“And thanks for coming in, Ms. Harwood.” He dropped his eyes.
His voice had gone formal, pleasant, abstracted, a busy administrator politely dismissing an appointment and moving on to the next line on his calendar, ready to move on to whatever he had next on his plate.
He seemed to be looking at his iPad. His palm was resting on his baseball.
Chapter 20
Among the biggest of the veritable confetti storm of surprises lately was the fact that Jan Pennington seemed to have stuck to her word about keeping the news of Jasper Townes on the down-low. If she hadn’t, the entire town would be showing up at Eden’s Garden with questions like “I read he has a pierced willy. Does he?” and variations thereof. (His willy was unadorned back then. She couldn’t speak for his willy decorations now, and didn’t anticipate being able to do that any time in the future, either.)
But the final event of Hellcat Canyon Elementary’s fund-raising month—the raffle, during which they usually netted the kinds of amounts that would help them replace old banks of lockers, for instance, or paint a few classrooms—was this weekend.
Annelise was so beside herself with the prospect of her dad Jasper showing up and bringing a guitar to raffle off that she enacted the event with her Barbies. Scrotal Ken played the part of Jasper; she’d created a wig for him out of the hair she’d scraped from her own hairbrush. She’d constructed a little guitar and a stage, complete with a curtain. Chrissie played the role of Annelise.
And Eden didn’t know if this was about the Caitlynn rivalry, or finally having a dad, or having a particularly glamorous dad. Or whether the raffle fever had taken on a life of its own and was a fever for the sake of being worked up about something. Annelise loved a little drama.
“He might be so busy, Annelise, or in the middle of something that makes it hard for him to get here.” Eden suggested this lightly. “We can still enjoy the raffle if that happens, though. They’re going to have a DJ and we can dance!”
“He won’t forget, Mom! He wants to do better than Caitlynn’s mom, too! You heard what he said.”
Leesy was socertain. She was accustomed to adults who had whiteboard calendars and muscular senses of responsibility, adults who would practically prefer to die rather than disappoint her. She wasn’t a spoiled kid, but she trusted the world because grown-ups kept their word and kept her safe.
So no matter what Eden had already told her, she still couldn’t conceptualize an adult who didn’t quite act like one.
And Eden was left to wonder if perhaps she had done her daughter a disservice by making sure her life ran along a mostly smooth track, or by introducing the wild card of Jasper Townes into it.
All Eden knew was that if Jasper flaked, she would have to be the one to see Annelise’s baffled, devastated face. The one who would have to teach Leesy how to accommodate shredded pride and a broken heart. Even as her own heart was still reeling from the battering she’d endured—or subjected it to—thanks to Gabe.
She kept replaying in her mind the advice he’d given Caitlynn Pennington: about how being afraid could lead to lashing out. Had it really been a coded message to her? Her heart lurched at the idea of Gabe being afraid. Once or twice she’d seized her phone intending to text him, but then her nerve had failed. What would she say? What wouldhesay? Gabe was his father’s son. He saw things in black and white, too.
She’d texted Jasper, though. Just once.
Because, so help her, this was a test, too. She reminded him of the date of the raffle once, but she could and would not be the person who nagged him like a mother.
And as of the morning of the raffle, she hadn’t heard back from him.
But even if Jan hadn’t added her two drops to the little river of gossip that flowed through Hellcat Canyon, it was the buzz in the hallways of school: that Annelise Harwood had a big surprise in store for the raffle. Theories ranged from a full-fledged concert by Blue Room with Annelise and Beyoncé singing backup and free guitars as party favors for everyone, to the notion that Annelise Harwood was making stuff up just to get attention.
Annelise didn’t necessarilyobjectto attention.
Shehatedbeing suspected of making stuff up just to make stuff up.
“When they bug you, Annelise, just smile like this...” Eden demonstrated a Cheshire cat smile. “...and say, ‘you’llsee.’”
Annelise grimaced. “You’llsee. Like that?”
Eden crossed her eyes and wrinkled her nose. “Like this.You’llsee.”
They stood in front of the bathroom mirror and practiced, and pretty soon wound up cracking up over it.
Gabe was worried, too.
He wasn’t cursed with an overactive imagination—imaginations were often instruments of torture, as far as he was concerned. But no matter how he looked at it, both eventualities—Jasper Townes showing up as a dazzling hero and star of the raffle, and a hero in Annelise’s and therefore Eden’s eyes, or Jasper Townes bailing entirely—the evening would be well nigh unbearable.
The night of the raffle...
Eden was right, Gabe thought. Jan really did deserve a parade for all she accomplished. Damn her and bless her.
The auditorium was a festival of blue and gold streamers and balloons, and little round tables—draped in white tablecloths and dotted with miniature bouquets of geraniums courtesy of Eden’s Garden—were arranged in clusters around a dance floor created just for the occasion. Every seat was filled, and everyone, judging from all the laughter, was having a wonderful time.