Believing

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “How’s it going?” Blue asks when she arrives at his side.

  “Great,” she says, noticing that he’s wearing a long-sleeved jersey in a deep indigo shade that matches his eyes—and his name.

  He wears that color a lot, she’s noticed, and she’s sure it’s no accident. He has to be aware of the striking impact. And his clothes are expensive. She can tell by the cotton fabric that looks as thick and soft as his light brown hair, which he might wear in a wavy and slightly unkempt style, but she knows that’s no ten-dollar barbershop haircut.

  No, everything about Blue Slayton is expertly and deliberately pulled together. The result is effortless good looks that take her breath away a little every time she sees him up close.

  “So you haven’t gotten lost yet?” he asks Calla, fork poised above a tray that holds two of everything: two sloppy joe plate lunches, two bottles of juice, two ice cream bars.

  “Not yet.” She wonders if he’s going to eat all that himself, or if he’s planning to share with someone else. Willow, maybe?

  “The only way to get lost around here is trying to find your way home if a blizzard blows in during the day,” comments the red-haired, freckled guy sitting next to Blue.

  “Yeah, but that only happens, like, once a week in the winter, and so far, we’ve lost less than a dozen kids that way,” Blue says dryly, and everyone laughs.

  He introduces Calla to the redhead—Jeremy—and to the other four guys, two of whom are named Ryan. They’re all on the school soccer team together.

  “Calla’s living over in the Dale with her grandmother,” Blue tells them, and a couple of them ask her politely about where she’s from and how she likes it here.

  As she answers their questions, she wishes Blue would invite her to sit down, but he doesn’t.

  Well, that’s probably because he’s with all these guys.

  Or maybe it’s because he’s no longer interested in you.

  “Hey, Calla,” he says abruptly, “want to go out Friday night?”

  Or maybe he is interested.

  “Sure,” she hears herself say as her heart trips over itself. “That would be great.”

  “Good. I’ll call you.” Blue drains what’s left of his open juice and crushes the plastic bottle in his fist before reaching for the second one.

  She takes that as her cue to leave.

  But Blue Slayton asking her out again is enough to ease the humiliation, five minutes later, of roaming the room with a full tray, looking for a seat that has empty chairs around it. She doesn’t want to just go and plop herself down next to anyone. That would feel kind of . . . bold.

  But none of the open chairs has a buffer zone around it, and she can feel people looking up at her as she passes their tables.

  She just has to sit down somewhere. Anywhere.

  She looks around and her gaze falls on a striking girl with long black hair, porcelain skin, and a familiar face. Willow York again, and she glances up from a conversation she’s having with the girl next to her. “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi.” Calla hesitates, still holding her tray.

  “Want to sit with us?” asks the other girl, who is African American, with a short, chic haircut, gorgeous dark eyes, and a mouthful of braces. She points to the empty chair across from her and Willow.

  “Definitely.” Calla gratefully puts her tray on the table and slips into the chair without stopping to see if Willow seems to want her there.

  “This is Sarita,” Willow says, in a friendly enough tone, “and you and I have already met. A few times, right? But I’m Willow . . . in case you forgot.”

  She didn’t forget.

  “Do you live in Lily Dale?” Sarita asks.

  “Yeah, I’m staying with my grandmother.” Calla decides not to tell her it’s only temporary. Why complicate the conversation? “How about you?”

  “I live down the road in Cassadaga.”

  Does the fact that Sarita lives outside the Dale mean she can’t see dead people or have psychic visions or premonitions?

  What about Willow? She lives in the Dale. Is she a medium?

  Even more important: did Willow see Calla talking to Blue a few minutes ago? Probably not. She’s acting pretty friendly.

  Or maybe she’s over him.

  Nah. Remembering Blue’s piercing eyes—and those broad shoulders beneath the soft cotton jersey—Calla can’t help but think it would take any girl a long time to get over him.

  Including you, she warns herself. So don’t go letting yourself get hooked on him.

  Yeah. One broken heart per year is more than enough.

  Hearing a commotion, she looks over to see that someone just tripped and dropped his lunch tray. Her first thought: Thank God that didn’t happen to me.

