Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time (6 page)

“Dad, please. I love you so much and I don't want you to live in some poky little flat. I want you to live at home with me. Stay, Dad,
please
. If you love me, please, stay for me.”

I'd been certain—I was
sure
—that if
I
asked him, he would stay. He would hug me and sigh and say, “Of course, Ruby. Of course I'll stay because I do love you.”

But he didn't. He just shook his head and said, “I'm really sorry, Ruby, but I can't. I have to go.”

Chapter Seven

A
fter Dad had said that he was going anyway, no matter how I felt, he got up and walked back to the house. A sort of numbness spread through me, and I stayed outside in the garden until the last bit of warmth of the day had finally gone, waiting to feel something again. Finally, I went to the kitchen door. I couldn't see Mum or Dad, so I went inside.

I just wanted to go upstairs, get into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and go to sleep and forget about everything. But Mum was in the living room and she heard me.

“Ruby?” The tight voice she'd had earlier seemed to have snapped and disintegrated, and I knew she'd been crying too. I stood outside the doorway for a moment and I wished more than anything that I didn't have to go in there and see her crying. But I went in anyway.

“Are you OK?” I asked. I didn't sound like I meant it. I couldn't seem to feel anything at all—just numbness like I'd been swimming in cold water for too long. And I think I even sounded a bit cold, maybe angry with her still.

She sat up in the armchair and wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes. “Yes, darling, I'm OK. I feel sad, Ruby—hurt and angry and sad, but I'll be OK.
We
will be OK, I promise you.”

She tried to smile, and held out a hand to me, so I took it and sat on the arm of the chair, although at that moment all I wanted to do was run upstairs and hide under the duvet.

“What's worrying me is you, Ruby. All this, everything that's happened this evening—this isn't how I thought it would be. Your dad and I thought we were protecting you by trying to sort things out before telling you. We thought if we all sat down and talked it through it would be easier for you. I can see now that it must have been a terrible shock. I …I suppose I thought you sort of already knew, that you were expecting it. We didn't do a very good job and I'm sorry, Ruby. I really am. We were trying to think of you, but we got it wrong.”

Like everything else
, I wanted to say, but I didn't.

She put her arm around my waist and hugged me close to her.

“Mum, did you want Dad to go?” I asked her tentatively. “Was this your idea too?”

She bit her lip hard and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her mascara had spread out over her face and cheeks.

“No, darling,” she said. “I didn't want him to go. But I also know I can't stop him from going—not without hurting us all even more. I know that eventually this will be for the best and we're going to try very hard to make this OK for you. We didn't get off to a good start, but we will make it work. We're not going to fight over you; you can see him whenever you want. You can even live with him if you want …”

The way she said it made it clear that if I did, it would hurt her more than anything. Even if I had wanted to live with Dad, I couldn't. I couldn't leave Mum because I loved her. I understood that, even if Dad didn't.

I shook my head. “I don't want to live with him,” I said. “And I don't want to live with you. I want to live with us, all together, like always.”

Mum sighed and her shoulders slumped. She looked exhausted. “It's going to take a long time to get used to it, Ruby, but we will …” she said, rubbing her closed eyes with her fingertips.

“But if it hadn't been for Dad, you'd have kept on trying, wouldn't you?” I asked her, thinking again of Dad's refusal to stay, even for me.

Mum thought for a moment. “Yes …” She hesitated. “I probably would have, but if your dad didn't feel the same, it wouldn't have worked. It couldn't have. It's no one's fault. Ruby, you mustn't blame—”

“But it
is
him!” I interrupted with a flash of anger. “He doesn't love us anymore, Mum. It's not that he needs space, or that he wants to be on his own. He just doesn't want us. It's not just you; it's me too. This is all his fault.”

Mum shook her head. “No, Rube, that's not true—” she began, but I couldn't listen to her anymore. I didn't want her to stop me from feeling angry. If I was angry, I wasn't hurt; I wasn't lost and I wasn't abandoned. Angry was much,
much
better.

