Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(40)

He doesn’t sound surprised. Thrilled, either. He just says, as though this is all perfectly routine, “Okay, good. So . . . I’ll call you.”

Oh. He’s not going to make a date right now? She almost wishes she’d said no.

Calla hangs up and goes to find her grandmother in the kitchen. Odelia is stirring a bubbling pot on the stove as an old Enya song plays on the countertop radio. Loudly.

Odelia, singing along in an unskilled falsetto, doesn’t notice Calla in the doorway.

Calla clears her throat. Odelia doesn’t hear her. Calla has to get her attention, but what is she supposed to call her?

Grandma? Odelia?

So far, she’s still managed to avoid conversationally pegging her grandmother with a name. But that can’t go on indefinitely. Sooner or later, she’s going to have to address her directly. Now is probably a good time to start. What did I call her when I was a little girl? Calla wonders, and suddenly, a strange word flits into her head.

“Gammy?” She blurts it without thinking, and Odelia immediately turns her head.

“What did you say?”

“I said . . .” What did she say? And why? “I said, uh, ‘Grandma’?”

That sounds ridiculously formal for some reason, and Odelia is shaking her head. “No, you said ‘Gammy.’ I heard you.”

“Then why’d you . . .” Calla notices, to her surprise, that her grandmother’s eyes are suddenly shiny. “. . . ask?” she finishes, fervently wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.

“That’s what you used to call me,” Odelia says, going back to stirring her soup after swiping a hand at her eyes. “Gammy. When you were a little girl and I used to come see you. But then all those years went by and I thought you must have forgotten.”

“I did forget. Until now.”

She wants to ask her grandmother why all those years went by without a visit. What did she and Mom disagree about? I can’t ask her yet. Maybe sometime . . . but not now.

“I’m glad you remembered,” her grandmother is saying. “You can still call me that.”

“But . . . I’m not a little girl anymore.”

Her grandmother waves away her protest. “Call me Gammy. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear.” Calla smiles, then remembers why she came into the kitchen in the first place, and her smile fades. “Listen, what time did Blue come over with those flowers?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t remember, exactly.”

“Did he wake you from your nap?” she asks, trying a different tactic, needing to know. “Or before Evangeline came over? Or was it later than that?”

“Oh, it was later. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes before you got home, I guess.”

“That late?”

Odelia nods. “Why?”

Because now I know for sure why he brought the flowers over today. It was because he saw me fishing with Jacy Bly, and it bothered him.

That’s what she suspected in the first place. Call it intuition, or call it common sense.

It’s telling her something else, too: Blue Slayton is the kind of guy who wants what he can’t have. If she’s interested in him, all she has to do is pretend that she isn’t.

But she’s never liked to play games, and anyway, she isn’t sure she’s interested in Blue. Not the way she’s interested in Jacy. . . .

Who, she has a feeling, wouldn’t be into games, either. But anyway, Evangeline likes him.

Calla sighs. After what happened with Kevin, who needs any of this?

“Calla? It’s me!” a familiar voice says over the telephone the following evening.

“Lisa! I’m so glad you called!” And just as glad that Odelia is out at some mediums’ league meeting, so she can have a private conversation. “I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

“You too. Listen, I totally get that you don’t have access to e-mail—”

Calla opens her mouth to tell her that’s about to change.

“But you said you’d call me. Why haven’t you?”

Mostly because Kevin might answer the phone, but she doesn’t want to admit that. “I feel funny putting long-distance charges on my grandmother’s bill. Listen, Lis’, I need to talk to you. Things have been kind of crazy here.”

“Crazy how? Don’t tell me you’re seeing ghosts or something!”

She hesitates. She was about to tell her exactly that, but Lisa’s tone stops her.

“No, nothing like that,” she says slowly. “It’s . . . a guy.”

Why did she go and say that?

“Two guys, actually,” she hears herself say next. Huh?

“You’re seeing two guys?”

Not really, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Lisa mention that to Kevin, would it?

“Yeah,” she tells Lisa, feeling only a little guilty. “They’re both cute, too . . . so I’m torn.”

“Hey, there are worse problems you can have,” Lisa says with a laugh.

Yeah, no kidding.

“Listen, Calla, I’m kind of glad you’re seeing someone else—two someone elses.”

Something in Lisa’s tone makes Calla’s heart sink. “You’re glad? Why?”

“Just . . . It’s good you’re over Kevin, that’s all.”