  Her next: That poor kid.

  He’s enormously obese, with jet black hair, thick glasses, and a line of fuzz on his upper lip.

  A few kids are laughing as, flustered, he wipes red sauce off his hands and starts to pick up the mess.

  “Oh, no, poor Donald.” Willow is instantly up and out of her seat, hurrying toward him.

  “That’s Donald Reamer,” Sarita comments to Calla. “He’s the kind of guy who . . . well, you know. Things are hard for him.”

  Calla nods. She does know. There was a Donald Reamer at her school in Florida, too—only it was a girl, and her name was Tangie Alvin.

  Surprised at Willow’s compassion, she watches her hand him a pile of napkins before stooping to salvage what’s edible from his dropped lunch. She can see that a group of girls at a table next to them are snickering and rolling their eyes.

  After a cafeteria aide has appeared with a mop and bucket and Donald has lumbered on his way, Willow goes over to the table of girls and says something to them. Their smirks vanish and they immediately look uncomfortable.

  Willow returns to the table and reclaims her chair without comment. Sarita seems to be taking the whole thing in stride, saying only, “I hope they give him another lunch without charging him.”

  “Me, too. So . . . what’d you think of Kiley?” Willow asks Calla conversationally, and bites into an apple. Calla notices her tray contains only that, a small container of yogurt, and a bottle of water. Sarita’s holds the same.

  “Kiley?” For a second, she’s blank. Then, “Oh! You mean the health teacher? She seemed nice.”

  Willow and Sarita exchange a look.

  “Yeah, she puts up a good front . . . on the first day. They all do. Just wait. Have you had math yet?”

  “It’s last period.”

  “Then you probably have Bombeck, with Willow. He’s famous for being hard-core,” Sarita says. “My sister was straight A’s until she landed in his class. She still talks about him, and she graduated four years ago. My mom even had him and said he was really hard even back then. He’s been here forever.”

  “Well, hopefully I’ll be okay.” Calla picks up her fork, trying not to wonder whether her own mom might have had Bombeck, and whether she went to school with Sarita’s mom. “I usually do pretty well in math.”

  Straight A’s, actually. She’s been an honor-roll student all the way through high school, but she doesn’t mention that. She doesn’t want to sound like she’s bragging.

  “Math is my strongest subject,” Willow tells her. “And even I’m worried. You don’t know Bombeck.”

  “I’m so glad I didn’t get him for math,” Sarita says contentedly.

  “So you have Davidson, right? And who do you have for English?” Willow asks.

  As Sarita pulls her schedule out of her backpack to compare it to Willow’s, Calla toys with her fork. She’s reluctant to dig into her steaming, hearty sloppy joe lunch in front of the other girls. She should have gotten fruit, yogurt, and water, like they did. She wants to fit in.

  Then again . . .

  Mom was always telling her not to follow the crowd. Who cares what the other girls are eating? her mother’s voice asks in her head. Who cares what they think of you?


  I kind of do, Mom. Just this once. Calla closes her eyes, barely aware of Sarita and Willow, who are chatting about a mutual friend. I can’t help it, Mom. I want to fit in here because . . . well, I don’t fit in anywhere else anymore.

  Don’t worry, you will, her mother’s voice says, and she can hear it so clearly in her head that she wonders if her mother is actually here.

  Focus. Maybe if you really focus, you’ll be able to see her.

  She tunes out all the background noise, thinking about her mother. About how desperately she misses her.

  Please. Please, Mom. If you’re here, let me see you. Please.

  Gradually, Calla becomes aware of a strong presence. Someone is watching her. She can feel it.

  She braces herself, opens her eyes, and looks up, expecting to see a shadow or even her mother’s ghost. Or . . . Kaitlyn’s.

  Please let it be Mom this time. Please . . .

  FOUR

  It isn’t her mother.

  It isn’t even a ghost.

  Instead, Calla locks eyes with Jacy Bly, sitting one table away and looking intently right at her. He doesn’t jerk his dark gaze away, the way another guy might if he were caught in the act of staring.

