old friends. He’s talented at showering me with attention while still kicking butt in KnightQuest.

  “Well, go and write,” he says, flicking his hand at me cheerfully. “And tell l’homme de ta vie that Ahmed says hello.”

  I settle into the chair at my favorite computer in the corner. It’s just beneath the travel poster of colorful houses crowded onto cliffs on the Italian coast.

  Wendell’s sent me five photos from his phone. In all of them, I’m standing on a big boulder, on the top of a mountain in the Andes. The wind is tossing my hair around, and each photo captures it in a different position, like it’s a moving sculpture. It looks as if the air could pick me up and carry me away. That’s how Wendell has always made me feel—on the verge of flying. The pictures move in closer and closer, and in the last one, my eyes fill the photo. And you can tell that my eyes are looking at something amazing—the vast patchwork of fields and trees and red-tiled roofs spread like a blanket below me.

  His e-mail says:

  I’ll be your mirror,

  Reflect who you are

  In case you don’t know.

  I’ll be the wind, the rain, and the sun,

  The light on your door

  That shows when you’re home.

  They’re the lyrics to a Velvet Underground song he played me in Ecuador. I remember flipping through these photos and listening to the song and feeling his arm around my shoulder. And once the song ended, I thought, He knows me. He sees who I am. He can always remind me. A rare and precious thing.

  I kissed him and breathed in his cinnamon smell and absorbed the feel of his muscles and hung on to his long braid, wrapping it around my hand as if it were a rope to hold him with me.

  And all I could think was My God. I am lucky.

  I stare at the computer screen. The lyrics are all he’s written, except for the end.

  No matter where you are, you are la femme de ma vie.

  I linger on those last words. The love of my life.

  I smile, knowing he’s half kidding but enjoying the fact that he’s half serious, too. He’s been signing off that way since I told him that Ahmed calls him l’homme de ma vie.

  There’s the ding of a chat request. He’s online, probably on his phone. His words appear on the screen. “Hey, Z—call me?”

  I only have a few euros, so this will have to be short. Ahmed moves his gaze from KnightQuest long enough to flip to Wendell’s number in his little notebook, and nods when he hears it ringing. I go into the phone booth, close the flimsy wooden door behind me, and perch on the stool.

  As I pick up the phone, a tingling thrill runs through me. “Hey, Wendell. It’s me.” It still feels incredible that I’m someone’s me. That “me” is all I have to say. That I have the me spot in his life.

  “Hey, Z.” His voice is muffled, barely audible over music and shouts in the background.

  “It’s hard to hear you, Wendell.”

  “Yeah. I’m at this pool party.” More noise, splashing, heavy bass.

  I press the phone to my ear, straining to hear, barely catching his words.

  “Listen, Z,” he says. “There’s a change of plans.”

  I swallow hard. “What?”

  “I won’t be staying with you.”

  My heart stops. “But are you still coming to France?”

  “Yeah.” His voice is garbled and lost in the noise.

  “I can’t hear you, Wendell.” I press the phone to my ear again, put my hand over my other ear. “What?”

  He shouts. “I’m staying with a host family there.”

  Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he want to stay with me and Layla? “Why?”

  “My mom and dad thought it would be a good idea.”

  I try to find words. “I don’t understand, Wendell.”

  “They thought it would be good for my French if I live with French people.”

  I stare at the pattern of scratches in the door, the bits of graffiti, names, doodles. “But I can speak French with you,” I say. “And you’ll have French teachers, and you’ll be surrounded by French people and—” I pause, trying to keep the edge of desperation out of my voice.

  “Yeah, but they think—”

  “What? I can’t hear.” I close my eyes, focusing. I want, suddenly, to kick something.

  “They think it might be too much pressure on us.”

  “Pressure? What are you talking about?”

  “It might be weird at first to be together again. They think I should have my own space.”

  I rub my eyes, press them hard, until I see constellations of stars behind my lids.

  “Z? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  He keeps talking, as if to fill the spaces of my silence. “At first I didn’t like it either, Z. Then I started thinking about it. And I saw their point.”

  Now I actually do it, kick the wall. Ouch. Not a good idea in sandals. I rub my toes and curse under my breath.

  “Z? You okay?”

  “I don’t know.” I look at the clock above the phone and calculate how many euro
s I have left. Probably enough for another minute. “Listen, Wendell, I have to go.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry, Z.” His voice is sincere, tender even, but a little distracted.

  “I don’t have any more time. I’m out of euros.”

