by Kate Rorick
Coward, she berated herself as she hurried down the street—as fast as she could go in the snow. Which was unaccountably letting up. The wind had died, and only a few flakes were falling now.
And thus, she could hear the voice calling after her.
“Wait!”
Daisy turned, and there was Quinn—her jacket hastily thrown on, shivering against the rush of cold that smacked her after leaving the warm cocoon of the coffee shop.
Daisy stopped, let her catch up. Then took a deep breath. “Look, I—I need you to know—”
But she was cut off when Quinn threw her arms around her and gave her a hug.
Okay. That’s completely normal, Daisy thought.
“Thank you,” Quinn said as she let Daisy go. And though shivering and sniffling, for the first time, Daisy realized it wasn’t because of the cold. Quinn had tears in her eyes. “That was the first time someone said that.”
“Seriously?” she said.
“Well . . . no, but that was the first time someone meant it.”
Daisy didn’t know what to say to that. So they just stood there for a minute, shivering in the cold, as the sky lightly dropped snowflakes in their hair.
“Um, listen, this is going to sound weird,” Quinn stuttered, “but do you know where I could get some pot?”
“What?” Daisy asked. “Pot? As in marijuana?”
“Yeah—do you know where I could get some?”
“No!” Daisy replied, astonished. “Why do you think I would know that?”
“I . . . I haven’t smoked pot since college, and back then, the girls that knew where to get it, they looked like you.”
“Like me?” Daisy asked, quickly going from alarmed to offended. “What does that mean? I look like a pothead?”
“No!” Quinn said suddenly. “You look cool!”
Daisy lifted a wary eyebrow. “Cool?”
“Cooler than I’ve ever been,” Quinn mumbled. Then, she kicked the snow. “Well, I fucked that up, didn’t I?”
Daisy in spite of everything, gave a slight chuckle. “If you want pot, it’s legal in Massachusetts now. I’m pretty sure Mr. Happy Barista back there can point you to a good dispensary.”
“No, I don’t actually want pot—I just . . . I wanted to hang out with someone,” Quinn said. “With you.”
I wanted to be your friend. The words were unspoken but heard clear across the cold air.
“I’m not that cool. The one and only time I ever got high I ended up on the bathroom floor of my high school for five hours communing with the cold tile,” Daisy said, relenting a little. “It wasn’t my cup of tea.”
“Ah,” Quinn said. Then, after a moment of shuffling, her eyes lit upon something behind Daisy.
Daisy turned her head, to see a bar/restaurant, Ye Olde Needleton Pub, with an “Open” placard in the window next to a sign that said “Brunch Served Daily.”
“Okay! It’s Daisy, right?” Off Daisy’s nod, she took her by the arm, and started dragging her down the block. “Well, Daisy—let’s get drunk instead.”
Chapter Thirteen
Quinn had no idea what had come over her. Other than that the idea of getting drunk with Daisy, Carrie’s mom, sounded in that moment like the best idea in the history of ever.
Ye Olde Needleton Pub was, if possible, emptier than the coffee shop had been. Maybe because it was ten thirty in the morning, maybe because of the storm, which, as they had crossed the street, had kicked up again with a strange fury—the slowed gentle snowfall had gusted into wickedness in the space of half a block, so they were practically pushed through the door by Mother Nature. But for whatever reason, they were the only customers in the pub, if not the only people in the world.
“How do you people stay in business if a snowstorm shuts you down?” Daisy muttered, stamping her feet.
“You people?” Quinn asked.
“New Englanders,” Daisy replied. “I don’t get it—it’s cold, it’s dark by three PM, it snows all the time—how do you live like this?”
“Usually people don’t let the snow stop them. I bet everyone is still in post-holiday hangover mode. Staying home where it’s warm and cozy instead of going out and doing what needs to be done,” she snorted. “Please. Like the world is going to wait for them. January is here and it’s time to get moving.”
