The First Time at Firelight Falls

by Julie Anne Long

  That fucker had welched.

  Jasper Townes had flaked.

  If it looked like a duck and walked like a duck, Gabe thought grimly, it would fuck you over like a duck.

  He felt zero satisfaction. Something glacial and jagged seemed to have lodged itself in his sternum. He sicced his mind on the problem like a junkyard dog.

  Gabe glanced at his phone. Five minutes to eight o’clock.

  He silently consigned Jasper Townes to hell.

  Although hell would have to wait. Right now Townes was probably getting a preshow massage, gargling with pearls and champagne or something.

  Then he’d strut out onto a stage in front of a sea of ecstatic, screaming fans and make noise while his image was projected twenty feet high behind him in case someone at the tippy top of the stadium missed seeing the sweat beading on his lip as he sang.

  While a bewildered little girl waited for him to show up with his guitar, and shrank in her seat, and the light in her dimmed, and bore the kind of humiliation she likely would never forget.

  A desperate fury made him feel hollow.

  And then Eden turned and said something to Annelise, draped her arm around her shoulders. The lights in the auditorium briefly revealed silvery tracks beneath Annelise’s eyes. Annelise brushed at her face and smiled hugely, like a Cheshire cat.

  But she’d been crying.

  Gabe closed his eyes. Drew in a long, ragged breath.

  Right now Eden was probably formulating the first of what would likely turn out to be a million excuses for Townes in order to forestall the inevitable crushing of trust. She was getting ready to withstand the sympathy and gloating and curiosity of everyone in her town. Based on a decision she’d had to make in a manner of minutes.

  And with a blinding clarity he knew there was literally nothing he wouldn’t do for her. No matter what. Nothing mattered, not his pride or his feelings, not who said what when. It all seemed patently ridiculous to care about these things when all he wanted out of life was to make things right for Eden.

  And he knew exactly what to do now. It was his own sort of Hail Mary.

  So basically Jasper Townes had given him a gift.

  Mrs. Maker appeared at his elbow holding a clipboard. “All set to launch the raffle, Mr. Caldera?”

  “Hey, Donna? Give me five minutes.”

  “Have to tinkle?” she whispered sympathetically.

  “Just don’t go anywhere until I get back.” He inadvertently used his lieutenant voice. Which made her blink. “And please tell Mrs. Clapper she’ll have to take over the prize calling duties. She’s doing great.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mama . . . I don’t see a guitar on the stage yet. Do you?”

  “No, honey. Not yet, honey.”

  Eden felt as though a guitar pick were lodged in her throat. How could anyone look at Annelise, promise her something, and then bail? How could you not want to move heaven and earth to give her the moon? How the hell dare he insinuate himself into their lives, raise Annelise’s hopes . . . and not say a damn thing about not showing up? How could he put her through this?

  It had been a test, not just for him. And now Eden felt as though she’d failed it.

  She was holding her body rigidly, as if to protect it from blows. Because it hurt. Every muscle in her body was locked thanks to a mix of rage and grief and impending heartbreak. Her daughter’s, hers. It was all the same. She had anticipated this. It didn’t mean she was ready for it.

  She didn’t see Gabe anywhere.

  “Do you think maybe he’ll appear on a platform on the back of the stage and there will be smoke and stuff and then he’ll have the guitar?”

  And finally Eden couldn’t speak. She’d run out of things to say to reassure or deflect.

  She wanted the moment of humiliation to be over, so she could get to the part where she searched out an excuse for Annelise, one that would take that worried expression from her face, restore some of her inherent faith in the trustworthiness of adults.

  Eden knew it wouldn’t be the last time in Annelise’s life someone she’d decided to trust had let her down. No one got through life unscathed like that. But a little bit of innocence was lost the first time it happened, and it never returned, and it was too soon, too soon for her baby to become jaded.

  Fuck.

  Mrs. Clapper was talking. “. . . and last, but definitely, not least, the very, very special prize donated by Annelise Harwood herself . . .”

  She glanced to the empty spot on the stage.

  Which was where every eye in the place was fixed.

  Until they all swiveled over to where Eden and Annelise were sitting.

