Daisy forced herself to put on her brightest smile as she approached the woman at the front desk.
“Hi there. I’m looking for Diana Starling. She’s a consultant who’s been working here for the past few months.”
Click click click went the woman’s long, silvery nails. “No one here by that name.”
“She’s a consultant. So maybe she’s not in your directory.”
In a bored voice, the woman said, “Every single person who comes in here has to be in our system. Either they’ve been assigned a permanent ID card, or they have to leave identification at the desk so we can issue a temporary pass. If this woman’s consulting here, she’d have a permanent ID. If she visited, she’d still be in our system. And I don’t have any record of anyone by that name.”
Daisy thanked the woman and walked outside before sitting heavily down on a bench in the courtyard. Her head was churning. If Diana wasn’t really a consultant, if she didn’t really live at 15 Rittenhouse or work at Quaker Pharmaceuticals, who was she? Why was she in Philadelphia? And what did she want with Daisy? There’s something wrong with that woman, she thought, and then pushed the memory of Hal’s voice away.
She walked back toward the park, thinking back to the first misdirected email she’d gotten, and checked her phone, grateful, for once, that she never remembered to delete things. Hal preached the gospel of the empty in-box. Meanwhile, Daisy’s in-box was a morass of coupons and spam and notices from Beatrice’s school that she never got rid of. The first DianaS/Diana.S email she’d gotten had arrived four months ago. Coinciding with… what, exactly? Six months ago was before Beatrice had gotten kicked out of Emlen. Before Hal’s classmate’s suicide, before the cocktail party, before he’d started drinking, and before her brother had started acting, and looking, so strained and drawn and sad. But not too far before. Were any of these things connected?
Daisy thought and got nowhere. Finally, because she couldn’t think of what else to do, she pulled out her phone and called Diana.
“Daisy!” Diana’s voice was warm and pleased, not at all furtive or guilty. “Thank you again for Saturday night. I had a wonderful time, and I’m sorry I had to leave in such a hurry. I’ve been meaning to call you. What’s up?”
“I was in town, running errands, and I thought I’d bring you some leftover chicken.”
There was the tiniest pause. “That’s so nice of you. Unfortunately, I’m a little snowed under right now. Maybe we can—”
“I went to your apartment building,” Daisy said.
The next pause was longer. “Oh,” Diana finally said. Still not furtive, still not guilty. Just calm, and patient. Waiting.
“They told me that 1402 is the model apartment. And that no one’s living there, and no one ever does. And no one at Quaker Pharmaceutical’s ever heard of you.”
She waited for excuses, for an I can explain. When Diana didn’t say anything, Daisy said, “What’s going on? Is this some kind of…” Game? Joke? Trick?
“Where are you?” Diana finally asked.
“Rittenhouse Square.”
“Can you meet me at Ants Pants on South Street in ten minutes?”
Daisy found herself absurdly relieved, thinking, At least she’s actually in Philadelphia At least she didn’t lie to me about that. “Fine.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you there.”
Daisy didn’t even realize she’d left the chicken on a park bench until she was a block away from the restaurant. Her heart was booming like a bass drum, her brain serving up a buffet of awful possibilities, each one worse than the last. She’s a scammer. She’s trying to steal my identity. She’s having an affair with Hal, Daisy thought. Maybe the dinner party had been a kind of audition, with Hal watching to see how the other Diana, Diana 2.0, did with his daughter and his dad. Maybe the two of them wanted to rub her nose in it. Maybe they’d been laughing at how gullible she was, how stupid, how they’d probably have to have sex right on her kitchen’s island for her to notice, and how, if they did, she’d probably just want to make sure they didn’t damage the countertops.
Diana had beaten her to the restaurant. Instead of one of her sleek dresses or her high-tech, fitted athleisurewear, she wore jeans, sneakers, and a fleece pullover. Her hair was up in a ponytail; her face was makeup-free. Daisy saw lines, age spots, a few freckles on her cheeks and nose. Her expression was anxious; her eyes wary.