Quinn glanced around the room—she’d never been here before, but it was a place that was absolutely dedicated to maintaining its authenticity, which according to the very large EST. 1799 painted under the name, was the common-variety quaint history at which Needleton excelled. So, the ceiling would never be higher than seven feet, the long wooden bar would never be updated, the plaster in between the heavy wood beams would constantly be patched, and the fireplace would always emit low-grade smoke.
“Hello!” she called out. A shuffle from the back, the sound of a plate crashing to the floor. A tall, reedy young waiter stuck his head out from the back. “Your sign says you’re open. We’re just going to take a table.”
She grabbed Daisy by the arm, and dragged her to a table near the front bay window, the only natural light in the low, dark space. The reedy waiter scurried over to meet them.
“Hi, can I interest you in our—”
“Actually we are interested in whatever drinks you can make that have the highest level of alcohol content,” Quinn said. “What would that be?”
The waiter goggled at her, then said . . . “Um . . . we can do a Long Island iced tea? But it’s kind of early . . . brunch service doesn’t technically start until—”
“Great, we’ll have two of those, please,” Quinn said, before he could protest further. “Okay by you?” she said, turning to Daisy, who nodded. She turned back to the waiter. “Fabulous—and just so you know, we are going to be here awhile, ordering a lot of stuff, and we are excellent tippers. Thank you so much!”
With that, their waiter gave her a little salute, and trotted off to the bar.
Only then did she realize Daisy was staring at her.
“What?” Quinn said, taking the plastic-covered menu from its spot wedged between the pewter salt and pepper shakers.
“You are really . . . intense. Like a human starter pistol.”
Quinn suddenly felt cowed—usually, she prided herself on comments like that. In being the go-getter, the Get-Shit-Done mom. But coming from Daisy . . . it felt like she was doing something wrong.
Was she doing this wrong? She felt that old impulse—that repulsively female training to apologize for little more than existing. But she didn’t give in to it. Nor did she swing the other way, and bristle against it, and get defensive and protest that she wasn’t that way, no, not at all.
Instead, she met Daisy’s eye, and . . . and laughed.
“Yeah,” she chuckled, throwing up her hands. “Yeah, I am. But it’s the only way anything in my life ever gets done, you know? Or that’s what I convinced myself, anyway.”
“I get it, believe me,” Daisy said, smiling. “I just . . . I’m kind of in awe.”
“Why?”
“Like . . . with the waiter. I would have waited politely for him to take us to a table, politely listened through his specials, and politely waited until brunch is officially served to order drinks.”
“And we’d still be standing at the door,” Quinn replied.
“I know, and I’d be silently pissed off about it, and worried that you were judging me.”
“And I would be silently judging you. Modulating myself to make you more comfortable, when I know what would make us most comfortable would be sitting down, ordering what I know we want, and relaxing in this . . . historic environment,” she said. “I wasn’t impolite. I said please and thank you. I just . . . wasn’t passive about what I wanted. Also, politeness is for suckers who want to stand by the door waiting to be seen.”
Daisy blinked twice. Then let out a guffaw of laughter. “Wow, you are honest.”
“Honey, we haven’t even gotten our drinks yet,
” Quinn said, her eyes falling to the menu, and the little paragraph about the pub. “Oh, look: Ye Olde Needleton Pub was founded by a husband and wife who met in the town’s original needle factory.”
“Aw, love among the iron filings.”
And as their drinks arrived at the table, they both burst out laughing.
It was one of the strangest, easiest conversations Quinn had ever had. There was no “get to know you” small talk. No, they dove right in.
They ordered appetizers of fried cheese. They discussed the ridiculousness of preschool expectations.
“Ridiculous!” Quinn said. “But what are we supposed to do, not give our children every experience life has to offer?”
“I just don’t understand the name.”
“The name?”
“Of the school. Needleton Academy for Potential Prodigies and Little Wonders,” Daisy said in between sips. “What if your kid turns out to not be a prodigy? What if they’re . . .” she pitched her voice low, conspiratorial, “normal?”
“Oh, then you get kicked out of course.”
