The First Time at Firelight Falls

by Julie Anne Long

  Taut as guitar strings. Heh.

  He shook his head, as this information sifted down through his awareness like a rain of shrapnel.

  “You’re the first person I’ve told,” she continued. “Haven’t told my family. Haven’t even told Annelise yet. We’re telling her tonight.”

  He breathed in.

  Breathed out.

  “We’re . . .”

  “Me and Jasper.”

  “Ah. You,” he said slowly. “And Jasper.” He made a sound. A humorless almost-laugh. “Sounds cozy.”

  “It’s not even a little bit cozy. Ten years ago he was passing through just as his career was really taking off. He did an acoustic set at the Misty Cat. I was in town on Christmas break from school. I worked the show to help out my parents. We got to talking. One thing led to another. I slept with him.”

  “As one does.”

  “Yeah. Just once. But you know how that goes. That’s all it ta—”

  “Thanks, I took sex ed, too, Eden.”

  A silence. Their words, this exchange: all of it clipped, glib, ironic, almost playful.

  A silence. But an invisible presence was crouching in the corner of the room. Something big and dangerous. The silent, seething mass of all not yet spoken.

  “The back of the bus?” he said distractedly, casually, tap tapping his pen.

  “Does the geographic location of conception matter?”

  “Nah. Just checking to see if he’s a liar as well as a jerk.”

  “He’s not a total jerk.”

  “Some people say that about me, too.”

  There was a pause.

  “Is that your way of apologizing for being a . . .”

  “. . . dick, I think is how you put it Saturday? No. I have to ask—what made you think I was a saint? The roadside orgasms?”

  “I never thought you were a saint. I guess I’ve been laboring under the impression that you’re mature,” she said evenly.

  “Well, you’re the one who canceled our first date with a cryptic text. So, you know, pot, kettle.”

  Another long silence.

  Two clocks ticked off precious seconds.

  He didn’t know what to feel. Only that every question he asked would likely uncover a new layer of hurt, a new reality to accommodate, navigate. And as he wasn’t a coward, he had no choice but to keep courting pain and asking them.

  “So . . . have you been in touch with him all this time?”

  “Saturday was the first time I’d talked to him at all in ten years. I did try to tell him about Annelise after I found out I was pregnant, but only out of a sense of moral obligation—a man should know he has a child in the world. I didn’t want anything from him.

  “He said he never got the message. I believe him. He kind of sussed it out on his own when he met Annelise at the Misty Cat when he was doing sound check . . . apparently Annelise looks just like his mom at that age.”

  Gabe just absorbed this silently. And now that he thought about it, he could see echoes of Annelise in Jasper Townes and vice versa . . . their eyebrows. The cant of their eyes. Even though Annelise, lucky kid, looked more like her mom, for sure.

  “He’s only going to be here for a few days, and so I had to make some huge decisions fast. Which is why I had to cancel. When you saw us at Pasquale’s was the first time we ever talked about it.”

  This was reasonable. He knew it was.

  And yet nothing about it was making him feel reasonable.

  “When I asked about Annelise’s dad, you said, and I quote, he was ‘out of the picture.’”

  “He was. And now he’s back in it.”

  That did it. The thing in the corner pounced.

  “Knock it off. That’s disingenuous and you know it. You could have said to me, ‘it’s complicated.’ When I told you my favorite guilty pleasure song was that gloppy Jasper Townes song ‘Lily Anne,’ you could have said, ‘hey, funny story . . .’ You could have said something, anything else that indicated that somewhere down the line something huge might . . . blow up in my face. I feel like an idiot, Eden. Is he the reason you didn’t want to get involved?” He wasn’t even trying to disguise the emotion now.

  “No, Gabe. I swear to you. He’s just a guy. He represents one night of my past.”

  “He is patently not just a guy. You know it and I know it. He’s the guy who’s dated supermodels, presented Grammys, and so sexy even Louis down at the Veteran’s Hall said he’d be willing to, and I quote, ‘do him.’ How do you think that felt, Eden, to walk in there and see you with him? How much do you think I enjoy being pitied by my friends?”

