by Kate Rorick
Shanna had assumed the leadership position and all that entailed immediately after the Parent Association Meeting That Would Live in Infamy. She’d accepted the position with grace and fanfare, and then dived into the business of showing everyone she was a good presidential pick. And the first expression of that was the Thanksgiving Pageant.
From where Daisy sat, Shanna spent a lot of time on the phone, smiling through gritted teeth, and asking Suzy Breakman-Kang where the promotional flyers were.
The rest of the Parent Association board stuck to their roles. The treasurer counted, the secretary wrote, and the vice president . . . existed. That left an awful lot of organization that fell in the lap of the president. And not a lot of assistance.
Daisy had been put in charge of costumes and makeup—which, thankfully, she had some experience with, thanks to her adventures in cosplay. Granted, none of the kids were in the market for a realistic Sailor Moon costume, but the kids dressed as turkeys and corn cobs and the odd carrot were an absolute triumph.
The show was . . . traditional, to say the least, with the Mayflower landing and the friendly natives offering food to stoic Pilgrims. Telling toddlers about the horrors of colonization didn’t make for a fun Thanksgiving memory, so it was all glossed over.
Mostly, the kids behaved . . . except for Carrie, who’d been dressed as an asparagus. And she had run away from the stage, screaming, “I WILL NOT BE EATEN!!! FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!” to much laughter, applause, and Daisy’s utter delight.
Rob had leaned over and whispered that was a Thanksgiving memory he would treasure forever.
“Okay,” said Shanna, giving the gravy on the stove a quick whisk, “so it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t hard either.” Shanna smirked and gave a quick laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know why Quinn Barrett complained so much. Probably because she was losing her mind.”
As always, the mention of Quinn Barrett made Daisy’s stomach lurch. Though she’d almost gotten used to it by now—that grumble and falter, the desire to panic-pee at the name. There had been so much to do over the past three weeks or so—the whole “Quinn Barrett” thing had sort of faded into the background.
In fact, the entire video had sort of faded into the background. It had been big on the internet for a week. And the juiciest local news in Needleton for a few days beyond that. But since then, it had fallen into the annals of internet history . . . everywhere, except Little Wonders.
Those primary-colored halls were alive and alight with speculation, rumor, and innuendo. The parents of Little Wonders reveled in the juicy gossip—all in their own special ways.
There was the concern trolling, typified by the moms saying, “I just want to make sure she’s okay, poor thing. Should we set up a meal train?” which was followed quickly by, “I don’t think we should even be focusing on the video—we should be focusing on the stress we put ourselves under to be perfect.”
Terry Frasier, when he wasn’t being overly concerned about the chicken coop situation, managed to break down the footage in the video as if it was the Zapruder film. He had analyzed every angle, determining the exact location of the person who filmed the video by walking through the big yard after drop-off, only leaving once Miss Rosie and Miss Anna kindly but firmly escorted him back to his car.
But he had put his observations into a post on the Parent Association’s private Facebook page, which kept the whole thing alive even longer as everyone jumped at the chance to present their alibis.
Elia’s dad had piped up first, saying that he was MCing the event . . . so obviously, he was in the clear.
“I wasn’t even there until the parade had already been marched!” Jorge, Javi’s dad, then declared, his demanding work schedule coming in handy for once.
Dian Qi made it well known that she was far away from the barn, because it set off her allergies, and began a petition to have the historic barn removed as a danger to the children.
Soon enough, everyone was piping up with their alibis. By the time Charlie and Calvin’s moms reminded the Facebook group that they had taken over tent assembly and were not able to hold up their phones during the parade, Daisy’s gut had been roiling. She was dead certain that someone was going to figure it out, simply by virtue of elimination. They were going to realize who hadn’t been accounted for and turn their eyes to the new outsider and throw her and Carrie out of Little Wonders.
And then, Shanna popped up on the Facebook page.
I can’t believe we are still debating this, she had typed. I don’t remember seeing anyone around that corner of the barn, and Daisy and I had a really good view of it from the other side of the parade.
