“Mmm . . . maybe I was born that way? But sometimes I think it’s because every family is dealt a sort of quotient of emotions to be distributed among the members, you know, like cell phone plans dole out minutes. My sister Avalon was always so very heart-on-her-sleeve, playing St. Francis to all these animals and I . . . I kept mine under wraps because I thought everyone would be surprised by how . . . powerfully . . . I felt things. I think pride was sort of wrapped up in it, too. And then I kind of liked being hard to read. I have never said that to anyone in my life. Certainly not in a drive-by situation.”
Her cheeks were warm. It was something of a warning. To tread delicately. Saying these things out loud made her feel a little raw.
“It must be the persuasive authority of my uniform.” He gestured to the neon vest. “But thank you for being honest.”
“Natch,” she said.
That made him grin.
“It’s why I have only one cat, by the way,” she added.
“How’s that again?”
“Because I feel like I can love him really well and really personally, rather than being profligate with my affections.”
That was a warning.
And a reassurance.
And an explanation.
Gabe’s head went back a little. Came down in a little nod of comprehension. As if filing this away, adding it to his impressions of her.
“You know, I once put my hand against the smooth wall of this locked room and discovered it was hot,” he said casually after a moment. “Turns out it was because the room was on fire.”
“Mmm. Boy, that is one subtle metaphor, Mr. Caldera. Do you race into burning rooms, or away from them?”
“What do you think?”
“I think it depends . . . on who might be in there.”
Their eyes met again.
And in the quiet, the opening crystalline notes of Blue Room’s “Lily Anne” chimed from the car radio.
Eden reflexively slapped the radio off like it was an insect needing killing.
She left her hand there, as if covering it would prevent the song from escaping. Her heart was pounding.
“Hey,” Gabe said, startled. “Wasn’t that—”
He pivoted as a big Chevy Suburban pulled into the parking lot, screeched to a halt behind Eden. The mom whipped out some knitting. Moms everywhere, stealing minutes here and there for something other than momming.
Eden glanced at the clock on her dash. Two minutes and counting.
“Are you more like your mom or dad?” she said in a rush.
“Oh, definitely my dad. Smart guy. Taciturn. He had this very distinct sense of right and wrong. Kinda saw things in black and white, and I think I have a tendency to do that, too. Affectionate in mostly an arm-punch kind of way. Boy, did he love us, though. And once he loved something, anything, it was for keeps, hell or high water. Career army, which was tougher on my mom, but they were rock solid. Had really strong convictions about all kinds of things. I wanted to be like him. And I really wanted to make him proud. But he died when I was sixteen. Bum ticker.”
This recitation was pretty casual, but every word of it practically glowed with affection. Eden just sat for a moment, enjoying the warmth he gave off.
“He’s the one who gave you that baseball on your desk,” she guessed.
His face blanked in astonishment. “How did you . . .”
“You sort of seemed to commune with it the other day when I was in there with Jan Pennington.”
“Commune? Maybe I picked it up, but—”
“Communed,” she said firmly, laughing quietly. “Like you’re checking in with your dad when you give your sage Principal Gabe advice.”
He was clearly nonplussed, which was both funny and touching. This guy had a bone-deep confidence, built like strata in rocks through testing himself again and again.
And she realized the soft places on his inside might be just as enthralling as the hard places on his outside.
“I’m a grown man. I was a freaking lieutenant! I don’t need to commune with my dad to make decisions.”
He still sounded amused, but a little adamant. And just a little bit like he was trying to convince himself of this.
She tipped her head and studied him. “Maybe none of us ever grow out of needing . . .” She faltered, as she realized what she was about to say. “. . . needing a dad.”
Damn.
She bit her lip.
The double doors burst open to the school then, and Carl the janitor locked them into place. In a minute or so, the first kids would begin to trickle out, and then it would become a colorful, frisking tide.
