The First Time at Firelight Falls

by Julie Anne Long

  Slightly distorted calliope music echoed from the loudspeakers, just to maximize that fever-dream effect.

  Most of the games involved shooting or hurling things at other things—balloon, bottles, hoops, clown mouths—for the kinds of prizes one or two degrees superior to the ones usually found in Cracker Jacks. But the spirit of competition reigned in Hellcat Canyon. A prize was a prize.

  Gabe’s buddy Bud Wallace strolled by. A fluffy pink unicorn tucked under his arm.

  “That’s right, I shot that clown in the mouth with the water gun,” he said to Gabe, with great dignity, in passing. “I shot it real good.”

  And all at once there was Eden, flanked by Annelise and her friend Emily, both of whom were rocking near horizontal ponytails.

  He paused.

  And as usual, it took a moment for the adults to say anything, such was the impact upon their hormones of each other’s presence.

  “Hi, Mr. Caldera!” the girls said.

  “Hi, girls. Having fun?”

  They nodded so vigorously their ponytails whipped about.

  Annelise plucked at her mom’s shirt. “Mom, can we do the ring toss and then get our faces painted?”

  “Sure.” Eden handed over a wad of tickets, and they scampered off again.

  “I hate to say it,” Eden said, “but I think Jan Pennington deserves some kind of crown. Maybe even a parade.”

  “She’d have to organize her own parade. No one else could pull it off.”

  Eden laughed. “I think you need to give yourself some credit, too. Everyone wants to help the school because you’ve made it such a great place.”

  He gave an aw-shucks one-shouldered shrug, which made her smile.

  “Yeah, so great that I’m staying late tonight doing the accounting so I can report to the board tomorrow.”

  She smiled at that, almost sadly.

  He took a little step closer. He couldn’t help it. Once he’d touched her, every moment not touching her seemed wasted.

  She didn’t back away. She tilted her head up to look into his eyes.

  And there were her lips . . . right there.

  Speaking of ring toss, all he had to do was loop an arm around her and tug, and she’d be snug up against his body. Talk about winning the prize.

  “Gabe . . . Okay . . . I have something to say.”

  “Okay,” he said softly. The tone instantly made him a little wary.

  “While that . . .” She lowered her voice, even though the sound around them was akin to gulls dive-bombing carrion at the beach, and yet somehow he heard her clearly. “. . . kiss was really . . . very nice . . .”

  “Nice?”

  He said that a little too loudly. Heads whipped around. Hands shot up and waved gaily when they heard his voice.

  “Okay. While it was . . . mind-blowing . . .”

  A smile started a slow migration across his lips.

  “You’re the principal of my daughter’s school. It just seems too risky to . . .” She stopped. Flared her fingers.

  “Embark on a passionate sexual affair . . . at the very least?”

  Her blue eyes practically went black again with that pupil flare.

  So, he assumed, did his.

  A couple of people strolling by jerked their heads in their direction, as if they, too, recognized something about their stillness. Like two predators about to pounce and filet each other with their claws and teeth, or maybe leap to that other thing nature channels were so known for.

  Fucking, in other words. That was the other thing nature channels were known for.

  “Gabe, I mean . . . your standing in the community and mine, if someone finds out we’re—”

  “You’re not Hester Prynne. I’m not Dimmesdale.”

  This made her smile. Albeit somewhat tautly. They were straight up a couple of nerds to pull out that reference during a sexual negotiation. They were perfect for each other.

  “Or if it doesn’t work out with us . . . it’s not like there’s another school in Hellcat Canyon . . .”

  “Eden . . .” He struggled to keep his tone patient. “. . . we’ve both survived awkward situations. I’m a professional. You’re a professional. People might talk. But people will always talk about stuff. What else is there to do but talk and butt into everybody’s business in Hellcat Canyon?”

