Connecting

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  He doesn’t apologize.

  “Dad, what the heck are you talking about?” Blue asks.

  David doesn’t even bother to acknowledge his son’s question. “You’re gifted in a way that’s very unusual for someone your age—or any age,” he tells Calla.

  “But . . . I feel like everyone around here is gifted. I mean, it’s Lily Dale.”

  “Not this powerfully gifted. And not all of them.” At last, he flicks a glance in Blue’s direction, and it’s almost disdainful.

  Calla expects David to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just looks at her again, so intently that she feels as though he can see right into her soul.

  “Dad, can you . . . ?” Blue gestures impatiently toward the doorway.

  “Get out of here and leave you two alone?” David Slayton’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

  Carrying his mug, he crosses the threshold, then turns back. “Be careful, okay?”

  “Careful with what?” Blue looks exasperated.

  “Not you.” David Slayton looks directly into Calla’s eyes, and repeats, “Be careful.”

  Her heart pounds. “Me?” she asks stupidly.

  “Yes. Spirit is warning you.”

  “But, why? What’s going to happen?”

  He hesitates. “It’s not that something is ‘going to’ happen. Just know that you may find yourself in a dangerous situation.”

  “Does it have anything to do with . . . that shadow ghost?” she asks nervously, noticing that it seems to have disappeared again.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Don’t let those bother you.” He waves it away like it’s a pesky mosquito. “Shadow ghosts buzz around the room being distracting, annoying, maybe . . . nothing more.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are we ever sure about anything, really?” he asks with an enigmatic half smile. “Just do keep your wits about you, my dear.”

  With that, he leaves the room.

  “Cripes.” Blue lays his own hand over Calla’s trembling one, brushing against the emerald bracelet. “Don’t let him bother you, okay?”

  He’s making a big effort to blow off what just happened, but Calla can tell he’s rattled, too.

  “It’s not that I’m letting him bother me, Blue, but he warned me.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says flatly. “He likes to be dramatic. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “But it might. He’s not the—”

  She breaks off.

  Blue’s father isn’t the only one who’s warned her, but she doesn’t want to bring up Jacy right now.

  “Would you mind . . . can you just take me home?” she asks Blue instead.

  “Leave it to my father to be a total buzz kill,” he says with a good-natured sigh, but reaches for his crutches. “Sure. Come on. I’ve got an early doctor’s appointment tomorrow, anyway, before school.”

  They make the quick drive to the Dale in silence. Now isn’t the time for Calla to address the future of their relationship, or nonrelationship.

  Calla is glad to see that her grandmother’s home; the flickering blue light from the television is spilling out into the night from the living-room window.

  Blue leaves the motor running as he walks her up the steps. “Listen, I’ll be pretty busy this week tomorrow and Friday, so we might not have much of a chance to talk until you’re back from your trip, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, okay.” Is he blowing her off?

  Maybe. Because when he kisses her good night, it’s just a quick peck on the cheek. Nothing like last time.

  Problem solved. It seems like Blue, too, wants to be just friends. And she didn’t even have to address the subject. She can’t help but wonder whether he’s read her mind. Everyone says he’s a powerful psychic, just like his dad—not that Calla has seen any evidence of that until now.

  Maybe he just took his cue from her. It’s not like she acted the least bit romantic toward him. Or maybe he heard about her and Jacy. Or maybe he really is a player like everyone says, and he’s simply moved on.

  Whatever, she’s totally fine with his losing interest in her. Or so she tells herself, trying hard not to feel the tiniest hint of wistfulness. For some reason, it isn’t as easy as it should be.

  “Thanks for tonight,” she tells him as he heads down the steps.

  “No problem. See you.” Backing down the walk, he gives her a two-fingered salute. Then he climbs into his car and is gone.

  Calla locks the door behind her, sliding the deadbolt—a new habit. Until last week, Odelia never even bothered to lock the door.