“That’s what I’d rescue from a burning building, by the way. That baseball. What about you? House is on fire, you have two seconds, you grab . . .”
“Let’s see. Well, Annelise isn’t technically a possession . . . because I can’t sell her on eBay, though pre-broccoli-eating days, I’ve been tempted to do that once or twice. And Peace and Love isn’t a possession, he just kind of lets us take care of him . . .”
“Peace and Love is your well-loved cat, right?”
“Mmm-hmm. Daughter, cat. As long as we get out together, we’re good.”
“That’s all you need, huh?”
The question was light. But it fell on her ears a little bit like a test she wasn’t certain she’d crammed for yet.
Crap.
And then all at once she remembered Gabe snatching that kid out of harm’s way, and suddenly she knew the right thing to say. The thing he needed to hear. The thing she wanted him to know.
“If you’re the person standing outside the burning room, we’ll have nothing to worry about. We’ll get out okay.”
He said nothing. Leaned back from the car.
Just looked at her as if maybe seeing her for the first time, and his expression, the sort of amused wonder in it, made her heart skip.
“He’s proud of you, Gabe,” she said suddenly. “Your dad.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a mom now. It confers certain superpowers. So I know.”
He quirked the corner of his mouth.
They both looked at the door of the school.
Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .
Suddenly Gabe said, “So do you consider yourself com—”
FOOSH! An explosion of life and energy as kids began pouring out of the school, and Gabe took a step toward the kids and back from the car, and Eden could already see Annelise, her colty-legged darling, the pink streak in her hair glowing, racing toward them. She popped the locks as Annelise hopped in.
Gabe stepped back from the car to make sure everyone and everything was in his view and safe, and as she pulled away before the moms could start honking at her, she had no doubt that it was.
Chapter 8
Jan Pennington was startled but pleased to get a call from Principal Gabe Caldera two days later, on the day after a substitute was found for Ray the parking monitor.
“Well, certainly, Gabe, we can always use another hand on the carnival decorating committee, if you’d like to stop in, or if you’d just like to see how things are going. We start at around six. We’ll be in the cafeteria for a couple of hours. You can find us there.”
He could just about fit a few minutes of that in if he grabbed a sandwich and ate at his desk. And maybe showed up at tonight’s board meeting at the first break, instead of right when it started.
When he arrived at the cafeteria about a quarter after six, about a dozen women were arrayed around big slabs of poster board and sheets of butcher paper spread out in the middle of the cafeteria floor.
Over in the corner, a few little girls, Annelise Harwood and Caitlynn Pennington among them, were sitting at a lunch table pulled out for the occasion, mounds of backpacks flung about the floor and what looked like a selection of dolls in the middle of the table. Much giggling was going on.
He didn’t know what it said about him that he spotted Eden pretty much immediatel
y, even though he couldn’t see her face: on her hands and knees, butt up in the air, from the looks of things meticulously stenciling a big “F” in metallic gold.
It was worth blowing a hole in his schedule for that charming view alone.
He was a mature adult, but he was a man, and he forgave himself for standing there, kind of mentally measuring each of her cheeks and comparing it to the span of his hands. By his calculations, if he pulled her body into his and slid his palms down to cup it, the fit would be about flawless.
He gave a start when Jan rushed forward to thrust a paintbrush into his hand. “Welcome, Gabe! We can use you on the dunking booth sign. I hope you brought your smock.”
“Oh, I never go anywhere without my smock, Jan,” he said gravely. He patted his jeans pocket. She glanced at his pocket, puzzled. He shouldn’t tease her. Jan clearly took smocks seriously. “I think I’m just going to stroll through and check out what everyone is doing first.”
“Wonderful,” she enthused, then zipped off again, to micromanage someone’s sign painting.
Eden was now sitting back on her heels, critically assessing her handiwork.