  Never mind that all around them people were competing for stuffed animals and candy at various booths like it was the Hunger Games. There was plenty to do in Hellcat Canyon. There was bingo at St. Ann’s, and the annual landscaping contest between Heavenly Acres and Elysian Shores mobile home communities, and then there was always softball and open mic night at the Misty Cat. Hellcat Canyon was hopping.

  “And there’s just . . . finding the time . . . with Annelise . . . my work . . . it’s just . . . it’ll be hard on you, and I don’t want you to resent me for dashing out at odd hours, or abandoning you thanks to work or Annelise’s needs. Gabe . . . I don’t think I can give you what you deserve.”

  He drew in a breath. He was tense with frustration.

  He knew what he wanted to give her.

  The moon. His name. Everything he owned or ever would.

  He was pretty sure those were the perfect things to say out loud if he wanted to hear an actual vrooming sound and see her disappear in a cloud of dust.

  He could say: Anything precious to you, Eden, is precious to me, and that means Annelise, too. Who, frankly, he liked for her own goofy, lovely, unique self.

  And Eden stood there, on the precipice of ending all of this between them. Her mouth was saying one thing but everything else—the slight cant of her body toward him, the pulse in her throat, the soft, unguarded want in her eyes—said something else altogether.

  Underlying her words was a sort of coded desperation: save me from myself.

  And then he got it: she was scared.

  She wanted him, all right. But panic was a perfectly viable response when facing a gigantic unknown, even a sexy one. Ten years was a long time to be single. And in that time she’d become more accustomed to giving than taking. To living for her daughter and assuming that was what it meant to live for herself.

  But she wasn’t going to admit that to herself or to him, because, like Annelise, she was proud, and she claimed to not be afraid of a damn thing.

  He just didn’t know what the hell to say that wouldn’t make him feel like a creep trying to talk her into the sack.

  He could have said, What about that roller coaster you rode thirteen times? Where’s that girl who isn’t afraid of a damn thing? But that wouldn’t have been fair. He could have said, Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. But she also knew that.

  “I understand,” he said finally. And he did. He didn’t like it at all, but he understood. His heart was sinking through his body like an anchor flung from a ship, but he understood.

  “Maybe when Annelise can drive.”

  “Ha.” He managed a smile, for the benefit of the people strolling by, many of whom were women, many of whom whipped their heads around to get a better look at him, as if he was a magnificent tree planted there for tourists to admire.

  “I’m sorry, Gabe. I’m really sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

  “Eden,” he said this weakly, almost impatiently, “for fuck’s sake . . . that’s . . . an impossibility. You know that, right?”

  That might be the first time he’d said the “F” word out loud on school grounds.

  She didn’t say anything. It seemed ridiculous that the two people who were looking at each other right now could even be contemplating walking away from each other.

  Thundering little feet came at them, and Annelise and Emily were pogoing with excitement.

  “Mom, Principal Caldera, I won a whole elephant!” Annelise hoisted it aloft.

  “A whole elephant! Not just the trunk where he keeps his stuff?”

  “Ha ha ha ha! Mr. Caldera! You’re so funny! We’re going to go get our faces painted now, okay?
”

  “Sure! And if you lay off the popcorn and candy, I’ll take you for sundaes after.”

  “Thanks! Love you!”

  They ran off again, tagging Eden like little pinballs, and left him alone with her.

  Gabe rifled through his years of experience for something useful here. Like he’d once said, everyone’s strengths could be weaponized and used against them . . . and like the broccoli, everyone would be a winner.

  Or he’d just really piss her off.

  It was a risk, but he didn’t have much to lose at this point.

  So he said it.

  “Ten years is kind of a long time,” he said sympathetically. “But I guess I didn’t take you for a chicken.”

  And Gabe went off to do his time in the dunking booth. To literally drown his sorrows, and cool down the rest of his body, and he was glad none of the carnival games nearby featured actual darts, because he was pretty sure one would be twanging between his shoulder blades right now.

