Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(15)

“Why not? I’m sure you could find something that would look gorgeous on you.” The well-padded Evangeline, still wistful, shakes her head at Calla’s slender build.

“I doubt I’ll be able to afford much of anything. Anyway, you should use your coupon for yourself, Ramona.”

“Do I look like I shop at Lord and Taylor?” Ramona wrinkles her nose, and Calla can’t help but laugh.

In her ragged-bottomed jeans, dangly earrings, and a brown suede jacket, Ramona looks, as always, like a throwback to the flower-child era. A strikingly pretty throwback, at that. She’s even wearing makeup tonight.

Calla wonders if that has anything to do with the fact that Ramona’s going to be seeing Dad tonight. Somehow, she doubts it.

A cute older guy in a business suit checks her out as he passes, but she seems oblivious. Probably just as well. Ramona’s not shy about discussing her disastrous love life, and Calla knows all about her talent for falling for the wrong kind of guy.

Meaning, any guy who doesn’t embrace her habit of communicating with the dead.

“Once they figure out what I do for a living, they head for the hills,” Ramona likes to say, and she doesn’t seem to be exaggerating much. A couple of romantic prospects have already come and gone since Calla arrived.

Dad has no idea she’s a medium—yet.

But once he finds out, any spark of attraction between the two of them—if there even is such a possibility—is sure to fizzle.

“Let’s go take a look at Lord and Taylor. I’m sure there will be lots of stuff on sale,” Ramona tells Calla. “Plus, I’m paying for your haircut next week, remember? And you said you’ve saved up some babysitting money, right?”

“Right.”

It was Ramona who hooked Calla up with a regular after-school babysitting job for Dylan and Ethan, her friend Paula’s two sons.

She does have almost a hundred dollars in her wallet. But that’ll go fast when she picks up the essentials, namely, more long-sleeved shirts and sweaters and another pair of jeans.

Her Florida wardrobe of shorts, flip-flops, and sleeveless T-shirts barely saw her through the remainder of a chilly northeastern August. When Dad visited a few weeks ago, he did take her shopping at T.J. Maxx in nearby Dunkirk. By that time, though, Calla had figured out that Dad was broke without Mom’s banking salary, so she picked out only a down jacket and a sweater.

Meanwhile, she’s been shivering her way through the increasingly chilly days. If she’s going to stay in Lily Dale, she needs a wardrobe of warmer clothes, and she can’t ask Dad to buy it for her. He’s spending enough money flying here for the weekend.

“I just need a lot of everyday stuff,” Calla says as the three of them start walking through the mall. “A dress is kind of last on my list right now.”

“But you need that, too,” Evangeline tells her. “I mean, you can’t go to homecoming with Blue Slayton dressed in jeans and sneakers, right?”

“No, but . . . how dressy is homecoming, anyway?” Calla asks. “Are we talking gown dressy? Like a prom?”

“It used to be like that,” Ramona says, “when your mother and I went to school there. But now I think it’s just semiformal.”

“It is,” Evangeline confirms. “Not that I know from experience.”

“Calla, how about if we schedule your haircut for the day of homecoming? Instead of just getting it cut, you can have it styled, too, for the dance. And you can have your makeup done, too.”

“Oh . . . you don’t have to do all that.”

“Let me. I want to. Your mom would want me to,” Ramona adds with a sad smile.

“Do it, Calla,” Evangeline says. “Come on. How fun will it be to get a fancy hairdo and makeup for the dance?”

“I don’t know . . . maybe.” She can’t help but be a little overwhelmed by Ramona’s kindness. It’s like she’s trying to help make up for Mom’s not being here to do mother-daughter things with Calla.

Last spring before the junior prom, Mom treated Calla to a manicure, pedicure, facial, and fancy hairstyle. Too bad Calla was too miserable to enjoy the pampering—or the prom, for that matter. Her date—platonic, of course—was nice, smart, height-challenged Paul Horton, whom all the kids called Paul Shorton.

When she thinks back to how many tears she shed over the breakup with Kevin, as though it were the worst thing that could happen to her—not realizing the real nightmare was still ahead . . .

“You know,” Ramona cuts into her thoughts. “I just thought of something, Calla. Maybe you could . . .”

Ramona stops walking, tilts her head and frowns.

“Maybe she could what?” Evangeline prompts.

Apparently lost in thought, Ramona doesn’t reply.

Calla and Evangeline exchange a glance and a shrug.

“Never mind,” Ramona says abruptly, and starts walking again. “Hey, look—the Gap is having a sale.”

“The Gap is always having a sale,” Evangeline replies, but she asks Calla, “Want to check it out?”

“Definitely.”

“You two go, and meet me at the food court in a half hour,” Ramona tells them. “I need to pick up some books in Barnes and Noble for that Crystal Healing seminar I’m teaching next week.”