  “You still picking me up at the airport?”

  “Your host family isn’t getting you?”

  “I told them you would. I mean, if—”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there. Bye.” I hang up before he can say I love you. For a long time, I sit on the stool, staring at the scratched wall.

  When I emerge from the phone booth, Ahmed looks at me with concern. “Everything okay?”

  I nod but say nothing. At times like these, I wish I had a father. Not a temporary substitute, but a real one. Sure, there’s always Layla. But I know exactly what she’ll say about Wendell’s change of plans. She’ll give me a hug and a kiss on the forehead, quote Rumi, and assume I’ll get over it in no time. I always imagined my father would be the one who would understand that the words of a thirteenth-century mystic aren’t universal Band-Aids. He’d understand that not every disappointment can roll right off you, that sometimes you need someone to mourn with you.

  But there is no father, and there never will be, and all I can do is take these small kindnesses, like Ahmed’s, where I can. I offer him a weak smile and reach into my bag for the two euros to pay him. As I’m searching for my change purse, my hands touch the cool, smooth plastic of a CD case.

  Strange. I don’t remember putting this in my bag. The case is translucent red, and inside is a silver disc with the words Make every day a song scrawled on it in French.

  That’s one of Layla’s mottos. Sometimes when she breezes out the door in the mornings, she calls that phrase over her shoulder. She has been known to surprise me with odd little homemade gifts before.

  But with a closer look, I see that the handwriting isn’t her distinct, swirling script. It’s more masculine, small and neat. And now that I think about it, the CD wasn’t in here when I paid for my drink at the café earlier. Someone must have put it in my bag within the past hour. Someone at the café? Or maybe Ahmed? Maybe it fell from the counter into my bag.

  “Ahmed,” I say, showing him the CD case. Evening sunshine pours through the window, reflecting a circle of light onto the wall. “Is this yours?”

  “No. Did someone forget it in the phone booth?”

  “It was in my bag.”

  “Bizarre,” he says.

  Mystified, I pay him two euros, tuck the CD back into my bag, and step out into the breezy air. I feel a strange gratitude to whoever put the CD in my bag. It’s as if somehow, this person knew what I needed.

  When I walk through our apartment’s door, breathless from three flights of stairs, Layla’s in the kitchen, baking. Her violet cotton tunic is covered in flour, and her hair, slipping from an orange silk scarf, is splattered with bits of cream. A paper-thin sheet of dough is spread on the counter, surrounded by mixing bowls and bags of sugar and flour.

  “Hello, love! I’m making mille-feuilles. Pastries with a thousand leaves!” She holds up a ball of dough in one hand and a pastry roller in the other. This kitchen is better stocked than any other we’ve lived in, and Layla’s determined to figure out what every last utensil is for and use it. “Want to help, Z?”

  “Nope.” I dump my bag on the snow-white sofa. Our apartment matches the town—creams, buttery yellows, silvers, pale pinks, whites. This is one of the only furnished apartments we’ve lived in, probably because it’s the richest country we’ve ever lived in. In the past, our apartments didn’t even come with toilet seats or stoves, for fear the tenants would run off with them. This apartment has all the bells and whistles, from lemon zesters to stacks of glossy art magazines to framed prints on the walls. The closet is full of fluffy white towels and neat plastic caddies for cleaning supplies and toiletries.

  I was proud to offer Wendell such luxurious accommodations, but now it doesn’t matter. I pull my clothes from the antique chest of drawers in the living room and carry them by the armful to the bedroom.

  “What are you doing, love?”

  “Moving my stuff back into the bedroom.” I work quickly, wanting to get it over with. “Change of plans. Wendell’s staying with a host family.”

  “Why?”

  “His parents wanted him to.” I keep my voice flat, emotionless. “Something about too much pressure.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, love.” Layla sweeps into the living room, gives me a floury hug, and kisses my head.

  I stiffen. “Every time I’m happy, something happens to end it. It never lasts.” I grab an armful of shirts from the bottom drawer. “I should be used to it by now. I don’t know why I thought this thing with Wendell would be different.”

  Layla gets on her Rumi-quoting face—raising her eyebrows slightly, half closing her eyes, giving a spacey hint of a smile.

  Before she starts talking, I’m already rolling my eyes.

  “You must have shadow and light source both,” she says. “Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.”

  “I’m not laying my head anywhere,” I snap, slamming a drawer shut. “I’m going to start listening to my head instead of my heart. Getting rid of any delusions I had about things going perfectly this summer.”

