It’s Never Too Late for Love

Every day was a pilgrimage.

Ruby Redford’s red shoes took her to the letter-box and back again.

Still there was no letter.

Ruby was twenty-nine years old. Ruby had glossy, straight black hair falling past her shoulders, a bisque porcelain complexion and cocoa-brown eyes. She was slim with a nice figure and she was five feet, four inches tall.

Four years ago, when she was twenty-five, Ruby’s mother had left home and never returned. Because her mother had said she was going to see a friend out-of-town and she was known for staying away from home for a day or two, Ruby expected her back.

Well, she half-expected her back, as it was now more a habit of tripping her way to the letter-box, hoping she would be surprised by a post-card or a card from her mother, let alone a letter.

Maybe it had all been too much for her mother, Ruby thought; looking after four children after her husband had suddenly been killed in a “car accident” seven years ago. Ruby had returned home to look after her three sisters, who were now aged eleven, fifteen, and twenty.

Ruby had remained fit and trim, doing much of the work around the house for the three years that her mother was around. Then it had intensified after her mother disappeared.

Ruby’s part-time job contributed to the running expenses. The girls had a legal guardian, their Aunt, but she just gave them money and was never around.

A year after her father had mysteriously died, Ruby had met a financially well-endowed man two years older than her. It was clear that he wanted to sweep her off her feet, but he was from overseas and he wanted her to go with him.

If she had left with him, she wouldn’t have to work. She could have whatever she wanted, but Ruby’s first duty was to her family, so love took a rain-check.

***********

Ruby was happy and grateful that for the past two years, her neighbour Jeremy Mont, the same age as her, had been a good friend.

Jeremy had moved in next door with his gem-stone grinding equipment, for he acquired rough gemstones and turned them into beautiful smooth pieces.

Jeremy was due to return home abroad after lock-down was lifted, so Ruby had not got too involved with him. But he had a sweet and caring nature, which had drawn Ruby into confiding in him things that helped her unburden her heavy past.

“It must have been a shock to your mother, learning that your father was a field agent for the government. I’m sorry to hear that,” from Jeremy, and his large brown eyes looked sad.

“Lies and secrets” Ruby had responded, “I think that’s what my mother hated the most. I could understand and accept it more than her, but she got a bit crazed. Said things like maybe he isn’t really dead, it’s just a cover-up and he might walk in the front door one day.”

“I understand” Jeremy looked thoughtful, his oval-shaped face, crowned with curly black hair, completely attentive.

“There’s trauma stuck in her energy field and it has to be released sometime. Let’s just hope that when she left, she found a fresh path and maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want to let you know where she was so everyone could start with a clean slate.”

Ruby looked pained. “Part of me believes that one day she will return or I will find her, and that she really has a good reason for not letting us know where she is.” But her most pressing thought was that her mother may also be gone forever.

The gulf of silence between them spoke ample words. Each had their own hidden thoughts. Ruby wished that by tapping her red shoes together, their mother would return home.

She only ever wore the red shoes when she walked to the letter-box because her mother had given them to her on her twenty-first birthday, and on her twenty-second birthday, in June, her father had died.

They said that he crashed, but Ruby didn’t believe it. Her father was a first-class driver, and Ruby determined that if she ever had the money, she would hire a private investigator to look into his death. And to search for her mother. Then she could stop walking to the letter-box in her red shoes.

It was as though the red shoes had a special onetime function, a conduit between her mother and her, a ribbon of hope tying her past with her future. She yearned for magic in her life.

In the cold month of February, the restrictions were lifted, and Ruby and Jeremy talked about going out. Ruby was happy and grateful when Jeremy asked her out officially on a date. Her first date! She was so ready, and even if Jeremy returned home soon, Ruby looked forward to a romantic dinner with her best friend.

She put on her favorite red Ponte dress……..and the red shoes!

They would have fun. Lives were created to love oneself and others, she was realising.

It surprised Ruby when a limousine drew up at her door. Jeremy, looking impeccable and very handsome in a tuxedo, got out. He must have been doing well with his gemstones business, she thought. All was quiet when their deluxe vehicle pulled up in front of the Valentines Restaurant.

Jeremy offered her his arm and ushered her into the long Function Room.

Ruby gasped. It had soft pearly lighting, interspersed with sweeping rotating ribbons of pale comforting pink, green and blue. They emanated from spot-lights in three corners, and the colours played over each other, creating a magical atmosphere.

A red carpet, fringed with gold tassels, was rolled out right in front of the door-way, leading to what seemed to be a large cave at the back of the room.