  Her grandmother is in her usual chair in front of the television. Surprisingly, she’s actually awake for a change, and sets aside her knitting the moment Calla enters the room.

  “There you are!” she exclaims as if Calla’s late.

  Which she isn’t, since Odelia doesn’t give her a curfew.

  “How was the movie?”

  “It was okay.” She debates mentioning that she finally met the enigmatic David Slayton but decides against it. Not only because Odelia isn’t crazy about the man, but also because she doesn’t seem all that interested in the details of Calla’s evening.

  “What?” she asks Odelia.

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “Something’s up, Gammy. I can tell by the look on your face.”

  Odelia wags an index finger at her. “Good. Very good.

  Something is up.”

  “What happened?” Calla wonders if she should be worried despite her instincts telling her not to be.

  “You remember Betty Owens and the stock certificates?”

  Calla nods. Uh-oh after all.

  “I didn’t want to say anything to you until I had something specific to report, but . . . I went to see her the other day.”

  “Did you tell her about me?”

  “No. I told her I was a medium and that I wanted to help her find her lousy crook of an estranged husband. I told her he had come to Lily Dale looking for a psychic who could help him track down those hidden certificates in her house.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Well, at first she assumed I was a crackpot—imagine that.”

  Odelia offers a wry smile and eyeroll, and Calla can’t help but grin. “But then she must have figured she had nothing to lose. I asked her to let me hold a shirt he’d left behind when he took off, and I did some meditating, and long story short, I figured out where he was.”

  “Where?”

  “Mexico. I even got the right airport he’d flown into, and that he was staying in a pink stucco hotel near the beach. How do I know it was the right place, you’re wondering?”

  Calla nods, holding her breath.

  “Because they found him there this afternoon and arrested him. With the stock certificates.”

  Calla throws her arms around her grandmother. “Oh, Gammy . . . you’re amazing.”

  Odelia pats her wiry red hair and bats her eyes. “I am pretty amazing, aren’t I? The police agree. Of course, when I first called that viewer hotline to tell them where to look for Henry Owens in Mexico, they thought I was a crackpot, too.”

  She laughs. “I can’t believe you got all of that by holding his shirt.”

  “It’s called psychometry. Basically, you make physical contact with something that belonged to someone, and you get psychic impressions. Patsy will cover it in your class, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Anyway, I first picked up on a Mexico connection when I tried to read Henry Owens that day he came here, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I wasn’t getting any dead wife—or even the sense that he was widowed—but I did keep seeing a margarita glass.”

  “Margaritas . . . Mexico.” Calla grins. “Psychic shorthand, right?”

  “Right. Only I didn’t get the connection. When my guides show me a martini glass it usually symbolizes a drinking problem, so when I saw the margarita glass I figured maybe Spirit was changing it up a little. I k
ept asking him if he had problems with alcohol, and he kept insisting he didn’t. I figured he was just in denial. I should have just told him I was seeing that glass. See? I’m still learning even at my age.”

  “Yeah, but if you had told him you were seeing a margarita glass, he would have figured you knew he was planning to go to Mexico, and he probably would have changed his plans.”

  “I like to think I’d have found him, anyway. I just wish I had listened to my instinct that there was something off about him. And usually, when someone has a physical ailment, I feel it. He was trying to pass himself off as a feeble old man, with that cane, and I should have realized it wasn’t ringing true.”

  “Yeah, but he was pretty convincing.” Calla shakes her head, remembering how stunned she was when he shed the cane and ran out of the diner.

  “It looks like he’s made a career out of fooling people. From what the police told me, Betty isn’t the first lonely widow he’s conned. But all’s well that ends well. That’s what matters. Betty’s going to be fine, and that con man is going to jail.”

  “You’re like a superhero, Gammy.”

  “Maybe I should start wearing a cape.”

  “Um, no.”

  Her grandmother laughs, then kisses her on the cheek.

  “It’s late. Go get some sleep. Your worries are over.”