  No, Jacy just nods a little, as if he’s saying hello.

  Calla nods, too. Just slightly. Hello right back.

  Trembling—feeling almost like they’ve just had physical contact—she looks down at her untouched plate of food. Across from her,Willow and Sarita are absorbed in comparing their new class schedules.

  Maybe Calla should be disappointed that the person she sensed wasn’t her mother. Instead, she finds her heart beating a little faster at the knowledge that Jacy was looking at her as though . . .

  He’s interested. Definitely.

  Great, but . . .

  What about Evangeline? She has a thing for Jacy. She’s always talking about him.

  But it’s not like they’re dating or anything, Calla reminds herself. And it’s not like Jacy’s going to ask me out, either, like Blue did. Twice.

  Jacy’s too shy.

  So there’s no need to feel guilty about Evangeline.

  Yet, anyway.

  Ten minutes and one uneaten lunch later, Calla finds Jacy falling into step beside her as she exits the cafeteria behind Willow and Sarita.

  She sneaks another peek at him. His short black hair is spiky on top, as though he rubbed a towel over it after a shower and walked out the door. Tall, lean, and muscular, he’s wearing worn jeans, sneakers, and a plain white T-shirt. He probably threw them on without thinking about it, as casual about his appearance as Blue Slayton is deliberate. But the end result is the same. Jacy, too, is so good-looking he takes her breath away as she looks up at him.

  “Are you glad you’re here?” he asks her quietly.

  “Yeah. I am. Are you?” He looks taken aback, and she realizes what he thinks she meant. Her face grows hot and she blurts, “I mean, are you glad you’re here! Not, you know, are you glad I’m here. Because you wouldn’t be. I mean, you wouldn’t think about it. I mean . . . uh, are you glad you’re here?”

  He flashes her a slow grin. “I’ve been here a while.”

  What is it about Jacy that makes Calla shove her foot into her mouth every single time she opens it?

  “But do you like it here?” she asks, and he shrugs.

  “Things happen here that don’t happen anywhere else. Or, didn’t. Not to me.”

  Her heart beats faster. “Me, too. Things happen to me here, too.”

  “I know.”

  “What?” She stares at him. “How do you—”

  “Hi, guys!” Without warning, Evangeline pops up in their path. “Who-what-when-where-why?”

  “Huh?” Calla asks, and Evangeline laughs.

  “You know . . . what did I miss? Anything interesting that you’re talking about?”

  If she only knew.

  “Just school,” Jacy says. “In other words, not interesting.”

  Calla wishes her friend hadn’t interrupted this particular conversation, but she smiles at Evangeline as if she’s glad to see her.

  “Are you guys coming from lunch?” Evangeline asks, and her voice is a little higher pitched than usual, her smile so bright—and stiff—that she’s baring most of her teeth. She gets so nervous around Jacy, and it shows.

  “Yeah, it was sloppy joes,” Calla tells Evangeline. “Like you said.”

  “I knew it!”

  Calla considers making a lame joke about her friend’s psychic powers but decides against it. Instead, she asks, “How about you? Are you going to lunch?”

  That question is about as unnecessary as Evangeline’s was, since the cafeteria is all that’s on this end of the building. But for some reason, she has this need to keep the conversation going and stick to mundane topics. Topics that have nothing to do with the fact that Evangeline just stumbled across her and Jacy together.

  “Yup. I’m going to lunch. But I’m not eating sloppy joes, that’s for sure.” Calla doesn’t miss the way Evangeline checks out Jacy, then runs a hand quickly through her hair to straighten it.

  Nor does she miss the way Jacy doesn’t seem to notice.

  That’s because he’s not even looking at Evangeline. He’s looking at Calla.

  “See you in math later,” he says. “We’re in that class together.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He just offers a cryptic smile before waving to both her and Evangeline and striding off down the hall.

  “Did you eat lunch with him?” Evangeline immediately asks Calla.

  “No!” Oops . . . did that sound too defensive? Softening her tone, she adds, “I ate with a couple of girls. Willow and, um, Sarita.”

