Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(65)

“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.