Eden drew in a long, long breath for courage. And then exhaled.
“Okay, first of all. Forgive me for the sudden drama. It had to be suddenly. I have something to tell you. I’m going to say this quickly, before Skype locks up. Annelise’s father is Jasper Townes. From Blue Room and Black & Blue.”
This was greeted by resounding silence.
She scanned their faces. They might as well have been mannequins. Not a dropped jaw among them. Not a twitched finger.
Nobody moved a hair.
And then there was a little sound. Like a breeze rustling the leaves.
She realized, after a moment, that it was the sound of pockets expanding as hands plunged into them, and butts brushing across upholstery. Fabric swishing as everyone moved, subtly and at once, to dig through their wallets, retrieve cash...
... and hand it to Avalon.
Eden glowered at her family. “What the—did you guys have some kind ofpool?”
“No, we just thought we’d order takeout,” Jude said innocently. “What do you want? Mushu?”
“You had a pool!” she accused vehemently.
Guilty silence.
Limpid stares.
“Yes,” Avalon said gravely. Resignedly. “We had a pool.”
She goggled at them, livid with indignation. “But—you—I—”
“Honey,” her mom said gently. “It wasn’t as though there weren’t clues. Avalon arrived at the logical conclusion by doing the Eden calculus.”
“TheEdencalculus?” Her voice climbed into a squeaky register. “You got a C in calculus, Avalon! You never freaking studied!”
“Hey!” Avalon sounded wounded. But unsurprised.
“Well, thenameof the formula was my idea,” Jude said modestly. “And I got an A in calc—”
“YES, WE KNOW, JUDE,” everyone said at once, even Jesse, from his screen.
“So what was in this formula?” she said more evenly. Still, her jaw was pretty taut.
Avalon began ticking it off on her fingers. “Annelise is ten years old. Jasper Townes was last in Hellcat Canyon ten years ago. You were at that show, and at least one person remembers you having what looked like a long, soulful conversation with him, your heads very close together across one of the tables. Annelise is a music nut. She’s always making up songs. She took to the guitar like a fish to water.”
“And she looks like him, honey,” her mom said gently. “Maybe in as many ways as she looks like you. Subtle ones. And then when we watched them together at sound check the other day... well, we know you like we know our own hearts, Eden, and we know Leesy, too, and it was, I have to tell you... eerie.”
Her father didn’t ring in on this assessment. His expression was interesting. Rather abstracted.
Rather, in fact, thunderously absorbed.
“You can send me your cash later, Jess,” Avalon said.
The Skype image of Jesse had frozen on an image of him with his mouth wide open, so it was difficult to know if he was shocked or laughing uproariously. Eden was deeply envious. He was far, far away. He wasn’t sitting inthisroom havingthisconversation.
“It was also pretty clear Jasper had no clue about Annelise,” her mom continued. “Does he know now? Is that why you’re telling us?”
“He came into my shop. He figured it out, believe it or not. He’s not stupid. We talked about it. We decided to tell her.”
For some reason she was feeling like defending him a little, if only so they wouldn’t think she’d slept with a total idiot.