“So we don’t actually have to buy you anything?” I asked mischievously.
“Ruby!” my mum exclaimed. “Remember you manners.”
“It’s fine, Janice,” Jeremy said. “I think my old friend Ruby here is teasing. Besides, it would be difficult to find inexpensive gifts where we are going.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Rodeo Drive. The most glamorous shopping street in the world. What do say, Ruby?”
I grinned at my mum. “I say, let’s go shopping!”
Somewhere between leaving in Jeremy’s silver Rolls Royce and returning five hours later, my mum had forgotten entirely that she didn’t want anything from him at all except his “friendship”.
I’ve never really done designer labels, not because I didn’t want to but because I wasn’t allowed to in case I got spoiled. (I should be so lucky.) It seemed, however, that the same rules did not apply to mums who date film stars and even I recognised the labels on the bags that she came back with: Armani, Gucci, Donna Karan, to name Just a few. All names of people who make a lot of money selling posh stuff that from a not very great distance looks exactly the same as stuff from Marks and Spencer or Asda. But anyway, it made Mum really happy. In fact, more than happy – she was sparkly and excited, like she was the teenager let loose with a credit card and not me.
Surprisingly, I found it much harder to spend Jeremy’s money. I kept thinking about my dad and the last time I had seen him, the night before we flew out. I had gone round to his flat to give him instructions for looking after my cat Everest. I also took the present I’d bought for him, which was a DIY manual because he still hasn’t done up his flat, and it’s all miserable and grey and old ladyish.
He looked miserable too when I went in – like he had started to blend in with his surroundings. He made me a hot chocolate and we sat on the lumpy old sofa.
“Are you still OK about me going?” I asked, because he wasn’t talking.
He gave me a sort of unhappy smile and said, “Of course I am.”
“You’ll be all right,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. “You’ll have a nice lunch at Granny’s with Uncle Pete and all that lot, won’t you? You love Granny’s roasties.”
“It’s not the same though, Rube,” Dad said heavily.
At first I felt guilty, but then I realised that if it was up to me, this Christmas would have been exactly like the last. Me, Mum and Dad sitting round the kitchen table in paper hats, and Everest trying to get a great big turkey leg through the cat flap without anyone noticing. Christmas was always good in our house even when Mum and Dad weren’t getting on so well. It was like in the First World War when all the soldiers stopped fighting on Christmas Day and played football instead. Mum and Dad stopped arguing and pulled crackers, and we laughed at the terrible Jokes because we wanted to laugh and we didn’t care if they weren’t funny.
And I suppose I knew last year, and even the year before that, that they were only trying for my sake, but I was glad they did it, because it meant that they were putting me first. I’ve been doing OK about Mum and Dad splitting up, but thinking about the kind of Christmas I would never have again made me feel cross and sad all at once.
“But, Dad,” I’d said, “it wouldn’t have been the same. Christmas wouldn’t have been us all together anyway, would it?”
Dad shrugged so that my head bumped on his shoulder. I sat up. “I know that,” he said shortly. “But I didn’t imagine that I wouldn’t be able to see you at all because you’d be in America with your mum’s new boyfriend.”
I looked at him. “So that’s what you really mind,” I said, my voice quite sharp. “You mind Mum having a boyfriend.”
“It does feel a bit strange, Ruby,” he said. “That’s all.”
“Well,” I said, and maybe I did sound a little bit more “I told you so” than I meant to. “You’re the one who wanted to break up, Dad. Me and Mum didn’t. And it’s not our fault if your so-called girlfriend chucked you and Mum’s going out with a movie star.”
“So that’s how it is, is it?”
Dad’s shout was unexpected and I Jumped as he stood up so that a little bit of hot chocolate slopped out of my mug and on to my trousers. I hadn’t realised he was so upset.
“That’s how what is, Dad?” I said, standing too.
“You and your mum against me.” Dad sounded bitter.
“No!” I started to feel cross. “No, Dad, that’s not how it is. It’s you that wanted to go. It’s you that wanted to be on your own and have a so-called girlfriend. It’s you, Dad, who didn’t even think about how Christmas would be for me and Mum when you left us. I suppose you’d be happy if all we were doing was sitting around an empty table, Just the two of us, feeling miserable and missing you! Would that cheer you up?”
“You used to be such a sweet little thing,” Dad said and he looked at me as if he didn’t know me. “But you’ve changed.”
“It wasn’t me that changed, Dad!” I shouted. “It was my life and you changed it. All I’m doing is my best to live with those changes, and if you don’t like me, then, well then…I’ll be gone tomorrow!”
And I ran out of his flat and slammed the door and ran back home. And I sat outside for quite a long time, cried for a bit and wondered how it was that my dad, with his terrible jokes and silly hair, had got so angry with me for something that he had done. It wasn’t fair. And then I wiped my tears, put on a smile and went indoors. I didn’t want Mum to know we had argued. She was feeling bad enough about taking me away for Christmas as it was.
“Your dad phoned,” Mum said as I went upstairs to double-check my packing. “He says he forgot to say something to you.”
“I’ll ring him later,” I said. But I didn’t.
And for all of the eleven-hour flight, and most of yesterday and last night and this morning, I didn’t feel bad about it at all. It was only when Jeremy started buying us presents that I felt awkward, as if accepting gifts that Dad could never have afforded to give me or Mum in a million years was taking me another step further away from him.
So all I got was an iPod, three dresses, two pairs of jeans, some trainers and a great big pair of sunglasses with little diamantes sparkling round the rims, just like you see real film stars wearing on TV. Well. I thought it would be rude not to get anything, even though my heart wasn’t really in it.
As we got back in Jeremy’s car I put the sunglasses on with the tag still attached and flapping in my face. Then I rolled down the window and shouted, “Watch out, Hollywood, here comes Ruby Parker!”
I expected Mum to tell me off, but she didn’t. She was too busy looking in her shopping bags and gazing adoringly at Jeremy. I pushed the button to close the window and put her unusual lapse in making sure I kept my feet firmly on the ground down to jet lag and excitement. After all, it had been a mad day. People stopped Jeremy every few minutes, some to get his autograph but more because they knew him, worked with him or were extremely famous themselves. We even got followed by the paparazzi for a bit and they took Jeremy’s photo, and even mine and Mum’s, when we went for lunch.
Mum and I thought it was rather funny to be followed around by press photographers when they couldn’t have known who we were. We made a game of changing hats, sunglasses and tops as we went from shop to shop, getting snapped in a new outfit each time we came out.
“Just ignore them,” Jeremy told us. “They take photos of me but they never get printed. I’m far too boring to make a tabloid story.”
And after a while the photographers disappeared in search of the snap that would earn them their