Annelise always loved being called her mother’s daughter. Eden suspected this wouldn’t always be true. But for now she basked in Annelise’s breathtakingly sweet smile.
Which was part Jasper, that smile.
She wondered if Gabe noticed, too.
Jan cleared her throat. “I confess Caitlynn probably gets her competitive streak from me, too. Her dad is a little more laid-back, even though he’s a successful city councilman.”
Jan seldom missed an opportunity to slip that into conversation.
And yet it was clear that some of the tension was seeping out of her. She was a mom, after all. And while neurotic, she wasn’t insane. Or a monster.
“And Caitlynn . . .” Gabe began, then paused. As if considering—or reconsidering—what he was about to say.
He thumped his pencil a couple of times. Everyone waited.
At last he breathed in what sounded like a steadying breath, then exhaled. “I know that sometimes when we’re scared about losing something, or not being good enough, sometimes we lash out, but then we end up . . . end up feeling bad about it, and it’s worse than before. If you feel that way, it’s best to just be honest about it, rather than hurt someone . . . someone you . . . like.”
Eden stared at him wonderingly.
Hope flared like the sunlight in her chest. Its sudden presence made her realize how dark and cramped her life had felt without it. Without him.
But Gabe was deliberately not looking at her.
“Okay, Mr. Caldera,” Caitlynn said.
“One more thing,” Eden said. “I’d like to know exactly just what Caitlynn said about your dad.”
“Well, she said my dad could be anyone. Like she said before.”
Spots of color rose in Jan’s cheeks. Guilt spots, if Eden had to guess.
And Eden dug her nails into her palm. If only she could have spared her baby any of this. If only life was as sensible and orderly as she wanted it to be.
“And I said I knew who my dad was. My dad is Jasper Townes. And that I met him and talked to him and he’s great and he gave me this.” Annelise held up the guitar pick. “And he’s going to donate a guitar to our raffle! He said! And he might even sing a song, too!”
Incredulity illuminated Jan’s expression. And then she shot Gabe a speaking look, complete with a can you believe this lunacy? head tilt, which made Eden bite down so hard on her molars it was a wonder sparks didn’t shoot from her ears.
Gabe was so still. Like an animal about to pounce.
“Annelise? Caitlynn?” He sounded very stern and official. “You’ll of course both have detention after school for the rest of the week. For now, would you please have a seat out front with Mrs. Maker, and close the door as you leave? I’d like to have a word with your moms privately.”
The subdued girls scooted out.
Jan pivoted toward him instantly.
“Gabe, do you think Eden ought to be . . . spreading that kind of fiction? I mean, while Eden either doesn’t know or would prefer not to divulge her daughter’s parentage, doesn’t perpetuating nonsense make matters worse?”
“Mrs. Pennington, Eden is perfectly capable of answering your questions, and it’s up to her to decide whether they’re any of your business. She is not obligated to answer them. Please address them to her.”
The tone was icily, dangerously remote.
Red flooded into Jan’s cheeks.
But she was also intrepid. “But honestly, Eden, Jasper Townes?” Her voice was a little creaky. “The singer for Blue Room? I mean, if you’re going to make something up out of thin air, make it believable. That poor child is going to get a complex, and you’re opening her up to ridicule if you . . .”
Eden’s steady, patient stare finally penetrated.
Jan went utterly motionless. And then a whole paradise of fascinating emotions chased themselves across her face.
“You’re . . . serious, aren’t you?” Jan breathed. “It’s true?”
Eden gave her a rueful “what can ya do?” smile. And a little one-shouldered shrug.
Jan’s eyes were enormous now.
“That show he did . . . ten years ago.” She was nearly stammering. “At the Misty Cat. You were there . . . I remember seeing you . . . and you . . .”
“I remember seeing you, too,” Eden said evenly.
Jan was studying Eden, her face so taut that Eden could practically see the dozens of questions working beneath its surface.
“Was he good?” Jan blurted finally. On a hush.
Boy, Eden wasn’t expecting that one.