I stood up.“But it is—it
is
true.” I raised my voice and gestured toward the garden. “Because he told me it was, out there. So you needn't worry; I don't want to live with him. I don't even want to see him or speak to him ever again.”

And then at last I did run up the stairs, climb into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and shut my eyes as tightly as I could. But I couldn't stop the tears from squeezing out. After a while, I just cried. I cried for a long time and thought about Mum downstairs crying somewhere too, and him out there probably laughing his head off, and I couldn't believe that anything that had happened to me today was real. How
could
it be real? How can a person's life change so completely over a few short days? And worse still, it was nothing like on
Kensington Heights
. There was no one there to rewrite the script, bring in a rich uncle or an identical twin, and make sure it all turns out OK in the end.

“Are you sure he's not coming back?” Nydia asked when I called her, still under my duvet.

“I'm sure,” I said staunchly. “And I'm glad. I don't want him to come back. Ever.”

Nydia thought for a moment. “Maybe we could do something like in that film
The Parent Trap
, about the twins who have to get their mum and dad back together again. I could think of a plan. Hey, maybe we could get them trapped in a lift or something.”

I smiled because Nydia was always so sure that her plans would work. “It's a good idea, but it won't work—not this time. It's all right, really. I mean, OK, so my career is over and I'm only thirteen, I come from a broken home and, oh yeah, I'll never have a boyfriend because I'm the frumpiest girl in Britain, and I'll probably get chucked out of the academy and have to go to school without you. But apart from that, everything is just fine.” It seemed easier to joke about than to actually think about it.

“You might get a boyfriend one day,” Nydia said, trying her best. “I wouldn't rule it out totally.” And I knew that Nydia couldn't think of anything else to say when she said, “Yeah, and on the bright side, things can't get any worse.”

Want to bet?

Chapter Eight

M
um told me I didn't have to go to the studio the next morning. She said she'd ring in and that Liz would understand, but I said that I needed to go. I didn't tell her that, after this morning, I didn't think I'd be going for very much longer.

I just needed to get out of the house because it was so strange without Dad there, without him drinking his coffee on the way out of the house and leaving his mug on the gatepost. It was strange without his coat on the hook on the back of the kitchen door next to Mum's and mine like it always had been, or without last night's paper folded up on his favorite chair. So I had to go even though I knew Mum didn't want me to—maybe
because
she didn't want me to, and even though I was sure this would be the day they would fire me.

Just then, it felt like too much for me to be strong for her. I haven't worked out how to be strong for myself yet. I think it's probably best to try not to think about it at all and just to think about everything else. There certainly was a lot to think about.

It was quiet when I got to the studio; everyone else had been up early doing a night shoot before the morning rehearsal. (Minors like me don't do that stuff a lot. We're only allowed to work a set amount of hours a week, in case it turns into slave labor.) Vera, the canteen lady, made me a bacon roll and a cup of tea and I went to the rehearsal room, hoping it would still be empty. But Brett was there.

“Hi, Brett,” I said. I was surprised how my voice came out, all small and sad; in my head I'd been bright and breezy. I didn't want anyone to know about Dad leaving. I wanted everything here to be normal …until they fired me, that is.

Brett glanced up from her script and she looked furious. But the moment she saw me, she quickly rearranged her face into a smile.

“Are you OK?” I asked her tentatively. Brett some times has these “artistic episodes” when suddenly she can just go off, and anyone in the way will do as a target. She'd never targeted me before—what with me practically being like a daughter to her—but I suppose there could always be a first time, especially with the luck I'd been having. And then I realized: It must be because she's tried to talk to Liz about not firing me but she'd failed.

“I'm fine, darling, fine,” Brett said through gritted teeth. “OK, sometimes I wonder what on earth it is I'm doing in this flea circus, when no one listens to what I say. After all, who am
I
?” Her voice was gradually increasing in volume. “I'm only the person who everyone switches on to see, the one they come back to watch, week after week. What do I count?”