  As Layla lowers her eyelids and opens her mouth to respond, I add, “And no more Rumi, please.”

  She closes her mouth, walks back into the kitchen, and rolls out the dough on the counter, spritzing it with a little water bottle. After a moment, she says, “Well, maybe it’s best he has his own place.”

  I snatch a stray sock off the floor and stare at her. “You actually agree with his parents?”

  She pushes a strand of hair from her face with her wrist and squeezes doodles of white cream onto the sheet of dough. “It’s been nearly a year. People change. It might take some—”

  This is an unexpected twist. She hardly ever takes the responsible, maternal route. “We e-mail five times a day, Layla! I know him much better than I did last summer.”

  So much for getting along like sisters. Although, maybe this is how sisters get along. As the sisterless, brotherless product of a one-night stand, I wouldn’t know. Since that fateful night, Layla has only once come close to a long-term relationship. And thanks to Layla, I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to have a romance that lasts more than a month. I can’t help mustering up some sarcasm. “I forgot. A hundred flings in a decade makes you queen of love advice.”

  She shrugs and smooths the cream with a spatula.

  I toss the clothes into the wardrobe in the bedroom, not bothering to fold them. Then it occurs to me. I walk out of the room and look at Layla. “What if Wendell’s worried I’m like you?”

  “Huh?” She licks cream from her finger.

  “That I just flit from one guy to another.” Breathless, I clear out the last drawer and pile the pants and jeans into my arms, stomping into the bedroom.

  “I don’t think he thinks that,” Layla calls.

  I cross my arms, slump against the doorframe. “Why else would he do this?”

  “The reason he gave you.” She gives a resigned smile. “Just roll with it, Z. He’ll still be living in the same town as you.” She holds out a spoonful of sweet cream. “This’ll make you feel better. Have some.”

  I shake my head and take a long breath, trying to put this into perspective. It’s true, Wendell and I can still spend all our time together when he’s not in class.

  “Hey, Z!” Layla tries again. “Why don’t we blast some monk chants and just be happy he’s coming, okay?”

  “Fine. But not monk chants.” I grab the little clock radio/CD player and flip through our case of bootlegged music. Most of our music is homemade by Layla’s ex-boyfriends. The didgeridoo player in India, the yodeler in Thailand, the whistler in Brazil. I’m trying to decide between those last two when I remember the mystery CD. As I rummage through my bag, I call out, “Layla, did you
put a CD in my bag at the café today?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, whoever put it there stole your motto.” I read from the case, “Make every day a song.”

  “My kind of guy.”

  I pry open our ancient CD player, hoping it will work. Layla bought it at a flea market in Chile, and we’ve dragged it around six countries since then. It’s on its last legs, but we can’t afford any new music-playing devices. In Ecuador last year, we vowed to save nearly half of our income for college, investments, retirement, and emergencies—which leaves little money for luxuries. I put in the CD and press play.

  The music starts slowly, one delicate guitar note plucked after another. Behind my eyelids emerges a single star, then another, then another. Each note is pure and bright, each as huge as a sun and as tiny as a snowflake all at once. And then comes a cascade of crystalline notes, and then the chords, deep and wide and resonant. The crescendos send me flying, weaving through galaxies, spinning like planets.

  It’s only one song, no words, but at the end of it, I realize my eyes have closed and I’m holding my breath. In the silence after the song, I press pause and look at Layla.

  She’s leaning against the kitchen doorframe, a far-off look in her eyes. “Whoever gave you that must be completely smitten.”

  “What?”

  “That music exudes love. It’s made of love. Someone’s got it bad for you, Z.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Layla looks skeptical.

  “I have a boyfriend, Layla, in case you’ve forgotten. I haven’t even looked at another guy.” As I say this, I realize I’m not being entirely truthful. There was that unusually handsome accordionist. But everyone was looking at the band, not just me. He’d have no reason to think I noticed him.

  “When did you find it?” Layla asks, spinning the pastry roller thoughtfully.

  “In Nirvana. But someone could’ve put it in my bag on the square.” I flip the case open and closed, frowning. “I don’t think it’s an admirer.”

  “Then who?”

  I search for a more logical explanation and, giving up, say with a wry grin, “A fantôme.”

  “A ghost?” Layla spreads another thin sheet of pastry on the mille-feuilles and shoots me a mischievous smile. “Then Monsieur le Fantôme chose the perfect music to reach right into your heart.”