And suddenly, that was that. They had been down at the other side of the parade. No one questioned it, because everyone was too wrapped up in making sure their own asses were covered. Daisy had an alibi.
That’s not to say that Daisy was free. Far from it. Because the rumors and whispers just wouldn’t die, and in the fallout she had to pretend even more. Had to smile and laugh. Had to glom herself to Shanna’s side to keep from listing.
And all the while, Quinn Barrett walked down the hallway, her head up, her sunglasses on, her heels clicking along the linoleum like the tick of a metronome. She wouldn’t let it get to her. And that was the most amazing thing of all. She never turned her head when people’s voices became hushed as she passed. Her gaze never veered when people’s eyes followed her.
Daisy had never been gossiped about on the internet. So she didn’t know, but she had to assume that being gossiped about in person was far, far worse. Daisy wanted to throw herself at Quinn’s feet and beg her forgiveness. She wanted this horrible weight off her chest.
Instead, the times she saw Quinn in the hallways at Little Wonders, she kept her head down, her focus on Carrie, made herself as small as possible. Basically, the opposite of what Quinn Barrett did.
Sometimes Quinn had a bag over her shoulder bulging with folders, bearing swatches of fabrics and floor plans. She smiled serenely at everyone she passed, gave polite hellos, engaged in brief small talk with some parents but generally rushed out the door, apparently busy with her amazing career. She didn’t have time for anything else.
And thank god for that. If she’d ever zeroed in on Daisy and said more than a murmured “hello” Daisy would probably confess on the spot.
One thing was for certain—Quinn Barrett sure as hell didn’t seem like someone who had lost her mind.
Probably her association with Shanna saved Daisy from being cornered in polite chitchat. It was one of the few benefits of being Shanna’s handmaiden. Drawbacks included problematic ethnic stereotypes in pageant work and being relegated to chopping vegetables.
“Shanna, honey, do you have another bottle of wine in the fridge?” Jamie said, sticking his head into the kitchen. Rob was right behind him, sliding a silent arm around Daisy’s shoulders.
“Jamie. I thought you weren’t drinking,” Shanna replied with a pout, as she held up her sparkling water. “Out of solidarity.”
“I’m not!” Jamie said in easy protest. “My mom wants another glass.”
“Already?” Shanna blinked. “Dinner isn’t even for another hour.”
Shanna and Daisy met each other’s gaze. If Patty was the only one drinking wine, and the first bottle was already gone, then maybe she shouldn’t be the one to watch Carrie and Jordan at the moment.
Daisy blinked and raised an eyebrow at Rob.
“Maybe we’ll go help Patty watch the girls for a little while . . . ,” Daisy offered.
“Right,” Rob said. “And then maybe we can talk about those Pats tickets, Jamie?”
“Tickets?” Shanna interjected, her eyes swiveling to Jamie. “You were going to find time to go to a Patriots game, when you are telling me that you’re so busy with work that you can’t help with the Snowflake Breakfast.”
The Snowflake Breakfast was the school’s nondenominational Winter Holiday event—thankfully low-key after the intensity o
f the Thanksgiving Pageant. But still, very much on the Parent Association’s plate.
Jamie sent his cousin a look, then turned back to his wife. “Dude, I told you, work is crazy right now, I can’t commit to a Sunday game . . . and I’ve helped you with the Snowflake Breakfast, Shanna.”
“Giving me your files from last year is not the help I was hoping for—”
“No, you were hoping that I would be able to do all the stuff I did last year . . . and I told you I can’t, work is awful right before the holidays—”
Daisy grabbed Rob’s hand and backed quickly out of the kitchen before things could devolve even further.
“Jeez,” Daisy breathed.
“No kidding,” Rob said. “It sucks that Jamie can’t make it to a game.”
Daisy tried hard not to blink at his cluelessness.
“I know,” he said, shooting her a look that said he understood his own cluelessness. “I just thought it’d be . . . fun. Like when we were kids.”