“Let’s sit down,” Diana said, and held the door so that Daisy could precede her inside.
They found a table for two in the back. The restaurant was empty except for them, and a table of four moms with toddlers, whose strollers were lined up against the wall. A waiter handed them menus.
“Anything to drink?”
“Just water for now,” said Daisy. Then she changed her mind. “Actually, can I get an egg cream?” If her marriage was ending and her life going down in flames, if she was seconds away from being replaced as a wife and a mother and exposed as the biggest dope on the entire Main Line, chocolate would help.
Diana said, “That sounds good. One for me, too.”
When the waiter departed, Daisy looked across the table, bracing herself. Diana sighed.
“I don’t know where to start.”
Daisy just stared. Diana pulled a paper napkin out of the dispenser, smoothed it on the table, and said, “My name really is Diana. It’s Diana Scalzi Carmody. And I really am living in Philadelphia, just not at 15 Rittenhouse Place. I’ve got a very nice Airbnb on South Twentieth Street.” She sighed. “The boyfriend I told you about is actually my husband. His name is Michael. And I’m not a consultant. I work at a restaurant on Cape Cod.”
Daisy shook her head, which felt muddy, and her tongue felt thick. “I don’t understand,” she said.
Diana started to talk, then closed her mouth as the waiter approached and set their drinks in front of them. She tore the paper off her straw, then wrapped it around her index finger. “I started to tell you about it, that day we went for a walk.”
For a few seconds, Daisy couldn’t think of what Diana meant. “About being raped?”
Diana nodded. “The summer I was fifteen, I was working as a mother’s helper on Cape Cod, in Truro. At the end of the summer, I went to a party on the beach. That was where it happened.”
Daisy felt her skin go cold. She heard the words tolling like bells: “Truro” and “fifteen” and “raped.”
Diana kept talking. “That summer, there were a lot of boys in town. They had just graduated from prep school, and they were celebrating before they all went off to college.” She looked Daisy in the eye. “They had all gone to the same place. The Emlen Academy.”
Daisy couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She wanted to get up from the table, to walk out of the restaurant, to leave without looking back, but she couldn’t make her legs listen to her brain. Every part of her felt frozen—her lips, her tongue, her hands, her heart. Meanwhile, Diana was looking at her steadily, her words coming, relentlessly, hammering against Daisy like hail. “It was dark, and I’d been drinking. I went off into the dunes, to lie down. I must have passed out, and when I opened my eyes there was one boy on top of me, and one boy holding me down, and another boy watching.”
Daisy found that she was shaking her head, back and forth, back and forth, like that gesture could somehow undo what had happened, or, barring that, make Diana stop talking. “Oh, no.”
“I thought the boys had only been there for the summer. That’s why I was able to go back, and get a job, and make a life there. I never thought I’d see any of them ever again. I had no idea that Hal spent his summers there, that his family had a place, but my husband’s a caretaker…”
A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Carmody. Your name—your husband’s Michael Carmody?” Diana nodded, and Daisy, recognizing the name of the caretaker of Vernon’s place in Truro, felt her head begin to throb. This was bad, she realized. This was very, very bad. As awful as it would have been to learn that Hal w
as cheating on her, she knew that the truth, when she finally heard it, was going to be much, much worse.
“Michael was at your house—or your father-in-law’s house, I guess. And I saw a picture of you and Hal.”
Daisy winced. She could guess which picture Diana had seen, a shot of her and Hal on their wedding day. She’d always loved the picture. Hal looked so handsome in his crisp tuxedo with his dark curls, and she’d felt beautiful, and serene, and so hopeful, a beloved princess with her whole life ahead of her and the biggest hurdle—who will I marry? Will anyone love me enough to want to be with me forever?—already cleared.
“I thought I’d made my peace with it.” Diana’s voice was soft, her tone almost musing. “So much time had passed. I’m not the girl I was that summer. But then I saw that picture, and I found out that Hal had been there, on the Cape, every summer, for all those years.” Diana sighed, and lifted her chin, looking Daisy in the eyes. “I found out about you. And that he had a daughter. And that the boy—the one who was watching—”
Daisy shook her head. She felt as breathless as if she’d been punched, all the air forced out of her lungs. “No,” she said, an instant before Diana said, “was your brother.”
