Connecting (15 page)

“But . . . you’ve barely talked to me since,” she points out, lacing her fingers with his, scarcely able to believe this is really happening. Did Jacy Bly really just kiss her? Are they really holding hands in the moonlight?

“I told you . . . it’s complicated.”

“Because of what you’ve seen. Because you think I’m in danger.”

“That . . . and everything else.”

“You mean, you don’t want to get involved with me.”

“I don’t want to get involved with anyone,” he says bluntly.

She doesn’t blame him, after all he’s been through, but it’s not easy to hear.

“So what now?” she asks him.

He shrugs. “How about if you just tell me what’s been going on?”

“You mean, with Blue?”

Long pause.

Uh-oh. Oops.

“I meant, with everything else,” Jacy says gently. “You said you weren’t okay . . . I didn’t think that had anything to do with Blue.”

No, it had a lot to do with you.

Sighing inwardly—will she ever get it right with him?— she fills him in on all that’s happened since they last spoke: the ghosts, the billets, the bear fountain and Darrin Yates, the book and Leolyn Woods, Aiyana.

Jacy is quiet for a long time, thinking it over. Then he asks, “You said the fountain is in Geneseo?”

“I think so. Have you ever been there?”

“No, but I know where it is. We should go check it out.”

Her heart skips a beat. “You’d go with me?”

“You can’t go alone.”

No, she can’t. For starters, she has no way of getting there.

“Do you have a car?” she asks. “Because I don’t want to tell my grandmother about it and ask to borrow hers. There’s no way she’d let me go.”

“Walt and Peter lend me their car on weekends sometimes.

I’ll ask them.”

“You can’t tell them where we’re going, though. They’re friends with my grandmother. It’ll get back to her.”

“I won’t tell them. We’ll make something up. Want to go tomorrow?”

“Yes!” she exclaims, then, “No. I can’t. It’s homecoming.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Sunday for sure, though. Okay?”

“Can’t. Track meet.”

“Oh. They won’t let you borrow the car during the week?”

He shakes his head. “That’s one of their rules. They don’t have many, but . . . I guess it’ll have to wait until next weekend.” “I’m going away,” she tells him. “To Florida. I already have my plane ticket.”

Hearing another siren in the distance, they look at each other, then toward the school. “Something must have happened there,” Calla says anxiously.

“Sounds that way.”

“I hate sirens. They remind me of . . .” She closes her eyes, trying to shut out the horror of that awful day. But the memories come anyway: walking into the house to find Mom’s body, running screaming into the street, one of the elderly neighbors dialing 911, the sirens.

“I know. I don’t like them either.” Jacy squeezes her hand, and she remembers that he’s had his own share of sorrow.

“So . . . I guess Geneseo will have to wait,” she says reluctantly.

“Yeah. But for now, I think I should tell you . . .” He hesitates. “What?”

“About what I’ve been seeing. With you. You know . . .”

“The visions?”

“Yeah. Just so you know, because you’re going to Florida, and . . . well, it’s about water.”

Her heart stops. “Water?”

“Don’t go in the water in Florida, Calla. Promise me.”

Dread creeps over her as she remembers Odelia’s cryptic warnings about not going into the lake here. “Why not?”

“When I see you . . . you’re in the water. Struggling.”

“You mean . . . drowning?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t feel like it’s an accident.”

TWELVE

Saturday, September 29
9:32 a.m.

“Calla, you’ll never believe this . . . Did you hear what happened last night?” Evangeline asks breathlessly in her ear.

“Yeah. I heard.” Calla sinks onto the couch, clutching the phone, her hand trembling.

“I can’t believe it. You must be so upset!”

“Yeah. Poor Blue.” Renewed guilt threads its way into her brain as she thinks of him, laid up at Brooks Memorial Hospital down in Dunkirk, his left foot fractured.

The ambulance that had raced past Jacy and her was real, all right. And it was going to rescue Blue. He’d collided with a beefy player from the opposing team on the wet soccer field, and had gone down hard with the other guy on top of him. It was a freak accident, according to everyone who witnessed it.

Such a freak accident that if Calla didn’t know better, she might think she had somehow willed it.

Or maybe she doesn’t know better. What if she—or Jacy—did have something to do with it?

No. Blue had already been injured before they even discussed going to Geneseo. It was a freak accident, and nothing more.

Not like Mom’s death.

“Poor Blue,” Evangeline is echoing, “and poor you. It’s so unfair that this had to happen now, before the dance. I can’t believe you don’t get to go.”

You have to tell her.

“Evangeline . . .”

“Ramona and I were really looking forward to the three of us going to the salon today. I mean, you should still come. I know it won’t be the same, but—”

“Evangeline, I’m going.”

“To the salon? Great! At least you can still get your hair cut, and—”

“No, not the salon . . . to the dance.”

“Really? You’re going alone?”

“No.” Guilt, guilt, guilt. So many reasons to feel guilty right now, mostly for the web of lies she’s about to spin, not just to Evangeline, but to her grandmother, and Ramona . . .

But you have no choice. It’s the only way.

She takes a deep breath. “Jacy Bly is taking me. Just as friends,” she feels compelled to add, hoping that makes it easier, not just on Evangeline, but on her.

Silence.

“Evangeline?”

“That’s . . . I, um . . . I think that’s nice.Of him. And, uh, for you.”

“We’re friends, Evangeline. He felt bad when we heard what happened to Blue last night, so he . . . you know . . .”

“Yeah. He’s a good guy. You’ll have fun with him.”