He looked so forlorn that Daisy gave him a little hug. “I’d go to a, er, sportsball game with you.”
“Sportsball? Man, you really must love me.”
He kissed the top of her head, and they wordlessly made their way to the finished basement.
She was a bit wary of what she would find downstairs—a passed-out Patty on the couch while the girls played with matches flitted through her mind—but instead Carrie and Jordan seemed to be playing My Little Pony very nicely together, with Patty keeping a watchful—if glassy—eye.
“Carrie, honey, put on your glasses.” Daisy said, noticing the purple band of glasses discarded by the side of the toy bin.
“Glasses are dumb,” Jordan said, not looking up from Twilight Sparkle.
Daisy pulled up short. Carrie glanced up at her mother, but Daisy’s eyes laser-focused on Jordan.
“Glasses help Carrie see,” Daisy said carefully. Trying to not let the don’t fuck with my daughter come through too strongly.
Jordan just shrugged.
“Yeah, they give Carrie her superpowers—right, bug?” Rob said, grabbing the glasses and sliding them over Carrie’s head.
“Daddy, come play,” Carrie said, holding out a green pony that Daisy didn’t know the name of. Rob dutifully went over to the girls and began to bray and whinny and make them giggle.
Daisy gave Rob a grateful smile, and went to sit down beside Patty on the couch.
Truthfully, Daisy was glad to get a chance to watch over Carrie. She had seen her daughter and Jordan play together a few times and wasn’t super keen on the way Jordan played. She didn’t like to employ the word “bossy” as it related to girls, but Jordan was . . . adamant about her goals and didn’t concern herself much with other kids’ feelings. She’d even seen Jordan call another kid “Poopybutt” in anger—which, when she mentioned it to Shanna, was met with an icy stare and a regal “Thank you for letting me know.”
Suddenly, Daisy was pulled out of her thoughts when she felt movement on the side of her head. She jerked to the side, only to see that Patty had a lock of her hair in her hands and was twirling it.
“I just love this,” Patty said, with a loose smile. “It’s so . . . brave.”
People commented on Daisy’s hair. On the electric shade, the shaggy length, the crazy waves. Back home, the comments were mostly of the “You look amazing!” variety. But in Needleton, the “I love” seemed to come with an unspoken “but.”
“I love it, but . . . aren’t you a little old for this?”
“I love it, but . . . aren’t you a mother?”
“I love it, but . . . do you really want to stand out *this* way?”
Rarely, if ever, did someone’s “but” come in the form of a feel-up of her hair follicles.
“Ahum.” Daisy cleared her throat, and shifted her weight so she didn’t exactly move her seat, but still moved just far enough away from Patty that her hair fell free of her hands.
She hoped Patty didn’t notice.
“Well, what do you do, Daisy?” Patty asked.
What a delightfully loaded question. “Well, back in Los Angeles, I worked in film and television production. Nothing glamorous—coordinating paperwork, budgeting, that kind of thing.”
“Oh, anything I’ve seen? I just love those NCIS shows. Mark Harmon is a dreamboat.”
“Um, not NCIS, sorry,” Daisy said. “Mostly low-budget, independent productions. One movie did pretty well at Sundance a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Patty said. Obviously, she didn’t know what Sundance was and what it meant to do well there. Because here, in Needleton, it likely didn’t mean anything at all. “There’s not a lot of that kind of work around here, though,” Patty was saying.
“That’s true,” Daisy said, her gaze falling to Rob, who was now letting Jordan and Carrie ride him like a pony. “I think Rob snagged the last such job in New England.” As her job search attested.
“Then what are you doing for work? If Carrie’s at Little Wonders, I just assumed . . .”
“I am currently looking for work in my field, but in the meantime, I am doing some retail. I have a couple of shifts over at a boutique on Needleton’s Main Street.”
“Which one?” Patty sat up—actually interested. In retail. Go figure.
“The Cranberry Boutique.”
“Oh! I know the owner, Elaine! Say hello for me. We went to Wellesley together. A thousand years ago.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Don’t they pay on commission?”