“No,” Daisy said again, but her voice was barely a whisper. “No, I don’t—I can’t believe that. He would never—Danny’s the kindest person I know!”
“Maybe.” Diana’s voice was grave. “Maybe he’s a good guy now. But, that summer, he saw what was happening, and he didn’t stop it.”
“Oh, God.” Daisy shook her head, back and forth, again and again, and finally managed to open her eyes. “Why are you here?” she whispered. “What do you want?”
“I used to know.” Diana’s voice was troubled. “I can tell you why I found you, and why I came, and what I wanted, and what I planned on doing.” She steepled her fingers on the table. “Except. Well.” A smile flashed across her face before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “I wasn’t expecting to like you so much. Or Beatrice.”
Daisy’s chair made a terrible screech as she shoved it back. The mommies at the next table stopped talking and looked their way. She wasn’t sure if Diana would get up, too, if she’d grab her by the arm or the shoulder, if she’d demand that Daisy sit back down or at least hand over her cell phone. But Diana didn’t say a word. She sat, composed and still, her face calm, her eyes watchful.
Somehow, Daisy got herself to the back of the restaurant, and found the ladies’ room. She made sure the bathroom door was locked, and then she slumped back against the cool, tiled wall. She thought of the man who’d carried Beatrice on his shoulders when she was small. Who’d taught Beatrice how to ice-skate by gliding along behind her, gripping her under her armpits, holding her up as she wobbled around the rink. She thought about her Danny, who used to give her five dollars, sometimes, when he came home from school, and walk her to the 7-Eleven on Bloomfield Avenue and let her buy whatever she wanted, Danny, whose home felt like a sanctuary, Danny who’d done nothing but good with his life.
She couldn’t imagine her brother watching a girl get raped. She couldn’t imagine Hal being a rapist. Yes, he had a temper; yes, he could get angry. But not rape. Not that.
Except, even as she tried to convince herself that it had never happened, at least not the way Diana said, her mind replayed a snippet of what Vernon had told Beatrice on Saturday night. Your dad was a wild one. But “wild” didn’t mean he’d raped a girl. Wild could have just meant drunk, or pulling pranks, vandalism and troublemaking. If Hal had been at a party, if he had known a girl—a girl exactly their daughter’s age—was being hurt, he would have stopped it, he would have stepped in and stopped it, and made sure the transgressors were punished.
But was that the truth, or only what Daisy wanted to be true?
Daisy gave her head a shake, and drew herself upright. At the sink, she splashed cold water on her cheeks and let it run over her wrists. She took a few deep breaths, and then unlocked the door. The table that she and Diana had occupied was empty. There were just two egg creams, a ten-dollar bill, and a note, scribbled on a paper napkin. I’m sorry, it read. Diana herself was gone.
Part Five
The Downward Path
29
Daisy
When Diana Suzanne Rosen met Henry Albert Shoemaker, the summer before her senior year at Rutgers, she’d just completed three months of rigorous dieting. She wanted to be as confident as possible by the time the university spat her out into the world, and “confident,” of course, meant “thin.” So in May she’d signed herself up for Weight Watchers—again—and began tracking points, cutting out breads, desserts, and almost everything else she loved.
She’d moved back home for the summer, back to the apartment in West Orange. She slept on the pullout couch, while her mother took the bedroom. She’d wanted to be in New York City, sharing a summer sublet with roommates, with an internship, maybe at one of the food magazines, but she needed to earn money for her books and clothes and other incidentals. Instead, she lived at home, rent-free, and waitressed at a place called the Fox and the Hen, where she tried to avoid the older waiters, especially the one who liked to back her into dark corners and grind himself against her, pressing his mouth moistly against her ear and muttering things he wanted to do to her.