  Chapter 11

  Eden watched him go, her jaw dropped for so long it was a wonder someone strolling by didn’t take her for a coin-operated game and drop a quarter in.

  A chicken!

  He had a lot of fucking nerve!

  A lot of fucking nerve to pinpoint the teeny tiny kernel of doubt about that very thing at the very center of her entire rationale!

  It wasn’t as simple as that, was it?

  That this was new, she didn’t know how to do it, she was scared, and so she was walking away.

  When she lost sight of him in the crowd, panic flurried in the pit of her stomach like the little popcorn cyclones in the rented machines studding the walkways.

  “Hey, Eden, come on in here.”

  She gave a start.

  Greta was standing in the doorway of the little fortune-telling tent, beckoning with a sweep of a hand, her spirally black curls leaping gaily in a breeze.

  “Hey, Greta! How are things going?”

  “I’m making bank reading tarot cards, that’s how things are going. Sent some people out glowing, some crying, you know how it goes.”

  Eden didn’t, really, but apparently Greta was accustomed to making people cry or exult.

  “I have a lull,” Greta said. “Let me do yours.”

  “Um, yeah, I don’t know about that.” She didn’t need the tarot cards ringing in on her future. Her life was complicated enough at the moment. And as much as she adored Greta—and she did—her own innate self-protection didn’t want yet another person privy to her angst.

  “It won’t hurt, Eden. Lord, girl, what are you, chick—”

  “I’M NOT CHICKEN.”

  Greta blinked.

  But apparently not much fazed her. “Then come on in,” she said mildly.

  She sighed and followed Greta into the tent, which was moodily lit with glowing amber lamps, because apparently the future could only be told in dark places, not, for instance, in the fluorescent glow of a school gym.

  Or maybe it was because the future was so bright you needed protection from the glare. Heh.

  “Hold these and think about your question. Then shuffle them. And cut them,” Greta ordered.

  She did. She took the sturdy, clearly well-used cards in her palm and held them, feeling a little foolish as she shuffled them, and into them soaked all of her angst about Gabe and life in general.

  Greta pulled a card from the top.

  “Ah, here we have Death,” she said cheerily.

  Eden’s blood literally went cold. She swore she could feel it momentarily stop moving in her veins.

  “For crying out loud, Greta,” she said faintly.

  “Calm your tits. It’s not what you think. It’s just the absolute end of the way of life. Transformation. Change. Something isn’t working for you anymore. It must end in total.”

  “Oh, is that all.”

  “Life is a cycle, sweetheart. I’ve seen it all come through. Some things need to end completely in order for new and better things to begin. Your reading might be a little more circumspect if you chose the ten-card spread, but the three card gives you a sort of distilled answer.”

  “It’s a kind of cut to the chase kind of spread is what you’re saying.”

  “That’s exactly how I’d put it.”

  Imagine that.

  “Okay, choose your second card.”

  Eden flipped over another card from the top of the deck.

  “Hmm. The Hanged Man, reversed.” Greta tapped her chin thoughtfully with one finger.

  “Death and hanging? I’m amazed people didn’t run out of your tent screaming.” She was going for flippant, but her voice had gained a half octave and was a trifle squeaky.

  “He’s hanging by his foot, not by a noose, silly. Look closely.” She pointed with a scarlet, flawlessly manicured nail that could probably easily slit an envelope or possibly a throat. “When he’s upright—turned in the other direction—he represents a sort of stasis . . . a willingness to give up temptation and instant gratification for a higher purpose. He puts his own personal needs aside. To wait for a long time for what he wants. He’s a martyr.”

  Eden had never been less happy to hear her own decisions affirmed so succinctly.

  “My goodness, look at your face. You look stricken! I wonder why.” Greta sounded a little gleeful, as if she knew precisely why. “Let’s find out. Let’s turn over your next card.”

  She flipped it over. And there they were, a naked man and woman against the backdrop of some kind of radiant arch. All pulsing red and golds. It said THE LOVERS across the top, as if that wasn’t already perfectly obvious.