When he arrived next to her—he didn’t quite make a beeline, maybe more like a “C” line or an “S” line—she looked up slowly, her eyes traveling along his shins and torso all the way up to his face. The smile that spread all over her face was a little cocky, wildly amused, and—maybe this was wishful thinking, but he didn’t think so—relieved.
Eden was invested.
That was a thrill that rendered him momentarily speechless.
“Your Excellency,” she said by way of greeting.
After they’d spent a moment basking in each other’s presence.
He nodded once. Absurdly, he couldn’t speak yet. Her hair was piled on top of her head, exposing her long neck, and she was wearing a big blue man’s shirt, which immediately made him wonder about, and feel a twinge of jealousy about its provenance.
And also gave him an opportunity to imagine her wearing one of his after a particularly lusty evening.
She rose to her feet slowly. “So do you consider yourself com—”
They both gave a start when seemingly out of nowhere Jan Pennington appeared next to them, practically vibrating like a dart hurled into a bull’s-eye. It was pure indignation.
“Look at this, Gabe. Just look at it!” she hissed.
To his amazement, she shook a doll at him like a voodoo rattle.
“Jan,” he said evenly. “Please don’t shake a doll at me.”
Which was something he’d never thought he’d need to say to anyone, really.
“But look at this.”
She shoved what appeared to be a pantless Ken doll into his hand.
He had no choice but to grasp it.
“Seems this thing belongs to Annelise Harwood,” Jan said. “All those little girls were over there playing with it. LOOK. AT. HIM.”
Gabe fixed Jan with a long, quelling stare. “Jan, we teach our children to use the word ‘please’ in front of any request. Don’t you think we ought to model the behavior?”
“Please,” she said. In an anguish of outrage.
He stifled the mother of all sighs. And then uncurled his palm and peered down at the doll lying in it.
The Ken doll gazed mutely up at them, his brown eyes poignantly blank. His painted-on crew cut was circa late sixties. He was wearing a little striped jacket with wide lapels.
And nothing else.
Between his legs someone had drawn a really explicit, textbook-quality member. Meticulously rendered in ink, it rested atop a plump healthy scrotum, all of which was nestled into hair depicted by generous pen curlicues.
They all stared wordlessly down at him, like CSI detectives gathered around a victim on a slab.
No one moved.
Until—cautiously—Gabe tweezed up Ken’s little striped jacket with his fingers. Why, he didn’t know. Checking for tattoos or scars or other identifying marks? Isn’t that what they did on CSI?
“Nice . . . um, pancreas?” he hazarded finally.
He cautiously lifted his eyes.
Eden’s mouth was trembling like a dam about to burst. Her eyes were turning pink. Could someone expire from holding in a laugh?
“Obviously, it’s not the pancreas I’m concerned about!” Jan hissed.
Annelise skipped over. “Mama, what’s wrong? Am I in trouble? I was changing Ken into his shorts!”
“You’re not in trouble, sweetie. It seems Mrs. Pennington is a little startled by the illustrations on your Ken doll here.” Eden sounded a trifle strangled.
“But it’s only a penis, Mom, right? Nothing to get worked up about? Isn’t that what you said?” Annelise’s hands clasped worriedly.
Gabe slowly levered his head to stare at Eden.
The laugh he couldn’t release filled him like helium. It was almost an out-of-body experience. He could practically feel himself hovering somewhere around the cafeteria ceiling.
But Eden was looking at Annelise, who was looking up at Eden with innocence and trust and absolute conviction in her mother’s sovereign knowledge and judgment.
“Yes, sweetheart, you’re exactly right. All boys have them, and private parts are private,” she said calmly.
Eden turned to Jan and said, “There’s an anatomically correct heart on there, too, Jan. And about three-quarters of a pancreas. And part of the circulatory system. Did you bother looking under his shirt, too, or were you just determined to see what he had in his pants?”
Damn. High-fiving her was probably inadvisable, though it was all he could do to keep his hand at his side. For some reason, he was still clutching the half-dressed Ken.