  Mrs. Clapper pushed her glasses up a little higher on her face and cleared her throat into the microphone.

  Long, awkward silences were typically followed by a whole audience full of curious murmurs, Eden knew. It was only a matter of seconds before those started up.

  “. . . um, it seems we are miss . . .”

  She trailed off at the sight of Mrs. Maker, breathing hard, bolting down the aisle with her skirt hiked a little to free her knees for running, her tethered glasses bouncing on her magnificent bosom. She bound like a gazelle up the little flight of stairs to the stage, a veritable advertisement for Hush Puppy pumps.

  She tugged Mrs. Clapper’s arm, and Mrs. Clapper’s torso bent sideways so Mrs. Maker could whisper in her ear.

  Then she handed the bemused but unruffled Mrs. Clapper a note card.

  She frowned down at it, then pushed her reading glasses up higher on her face. And her face lit like a lamp as she read, “‘. . . from Annelise Harwood, a baseball signed by none other than Joe DiMaggio! Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio! The Yankee Clipper himself!’” She gave a little hop as she announced this. “Woo-hoo, that’s a humdinger of a prize!”

  A collective gasp seemed to rustle the streamers.

  Eden’s hands went up to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she murmured, her eyes burning.

  Gabe might have just handed over his heart to be raffled.

  (“He can’t just hand over his heart, Eden. For God’s sake.”—Dr. Jude Harwood.)

  The auditorium echoed with delighted WOOOOOOOOOs and thunderous applause. Maybe that prize wasn’t what everyone had expected, but who the hell cared? It was a Joe DiMaggio baseball!

  “That thing is worth at least a thousand bucks,” a guy near Eden marveled over the sound of the crowd. “I want it!”

  “You can buy five tickets,” his wife said sternly but lovingly. “Only five.”

  “Awwww,” he said sadly.

  Grins and thumbs-ups were aimed at Eden and Annelise.

  Eden looked up and caught Jan Pennington’s eyes on her. Her expression was kind of hard to read. She didn’t appear to be gloating, however. Eden was pretty sure she’d be able to spot a gloat from across the auditorium.

  She tried to smile.

  But she found herself turning to curl her arm around Annelise again. She tucked her head against hers and briefly buried her face in Leesy’s hair, buying a moment alone with her joy. It was too overwhelming and too personal; she was not prepared for the whole auditorium to see the contents of her heart writ large on her face.

  Gabe had done it because he was, indeed, his father’s son. And what else had he said about his dad? “When he loved something it was for keeps. Hell or high water.” An argument could be made that Jasper Townes was certainly both.

  And Gabe had saved Jasper’s ass for her sake and for Annelise’s.

  Eden saw Gabe nowhere in the crowd. She hadn’t seen him all night.

  Annelise’s smile was uncertain, but the applause—damned if no matter what, she was her father’s child, too—was making her smile. She waved, graciously.

  Which almost made Eden laugh.

  “I don’t get it, Mama. Did my dad Jasper send a baseball instead of a guitar? And people like it?”

  The truth was deceptively simple, but it had infinite strata. Now was no
t the time to attempt to explain strata. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to lie to Annelise about something sacred.

  All she said was, “Yes, people love it, honey.”

  “And the baseball is good, right?” Annelise heard the roars of approval.

  Still, it wouldn’t be official until her mom—the person she trusted more than any other person in the world—confirmed it.

  “It’s wonderful, honey. It’s the best thing here, truly! People are going to want it, and you’ll make a lot of money for the school and everyone will be so happy and proud and grateful to you, because it’s because of you. The baseball is the kind of thing that people will cher . . .” She swallowed. Drew in a breath. “. . . cherish their whole lives.”

  “Yay!” Annelise brightened, her world restored to rightness. But her light dimmed a little when she turned to Eden and put a hand on her knee. “But Mama, why are you crying?”

  “You silly, I’m not crying. I just got something in my eye.”

  The backstage area of the Glenco Arena was teeming with people coiling cords and pushing big containers this way and that, strolling past each other and saying things like “Great show, man,” and “Hot solo on ‘Old and Fucked Up,’ Townes!”

  “Great show, man,” Gabe called to Jasper. Just to get his attention.