  “So your feelings of what . . . ego? Pride? Embarrassment? That’s what’s important here?”

  “They’re not unimportant. Do you think how I feel doesn’t signify at all?”

  There ensued another silence, as soothing as those intervals between sets of car alarm wails.

  For the first time in his life emotion was running away from him, drowning out reason.

  “What did you tell your friends, Gabe?”

  “What do you think I told them? I said that Townes is an old friend of yours, and you were just catching up because he was in town for only a little while. I can tell you right now not one of them believed me. But while they would follow me into battle, I don’t think any of them blamed you for ditching me, either, because, you know, sexy, sexy Townes, blah blah blah. And that’s . . . while on the one hand, that’s kind of funny, on the other hand, it really, really isn’t.”

  “Gabe . . .” She exhaled an exasperated breath. “Do you even own a mirror?”

  “But I’m not Townes,” he said flatly.

  She didn’t deny this.

  She pushed her hands through her hair. “I’m not interested in him in a roadside way! AT. ALL. I don’t care what Louis thinks. Jasper represents one night from my past.”

  “Eden,” he said slowly, with exaggerated patience, “he’s not in your past. He is now a part of your present and your future. Pretty much forever. If your plan is to introduce him to Annelise.”

  She went still.

  The truth of this fully settled in and altered everything they’d begun to think the future might look like.

  “Gabe. Do you not get how huge this is for me?” Her voice cracked. “For Annelise? Do you not understand that I don’t have a road map for this?”

  Her voice climbed in pitch all the way to the end of that sentence.

  He closed his eyes briefly. He drew in a breath. “Do you think there’s a chance in hell I don’t genuinely understand how big it is that Annelise is going to get to know her father? I hope he understands how lucky he is. And I’m actually thrilled she’s going to get to know her father—that’s important. Even if—maybe especially if—it’s a guy like Townes. It will be . . .” And suddenly the fury sputtered, and his tone flatlined into a punishing, dull resignation. “. . . life transforming. And not just for her.”

  Silence.

  “Yeah,” she said finally. Her voice was frayed.

  They both knew where this particular rolling chair was headed. Right off a cliff. They seemed to be deliberately steering it there. Neither one of them seemed able to stop it.

  “The thing is,” he said slowly, “I think you didn’t tell me about Townes because it was just easier not to. And if I hadn’t seen you in Pasquale’s, you may or may not have told me even as he was sitting up there in your apartment talking to Annelise. Because it was easier not to. And that . . . that makes me feel like shit, Eden. It makes me feel like maybe you’re not the person I thought you were. And makes me question . . . everything . . . between us.”

  She went motionless.

  And then hot color rushed her skin and her eyes narrowed to glinty sapphires.

  “How could you . . . how dare you . . . I just . . . why can’t you . . .”

  She stood up so abruptly the chair wobbled to and fro like a drunk. It didn’t topple.

  “I can’t deal with this right n
ow, Gabe. With you.”

  He said nothing. Some perverse part of him was savoring both her anger and his own. It was anesthetizing. Even as a tiny voice of reason was making what sounded like a faint air-raid-siren sound in his mind.

  “And I guess . . . that’s what I basically came here to say,” she added slowly. As if deciding that, then and there.

  They stared each other down.

  He didn’t know what his expression revealed to her. If it was anything like hers, it didn’t look like a person who had won an important point or gained the upper hand or come to a comfortable decision. It looked like the face of a person being prepped for the guillotine.

  “Well, I guess it is impossible for busy adults to date.” His tone was richly laced with irony.

  He stood up, too. Reflexes. Manners. Slowly. Just to make the point that he still had a certain amount of control. And because whatever else he was, he was a gentleman.

  Even if he was a dick.

  Apparently the two weren’t mutually exclusive.

  “So I guess this is it, then,” she said. She tried for insouciance. Her voice was shaking.

  “Guess so,” he managed neutrally enough.

  Though his voice had gone arid as the Sahara.