The magnificent chandelier from the centre of the ceiling twinkled invitingly. The lively, yet soothing notes of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” played at just the right volume, casting a fairy-tale feeling over the entire scene.

A sweet delicate fruity perfume emanated throughout the space.

Ruby’s head spun with wonder and pleasure as she accompanied her friend down the red carpet. As she walked, her red shoes started to leave behind the past. They paused, arm in arm, at the threshold. Ruby looked in.

It was a cave! A crystal cave. The walls sparkled with red, green, orange, blue, and white flashes from crystals embedded in the cave’s wall. The floor of compacted sand sported a round table.

The table-top was jade green on a curved white stem. On the table-top there was a charcuterie plate with a fine cut-glass wine glass at either end. A bottle of deep purplish-red wine was placed behind the plate. A ribbon of ruby red roses lay around the perimeter of the green table.

A white wicker chair was at each side of the table. Jeremy smiled and pulled out a chair for Ruby.

He beckoned to the bottle. “Would you like some Merlot?” Jeremy asked.

Ruby nodded, and he poured some of the elixir. The ruby-red drink gurgled into the glasses. “Now before we have a toast, there’s something I must tell you,” Jeremy said.

“I am from a sovereign-state in Europe and I have been travelling the world, to see how others live and to look for my lifelong partner. Two years ago I ended up here, next door to you, by fate.”

He inter-laced his fingers and leaned over the jade table.

“My real name is Prince Jeremiah luc-de-Mont and when this world crisis is over, I would love you to travel with me to my home, if you would like to. You can come just for a visit, and of course I will help you look after your sisters while we are gone.”

Ruby gave a gasp, shook back her hair, and replied, “Haha, that’s very funny, Jeremy. You wish!”

But he only smiled and sat back in his chair, looking around him.

Then he said, “I’m sorry that I added to your web of lies, but I had to. Call what I did, more a white lie, because I never said that I wasn’t royalty! I revealed what could be told, on a needs basis.”

“I have got to know you well over the past two years. You deserve a lot.”

His loving face embraced Ruby. “Ruby, you are the smartest and kindest and bravest woman that I have ever met. But it’s time now for you to let go off the past. I’ve watched you for months now, searching for the elusive. Maybe it will come to you if you let it.”

“Look at your boundaries and allow all possibilities. Take down your barriers or walls, which stop you from experiencing your life to the full. We all need to find a place in our path that feels good. One that lets others in, while letting us move forward, with our lessons learned.”

Ruby thought about her red shoes. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. She could sell her red shoes and get something that didn’t remind her of that day. As the idea grew upon her, Ruby reached for her glass.

Jeremy picked up his glass. “This Merlot is from Bright Cellars. They help people match the perfect wine with the occasion. Did you know merlot is a French word meaning little blackbird, because the bunches of grapes look like small black birds?”

“This is a warm-climate Merlot, called Jetbird. I hope you like it!”

Ruby looked at the liquor in her glass. It was ruby-red and semi-opaque and had the smell of fruit-cake.

She took a sip, leaving an orange-ish mark on the rim. Oblivious to anything else, Ruby let her thoughts fly. Was this a dream? Or was Jeremy still just having fun? But what if he spoke the truth! The tingle and fruitiness of the merlot trickled down her throat, putting her into heaven as she looked around her.

It was a wonderfully smooth mixture of strawberries, raspberries, cherries, and baking spices. It brought to mind warm, loving places. Magical Merlot.

Jeremy put his glass down to explain things further to her.

They had made the cave from clay and placed gemstones in pockets in the cave. Jeremy had commissioned the Function room and the scene for the evening. The cave, he said, reminded him of his home. After the charcuterie, the wait-persons would set up a bigger table outside the cave and serve them a three-course meal, with Merlot and Tchaikovsky.

The evening passed in a daze for Ruby. Her cup filled over. The ruby-red wine was a tonic, mellowing her usually entrenched feeling of wrong-footed guilt, that she had somehow influenced her mother leaving or abandoning them.

At home Ruby reverently placed her red shoes next to her worn-out ballet shoes, the ones she had worn when she was seven years old. Her journey into resisting the unknown had ended.

Ruby closed her eyes. Her first date had been all she could wish for. The Sugar-plum Fairy, the ruler of the land of sweets, had called for her. The timing was impeccable. Her twenty-year-old sister had just moved out of home, and their Aunt had been talking about moving in.

The sparkling cave walls, the music, the lights, and the wine were the perfect accompaniment to her long-lost love, Prince Jeremiah. She replayed the evening in her mind, and the last memory was of the warmth and fruity promise of the wine sliding down her throat. The desperate chase of the red shoes had been replaced by the delicious journey of ruby-red Merlot.

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