“It’s not like that. We’re not . . . you know.”

“Yeah. You said. Just friends.” Evangeline’s voice is tight. “Well, I’m glad you get to go. I guess I’ll see you when we go to the Hair Wharf. I think the appointment is for two.”

“What about class?”

“Class?”

“Patsy’s class. You’re going this morning, right?”

“Oh . . . I am, but I’m going to be a little late. Go on over without me, and I’ll see you there, okay?”

“Okay. Sure.”

She doesn’t want to walk over with me,
Calla thinks, hanging up the phone.

Does she really blame Evangeline for being upset?

She has a date for the dance—supposedly, anyway—with the guy her friend likes.

Okay, so it isn’t really a date.

But what’s gone on between her and Jacy isn’t platonic.

He kissed her last night.

Not just that first time, but later, too. Even after they had walked over to the school just in time to see Blue Slayton being loaded into the ambulance.

He didn’t see Calla. He was obviously in too much pain to notice much of anything.

But he did call her, late, from the hospital.

“I know,” she said, when he told her what had happened.

“I was there. I saw you. Are you going to be okay?”

“Eventually.” He sounded groggy from the medication.

“But I won’t be doing any dancing tomorrow. They’re not even letting me out of here until at least Sunday.”

She told him how sorry she was, and told him to get some rest.

“Yeah, I will. It was such a freak thing, you know? That guy came at me out of nowhere. I can’t believe this happened to me. All I’ve been thinking about lately is that you and I were going to have a great time at the dance, and now look.”

She couldn’t help but remember what Evangeline said about Blue being a powerful psychic, like his father. Shouldn’t he have had an inkling that something was going to happen to him on the soccer field that night?

Maybe not. It’s not a precise science, by any means.

She hung up with Blue and turned to Jacy, who had walked her home and come inside.

“He can’t go,” she told him.

“Then let’s do it.”

They had already hatched a tentative plan at that point.

Now it’s in full swing.

There’s no going back.

“Good morning!”

Calla turns to see her grandmother in the hallway, at the foot of the stairs. She’s wearing the orange satin kimono she uses as a bathrobe, and yawning.

“Hi, Gammy.”

“Today’s the big day.” Odelia pads into the room in her purple terry-cloth scuffies. “How do you feel?”

Might as well get it over with.

“Um. . . the thing is, Blue got hurt last night on the soccer field, so I’m not going with him. Jacy Bly is taking me instead.”

Odelia levels a long gaze at her.

She knows I’m lying.

Calla feels sick inside.

Then her grandmother breaks into a smile. “It’s not that I wish anything bad for Blue,” she says, “but this is how it was supposed to turn out.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Jacy. I knew it. I’ve felt it all along. I knew you two were going to connect, even before I ever introduced him to you.”

No way.

“Gammy, we’re just going as friends,” she says, thinking of Evangeline.

Odelia waves that notion away with her hot-pink-polished fingers. “Don’t give me that. I know there’s more to it.”

“Really . . . there isn’t. And please don’t say anything to Ramona, or . . . Evangeline.”

“She likes him. I know.”

Calla nods glumly.

“She’ll get over him. There’s someone else for her out there.”

“Russell Lancione?” Calla asks, brightening. “Do you have some kind of premonition about the two of them, or something?”

That would be great, and it would let her off the hook with Jacy.

“No premonitions. There’s just someone for everyone. Including Evangeline. And Jacy Bly isn’t her someone.”

Is he really mine?
Calla wants to ask but doesn’t dare.

“The thing about Jacy,” Odelia says, “is that he’s been through hell and back. His parents—they really hurt him. He built up a lot of walls because of that. Likes to shut people out. Is afraid of losing even more than he already has.”

It’s just like Calla thought. He doesn’t want to let her in, doesn’t want to care about her—or anyone.

“Walt and Peter have made a lot of progress with him, but . . . some kinds of hurt take a long, long time to heal. And some don’t ever heal,” Odelia adds sadly, shaking her head and thinking, Calla suspects, not just of Jacy.

“You go easy on him, and you’ll see. He’ll come around.”

“Gammy . . . it’s just a dance.”

No. It’s not even that.

“I’m so happy for you, Calla. What I wouldn’t give to be your age again, going to a dance with a boy I’m crazy about.”

Great. Calla can only hope her grandmother never finds out she and Jacy never made it to the dance.

Evangeline will notice, that’s for sure.

I’ll have to figure out something to tell her,
Calla promises herself.

For now, she can’t think past tonight, and getting to Geneseo with Jacy.

“Well? What do you think?”

Calla looks up from the gossipy pages of the
Us
magazine she’s been trying, with little success, to read for the last forty-five minutes. Mostly, she’s just been staring out the plate-glass window of the Hair Wharf salon at the dark gray waters of Lake Erie off the Dunkirk Pier.

Standing in the doorway of the salon waiting room, Evangeline does a mock-modeling spin, turning this way and that to show off a face full of makeup and her new hairdo, an elaborate mass of curls falling from a black satin headband.

“Wow . . . you look gorgeous!” Calla exclaims sincerely.

“Thanks. What do you think, Aunt Ramona?”

“Oh, honey . . .” Sitting beside Calla, Ramona is obviously emotional. “I think you’re growing up. And you’re beautiful.”

“That’s what I told her.” Leslie, the pretty, dark-haired young stylist, looks on proudly, a can of hairspray still in hand.

“You don’t think I look like a Disney princess?” Evangeline wrinkles her nose—the freckles oddly buffed away by a thick layer of foundation.