Daisy almost dropped her drink.
“I’m kidding! God, it’s just a name—and by sending your kid there you can pressure them for the rest of their lives, letting them know they once had the potential to be prodigies.”
“Well, I’m just glad the holidays are over,” Daisy said. “Talk about pressure. We can finally dig ourselves out from decorations and candy.”
“Oh nooooo. No we can not!” Quinn laughed. “There is always another holiday. They do not end. Preschool. Is. Relentless.”
“Okay, but Valentine’s Day is six weeks—”
“Not Valentine’s. We have Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Groundhog Day, the Super Bowl if the Patriots are playing, Lincoln’s Birthday right before, and President’s Day right after. Then it’s Read Across America Day on March first, Mardi Gras, and before you know it we are all hunting for that one green T-shirt your kid has for St. Paddy’s. There is a party and decorations for each of ’em.”
“Jeez Louise,” Daisy said, looking as green as that mythical T-shirt.
“And that’s just to March.”
The fried cheese appetizers arrived, and they talked about their kids.
“You drove across country? With a three-year-old?” Quinn sputtered. “How? I can’t take Hamilton to the mall without three pairs of underwear and knowing where every bathroom is.”
“We stopped a lot, looked at corn mazes and very large balls of twine. We also played The Sound of Music sound track about forty thousand times.”
“Yeah, but why? There are airplanes.”
“When we moved . . . well, it happened really fast,” Daisy said. “We just wanted to leave.”
Quinn sobered slightly. “Why?”
Daisy took a long, slow sip of her drink, draining it almost to the bottom. “I could tell you that Los Angeles is cynical, that it chews people up and spits them out—but really, it was one moment when I wasn’t on the parenting ball that had us getting out of Dodge.”
Quinn waited.
“There’s a park, close to where we lived, that Carrie loved. And one Sunday morning she woke up really early, was bouncing off the walls by the time the sun came up, so I took her out to the park, to burn off some energy. She’d just been potty trained, and loooooved to use the potty. The second we got to the park, she ran for the public bathroom that was there.
“I was six seconds behind her, but it was just enough time for the homeless drunk in there to grab her with one hand and his penis with the other.”
Quinn sucked in her breath so loud their waiter popped his head out of the back.
“Yeah. I grabbed her and ran home, called the cops. The guy was gone by the time they got there. We never went back to that park. And ever since then, we just called it the Scary Thing.
“I know in the grand scheme of things I shouldn’t have let it destroy my confidence as a parent. But it did. And Robbie already wanted to move, and this . . . made me want to live somewhere safe. So when Robbie got this job, we packed up immediately and we were off.
“But I think about it now, and I wonder if I . . .” Daisy stopped. Sucked in a steadying breath. “Robbie never blamed me. And I do not fit in here in Needleton. But I know that if I was seven seconds behind her, I . . . I . . .”
Quinn reached over, and put her hand over Daisy’s.
“I’ve never told anyone this story. Not even Shanna knows.”
Quinn’s mouth quirked at the mention of Daisy’s cousin-in-law. “Why me?”
“I don’t know. I think, maybe, because I already know your biggest parenting fail. You deserve to know mine.”
Their waiter came back. Quinn waved him away, while Daisy regrouped.
“Come on,” Daisy said, finally. “Let’s talk about anything else.”
“Like what?” Quinn said.
“The weather? Home towns?”
“Well, we’ve covered weather. Might as well dish on small town Ohio.”
“Ah—outside Houston in my case.”
“Sounds desperately boring. Let’s dig in.”
And so, they talked about their upbringings. Their origin stories, as Daisy called it. By the time their lanky waiter (who turned out to be a history major at Boston College named George) came back to try and take their food order again, they had argued the length and breadth of who had the more dissatisfying upbringing.
“Not bad—just . . . dissatisfying,” Quinn rationalized.
“Exactly!” Daisy replied. “I love my parents, my sister, my brother . . . I’m just not like them. They never got me.”