“They do. But I’m mostly in the stockroom, doing inventory and helping to sort out their books,” Daisy said. “Although I would love to get more hours, work up front and make a nice commission.”
“Well, I can tell you why you’re not,” Patty said with a laugh. “It’s that.”
She pointed to Daisy’s hair.
“My hair.”
“Well, maybe if it was just the hair it would be okay—a cutting-edge style is something Elaine might be able to stomach. But combine it with the tattoos, and of course, that.” Patty pointed to Daisy’s septum piercing. Patty shrugged, as if to say, Well, you know.
Daisy was sort of in awe of what she was hearing. Most people didn’t say it out loud. And she didn’t have a reply. She shot a look in Rob’s direction. He had reared up on his knees, watching the exchange. Jordan and Carrie clamored to get on his back.
“Aunt Patty,” Rob said, half astonishment, half a warning.
“What?” she asked, nonchalant. There was no rancor in her voice, just matter-of-fact truth. “Elaine is old Needleton, and Needleton is very old. If you want more hours at the boutique—I’m just saying a regular hair color and a turtleneck sweater would go a long way.”
Daisy looked at Rob, Rob looked at Daisy.
The magnitude of her words hung in the air . . . but so did the magnitude of the truth Patty drunkenly spoke. Daisy didn’t fit in. She knew it. She knew she was as welcome in this living colonial etching as an outbreak of cowpox among the milkmaids. Add that to the Quinn Barrett situation, it wasn’t hard to figure out why she fell asleep at night trying to think of ways to get back to Los Angeles.
Hearing it spoken aloud by a drunken in-law at Thanksgiving was . . . well, it was the most stereotypical Thanksgiving thing ever, she thought with a little humor.
Before either she or Rob could break the silence, stomps came down the stairs. Jamie appeared, ducking his head down to be seen below the ceiling.
“There you all are. Come up here, would you?” he said. “Grandpa Bob has an announcement.”
An announcement? What kind of announcement? Daisy was drawing a blank. From the look on his face, Rob had no idea either.
“Did Grandpa Bob say anything to you before we drove over?” Daisy asked Rob in a whisper.
Rob shook his head. “We talked mostly about the show, what sort of work we’re doing to the house. A little bit about our apartment hunting. Hey,” he said, holding her back for a second. “I’m sorry about Aunt Pa
tty. She’s just . . .”
What could he say? She’s just . . . blunt? Inebriated? Right?
“She’s family,” Daisy said, saving him from having to finish the sentence.
Carrie and Jordan had scurried up the stairs the second Jamie had come down, with Patty close on the girls’ tails, so when she and Rob finally joined everyone in the living room, it was like walking into a formal painting. Grandpa Bob was in an armchair in the center of the room. His son Greg, Jamie’s father, stood behind him, his hand on the back of the chair. Patty was seated off to the side. Jamie and Shanna stood opposite them, his arm around her shoulders, curiosity on both their faces. No remnants of their fight in the kitchen could be seen.
The only movement to the family portrait was Queen Elsa and Princess Leia, struggling to get up on the couch.
“Well, well, well, finally made it, did you?” Grandpa Bob said from his seat. His face was grim, set, which was disturbing to see: Grandpa Bob always had a smile on his face, especially when he was looking at his grandson Rob, or playing with Carrie. But now, he honed in on the two of them, sharp and lean. “Been dawdling, have you?”
“We came up when Jamie called us, Grandpa,” Rob said, bewildered.
“Not talking about that. I’m talking about your circuitous route to hanging out in my basement again. Across the country, working in California, and then suddenly finding yourself a job back here where you grew up. Although, I can’t begrudge you the trip, especially when it yields rewards.”
Grandpa Bob nodded toward Daisy, and Carrie. Daisy felt herself blush under this strange kind of scrutiny. Carrie was blissfully oblivious. Continuing to throw her body against the couch, while Jordan sat perfectly still, watching the adults—and taking notes, no doubt.