  She hovered in place. There was a split second where he contemplated reaching across to touch her. She might have decked him. Or maybe that awful, cold, furious pain in her expression would dissolve and she’d crumple into his arms and he would say I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or why, but something in me hurts so savagely all I want to do, all I know how to do, is defend defend defend and I can’t stop it. Even if it drives you away. Stay. Stay. Stay.

  She spun on her heel, flung open his door, and vroom.

  She was out of there, hair sailing out behind her.

  Because everything in her life was scheduled down to the minute, she used her time in the car between leaving Gabe’s office to the time she made it home again for racking, noisy rage sobs, growling and taking the name of Gabe Caldera in vain.

  “What an asshole! I can’t believe he would . . . GAH! He has no right!”

  At another stop light, she bellowed, “You are hands down the sexiest human I have ever touched or tasted, Gabe Caldera. How could you think otherwise? I was in love with you!”

  Why hadn’t she said that?

  Was she in love with him?

  Was she still in love with him?

  “No! I’m the one who’s right here!” she blustered at another stoplight.

  The man in the car next to her gave a start. And quietly rolled his window all the way up.

  If only she were more certain that she was right.

  If only she had time to think.

  But there was no time. There never was. Onto the next thing, the next emotion.

  She’d texted her entire family, even Jude, Dr. Jude, who was always, always busy, but did make it into town now and again on weekends to see his parents, and Jesse, who was in the Himalayas or Machu Pichu or camping on a glacier or some such nonsense on assignment for Redmond Worldwide.

  THIS IS URGENT. I need a family meeting. 7 o’clock tonight. It’ll only take a few minutes.

  P.S. Nobody’s dying. xoxo

  That ought to intrigue them.

  Home to everyone meant the Harwood family homestead, the comfortable old 1940s farmhouse shaped like an L, perched on a slight rise between Devil’s Leap and Main Street at the end of town. It was painted a soft periwinkle-blue, which blended in with soft summer days and clear winter twilights.

  At seven o’clock Avalon and her mom and dad were cheek to cheek on the squishy old olive-colored sofa that never relinquished anyone willingly—you always had to kind of fight to stand up from it. Jude, handsome devil, her much-loved, pedantic, witty, pain-in-the ass brother who was fond of fast cars, inappropriately fast women, and saving lives, was slouched in the old armchair they used to fight over. Jiggling one foot. His face was alight with anticipation.

  Jesse was on Skype on a laptop screen on the desk, over in some corner of the Himalayas, if she recalled correctly, on some adventure travel assignment for Redmond Worldwide. He was rocking quite a bushy beard. Through which they could see his bright smile.

  Eden stood in the middle of the circle braid carpet, feeling like an idiot child about to do a tap-dance routine for company.

  Her mom darted a surreptitious glance at Eden’s belly.

  “No, Mom,” Eden said tersely. “Don’t worry. I’m not quite that careless.”

  Though that sure didn’t feel precisely true anymore.

  “All babies are welcome, honey,” her mom said. Which was easy for her to say now that she knew there wasn’t going to be a baby.

  Eden drew in a long, long breath for courage. And then exhaled.

  “Okay, first of all. Forgive me for the sudden drama. It had to be suddenly. I have something to tell you. I’m going to say this quickly, before Skype locks up. Annelise’s father is Jasper Townes. From Blue Room and Black & Blue.”

  This was greeted by resounding silence.

  She scanned their faces. They might as well have been mannequins. Not a dropped jaw among them. Not a twitched finger.

  Nobody moved a hair.

  And then there was a little sound. Like a breeze rustling the leaves.

  She realized, after a moment, that it was the sound of pockets expanding as hands plunged into them, and butts brushing across upholstery. Fabric swishing as everyone moved, subtly and at once, to dig through their wallets, retrieve cash . . .

  . . . and hand it to Avalon.

  Eden glowered at her family. “What the—did you guys have some kind of pool?”

  “No, we just thought we’d order takeout,” Jude said innocently. “What do you want? Mushu?”

  “You had a pool!” she accused vehemently.