  “The Lovers. Well, well, well. Well, well, well, well, well.”

  Greta sat back and beamed at the spread, and then at Eden.

  Eden was irritated that that tarot deck appeared to be patting down her soul like a cop and emerging with her secrets as though they were switchblades tucked into her boot. “What does that mean? A hideous death by guillotine?”

  “It means exactly what it looks like. Red hot love, baby. This is the outcome.”

  Heat raced across the surface of her skin. Joining the anger and irritation in the panoply of things she was feeling.

  “See, this is the thing. When the Hanged Man is reversed, it actually means you need to look at your situation from a completely different perspective. That maybe something in your outlook needs to change. And see all these vines and leaves around the hanging fella? That’s about abundance. It means whatever situation you’re asking about will be fruitful and luscious when you give up the impulse to martyr yourself. When you give up your fear of change.”

  Eden stared at her almost accusingly.

  For a long time.

  Greta just gave her a sympathetic smile. Nothing she wasn’t used to, clearly.

  “So if I were to sum this up . . . if you want this red hot love . . .” Greta tapped a nail to the card. “. . . a certain way of being and thinking has to end for you.”

  Eden sat for a moment and let that conclusion simmer for a moment.

  “And then what?” She heard the words all but creak out of her mouth against her will.

  “Well, let’s see . . .” Greta laughed softly and peeled up the corner on another card. Eden glimpsed what looked like a black tower, with a sky full of lightning and plummeting bodies, which probably meant she’d adopt a cuddly kitten. But Greta slapped it back down again. “Oops, I’ve got a paying customer. See you in the hood, Eden.”

  Someone’s shy little face was indeed peeping into the tent.

  Merchants in Hellcat Canyon had each other’s backs. A customer was a customer.

  Greta collected those cards with the brisk professionalism of a Vegas blackjack dealer and Eden walked out, feeling both fascinated and a little violated. Those tarot cards took some liberties, boy.

  The only person she’d felt comfortable yielding her deepest secrets to was . . . was Gabe.

  She stopped short.

  How could
she walk away from that?

  When Eden emerged from the tent, the grounds seemed thronged with kids hopped up on cotton candy, bouncing like rubber balls from booth to booth and shrieking with glee, a jarring contrast to having her soul quietly excavated by Greta.

  She strolled casually up a few booths and surreptitiously peered in at Annelise and Emily, who were both being painted to look like butterflies. Neither of them were clutching anything sugary.

  She smiled.

  She figured they’d get some actual nutrition in the nuts and the cherry on top in a sundae. Right? Technically a cherry was a fruit?

  And then she made a beeline for the dunking booth. One of the advantages of being the person who roped in the volunteers was that she knew exactly who was scheduled to be sitting up there right now.

  What passed for an enormous crowd in Hellcat Canyon was clustered around it. And Gabe sat up there on the platform like a king on a throne in a T-shirt and shorts, the late-afternoon sun picking glints from his hair and the hair on his shins.

  He was heckling the poor woman who’d just whiffed her second toss.

  “Aw, c’mon. It’s like this is literally the first time you’ve ever thrown a ball.”

  The audience was disproportionately women. Which served to remind Eden that there was no reason on earth Gabe Caldera needed to be alone for a single second if he didn’t want to be alone.

  And Gabe wanted her.

  Lowering her voice to a faux baritone, she shouted, “He’s a witch!” à la Monty Python. “Sink him!”

  He grinned, craned his head, looking for the source.

  She ducked behind the crowd.

  She had to wait through five truly terrible throwers before she got her turn.

  To be fair, those women might have been able to throw Nolan Ryan fastballs in their spare time, but Gabe had smiled at each of them as they cocked their arms back, and clearly their arms turned to butter. Weaponizing his strengths, as it were.

  Finally it was her turn.

  She paid her ticket to the volunteer she’d roped into running the booth. Emily’s mom, as it so happened.