Connecting (27 page)

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 grasping 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.

“I’ve been seeing someone around you, kind of . . . watching over you. I think it’s your dad.”

Something flashes in Donald’s gaze behind those thick glasses, but he says nothing.

“It’s an older man, and he looks kind of like you. He’s got nice brown eyes, like you.”

Those eyes, Donald’s father’s eyes, are grateful now, fastened right on her.“Thank you,” he tells Calla. “Tell him that I love him. And I’m always with him.”

“He loves you,” she tells Donald,“and he’s always with you.”

She waits for a burst of emotion from Donald at last, but he’s oddly stoic. “Anyone could say that about anyone who’s passed.”

All those years of pain at the hands of cruel classmates— no wonder he’s unwilling to trust. He probably thinks she’s setting him up. And why wouldn’t he?

“Tell him his mother’s going to love the cutting board.”

Calla shakes her head slightly at the spirit, not understanding. “Just tell him,” Donald’s father says. “He’ll know.”

“Your father says your mother’s going to love the cutting board, Donald.”

He stares at her in silence, but the guarded expression has given way, just slightly, to a hint of emotion.

“Tell him he should give it to her for her birthday, like he was planning to before he decided it wasn’t any good.”

Calla echoes the words from father to son, and at last, Donald seems to grasp what’s happening.

“He’s really here?” he asks, and she nods, and his cagey expression evaporates at last.

“I’ve been fooling around in his workshop a little . . . trying to learn how to use some of his stuff,” Donald tells her. “I made this cutting board for my mom—it’s shaped like an angel, and she, you know, collects angel stuff, so . . . but I didn’t think it was very good.”

“It is good. It’s beautiful. He gets his talent from his old man,” Donald’s father says affectionately.

Calla repeats it with a grin, then realizes his father’s energy is fading.

“He’s going,” she tells Donald. “But I’m sure he’ll be back. I’ve seen him around you before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but . . . I guess I was afraid to butt in.”

“I’m glad you did,” Donald says. “It really helps to know he’s with me.”

“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “I know what it’s like.”

“What do you mean?”

“Losing a parent. Missing them. Feeling like they’re just . . . gone. But your father isn’t, Donald. He watches over you all the time.”

“I’m sure your father does, too.”

“Oh, he’s in California, so . . . but my mom, she’s the one. She . . . died.”

It’s still not easy to say, even after all this time.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. It’s hard.”

“If my father’s around me,” Donald says, “then I’m sure your mother’s around you, too.”

Calla swallows hard, manages a smile—and no tears.

“Hey, do you play chess?”

“No.”

Donald looks disappointed. “Oh.”

“But I’ve been wanting to learn,” she adds quickly, glancing over at the apple and the seat she abandoned near Willow and Sarita. She wasn’t in the mood to eat, or chat, anyway. “Maybe you can teach me.”

“Sure. Sometime.”

“How about now? You just happen to have a set handy, I see.”

“My dad made it for me.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

She smiles, nods.

“So, you want to play?” he asks.

“I’d love to.”

After dinner with her grandmother, Calla walks the few short blocks over to Willow’s to work on her math.

“That was really sweet of you today, playing chess with Donald,” Willow tells her as she leads the way through the small house to the study.

“Yeah, well . . . I felt like he needed a friend.”

“I know. I feel like that a lot.”

Calla touches Willow’s arm. “I hope you know you can talk to me, if you ever want to. I mean, we’re friends, right?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that I feel like I need a friend. I meant I feel like Donald does. But thank you. And, I’ll remember what you said. About being friends.”

They share an awkward smile.

“Want to get busy? I know you’ve got a lot to do to get ready for your trip to Florida tomorrow.”

“Definitely.”

“Let’s work on the floor, okay? The desk is too cluttered and I don’t feel like clearing a spot.”

Calla glances at the desk, which holds a computer and piles upon piles of paper—junk mail, bills, newspapers. Althea York’s housekeeping skills are similar to Odelia’s, and Ramona’s, for that matter.

Calla’s mom was the kind of person who had a place for everything. Piles of stuff would have driven her nuts.

Is that why she left Lily Dale as soon as she was old enough to get out of town? Because she couldn’t handle the clutter?

Ha. More likely, she couldn’t handle the supernatural stuff, considering she never mentioned it at all. Not once.

I just wish I knew more about you, Mom. I thought I did, but
you lived this whole life here with these people for eighteen years that
I knew nothing about.

Calla kneels beside Willow on the rug and they start spreading out their textbooks, notebooks, calculators, and the latest batch of worksheets from Mr. Bombeck.

“Willow?” Althea calls from upstairs, sounding weak.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just . . . can you help me for a second?”

“Be right there,” Willow calls. To Calla, she says, “Wait here—I’ll be right back.”