Chapter 1
“It’s about aprostitute,Gabe.”
Jan Pennington flung her handbag on the floor of his office, whipped off her bright yellow sweater and draped it over the chair with the flourish of a magician with a cape, then sank with such a chummy flop into one of the chairs opposite him that it scooted back on its wheels.
Gabe Caldera wasn’t the least surprised that Jan was the first person ever to say “prostitute” in the principal’s office of Hellcat Canyon Elementary. He’d come to know her as many things, among them a truffle pig (when it came to rooting out controversy), a whetstone (for his patience), and, as president of the PTA, an undeniable asset to the school. Patton had never enjoyed his power more than Jan did.
The sweater fling, the chummy chair flop, the “Gabe” rather than “Mr. Caldera”—most days all the little strategies parents employed to assert dominance and declare territory amused him, even aroused his sympathy. He understood all of it was an attempt to corral life’s uncertainty into some sort of manageable form. But every now and then he wanted to seize them by the shoulders and shake them and tell them all to lighten up, for fuck’s sake, and just enjoy each moment. Every human was dealt a finite amount of them.
He knew the woman already occupying the other chair across from him only in terms of moments, all of them indelible for no rational reason: the time after a soccer game when he’d seen her walking with her ten-year-old daughter, Annelise, back to the parking lot, and they’d suddenly erupted into a goofy dance, complete with hip bumps and disco twirls; the time he’d seen her slip into his secretary, Mrs. Maker’s, office and slip right out again, stealthy as a doe, her face alight with secret pleasure. He’d gone in and discovered she’d left a vase of fluffy geraniums and a birthday card.
And then there was that time she’d brought her daughter’s forgotten lunch to school and she’d paused by the benches outside the cafeteria, watching a blue jay and a squirrel squabble over a stray french fry. He stood beside her in silence until the squirrel finally absconded with the fry, the thwarted, enraged jay squawking and strafing it all the way across the blacktop.
“I was rooting for the blue jay,” she’d said to him, turning on him a smile of such dazzling, wry warmth he could swear it permanently changed his body chemistry. And then she’d pivoted and sailed off again, all slim quickness, red hair tossed and fluffed in the breeze, the ubiquitous giant handbag characteristic of moms everywhere thumping merrily off her hip.
She made him restless in a very primal way. As if his skin felt a little too tight. Which was how he suspected a werewolf felt during a full moon in the minutes between the time he’d transformed from a naked human into a savage, lustful beast.
In short, he welcomed nearly any controversy that resulted in Eden Harwood sitting across from him now.
“It’s about a prostitute, but it’s a song from the musicalMan of La Mancha, Principal Caldera.” Ms. Harwood’s words had the soothing cadence of a hostage negotiator. But the knuckles curled into the handle of her handbag perched on her knees were bloodless from a death grip. “It’s quite a famous musical. The one featuring that song everybody knows? ‘The Impossible Dream’? Annelise heard the soundtrack at my mother’s house and fell in love with it.”
Speaking of impossible dreams, Gabe’s was for Eden to reallyseehim, not just part of her busy life’s scenery, like the parking lot or a tree, but as everyone else did, which was—how had his friend Mac Coltrane put it?—a “conspicuous bastard” who was usually “knee-deep in fawning PTA moms.”
He was pretty sure Eden’s spine wasn’t quite touching the back of the chair. Her posture in fact suggested a runner prepared to bolt at the sound of a starting gun. Her pale pink sweater was exactly the color of her lips. They both looked distractingly soft.
“It’s still a song about aprostitute, Gabe.” Jan’s big dark eyes glowed with injured self-righteousness. Her foot began a sort of spasmodic pendulum swing, and light bounced from the polished toes of her pumps. Ironically, given today’s complaint, her perfume was making his office smell like a bordello.
“As it so happens, I’m familiar with the song. It’s called ‘It’s All the Same,’” he said idly. Finally. The first words he’d said to either of them.
Eden’s eyebrows shot upward.
This seemed to give even Jan pause.
“A navy SEALanda musical theater aficionado,” she purred finally. “You are a true Renaissance man.”
“Ex–navy SEAL,” he amended modestly. “And I’m hardly an aficionado. You... pick up a thing or two by osmosis.” He waved a hand, as if the air was simply full of songs one could intercept if only one had the right antenna.
Gabe had in fact reluctantly absorbed every word to every song inOklahomaandRentas well as a few others thanks to a long-ago musical theater–major roommate. The one about the surrey with the fringe on top was his secret go-to shower jam. That, and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”
“Anyway,” Jan pressed on, “imagine my shock, Gabe, when I was in class on my parent volunteer day and heardmydaughter Caitlynn singing that song about a prostitute with her friends! In front of the class! I’m sure you’ll agree they’re all much too young to sing a song so... so... so...”
She fanned her fingers in mute outrage.
“...sexually cavalier?” Eden supplied evenly.
That was definitely the first time anyone had saidthosewords in the office.
The occasion was marked by stunned silence, total except for the faint clunk of the second hand moving three places around the old wall clock.
“Rawly despairing, with just enough hope to be heartbreaking, depending upon who’s singing it?” Eden continued conversationally. “Impactful, without being the least explicit? Unforgettably catchy?”
The kinds of things Eden Harwood said out loud made Gabe yearn to know all the things she didn’t say out loud.
“Inappropriatewas the word I was looking for.” Jan, who’d been watching Eden in unblinking astonishment for a wordless moment, sounded a little parched.
“Okay, so if I understand the issue correctly, Jan, Ms. Harwood,” Gabe interjected pleasantly, “Ms. Harwood, your daughter Annelise learned a song from the famous musicalMan of La Mancha, a song that on the surface seems rather racy, but isn’t explicit. A sad and compelling song sung from the point of view of a prostitute, but one that could indeed seem startling when delivered by a ten-year-old. And during recess one day, she taught the song to all of her friends, including Caitlynn, whereupon they decided to sing it in an impromptu talent show rehearsal in front of the whole class, with the goal of singing it in front of the entire school for the talent show. And you are alarmed by this turn of events.”
He found every bit of this—everybit of this—really, hysterically funny.