“My mom to this day doesn’t know where I came from. And I can point to her, all her unfinished projects, the fact that I always filled out all my school forms and just had her sign them, and say . . . that is why I am the way I am.”
“I . . . guess, I’ll be back for your food orders after another round of Long Island iced teas?” George said.
“Yes, thank you, George,” Quinn said, waving him away as she slurped at the last drops of her drink.
“That’s amazing,” Daisy said, shaking her head, once he was gone. “Do you realize how completely deferential he was to you? Like, all of his body language. So what if they are jeopardizing their liquor license—Quinn Barrett wants another round, she gets it.”
Quinn tilted her head, regarded Daisy. “You know, if there was actually anyone else in this place, they would look at the two of us and think that he was deferring to you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the cool one,” Quinn said, pointing to Daisy’s hair. “Or, at least, you used to be.”
“Thanks,” Daisy said, drily. “This is just . . . I’ve been calling it Cosplay Daisy.”
“Cosplay?”
“Costume play,” Daisy explained. “Where you dress up as a character. From comics, or a movie, or anime? Usually at a comic convention or the like.”
“So . . . it’s not you, it’s a character?”
Daisy nodded. “Basically.”
“Then why do it at all?”
Daisy sighed, seemed to consider. “Because I change my hair, and my daughter gets invited to a birthday party at the Bounce Palace. I wear a sweater set covering up my tattoos and I get promoted to the sales floor where I can make commissions and earn money toward a down payment on a house that my husband loves but that hasn’t been updated since the sixties.” Daisy looked forlornly out the window. “I can get my family everything they want or need, as long as I give up what I want and become someone else entirely.”
Quinn held Daisy’s gaze. “What is it that you want?”
“I want . . . a good multiweek D&D campaign. One where I am creating a story with my friends for hours at a time and you come off it feeling like that’s the real world and this is the strange one. I want to know what I’m doing. I never know what I’m doing anymore,” Daisy said, half laughing. Then . . . “What do you want?”
“I .
. . I thought I knew what I wanted.”
“Which was?”
“My life back.”
At that prescient moment, their second round of Long Island iced teas arrived. And Quinn raised her glass to Daisy.
“But that ain’t happening, so I better get a new dream,” she said, clinking her glass to Daisy’s. “For what it’s worth though, I liked your blue hair.”
“No you didn’t,” Daisy said, after a minute.
“Yes I did.”
“What did you think the first time you saw me?”
Quinn thought back to the first time she’d seen Daisy Stone. Oh yeah—the Halloween parade. “I thought . . . you were a nanny or a mother’s helper.”
“Right. Not a parent with a kid at Little Wonders.”
“That . . . was more because you were not like everyone else,” Quinn said defensively. “Not that I didn’t like it!”
Daisy just raised an eyebrow.
“I just . . . I don’t understand it. That and the tattoos,” Quinn admitted, sheepish.
“Oh, I can explain them to you,” Daisy said rolling up her sleeves. “This is a rebel alliance symbol, on the side of a d20—a twenty-sided die. And on the other sides are a light saber, an empire insignia . . . over here is my version of a dryad, a sort of tree nymph creature from Greek mythology, that got co-opted into D&D. I put one in my first campaign that I just—”
“I only know about a tenth of those words. But what I meant was . . . tattoos are permanent.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “You know I’m not the only person in this town with tattoos, right? I’m not the only parent at Little Wonders—Charlie and Calvin’s moms have matching tattoos.”
“True, but yours are blatant. Your hair you can change, but your tattoos—I can see that they are objectively beautiful, but I just don’t get it.”
Daisy’s eyes fell to Quinn’s wrist. “That watch. You wear it every day?”
“Yes,” she replied, looking at her vintage Cartier, trying not to tear up thinking about the day Stuart gave it to her. Darn alcohol.
“Because it represents you.”
“But I can take it off,” she said. “In fact . . .” She slipped the watch off her wrist. She didn’t want to wear it at the moment. Not if she had to think about who gave it to her.