“He looks like he’d be really good in bed. Oh, God, sorry, sorry. That’s awful. No, don’t answer that. I’m just a little surprised by the news. Don’t answer unless you want to. Ha ha. I mean, no, sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry, it’s . . . just Jasper Townes?”
It was fair to say that Jan was struggling to contain the impulse to indulge in a tizzy.
Eden met Gabe’s eyes.
There ensued an outrageously intimate, complicated, silent exchange. Because she could tell that Gabe wanted her to fuck with Jan, even if he suffered pain in the process. And he would suffer pain.
Because the opportunity was just too good to pass up.
“He was . . . creative,” she confided in Jan gravely.
Jan froze. And stared at her.
Then she made a tiny whimpering sound.
Gabe closed his eyes briefly. Gave his head a little shake.
God how she hated being a source of pain for him. And loved that he knew why this was unbelievably funny.
She sighed. How she longed for emotions that weren’t hybrid: humor without anguish or guilt. Or love without longing.
“Look, Jan,” she said, “it’s been intense. Pretty good so far, but intense. Annelise is more than a little keyed up from the news, as you can imagine, though she seems pleased to know the truth and we’re all actually doing okay. We’re still working our way through it, and that means Jasper, too. We’d rather not deliberately make it public, if we can help it, and I know Jasper is keeping it under wraps, too, for Annelise’s sake. Maybe you can explain this gently to Caitlynn. Even so, I’ll be able to handle whatever comes up, if it does become public knowledge. But this is such a delicate time in Annelise’s life. I could use the support of someone as strong and smart as you. I would so appreciate it if you would keep all of this to yourself.”
Gabe was watching this with an expression, if she had to give it a name, akin to something like pride. More rueful than that.
“Of course, Eden. You’ve got my support. Whatever I can do.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled so warmly at Jan that Jan’s own face erupted into a sloppy, charming smile of bonhomie.
“Maybe we can get the girls together for a play date, just the two of them. Maybe take them up to Devil’s Leap to visit with my sister’s animals, or go swimming up there.”
“And maybe have a glass of wine,” Jan added.
“And definitely have a glass of wine.”
They smiled at each other again.
Eden turned back to Gabe. “Sorry to take up more of your time, Mr. Caldera. And I apologize again for Annelise’s behavior, no matter the circumstances. I’ll have a long talk with her about it. And I’ll do my best to make sure it never happens again.”
“Yes, thank you, Gabe. And I’ll make sure Caitlynn understands the consequences of her actions, as well,” Jan said to both Gabe and Eden. “And now, I must be off.”
She scooped up her sweater and her handbag.
Eden was about to follow her just as quickly.
“Eden,” Gabe said gruffly.
She turned.
“Don’t,” he said simply.
“Don’t . . .”
“. . . feel guilty about Townes being Annelise’s father and how it happened or Annelise getting into a fight. Because I know you’re feeling guilty right now. None of us really gets much of a say in our parents.”
She
was dumbstruck.
“How’d you . . .”
She stopped.
They got each other. That was how he’d known to say that.
She hovered there, her entire being twisted like a rag over knowledge of what they could have had. They got each other, but fundamental things in their characters—pride and stubbornness and a need to win—had blown it apart.
Why didn’t she know how to fix that?
Mrs. Maker appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Caldera, your next appointment is here,” she said, and melted away.
“And thanks for coming in, Ms. Harwood.” He dropped his eyes.
His voice had gone formal, pleasant, abstracted, a busy administrator politely dismissing an appointment and moving on to the next line on his calendar, ready to move on to whatever he had next on his plate.
He seemed to be looking at his iPad. His palm was resting on his baseball.
Chapter 20
Among the biggest of the veritable confetti storm of surprises lately was the fact that Jan Pennington seemed to have stuck to her word about keeping the news of Jasper Townes on the down-low. If she hadn’t, the entire town would be showing up at Eden’s Garden with questions like “I read he has a pierced willy. Does he?” and variations thereof. (His willy was unadorned back then. She couldn’t speak for his willy decorations now, and didn’t anticipate being able to do that any time in the future, either.)
