Believing (Lily Dale #2)(45)

“Calla, can you keep the kitten occupied for a while so that I can get a few things done around here? I’ve been distracted by her all afternoon.”

Calla thinks of all the homework she’s supposed to be doing.

Then she thinks of the call from Blue, and her conversation with Jacy today, and the math test she failed, and the endless rounds of Candyland.

“Sure,” she tells her grandmother, “I’d love to play with her. Just . . . I have to call Blue first.”

“Are you going out with him again?”

“Saturday night.”

“Oh . . . I have a message circle that night down in Sinclairville.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think he was planning on inviting you to come along like Dad did,” Calla says lightly, and grins at her.

Odelia laughs. “Very funny. Do you need his phone number, or do you have it memorized already?”

“I need it.”

“555-4782,” recites Odelia, who was a close friend of Blue’s father, David Slayton—“before he went Hollywood,” as she put it.

She starts to leave the room as Calla dials, though she seems to be taking her sweet old time, stopping to straighten a couple of picture frames and plump sofa pillows along the way.

Ha, that’s what Mom used to do when she wanted to eavesdrop on Calla’s calls to Kevin, back when their relationship was in full swing . . . back when Mom was alive.

Suddenly, Calla finds herself overwhelmed by grief that hits hard, seemingly out of nowhere.

Oh, Mom. Her eyes are swimming with hot tears, her gut aching so that she’s almost doubled over.

Why does it happen this way? It’s not that she ever really forgets about her loss. There’s a baseline of sadness every day, but then out of the blue, something triggers a fierce tide of sorrow and longing that sweeps her right over the edge.

What she wouldn’t give to be in her own living room back in Tampa right now, talking to Kevin, with Mom annoying her by trying to listen—

“Hello?”

Calla jumps at the unexpected voice in her ear, having forgotten, for a split second, just whom she’d dialed or that she was even on the phone.

“Um . . . Blue?” Her voice comes out sounding a little strangled.

“Yeah. Calla?”

“Yeah. Hi.” She wipes a sleeve across her wet eyes.

“Hang on for a second, will you? I’m on the other line.”

With Willow? Calla wonders as he clicks off. Or some other girl?

She glumly throws the yarn across the floor again, expecting a long wait, but he’s back on the line before Gert has even skidded to a stop at the fuzzy yellow ball.

“Sorry about that. So, remember how we changed our date to this Saturday night?” he asks, and her heart sinks. He’s not going to ask her to homecoming. He’s going to blow her off entirely.

“My dad gave me these tickets,” he tells her, “to this concert in Buffalo, and I thought we could go. But only if you like jazz.”

She knows nothing about jazz. She’s surprised that he does. And boy, is she relieved that he isn’t canceling on her.

“Sure,” she says. “That sounds great.”

“I’ll pick you up at six. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. See you at lunch tomorrow?”

“Yup.” Calla smiles as she hangs up the phone. “Guess what, Gert? I think he likes me.”

The cat stops pawing at the ball and looks up solemnly.

“Yeah,” Calla tells her, “I do like him, too. But don’t worry. I won’t let myself get hurt. Not this time.”

Again, she thinks of Kevin, and wishes she had never answered his e-mail.





FOURTEEN

Wednesday, September 12

3:40 p.m.

Okay, Calla probably shouldn’t have postponed her homework last night, though romping around on the floor with Gert and a ball of yarn was the best time she’s had in ages.

Unfortunately, she rushed through her homework, and it showed. She wasn’t doing as poorly in her other subjects as she has been in math, but thanks to pure carelessness, she has to rewrite her social studies essay on top of reading both last night and tonight’s Hamlet assignments for English. She had to fake her way through the class discussion today.

But that was better than math, where Mr. Bombeck handed back her homework covered in red ink slashes and grimly told her to redo it by tomorrow, in addition to the new assignment. Luckily she’s working with Willow tonight.

Another glitch, though: she’s going to need the Internet in order to research a science project that will be assigned in the next few weeks. That will mean staying after school to use it there, and skipping a couple of days working at Paula’s, or asking to use Ramona’s after she gets home. Knowing Mason and Evangeline hog it nightly as it is, she hates to ask.

Then again, she does have that glimmer of an idea she back-burnered earlier.

One that might give her access to more than just the Internet.

But does she dare pursue it with her father?

Meanwhile, she’ll probably be up until midnight, catching up on everything after she gets back from Willow’s later. Unless I can get something done here, she tells herself as she climbs the steps to Paula’s porch after school.