  In truth, he’d just arrived about five minutes ago.

  Jasper froze.

  “Oh, shit,” he said sincerely, by way of greeting.

  “That’s right,” Gabe agreed.

  They stared at each other.

  Townes had a towel draped around his neck and his idiosyncratic hair was glued back from his face with sweat. He looked quite weary but still lit from within. It probably was a pretty transcendent show. No one could say the guy didn’t work for his money.

  “How did you get back here, Principal Gabe? Rappel down the stadium wall like G.I. Joe?”

  “As it so happens, I served with the head of your security team in Afghanistan. He was happy to let me have a backstage pass. He knew me as Lieutenant Caldera back then.”

  He’d made that phone call about the backstage pass on the way to the stadium, and he’d condensed the long drive into about an hour, too.

  Gabe knew the shortcuts.

  And all the state troopers on the way, if it came to that.

  Jasper gave a short, unamused laugh. “Did Eden put a hit out on me? Did they teach you to do the Vulcan pinch in the SEALs? If you saw my show, you know I’m a great screamer. I don’t have time for whatever this is, Caldera. It’s on to the next town, as usual.”

  He shot a desperate look at his tour bus.

  Gabe stood between him and it.

  “Eden doesn’t know I’m here at all. But I think you know why I’m here. It’s about an auditorium full of people who now think Annelise Harwood totally made you up. She only cried a little.”

  Jasper closed his eyes. He heaved a huge sigh. He opened his eyes again. He looked genuinely uncomfortable.

  Gabe waited.

  Jasper pressed his lips together. “Like I said, I was just getting ready to pack up—”

  “You don’t have a second to talk to a veteran?” Gabe raised his voice sonorously in hurt surprise.

  A person with a press pass stopped so comically short his shoes made a screeching sound on the concrete.

  Jasper sighed. “Oh, for fuck’s . . . come with me.” He strode over to the bus and yanked open the door. “Hey, everyone, can you clear out for a second? I want to have a chat with . . . an old friend.”

  A gaggle of women and men, all woolly head hair, exposed midriffs and tattoos, emerged on great plumes of weed-scented smoke and dutifully filed off.

  The bus was luxurious, but not ostentatious. It smelled like pot and sweaty people.

  “Want a beer?” Jasper yanked open a mini fridge.

  “Sure.”

  Jasper flipped the beer out backward like he was pitching a fastball.

  Gabe caught it with one hand.

  Coors Light. Pretty funny choice. He hefted it, bemused.

  “I grew up drinking these,” Jasper explained. He took a seat on a plump padded sofa. Gabe sat opposite him on its twin.

  “Me, too. Coors, that is. Not the light ones.”

  “It’s weird, but I find it comforting when I’m traveling a lot. They keep wanting to foist Cristal on me. Yes, I hear how that sounds.”

  “No, I get it. Good beer tastes great, but cheap beer tastes like I’m about to lose my virginity to Deborah Bellacino at a kegger. And that’s a damn good flavor.”

  Jasper gave a short, tense laugh. “I’m going to steal that line for a song, Caldera.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  There was a little silence.

  “You know what I’m doing here?” Gabe said idly after a moment.

  Jasper didn’t say anything for quite a long time.

  That was fine. Gabe wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, this was an unbelievably comfortable sofa.

  Townes finally leaned toward him a little. “I once thought I was tough, Caldera. I mean, and sure, maybe I am tough. I mean, you batter pretty much anything enough and it gets a tough outer shell, right? Calluses? And so forth? I’ve stared down any number of tattoo needles.”

  “Heh. Yeah. I have the internet. I know your sad origin story.”

  “I can deal with bad reviews, hecklers, distorted stories in the press, angry women . . . I don’t love it, but it comes with the territory, and I’ve learned how to deal with it.”

  “Your point?”

  “Tough . . .” Jasper gulped some of the Coors. “. . . ain’t the same as brave.”

  Gabe took this in. Jasper was clearly getting around to the point in the way of a storyteller.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think standing in front of thousands of people in that getup is pretty brave.”