But the final event of Hellcat Canyon Elementary’s fund-raising month—the raffle, during which they usually netted the kinds of amounts that would help them replace old banks of lockers, for instance, or paint a few classrooms—was this weekend.
Annelise was so beside herself with the prospect of her dad Jasper showing up and bringing a guitar to raffle off that she enacted the event with her Barbies. Scrotal Ken played the part of Jasper; she’d created a wig for him out of the hair she’d scraped from her own hairbrush. She’d constructed a little guitar and a stage, complete with a curtain. Chrissie played the role of Annelise.
And Eden didn’t know if this was about the Caitlynn rivalry, or finally having a dad, or having a particularly glamorous dad. Or whether the raffle fever had taken on a life of its own and was a fever for the sake of being worked up about something. Annelise loved a little drama.
“He might be so busy, Annelise, or in the middle of something that makes it hard for him to get here.” Eden suggested this lightly. “We can still enjoy the raffle if that happens, though. They’re going to have a DJ and we can dance!”
“He won’t forget, Mom! He wants to do better than Caitlynn’s mom, too! You heard what he said.”
Leesy was so certain. She was accustomed to adults who had whiteboard calendars and muscular senses of responsibility, adults who would practically prefer to die rather than disappoint her. She wasn’t a spoiled kid, but she trusted the world because grown-ups kept their word and kept her safe.
So no matter what Eden had already told her, she still couldn’t conceptualize an adult who didn’t quite act like one.
And Eden was left to wonder if perhaps she had done her daughter a disservice by making sure her life ran along a mostly smooth track, or by introducing the wild card of Jasper Townes into it.
All Eden knew was that if Jasper flaked, she would have to be the one to see Annelise’s baffled, devastated face. The one who would have to teach Leesy how to accommodate shredded pride and a broken heart. Even as her own heart was still reeling from the battering she’d endured—or subjected it to—thanks to Gabe.
She kept replaying in her mind the advice he’d given Caitlynn Pennington: about how being afraid could lead to lashing out. Had it really been a coded message to her? Her heart lurched at the idea of Gabe being afraid. Once or twice she’d seized her phone intending to text him, but then her nerve had failed. What would she say? What would he say? Gabe was his father’s son. He saw things in black and white, too.
She’d texted Jasper, though. Just once.
Because, so help her, this was a test, too. She reminded him of the date of the raffle once, but she could and would not be the person who nagged him like a mother.
And as of the morning of the raffle, she hadn’t heard back from him.
But even if Jan hadn’t added her two drops to the little river of gossip that flowed through Hellcat Canyon, it was the buzz in the hallways of school: that Annelise Harwood had a big surprise in store for the raffle. Theories ranged from a full-fledged concert by Blue Room with Annelise and Beyoncé singing backup and free guitars as party favors for everyone, to the notion that Annelise Harwood was making stuff up just to get attention.
Annelise didn’t necessarily object to attention.
She hated being suspected of making stuff up just to make stuff up.
“When they bug you, Annelise, just smile like this . . .” Eden demonstrated a Cheshire cat smile. “. . . and say, ‘you’ll see.’”
Annelise grimaced. “You’ll see. Like that?”
Eden crossed her eyes and wrinkled her nose. “Like this. You’ll see.”
They stood in front of the bathroom mirror and practiced, and pretty soon wound up cracking up over it.
Gabe was worried, too.
He wasn’t cursed with an overactive imagination—imaginations were often instruments of torture, as far as he was concerned. But no matter how he looked at it, both eventualities—Jasper Townes showing up as a dazzling hero and star of the raffle, and a hero in Annelise’s and therefore Eden’s eyes, or Jasper Townes bailing entirely—the evening would be well nigh unbearable.
The night of the raffle . . .
Eden was right, Gabe thought. Jan really did deserve a parade for all she accomplished. Damn her and bless her.
