Believing (Lily Dale #2)(5)

Will she ever get used to speaking of her mother in the past tense?

“Not when she was a kid, she wasn’t.” Odelia snorts and shakes her unnaturally red head. “She always could eat everything I put in front of her, and then some.”

Her grandmother’s back is to Calla. Her voice grows wistful, and her hand trembles a little on the spatula handle as she continues, “Back then, Stephanie loved everything that was bad for you. Her favorite was homemade fried chicken with mashed potatoes. She liked them with a whole lot of salt and butter and heavy cream. She’d pull up a chair to the counter and stand on it, and I’d let her do the mashing.”

There’s a long pause. Calla pictures a younger, thinner Odelia standing at the counter, and Mom standing beside her on a chair, a little girl in pigtails, just like in the framed photo on the living room wall.

Odelia’s back straightens and she swipes a hand at her eye, seeming to get hold of her emotions as she turns toward Calla. “If I do say so myself, I make the best fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy you’ll find north of the Mason-Dixon line.”

“I bet you do, Gammy.”

Odelia’s a good cook, even if her taste buds are a little wacky. The night Calla arrived, she was taken aback to find that her grandmother put raisins in the meatballs and sugar in the spaghetti sauce. Turned out, it tasted pretty good.

She’s getting used to Odelia’s eccentric style in the kitchen. And in everything else.

Like her wardrobe. Today, her grandmother’s plus-sized figure is crammed into leopard-print leggings and a yellowy orange fleece pullover. On her feet: a pair of beat-up purple rubber Crocs.

“So tell me,” Odelia says. “Are you nervous?”

“Me?” Calla busies herself taking a carton of orange juice from the fridge. “Nervous?”

“You, ” Odelia agrees, looking at Calla over the pinkish cat’s-eye glasses propped on the tip of her nose. “Nervous.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I would be. Maybe a lot. Starting a new school and all.”

It’s hard to imagine Odelia nervous about anything. She pretty much takes in stride everything from her semipermanent seventeen-year-old houseguest to Miriam and the other shadowy entities who hover around the house.

“At least you know a few of the kids already, though,” Odelia points out.

Some better than others, Calla thinks, and a faint smile curves the lips Blue Slayton kissed after their first date last week.

Then she remembers Willow York, Blue’s ex-girlfriend, and her smile fades.

Evangeline mentioned that Lily Dale High is pretty small. Meaning, Calla’s bound to run into Willow there. On the upside, she’s bound to run into Blue, too—along with Jacy Bly, who held the unofficial title of resident newcomer before Calla came along.

With Native American blood and exotic dark good looks, Jacy captivated her from the second she saw him. He lives down Cottage Row with two foster dads who took him in after Social Services took him away from his alcoholic, abusive parents.

He briefly told Calla about that when they spent an afternoon fishing together in Cassadaga Lake. But even after spending a few hours alone together, she found herself with more questions than answers about Jacy and his difficult past. She’d love to get to know him better—if that’s even possible. Sometimes she sees him from afar, jogging past Odelia’s house with a couple of other boys. He mentioned he’s on the school track team.

Other than that, he seems to keep to himself.

But I can be that way, too, Calla thinks as she pours juice into a glass. She probably has more in common with Jacy than she does with the more confident Blue—who, come to think of it, hasn’t called her since their date. He was supposed to spend last weekend in New York City with his father, the celebrity medium David Slayton, who was doing some television appearances there.

But he must have been back long before now.

Oh, well. It’s not like Calla’s hoping to get hot and heavy with Blue.

Well, maybe she was hoping it a little, after that amazing kiss.

Still . . . a lot has happened since then.

Including a visit from her ex-boyfriend Kevin, who drove up from Tampa and dropped his sister, Lisa—Calla’s best friend—in Lily Dale last weekend. Seeing him again brought it all back: the exhilaration of her first love, and the heartache of being dumped for a college girl.

Kevin stayed only a few hours before heading on to Cornell—and, no doubt, his new girlfriend,Annie.

Monday night, Lisa flew back home to Tampa.

Calla was originally supposed to leave this week, too, headed to California, where she would have been starting school today. Dad, who is a science professor, is there on sabbatical, teaching at a university near Los Angeles.

At this point, he’s still camping out on a friend’s couch in Long Beach. He hasn’t had much luck finding an affordable apartment for the two of them in a good public school district. Money’s been tight without Mom’s salary, and it turned out she didn’t have a life-insurance policy.

Why would she? Who would have ever thought something could happen to Mom? She was so young, so together, so alive, so . . . needed.

Calla forces saliva past a hard lump in her throat and pushes away the painful thought.

Anyway,Dad seemed . . . well, not happy, but maybe a little relieved when Calla asked to stay in Lily Dale for a couple of months and attend school here. That would buy him more time to find them a place to live.