  If only, Calla thinks wistfully as she goes upstairs to her room and checks under the bed and in the closet.

  NINETEEN

  Thursday, October 4

  11:34 a.m.

  On her way to social studies after third period, Calla rounds a corner and finds herself face-to-face with Evangeline.

  For the first time since their Sunday-morning falling out, it’s impossible for them not to acknowledge each other.

  Or is it?

  Evangeline quickly breaks eye contact and starts to move around her.

  All right, this is ridiculous.

  “Evangeline!” Calla grabs her arm. “Come on. Don’t be this way.”

  She expects her friend’s hazel eyes to flash with anger but sees only unhappiness.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Calla blurts. “Really.”

  Evangeline shrugs. “Okay.”

  “Okay? What do you mean?”

  “I mean okay.”

  Just okay. Not I forgive you.

  Calla repeats, “I’m sorry. Really.”

  “I’m sure I’ll get over Jacy,” Evangeline tells her stoically. But she doesn’t look sure. Not at all. In fact, she looks as though she’s about to cry.

  “Why don’t we hang out later, after school?” Calla suggests, wanting to hug her, but sensing that Evangeline is determined to keep her at arm’s length.

  “Can’t.” She adds, a little less tersely, “I have Crystal Healing class on Thursdays.”

  “How about tomorrow?” Calla asks, then remembers. “Oh, wait. I’m going to Florida tomorrow. Next week, though, when I get back. Okay?”

  Evangeline shrugs, murmurs something Calla can’t hear above the noise in the hall, and they go their separate ways.

  In the classroom, she takes her social studies notebook and text from her backpack. As she sets them on her desk, she hears Maggie, this girl who sits behind her, saying to her friend Gwen, across the aisle, “Oh my God, that is the funniest thing ever!”

  A finger taps Calla on the shoulder. “Hey, Calla, did you hear?”

  “Did I hear what?” she asks, surprised to be drawn into conversation with two of the more popular girls in the senior class.

  “About Jill and Donald.”

  “Jill who?” Calla asks, pretty sure who Donald is. There’s only one in school, as far as she knows.

  “Jill Eggerton.”

  Oops, there must be more than one Donald after all, because there’s no way a gorgeous brunette like Jill Eggerton would be connected in any possible way to Donald Reamer.

  “Donald who?”

  “Reamer!” Maggie exclaims as the bell rings, signifying the start of class. “What other Donald is there?”

  “But—”

  “All right, everyone in your seats, let’s get busy,” the teacher, Mrs. Atwell, calls as she shuts the door to the hall, then strides across the room.

  “Jill challenged him to a chess game at lunch today. And he totally said yes!” Gwen tells Calla, lowering her voice.

  “Like Jill even knows how to play chess,” Maggie puts in, grinning.

  “So, what’s the point?” Calla asks uneasily.

  “This morning she got him to give her that clunky old chessboard he’s always lugging around. She told him she’ll set it up since she gets to the cafeteria way before he does—you know how slow he is, lumbering around like a big old hippo.”

  That’s it. Calla’s had enough. She opens her mouth to protest, but Mrs. Atwell is rapping sharply on her desk.

  “People! Quiet down! We have a lot to cover today!”

  “Here’s the punchline—Jill’s going to superglue all the chess pieces to the board!” Gwen hisses as Calla obediently turns toward the front of the classroom. “Is that the best, or what?”

  “Do you love it? Isn’t it hysterical?” Maggie whispers gleefully.

  Hysterical?

  It’s a sick joke, that’s what it is. Literally. Calla feels nauseous. Class begins and she does her best to take notes on the identifying characteristics of a mixed capitalist economy, but it’s impossible to focus.

  Poor Donald.

  She can’t let these cruel kids ruin the chessboard his father made for him.

  When the bell rings at last, Calla bolts from her seat without a backward glance at Maggie and Gwen.

  She races to the cafeteria, looking around for Jill Eggerton. She has to stop her.