Jan’s cheeks flashed red, then white, then red again.
Gabe was a little worried that if Eden and Jan were about to throw down, he wouldn’t stop them.
At least immediately.
“Some would argue that a man’s heart is just as important as his penis,” Eden added. With a certain quiet, grave reproach. “Maybe Caitlynn would benefit from learning that.”
Gabe wasn’t fooled. Eden was furious.
But she’d skillfully rendered Jan absolutely speechless, and surely this ought to rank among superpowers.
And just when he thought she couldn’t get any sexier.
“Mama?” Annelise was still uncertain.
“Annelise, honey, everything’s okay. Mrs. Pennington was just surprised, that’s all, because he doesn’t look like the other Kens. Why don’t you go finish your homework? I’ll bring Ken back to you.”
“Okay,” she said trustingly. Rightness restored to her world by a word from an adult.
She skipped off.
“Jan,” Gabe said patiently, instantly, “the kids have had sex ed classes this quarter. Surely Caitlynn knows boys have different private parts? She has a brother. She’s such a smart, intuitive kid. I know you’re startled, and I sympathize, but maybe you can use it as a teaching moment. About the circulatory system, if nothing else.”
“It’s just that it’s a little wearing to be so consistently startled by Ms. Harwood and her offspring,” Jan said icily.
“Jan, I’m going to confide something to you,” Eden said, all low-voiced, apologetic confidence. That soothing, talking-someone-from-a-ledge voice again. “This Ken is a hand-me-down. He’s a couple of decades old. I couldn’t afford to get new Barbies for Annelise at that time, so she played with the ones we had as a kid. And my brother, Jude? He’s a cardiac surgeon now.” Eden paused to let Jan absorb this, and watched, predictably, as her face transformed. Jan was all about rank and perceived status. “Even back then, Jude was a stickler for accuracy. I screamed bloody murder when my brother did this to my Ken, but I wasn’t really in a position to buy new dolls. And I so wanted her to have some to play with. And you know what that’s like, right? How hard it is to deny your kids anything?”
It was positively masterful.
There was really almost
nothing Jan could say that wouldn’t make her sound like a heartless bitch.
“I understand,” Jan said finally, her voice a little creaky. “I was just, um, surprised, as you said.”
“Naturally,” Eden soothed.
Gabe finally extended the Ken doll to Jan, who took it gingerly. “I’ll just go take this back to Annelise now,” she said almost meekly.
“Thank you,” Eden said magnanimously.
She watched Jan go. And then she drew in a long, long breath and exhaled.
Gabe was regarding her as though she was a miracle.
“Nothing to get worked up over, huh?” he said.
“Well, it all depends, of course.” She said this mildly.
He stood, utterly arrested by the lingering flush of anger in her cheeks and that wicked glint in her eyes.
A half dozen wicked optional responses flitted through his mind: “I bet I can give you something to get worked up about, given a few minutes alone in the supply closet.” Or, “Did you know I rechristened my penis ‘Your Excellency’? I’d be happy to demonstrate why.”
He was pretty certain his eyes got that point across. Because her own went rather dark. And she tucked a stray hair behind her ear.
What he said out loud, though, was, “I think I’m going to have ‘some people think a man’s heart is just as important as his penis’ embroidered on a pillow.”
“Or you could have it engraved on your car’s license plate frame.”
He laughed. A little too loudly, apparently.
Heads swiveled toward them, including Jan’s. He clapped his mouth shut guiltily. Gabe understood that they were here to get the school’s business accomplished, and the school’s business was his business.
So like kids caught passing a note in class, they both dropped to their knees.
“. . . complicated or . . .” Eden prompted. She gestured at the “E.” At the opposite end of the sign, room enough so that they wouldn’t accidentally paint each other.
He dunked his brush in shiny, gloppy gold.
“. . . simple? You can only choose one.”
“Complicated,” Eden said instantly.
The First Time at Firelight Falls Page 9