  Guilty silence.

  Limpid stares.

  “Yes,” Avalon said gravely. Resignedly. “We had a pool.”

  She goggled at them, livid with indignation. “But—you—I—”

  “Honey,” her mom said gently. “It wasn’t as though there weren’t clues. Avalon arrived at the logical conclusion by doing the Eden calculus.”

  “The Eden calculus?” Her voice climbed into a squeaky register. “You got a C in calculus, Avalon! You never freaking studied!”

  “Hey!” Avalon sounded wounded. But unsurprised.

  “Well, the name of the formula was my idea,” Jude said modestly. “And I got an A in calc—”

  “YES, WE KNOW, JUDE,” everyone said at once, even Jesse, from his screen.

  “So what was in this formula?” she said more evenly. Still, her jaw was pretty taut.

  Avalon began ticking it off on her fingers. “Annelise is ten years old. Jasper Townes was last in Hellcat Canyon ten years ago. You were at that show, and at least one person remembers you having what looked like a long, soulful conversation with him, your heads very close together across one of the tables. Annelise is a music nut. She’s always making up songs. She took to the guitar like a fish to water.”

  “And she looks like him, honey,” her mom said gently. “Maybe in as many ways as she looks like you. Subtle ones. And then when we watched them together at sound check the other day . . . well, we know you like we know our own hearts, Eden, and we know Leesy, too, and it was, I have to tell you . . . eerie.”

  Her father didn’t ring in on this assessment. His expression was interesting. Rather abstracted.

  Rather, in fact, thunderously absorbed.

  “You can send me your cash later, Jess,” Avalon said.

  The Skype image of Jesse had frozen on an image of him with his mouth wide open, so it was difficult to know if he was shocked or laughing uproariously. Eden was deeply envious. He was far, far away. He wasn’t sitting in this room having this conversation.

  “It was also pretty clear Jasper had no clue about Annelise,” her mom continued. “Does he know now? Is that why you’re telling us?”r />
  “He came into my shop. He figured it out, believe it or not. He’s not stupid. We talked about it. We decided to tell her.”

  For some reason she was feeling like defending him a little, if only so they wouldn’t think she’d slept with a total idiot.

  “How do you feel about it?” Avalon ventured. “You’re not going to, um . . . and what about Ga . . .” She trailed off at a warning glare from Eden.

  “Jasper’s not husband material, if that’s what any of you are thinking,” Eden said hurriedly. “And he’s not even boyfriend material. I’m not thinking along those lines at all, and neither is he. His life is kind of a circus, and I really want to keep this news on the down-low and so does he. But it’s been pretty clear to me for a while that Annelise has been curious about her dad, and I would need to do something about it. And when he showed up, well . . .”

  “We were so worried, sweetie, that you were nursing a broken heart all these years and being very noble and, you know, Elinor Dashwooding it,” her mom said soothingly.

  “Did you just turn the heroine of my favorite book and movie into a verb?” Sense and Sensibility was a big family favorite.

  “And you’re so very fond of your dignity and privacy . . . you were so very adamant than no one should know,” her mom added.

  “Quite the tight-ass,” Jude said wickedly.

  Which was a grave injustice, as this was very much the pot calling the kettle black.

  “I’m not fond of my . . . it’s who I . . . tight? Argh!”

  This was excruciating. The part of her that kept her emotions so under wraps did not enjoy the fact that her family had been peeking under those wraps all these years and coming away with fairly accurate perceptions, or at least interpretations based on their own understanding of the world.

  Only Gabe truly got her. She knew that with a resounding, punishing clarity as she stood in a room full of people she loved.

  “Why the hell hasn’t he—” Her dad stopped abruptly.

  Everyone swiveled toward him.

  She realized, then, that these were the first words her dad had said since her announcement.

  Which made everyone eye him a little uneasily.

  It was pretty clear that he wasn’t taking this particularly well. His eyes were burning in a rather portentous way above his magnificent silver mustache, and she was pretty sure his spine wasn’t touching the sofa back.