  The place is still almost deserted and Calla spots her immediately, across the room. She’s crying, clutching her head. A couple of her friends and a lunch room monitor are gathered around her.

  Calla spots Donald’s chessboard on a table next to them, but the pieces are still in the box beside it.

  Thank goodness.

  As Calla goes through the line to buy an apple she doesn’t feel like eating, she keeps a curious eye on the growing commotion surrounding Jill.

  By the time she makes her way to her usual table with Willow and Sarita, she sees that Mrs. Musso, the school nurse, has arrived. She’s got her arm around Jill, who’s still clutching her head and sobbing hysterically.

  “What the heck happened over there?” Calla asks her friends.

  “I don’t know . . . it looks like Jill hurt her head or something,” observes Sarita, a gorgeous, sophisticated Halle Berry clone until she reveals a mouthful of braces. “She just keeps holding it and screaming like she’s in pain.”

  Calla sees the chessboard still on the table and looks around to see if Donald’s here yet. There’s no sign of him.

  No sign of Jacy, either, another quick glance reveals. She hasn’t seen him all morning.

  And she’s definitely been looking. He must be cutting again.

  Blue is here, though, a few tables away, eating his usual double lunch with his soccer friends. His crutches propped against the table and his leg outstretched, injured foot resting on a chair. He catches Calla’s eye and gives a little wave, and she waves back.

  She’s not disappointed when he goes right back to his friends and his food.

  Blue’s a good guy.

  He’s just not Jacy.

  Again, she looks for him.

  Nope.

  Where are you, Jacy? I miss you. I need you.

  Glancing back over at the flurry of activity around Jill, Calla spots a familiar rotund figure hovering near the forgotten chessboard.

  Donald Reamer’s father.

  He’s watching Jill, Calla realizes, and wearing an almost smug expression.

  “Hey, looks like Mrs. Musso’s getting Jill out of here,” Willow observes, and Calla sees the nurse leading an inconsolable Jill, whose hands are still g
rasping her skull, toward the cafeteria exit.

  Now that she’s gone, the crowd begins to disperse.

  “So what time do you want to come over tonight to work on math, Calla?” Willow asks, unscrewing the top on a bottle of water.

  “The earlier the better. I have to pack for my trip to Florida.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Right from school tomorrow.”

  “Lucky you . . . you get to see the sun and go to the beach,”

  Sarita comments, and of course Calla doesn’t correct her.

  She’s letting her friends think this weekend is a pleasure trip, just as she’s letting them think that she and Jacy were at the homecoming dance for a short time, but missed seeing them. That’s what Willow guessed, and Calla didn’t tell her she was wrong.

  “Oh my God, you guys, did you hear what happened?” Pam Moraco materializes at their table.

  “What?” the three of them ask in unison.

  “Jill Eggerton was fooling around with this tube of super-glue, and she accidentally glued her hands to her head! It was like this freak thing. And now she can’t move without tearing out huge hunks of hair. It’s horrific!”

  Calla turns to look over at Donald’s father again, and a slow smile spreads across her face.

  Donald is there, too, now, picking up the abandoned chessboard and looking around, for Jill, probably.

  Calla pushes back her chair.

  “Where are you going?” Willow asks.

  “I’ll be back.”

  Pam has already moved on to spread the news about Jill to the next table.

  Calla sidesteps her and goes straight over to Donald, her grandmother’s words echoing in her head.

  “You have a big heart. I know you want to help people. And you can.You can do a lot of good in this world using your gift. ”

  “Hey, Donald.”

  He looks up. “Hi.”

  “I’m Calla.”

  He just nods.

  The older man beside him is watching her warily.

  “Listen . . . this is going to sound crazy, but I just want to tell you something. I live in the Dale, and my grandmother’s a medium and . . . well, so am I.”

  No reaction from Donald, but that’s not surprising. A lot of the kids in this school can make that claim. No one thinks anything of it.