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“What made you think it?” Maya asked.
“Something in his eyes…and in yours. Plus I pulled a tarot card from my deck when I first noticed the sparks between you two. The Lovers.”
“You know I don’t approve of those cards, Selene,” Vidalia said.
“Not now, Mom, please. Come on, it’s Christmas.”
Vidalia looked sideways at her, and her frown eased. She smiled and began to hum a carol, and in a few bars she began to sing the words, and they all joined in. At some point Caleb and Mel reappeared, and Mel slung an arm around Caleb’s shoulders, dragged him to the tree and linked with the others. They both joined in the singing.
The timer bell from the oven pinged, and Vidalia stepped out of the arms of her children, dabbed at her eyes, and turned to hurry into the kitchen, muttering, “Lord, it’s almost perfect.”
When she was out of sight, Caleb sent Maya a questioning glance. “Almost?” he asked.
She nodded. “There’s one more of us,” she said. “I told you about her before, didn’t I? Edie. Mom misses her most around the holidays.”
“We all do,” Selene said, eyelids lowered.
“She doesn’t come home for Christmas?” Caleb asked.
Maya shook her head. “She and Mom aren’t on…the best of terms.”
“Not even speaking, you mean,” Mel filled in.
They had broken ranks and were drifting toward chairs, the sofa. Kara bent to paw through a box of ornaments Vidalia had brought down from the attic.
“But why?” Caleb asked.
Maya had settled into the corner of the sofa, and she noticed that he didn’t hesitate to take the spot beside her. Awfully sure of himself, wasn’t he?
Mel said, “Edie ran off to the West Coast with stars in her eyes, Caleb. But when she got there, she found a thousand other girls just as pretty and just as bright with the same dreams. Her biggest break to date was landing a gig as a model for Vanessa’s Whisper.”
His eyes widened just a bit. “Vanessa’s Whisper?” he asked. And when Mel nodded, he said, “Wow, I had no idea. Maya told me she modeled lingerie, but I didn’t realize she wasthatfamous. Why didn’t anyone say anything sooner?”
Maya blinked at him. “You think we go around advertising it?”
“Hell, if it was my sister I’d erect a monument in the middle of town to her success.”
“Success, Caleb? My sister poses in her underwear. And the closest thing to a monument to her in this town is Wade Armstrong’s body shop, where my sister’s photos, clipped from the pages of the catalogue, are the basic wallpaper pattern.”
Caleb’s brows came together. “Vanessa’s Whisper is big time, Maya. Your sister had to have competed against hundreds of models to land a contract with them. Do you know how many actresses got their starts as models? This is a big deal.”
“That’s what I keep trying to tell them,” Selene said. “Edie’s gorgeous, and the beauty of the female form is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Nor is it something to spread naked on the walls of body shops for dirty minded men to drool over,” Maya said primly.
“She doesn’t pose nude, Maya, and you know it,” Mel put in.
Kara looked up. “I don’t care what she does. I think you and Mom have been too hard on her, and I just want her to come home.”
Maya lifted her brows in disbelief, then slid a glance toward Caleb. “And you agree with her?”
“Well…yeah, frankly, I do. I think you ought to be congratulating your sister, not condemning her.”
Maya thinned her lips. “And how would you feel if it was your daughter posing in an eye patch and a rubber band, airbrushed, glossed over and sent to thousands of pairs of horny eyes all over the country?”
He blinked, and she knew she had nailed him on that score. “I…hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