Her dream was to graduate and find a job at a magazine like Gourmet or Saveur or Bon Appétit, or at a newspaper’s features section, where she could write about food. Not restaurant reviews, but stories about trends, different kinds of cuisine, and, of course, recipes. She could solicit them, edit them, test them, suggest substitutions to make dishes healthier, meatless, safe for diners with allergies. She’d taken some photography courses, and had been practicing taking pictures and videos of the cooking process, breaking the recipes down, step by step, and staging scenes of the completed dishes. She knew it wouldn’t be easy to get the kind of job she wanted, but she was determined. She worked five nights a week, from four in the afternoon until two in the morning. On her mornings and afternoons off, she’d give cooking lessons to anyone who’d hire her, and when she wasn’t working, she would shop, and cook, preparing the same dish four or five or six times, adjusting the seasonings or the oven temperature, refining her technique, dreaming of the day when she could live on her own and do the work she loved; picturing every part of the life she longed for: a beautiful apartment in New York City, a glamorous job at a big-name publication. Money in the bank, money that she’d earned; a husband who adored her, and children, upon whom they could lavish their combined attention and love.
All of that meant that Daisy was exhausted the night that Hal picked her up for dinner, sleep-deprived and footsore. Not to mention starving. For the past three months, she’d been sticking rigorously to her diet. She ate an apple and a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast, a salad with grilled chicken breast for lunch, and a Lean Cuisine for dinner. At work, she avoided the carb-heavy staff meals. One of the sous-chefs was always happy to roast her some chicken breast or salmon. She’d chew spearmint gum while she cooked, and allow herself just a taste of even her favorite dishes. At bedtime, after her mom had gone to bed, she would sneak into the kitchen to slug down a shot of the vodka that she kept in the freezer, with a squeeze of fresh lime. Without that final step, she faced a night lying in bed, listening to her mom snuffling and sighing and sometimes weeping through the thin bedroom door, tormented by thoughts of everything she wanted to eat, when she started eating again: brownies with caramel swirled on top, and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt on top of that. Spicy chicken wings; garlic with pea shoots; spicy tofu in sesame honey sauce, curried goat—from the Jamaican place she’d discovered—over rice cooked with saffron. Vanilla custard in a cake cone, topped with a shower of rainbow sprinkles; eclairs; sugar cookies dusted with green and red; and hot chocolate drunk in front of a fire.
Hal lived in Philadelphia, but when she’d offered to meet him halfway, he’d said, “Absolutely not. What’s your favorite ki
nd of food?”
“Oh, I eat everything.”
“What’s your favorite?”
She’d bitten her lip, then mentally shrugged and told him what she’d been craving, which was ramen. One giant bowl of perfectly cooked ramen in rich, golden pork broth, densely packed with noodles and with an egg, boiled to just the right degree of softness, perched on top, beneath a sprinkling of bright, crunchy green scallions. She could almost taste it, and feel it in her mouth, the rich glide of egg yolk, the chewy, toothsome tangle of noodles, the sharp bite of scallion, and the comforting warmth of the broth, as salty as the ocean.
It wasn’t until Hal asked, “Are your folks in the same house?” that she realized he thought she was living in the same place he’d visited as Danny’s classmate, all those years ago. She filled him in as briefly as she could—dad dead, house sold, brothers living elsewhere, she and her mom in West Orange, in a small, dingy apartment (she left out the “small” and “dingy” part). “I’ve been staying with my mom this summer,” she’d said brightly, hoping her tone would suggest a lighthearted college girl who’d gone to a state university instead of the kind of liberal arts college her brothers had attended because she’d wanted a school with a reputable football team and a big Greek scene, and was living with her mother out of kindness and not necessity.
Judy Rosen had been thrilled when Daisy gave her the news. Before Hal arrived she looked her daughter over with a critical eye, smoothing a lock of hair, which was shoulder-length that year, cut to feather around her face. She adjusted the straps of the dress Daisy wore with a cap-sleeved white T-shirt, frowned at her black suede sandals with their chunky platform soles, and said, “I hope you have a wonderful time.”
That Summer Page 32