Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(26)

That’s probably a good thing, because what if Calla were to mention her mother’s secret past to Evangeline and Evangeline slipped and told her aunt and her aunt went and told Dad, or he even just happened to overhear?

That would not be good.

So far, the only ones who know there even was a baby are Jacy and Odelia. And Jacy’s definitely not talkative under any circumstances, so it’s safe with him.

Right, so it’s better this way—Evangeline wrapped up in Russell, and not asking too many questions about what happened in Florida. All she knows so far is that a woman broke into the Delaneys’ house there and attacked Calla.

That’s more than her friends Willow York and Sarita Abernathie know .

But now, when she deposits her lunch tray on their usual table and starts to sit down, she can’t help but notice that they suddenly stop talking.

Exactly the way people do when the person they’re talking about suddenly appears.

Back when she first met beautiful, brainy Willow— who happens to be a recent ex-girlfriend of Blue Slayton— Calla mistook her reserved nature for standoffishness. Then Mr. Bombeck assigned her as Calla’s math study partner, and she found an unexpected friend in Willow— and her lovable, ailing mom, Althea.

“Hi, Calla,”Sarita says as she sits down.

Willow says nothing at all. Which is unusual.

“What’s up?”Calla unwraps her fork, trying to sound casual, wondering if Willow has suddenly had a change of heart about Blue or something.

That would be fine with Calla. Whatever was going on between her and Blue came to an end the night before homecoming, when Jacy kissed her for the first time.

Or maybe it’s not about Blue.

Maybe they, too, have heard about the Florida detectives who came to see Patsy Metcalf yesterday.

“Nothing’s up, just . . .”Sarita flashes a mouthful of metal in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You know . The usual stuff. Right, Willow?”

She shoots a look at Willow, who, Calla notices, seems awfully interested in removing the label from her water bottle. “Right.”Her straight dark hair falls across her face like a curtain.

“Like what stuff?”

“You know . . . school stuff.”Sarita gives Calla such an exaggerated shrug that the long earrings dangling beneath her sleek short haircut come to rest horizontally on her shoulders.

“What kind of school stuff?”

“For one thing, the board of education is trying to take away our right to have bake-sale fundraisers. Did you hear?”

“No.”And Calla’s pretty sure that that’s not what Sarita and Willow were just talking about.

“Well, it’s true. I’m going to start a petition. But not today, because I have a major social studies test tomorrow afternoon and my parents will kill me if I don’t get at least an A.”

“At least?”

“You know my parents.”

Yeah. Calla does know Sarita’s parents. They head a family of overachievers, albeit “mere mortals,”who live outside Lily Dale’s gates. Sarita’s brother is in medical school, her sister is a sophomore at Yale, and Sarita is hell-bent on going Ivy, too.

“That reminds me,”Calla says. “Did either of you finish making your lists of reach schools, target schools, and safety schools for Mrs. Erskine? Because I have to meet with her tomorrow.”

“I did that last week,”Sarita says, “but right now I feel like my safety schools are reach schools unless I get my act together.”

“Yeah . . . same here,”Calla says.

Willow looks up at last. She’s as model-gorgeous as ever, but Calla is startled to see that her dark eyes are rimmed with red, as if she’s been crying. “Calla, did your dad freak about your math grade?”

“Not really. He pretty much just said I need to work harder on it.”

“That’s it?”Willow asks. “You thought he was going to make a big deal about it.”

“I know . Luckily he didn’t.”She wonders whether to mention Ramona popping over in the midst of the discussion, and decides not to. “He just said he’s going to help me study now that he’s around.”

“Is that a good thing,”Sarita asks, “or a bad thing?”

“Are you kidding? I can use all the help I can get. Between Willow and my dad, I might be able to not fail the next test.”

“About that . . .”Willow trails off and looks at Sarita, who gives a slight nod.

“I’m going to go to the library and start studying,”Sarita announces, pushing her chair back. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Uh-oh. Something’s up.

Willow gets right to the point. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you this week, really. My, um, my mom . . . she’s in the hospital.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

I should have known.

From the moment Calla met Althea York, she had sensed that the woman was ill.

“What happened?”she asks, trying not to betray the tide of dread sweeping through her.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Althea slipped and fell and broke her arm or something.

“Cancer. She was getting chemo but the treatments stopped working last summer.”

Calla feels as though someone just hit her in the stomach with a two-by-four.