She trailed off at the sight of Mrs. Maker, breathing hard, bolting down the aisle with her skirt hiked a little to free her knees for running, her tethered glasses bouncing on her magnificent bosom. She bound like a gazelle up the little flight of stairs to the stage, a veritable advertisement for Hush Puppy pumps.
She tugged Mrs. Clapper’s arm, and Mrs. Clapper’s torso bent sideways so Mrs. Maker could whisper in her ear.
Then she handed the bemused but unruffled Mrs. Clapper a note card.
She frowned down at it, then pushed her reading glasses up higher on her face. And her face lit like a lamp as she read, “‘...from Annelise Harwood, a baseball signed by none other than Joe DiMaggio! Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio! The Yankee Clipper himself!’” She gave a little hop as she announced this. “Woo-hoo, that’s a humdinger of a prize!”
A collective gasp seemed to rustle the streamers.
Eden’s hands went up to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she murmured, her eyes burning.
Gabe might have just handed over his heart to be raffled.
(“He can’t justhandover his heart, Eden. For God’s sake.”—Dr. Jude Harwood.)
The auditorium echoed with delighted WOOOOOOOOOs and thunderous applause. Maybe that prize wasn’t what everyone had expected, but who the hell cared? It was a Joe DiMaggio baseball!
“That thing is worth atleasta thousand bucks,” a guy near Eden marveled over the sound of the crowd. “I want it!”
“You can buy five tickets,” his wife said sternly but lovingly. “Only five.”
“Awwww,” he said sadly.
Grins and thumbs-ups were aimed at Eden and Annelise.
Eden looked up and caught Jan Pennington’s eyes on her. Her expression was kind of hard to read. She didn’t appear to be gloating, however. Eden was pretty sure she’d be able to spot a gloat from across the auditorium.
She tried to smile.
But she found herself turning to curl her arm around Annelise again. She tucked her head against hers and briefly buried her face in Leesy’s hair, buying a moment alone with her joy. It was too overwhelming and too personal; she was not prepared for the whole auditorium to see the contents of her heart writ large on her face.
Gabe had done it because he was, indeed, his father’s son. And what else had he said about his dad? “When he loved something it was for keeps. Hell or high water.” An argument could be made that Jasper Townes was certainly both.
And Gabe had saved Jasper’s ass for her sake and for Annelise’s.
Eden saw Gabe nowhere in the crowd. She hadn’t seen him all night.
Annelise’s smile was uncertain, but the applause—damned if no matter what, she was her father’s child, too—was making her smile. She waved, graciously.
Which almost made Eden laugh.
“I don’t get it, Mama. Did my dad Jasper send a baseball instead of a guitar? And people like it?”
The truth was deceptively simple, but it had infinite strata. Now was not the time to attempt to explain strata. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to lie to Annelise about something sacred.
All she said was, “Yes, people love it, honey.”
“And the baseball is good, right?” Annelise heard the roars of approval.
Still, it wouldn’t be official until her mom—the person she trusted more than any other person in the world—confirmed it.
“It’swonderful, honey. It’s the best thing here, truly! People are going to want it, and you’ll make a lot of money for the school and everyone will be so happy and proud and grateful to you, because it’s because of you. The baseball is the kind of thing that people will cher...” She swallowed. Drew in a breath. “...cherish their whole lives.”
“Yay!” Annelise brightened, her world restored to rightness. But her light dimmed a little when she turned to Eden and put a hand on her knee. “But Mama, why are you crying?”
“You silly, I’m notcrying. I just got something in my eye.”
The backstage area of the Glenco Arena was teeming with people coiling cords and pushing big containers this way and that, strolling past each other and saying things like “Great show, man,” and “Hot solo on ‘Old and Fucked Up,’ Townes!”