Luckily, just as I thought I might have to try to answer her, Liz, Martin, Justin, and the rest of the cast for that morning came in.

“Brett,” Liz said with extra patience, just like my next-door neighbor does when her toddler has a tantrum, “is there
still
a problem? I thought we had resolved this.”

Brett rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, tossing her blonde hair so that the darker roots showed for a second.

“There's no problem,” she said, making it perfectly clear that somehow there was. As Brett lowered her voice to talk to Liz, I took the opportunity to scoot past them and sit in the farthest corner of the room, hoping that no one would notice me and consequently not fire me. (This plan would have backfired, mind you, when I had to start reading my lines.)

“Ah, Ruby!” Liz gave me her shiniest smile. “I'm going to need to chat with you afterward, OK? I've got some fantastic news!”

I looked at Brett, whose face seemed to have folded in on itself with anger. Fantastic. She's going to try to make it sound great that they're chucking me off the show, just like Mum and Dad tried to make it sound like it's the best thing ever that they've split up. What is it with adults? Why can't they just admit it when bad things happen? Why don't they just all agree that, actually, thanks very much, things
couldn't
be worse?

“Er, OK,” I said glumly, sinking as far down in my chair as I could without actually falling off it. I had to wait until after read-through and my two lines for Liz to give me the “fantastic news.”

The rehearsal went well, like a normal day, really. First we did a read-through—just read the words like we're reciting from the phone book or something. That's when the main actors ask questions about motivation, make notes on the scripts, or change their lines slightly. Then we read again, sort of half acting this time, so we save the best until we're on the set. It all went like clockwork.

“Right, that was great, everyone,” Liz said, clapping her hands together and bouncing a little bit so that her jewelry jangled. “Really felt the energy in the room today. Just before you go for filming, I've got a couple of things I want to say.”

I felt my cheeks begin to smolder with the beginnings of a blush. I couldn't believe she was going to announce it in front of everyone—especially in front of Justin! I tried to look at him while I still had the chance, but he'd let his fringe flop over his eyes this morning and he was looking far too beautiful for me to be able to properly stare at him. So I just braced myself for the final humiliation.

“I want you all to meet Danny,” Liz said instead.

“Come in, Dan!”

My head snapped up and my jaw dropped. It was Danny—Danny Harvey from school. He looked around the room and, when he caught my eye, raised an eyebrow and half smiled at me. I was so surprised I just sort of blinked back at him like I had grit in my eye. By the time I'd managed to smile back he was his usual scowling self again.

Liz dropped her arm around Danny's shoulder and gave him a squeeze. “Danny will be joining the cast for the rest of this season's shooting, playing the part of Marcus Ridely, Caspian's bad-influence younger cousin.”

Everyone smiled and waved at Danny and said something along the lines of “welcome” and “hello.” He just about managed to smile back but, unlike Justin, who can walk into a room and just know that everybody loves him, Danny looked a bit awkward. He even sort of blushed a little, which is something they would never believe at school. Danny is really cool there. He's
so
not the sort of boy who blushes.

As everyone filed out for a quick break before filming, I made my way over to Danny. I wanted to be nice to him because he seemed a bit lost and I knew how it felt to stick out somewhere and not quite fit in.

“Hi,” I said to Danny. He sort of shrugged back a hello and looked at the floor.

“Hi,” he said.

“So, you never said you were coming on the show,”

I said.

He shrugged again and looked at the door this time.

“I didn't know,” he said to the door. “Didn't find out until later on. There were all these auditions. I didn't want to say anything in case I didn't get it and I'd look like a loser, like Michael Henderson did when he said he was definitely going to be on
The Bill
and they picked that other kid from
Grange Hill
…” He trailed off and looked around the room—everywhere, I realized, except at me.