The auditorium was a festival of blue and gold streamers and balloons, and little round tables—draped in white tablecloths and dotted with miniature bouquets of geraniums courtesy of Eden’s Garden—were arranged in clusters around a dance floor created just for the occasion. Every seat was filled, and everyone, judging from all the laughter, was having a wonderful time.
And Gabe hung back against the wall and observed as Mrs. Clapper, the gregarious sixth grade geometry teacher, strolled across the stage with a microphone. She was great at getting the crowd lathered up to buy raffle tickets, and it was usually pretty fun to watch, a bit like witnessing Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing Vanna White’s job. Every donation featured a little display of some kind—a poster, a dressmaker’s dummy, that sort of thing—for illustrative purposes, and because it was free advertising for local businesses.
She stopped in front of a glossy placard featuring a photo of laughing party guests pulling meat off skewers with their teeth.
“And from Truck Donegal, we have—a catered event for twenty! Wow, this is a deal! Whether it’s a baby shower? Gender reveal? Funeral? You can count on Truck to be there!”
Laughter erupted from the audience.
Truck looked uncertain about why this was funny, but he decided to smile. It was pretty universally accepted in Hellcat Canyon that his chicken satay was indeed out of this world.
Mrs. Clapper next strolled over to a dress form bedecked in a beguiling, silky, flowing tent of a dress. She grasped one corner of it and swept it up and out with a flourish.
“Next we have—from Kayla Benoit of Kayla Benoit’s Boutique—The Whatever Comes First Package—a wedding dress or a five-piece maternity wardrobe! I know a lot of mamas-to-be out there who would be absolutely lovely in both. If you have a mama or a bride-to-be in your life, you’re going to want to buy a lot of tickets now, aren’t you?”
Plenty of whoops for Kayla, who was sitting next to Truck, much to Casey Carson’s angst. Casey was sitting with Eden and Annelise and Avalon and Mac.
Annelise Harwood, in a pink dress featuring sparkles at the sleeves for the occasion, was literally bouncing up and down on the edge of her seat, swinging her legs and scanning the stage, her face alight with joyous expectation. Eden sat next to her, a few str
ategic soft spirals spilling from her piled up hair, her spine rigid. Gabe went breathless. She looked beautiful. Also, tense as a board.
Mrs. Clapper strolled next to a lavishly floral trifold board with Eden’s Garden logo across the top and a photo of a delighted woman, hands clapped to her face, mouth opened in an O, receiving a bouquet of flowers from a beaming delivery person.
“‘From Eden’s Garden,’” Mrs. Clapper read from her little cards. “‘The I Love You–I’m Sorry–Congratulations! package—a dozen roses sent to three people of your choice!’ You just have to use it inside a year! Holy smokes, Eden, that is one fantastic prize. Everyone wants to say those things to someone throughout the year, am I right? What a classy way to do it!”
Happy applause indicated approval, and Eden nodded in acknowledgment.
“Moving on—from the Misty Cat Tavern—a year’s free pass to all special events! And for those of you who attended the Jasper Townes Black & Blue show recently, you know how amazing this prize is! Thanks to Glenn and Sherrie Harwood, the two of you are fabulous.”
Lot of hooting here, for Sherrie and Glenn and the Misty Cat and Blue Room equally, probably, which made Gabe grit his teeth.
Because there was an empty place on the stage where a prize should be.
And that empty spot might as well have been spotlighted. Because everyone who had bought a ticket knew that something belonged there, and something clearly wasn’t there. And a lot of them knew that whatever belonged there was donated by Annelise Harwood.
And as Beth Clapper, geometry teacher extraordinaire, strolled down the line of raffle prizes, working her way skillfully and cheerfully through all of them, getting closer and closer to that empty spot, a little more of the bouncy exuberance and light went out of Annelise.
Until she was utterly still.
A condition completely unnatural for her.
Gabe swore viciously under his breath. He knew definitively that the promised guitar suddenly wasn’t going to materialize on the stage. Showman or not, Townes wasn’t going to burst through the double doors of the auditorium when he was due to go onstage in about ten minutes at a stadium almost two hours away.
The First Time at Firelight Falls Page 25