  “Oh, Sarita’s great.” Evangeline relaxes a little. “And Willow can be really nice, when she wants to. She’s just moody. So everything’s going okay, then? You’re finding your way around?”

  “Yeah. And”—she leans closer to Evangeline to whisper— “Blue Slayton just asked me out again!”

  “No way! Are you serious? That’s great!” Pause, then, “So Willow knows that and she still ate lunch with you?”

  “Oh . . . uh, no, she doesn’t know that. But . . . they’re broken up, right?”

  “Supposedly. Anyway, who cares? I’m so psyched for you, Calla. I mean, anyone in this school would kill to go out with Blue, and you waltz in here—the new girl—and he’s all over you.”

  Calla smiles at the exaggeration and tries not to wonder if Evangeline’s crush on Jacy is part of the reason she’s so enthusiastic about Calla’s involvement with Blue.

  If she hadn’t come along just now, where would the conversation with Jacy have led?

  Does he know about me seeing dead people? Calla wonders. Can he see them too?

  Maybe he can help her make sense of everything. The bracelet, the lake, the dreams about Mom and Odelia, and the strange, gory vision Kaitlyn Riggs just showed her.

  She has to talk to Jacy again, first chance she gets.

  “Hey . . . there’s my girl. How was school today?”

  “Hi, Dad! It went really well,” Calla replies into the phone, swept by a sudden wave of homesickness at the sound of Jeff Delaney’s voice, just as she was by Lisa’s this morning.

  She sinks into a chair at her grandmother’s kitchen table, glad Odelia is busy in the closed-off sunroom at the back of the house, doing a reading for a client. Suddenly, she longs for some time alone with her father, even if it is just over the phone.

  “Did you make any new friends, Cal?”

  “A few,” she says, thinking of Willow and Sarita. In gym class this afternoon, Evangeline introduced her to a girl named Kasey, who was a captain and chose Calla second for her team when she was sure she’d be the last one picked.

  And then, of course, Jacy Bly was in her last period, math, with the dreaded Mr. Bombeck. He seemed strict and he ran a tight ship. To Calla’s disappointment, she didn’t get a chance t
o talk to Jacy during class, other than a brief hello.

  Later, she spotted him up ahead when she and Evangeline were walking home toward Lily Dale, but she wasn’t about to call out to him. Not when her friend had just said, dreamily, “Ooh, look, there’s Jacy. I would so give my right eyeball to go out with him.”

  “I’ve already been getting to know a few kids who live near Gammy,” Calla tells her father now, “so it was good to see some familiar faces around.”

  “I’m glad it went well.”

  “Oh, and guess what? I just talked to this lady who broke her ankle and needs a babysitter for a few weeks. So I told her I’d do it.”

  Ramona’s friend Paula wasted no time calling this afternoon. Calla liked her so much over the phone that she agreed to take the job without meeting her or the kids in person. She starts tomorrow after school.

  “That’s great!” her father says, but his voice sounds a little hollow.

  He’s lonely, she realizes. He sounds as homesick as I feel.

  Terrific. Now she’s getting choked up. Fighting tears, she reaches for the glass of iced tea Odelia had waiting for her when she walked in the door, along with a plate of oatmeal cookies warm from the oven, and a message from Lisa, who had called twice wanting to know how her day went.

  She takes a big gulp of the tea, hoping to wash down the lump that threatens to clog her throat.

  “Gammy, huh?” her father says quietly on the other end of the line.

  For a moment, she’s confused. Then, after retracing the conversational path, she explains, “It’s what I used to call her . . . when I was really little.” Okay, now she feels uncomfortable and she’s not even sure why.

  “I know that. I remember. I just haven’t heard it in a lot of years.”

  Calla is silent for a moment, then finds herself blurting, “Dad, what happened between the two of them? Mom and . . . Gammy. Why did they drift apart?”

  “Drift apart?” He snorts. “They were both forces to be reckoned with, Calla. There was no drifting where those two were concerned. It was more like a violent earthquake ripped a huge, gaping chasm between them.”

  “So they had an argument, right? Because I kind of remember it.”