  “Hey, I’m working these pants, man.” Jasper wasn’t the least offended. His jeans looked as though they’d been dragged behind a semitruck on a bad highway for about forty miles. “But back to my point, Caldera, and I do realize I’m taking a while to get to it . . . you’re a brave guy, right? I mean, you’ve been shot at. Probably. I’m guessing.”

  “Sure. I was doing my job.”

  Jasper gave an exasperated laugh and shook his head. “Oh, c’mon,” Jasper said irritably, “cut the noble shit. That’s how everyone defines ‘brave.’ Willingly getting shot or blown up. Defending people. Rushing into burning buildings. There has to be danger for someone to be brave, right? Doing the right thing, even when it’s hard, even when you really don’t want to or when you’re afraid you’re going to fuck it up. And so forth. That’s what brave is. And I don’t like knowing it, but I know definitively I am not that guy. I am not brave. Tonight was the culmination of me recognizing the magnitude of something I’d gotten myself into with Annelise and chickening out. She’s going to want things from me. Like . . . consistency. And follow-through. I’m going to have to think about what I do and say because it’ll get back to her, and I’ve never had to do that before. And I want her to like me. Even love me. Her family hates me. And I . . .” He sank back against the sofa and pressed his lips together again.

  Gabe was familiar with the tactic of easily accepting blame. It could disarm an argument pretty fast.

  Townes was not going to get off easy.

  “First,” Gabe said easily, “I meant what I said. It’s a job. I was fit for it and I did it. Just like your job is to get up there and make people go ‘woooooo!’ and then go home and tattoo quotes from your songs on their bodies and regret it in a decade when they try to get grown-up jobs. Mine was to occasionally come close to getting killed. Also, to make sure no other members of my team were killed. An oversimplification, but when you have a job to do, and you have an affinity for it, you do it well. I was good at it. Just like I’m good at being a school principal now. I can manage and read circumstances and people. And . . . you do what you do. Extraordinarily well. Other things
—things that have no precedent in your life, things that are entirely new—take practice.”

  “Okay, Caldera, I get what you’re saying. Here’s the problem with that. You know how when you were a kid, and you’re mouthing off to your mom and you make a face and Mom would tell you your face would freeze that way?”

  “Sure.”

  “Getting through my childhood—totally rootless, didn’t have a dad, my mom wasn’t cuddly—I had to be completely self-focused and you know what? I’ve mostly been great with it. I have no real ties holding me down. I’ve been pretty fucking awfully cavalier with the feelings of women and the excuse I always use is ‘that’s just how I am.’” He used air quotes and hunched, palms upward, parodying himself. “I’ve never been proud of that, but it’s just kind of . . . the groove I’ve worn through life, and I keep sliding along in that groove. Or maybe it’s a rut. Anyway. It’s also not working for me anymore. Hasn’t been for some time. I swear on . . .” He threw his arms out in a gesture like a conjurer, encompassing the trailer, the arena, the guitars, ostensibly, his entire life as a rock star. “. . . all of this that I do want to be part of Annelise’s life. I want to be better. It just . . . it just started to snowball on me, man. I realized that this one little person is going to want me to do what I say I’m going to do, and . . . I promised something I realized I couldn’t deliver and . . . I just . . .”

  He lifted up both hands and splayed his fingers. “I freaked. I lost my nerve. I’m a balls-out coward.”

  Gabe nodded thoughtfully. Then leaned back. “Okay, Townes. Like I said, I know your life story. But here’s the thing. When a kid—your kid—is involved, how you got the way you are doesn’t factor. That’s between you and your shrink. Right now you’re not a rock god or some poor fatherless kid. Right now you’re just the asshole who broke a little girl’s heart when he could have so easily been a hero.”

  Jasper froze. His hand tightened on the can of beer.

  “And to my knowledge it’s never been broken before, so you know, there’s a dubious milestone for you. She trusts adults. She’s innocent that way. Annelise is the most precious thing in the world to Eden, and she took the risk of allowing you into her life because that’s what you wanted. Do you have any idea how tough that decision was for her? For her to share her amazing little girl with you? Do you really get it? When you broke Annelise’s heart, you broke her mother’s heart. And I’ll be damned if I let anything hurt her mother if I can do anything about it.”