Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(29)

But Blue Slayton would be hot anywhere, as far as Calla’s concerned.

“Plus,” Evangeline tells her, “he just broke up with his girlfriend, so he’s available.”

“Oh. Well, that’s . . .” Calla trails off, not sure what it is. Encouraging? Scary?

Both, she decides, but says only, “too bad. About the breakup, I mean. Breakups are hard.”

They start walking again, and Evangeline asks, “So, you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

You mean Odelia didn’t cover that breaking news? Calla thinks wryly, kicking a stone with the toe of her white Ked. Wait— would her grandmother even know about Kevin? Calla didn’t mention it when Odelia was in Florida, and she doubts her father brought it up, either. They certainly had other things, far more traumatic things, on their minds then.

“No,” she says in answer to Evangeline’s question. “No boyfriend. Not anymore.”

“Nasty breakup, huh? Like you said, they’re hard. Especially when you get dumped for somebody else.”

Calla looks up sharply. “How do you know?”

“Not from experience—I’ve never had a boyfriend myself—but that’s what just happened to my aunt Ramona. Her boyfriend was cheating on her with some Buffalo Jills cheerleader with blond hair and huge—”

“No, I meant how do you know what happened to me?”

“I was right, huh? Sometimes I’m off, but I’m getting better.”

“You mean you’re . . .” One of them?

“Clairvoyant. Yup.” Evangeline looks pleased with herself. “It runs in my family. Same thing with Blue. His dad’s David Slayton, the guy who solved that jewelry theft after the Oscars in L. A. last year, with that actress . . . what was her name?”

Calla, stunned into silence, doesn’t answer. She knows exactly what Evangeline is referring to. Anyone who watches TV or reads People magazine knows about that. A movie star had borrowed a million-dollar diamond necklace to wear to the Academy Awards. It disappeared even though the jeweler’s security detail was on her all night. At first, there were rumors of a publicity stunt by the actress or the jeweler himself.

But the case was solved a few days later when the necklace was found. One of the security guards turned out to have been in on it. A psychic hired by the actress claimed to have helped the police solve the case. Calla remembers seeing him on TV and thinking he looked like a movie star himself.

Blue’s father. Wow. She asks Evangeline, “So Blue is . . . ?”

“A medium. Right. Like his dad.”

“And . . . so are you?”

“Yup. My whole family is. My brother, Mason—he’s thirteen—and my aunt Ramona, who we live with. My parents were, too, until they died.”

“Both of them? How?” Calla blurts, and is immediately sorry. She, more than anyone, should know enough not to force Evangeline to talk about something so painful.

But her new acquaintance merely nods and says, matter-of-factly, “It was a car crash out on Route 60, in a blizzard. Mason and I were with them, but he was a baby and I was only two, so I don’t remember any of it, thank God.”

“I’m so sorry.” Horrible as it is to have lost her own mother, at least Calla had her for all these years—and still has her father.

She shudders at the thought of being orphaned, and suddenly misses her father. A lot.

What if something had happened to him, too, and she had to stay with Odelia forever?

“It was a really long time ago,” Evangeline is saying. “But believe me, I sort of know what you’ve been through, with your mom and everything. I miss my mother all the time.”

“So you can’t just . . . connect with her?”

Evangeline raises an eyebrow. “You mean, as a medium?”

“Right.”

“Sometimes I feel her, and I hear her in my head.”

“You don’t see her?”

“I haven’t. My father, either. But I don’t need to see my parents to know that they’re with me. And actually, I don’t have to be a medium to talk to them.”

“But . . . they talk back, right?”

“Usually.”

“My grandmother said it doesn’t work that way. She said it’s not like a telephone where you can just place a call to the other side and get in touch with someone.”

“She’s right. It’s not. It’s more complicated than that. Sometimes, it’s the opposite of what you might think. Like, you know, you aren’t always in touch with spirits who are close to you.” She pauses. “It’s just . . . hard to explain, to someone who doesn’t have the gift.”

“Yeah? Try me.”

Evangeline’s hazel eyes darken. “You seem skeptical.”

“I am. I mean, my grandmother said the same thing—that she can’t just get in contact with my mom whenever she feels like it. But she claims that she can communicate with all these other random spirits, like the lady who used to live in her house.”

“Miriam. Right. She can. And I’ve seen her, too. She’s been around for years. She pops in next door, too. She was the first apparition I ever saw.”

She might be mine, too, Calla thinks—before she remembers the strange woman in the cemetery in Florida. She’s pretty sure that wasn’t Miriam, though her recollection of the woman’s features isn’t very clear. She sure would have taken a much harder look if she’d had any clue that she was seeing a ghost.