Upsy Daisy: A First Love College Romance

by Smartypants Romance

  And I couldn’t tell him those things because I’d been both. I hadn’t meant for . . . This wasn’t how it had played out in my mind. When people on TV or in the movies were discovered to have a fake identity it always drew laughs. In reality, people didn’t take deception the same way.

  And I wanted to explain about the stolen items but there was no good way to do that without James, Odie, and Charlie involved in this mess too. And I wouldn’t do that to them.

  Therefore, my father still sounded dismayed when he said very, very quietly, “I don’t think any of my children has ever wounded me as deeply.”

  I’d absorbed the blow and unable to do anything else, apologized again.

  My father asked Mrs. Johnson what the next steps would be for me. She told him she’d file a formal report with the Housing Department and that they’d most likely report all my violations of the Honor Code and the Code of Student Conduct to the Tribunal Disciplinary Council. The disciplinary council would conduct an investigation and hold a hearing to decide my fate.

  I already knew what my father would want to do. He’d want to by-pass the system and go to the directly to the president, where my father could exercise his influence and swoop in to save the day.

  “Daddy please don’t interfere. I want to face the council without your help” I said quietly, as soon as the door closed and Mrs. Johnson left.

  I’d expected my father to argue with me and to insist that I choose the path with the highest probability of a favorable outcome.

  He did not.

  Instead my father made it perfectly clear swooping in to save the day was the last thing on his mind.

  “Daisy, I’ve always preached to you that actions have consequences. Perhaps it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t let you feel the consequences enough growing up, and maybe this is my consequence.” He looked tired and I’d felt guilty about that too; my father worked what would be considered two full-time jobs—helping to oversee things at the Mill and his judgeship. He had finally taken a day off and what did I give him for his troubles?

  Guilt had me gnawing at my fingernails.

  “You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want any of the trappings or privileges of being a Payton. And even if you did, you are still electing to refrain from telling the whole truth; Mrs. Johnson and I were not born yesterday. I know that there is no way my one-hundred-pound daughter smuggled a fifty-pound bag of flour up three flights of stairs unassisted, much less did it several times over. Unless you’ve also been training for the Montreal Summer Olympics and that’s another thing you’ve been keeping from me?”

  He raised an eyebrow in a move that I hadn’t realized Dolly emulated perfectly until now.

  “I’m not entirely sure how, or which, of your friends play into this, but I do know that you didn’t steal all this on your own. And I don’t for one second buy the story that you needed money for the first time in your life so you figured this was a good way to get it. That doesn’t even make any sense. You’ve never shirked from an honest day’s work. I know you would’ve gotten a regular job, not turned to a life of larceny.”

  “No, she couldn’t have. Daisy can’t work a regular job—she doesn’t have the time.” Dolly looked up from where she’d been quietly standing by the window. “Daisy is double majoring.”

  I looked at her like she had sprouted horns. And a tail. And claws. Bus, meet your new driver, Dolly Payton.

  My father looked at me, eyes wide in surprise and then narrowed in confusion. “I thought we’d discussed majoring in business? It’s what you said you wanted.”

  Because that’s what I thought you wanted me to want. And because I did a little too . . . maybe not as much as I’d wanted to major in home economics, but I did like business.

  My father sighed mightily when I didn’t respond and then said, “Is there anything else you’re keeping from me, Daisy? Anything else I need to know?”

  I shook my head and took a deep breath, successfully holding back the tears that were threatening, but I didn’t cry. I’d done all of this to myself. I’d hurt . . . well, I’d hurt everyone. I shook my head again and said, “No.”

  He rubbed his hands through his hair, in a move that reminded me of Trevor.

  Don’t think of Trevor.

  “Very well, Daisy. You’ve made a lot of very poor choices, and you’re going to have to suffer some hard consequences because of your actions. Since I know for a fact you didn’t make those choices on your own, I wish you’d reconsider.” He stopped and changed course. “No, what I wish is that you’d tell the whole truth about what’s going on here. Then maybe I could understand, maybe I could help you help yourself, because for the love of God, I don’t even recognize my own child right now.”

  I wanted to tell him everything, but I couldn’t because even though he had every right to be angry with me, I knew my father was still my father, and if I told him, he would go directly to the president and tell him everything. And when justice was metered out, I’d be spared and James and Odie and Charlie would all bear the brunt of the punishment.

  Therefore, I stood there quietly staring at the floor, unable to meet his gaze.

  After a long beat of silence he said, “You’ve chosen to exercise your right to remain silent. I hope it gets you what you’re looking for.”

  He left after that.

  My sister, who was still standing quietly looking out of the window, finally spoke. “I don’t understand you. I do love you. But I may never understand you, Daisy. Why are you so eager to give up privileges most people are dying to have?”

  I stared at Dolly and felt my frustrations start to rise. Instead of answering her question I lobbed my own back at her, because no one could bring out the worst in me more than my sister. Dolly was always perfect and always content to flaunt that perfection even at the worst of times.

  “Why did you mention the major thing to Daddy! Why didn’t you let me tell him myself? And why didn’t you tell me he was coming up here? Why didn’t you stop him? I thought we were supposed to be sisters!” I spat.

  I was raw and aching and there was Dolly in all her perfection, having just ratted me out for no good reason when I was already in trouble. So I yelled at her because what I really wanted to scream was, Why do you always have to be right? Why do you always have to be perfect? Why can’t you leave a little space, just a sliver of space for less than perfect people like me?

  Dolly’s posture stayed ramrod straight; she didn’t cross her arms defensively or twitch. Dolly had never had an emotional tell, therefore I was shocked when she exploded at me.

  “I thought that too! Wouldn’t it be nice for me to have a sister? Wouldn’t it be nice for me to have someone that calls me once in a while to see how I’m doing? To see if the stress of stepping into a role that was custom-made for Ado was working out well for me? To see if I was exhausted from having to wrangle and keep power every single goddamned day because some idiot has the smart dumb idea to try to test me, because I have the audacity to be young, and female, and Black, and in charge, and unapologetic! Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to answer my calls? Perhaps then I could’ve warned you. Perhaps then I could’ve said two weeks ago, ‘Daisy, Daddy is getting really, really worried that we can’t get mail to you, and he’s thinking about calling some of his hotshot friends at the university to see if they can get the issue fixed.’ Perhaps if I had a sister, I could’ve called her over and over and over again to check on her, to see if she was safe, to warn her that her family back home were beginning to lose their minds with worry. Maybe I even would’ve told her that I’d tried to tell our father that he was totally overreacting. After all, it’s not like bad things ever happen to anyone in our family!”

  Her voice was getting louder and shriller by the second. And while her body hadn’t moved except the heaving of her chest, her eyes were getting wilder and wilder.

  I’d pushed Dolly too far.

  In all my days I’d never seen her look at
me quite so upset and angry. And I’d definitely never heard Dolly lose it; she was absolutely on the razor’s edge of doing so. I tried to break in to stop her, to apologize, “Dolly, I—”

  “I am not finished! You had your say, it’s my turn now, Daisy! You never listen to me! Ever! You think you know every single thing there is to know and that I must have cheese curds for brains or something. You value your friends, girls you’ve known for three months over me”—she pointed her palms to her chest—“the sister that’s loved you since before you were born.”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes and I opened my mouth to apologize, but she shut me up with, “Save it, Daisy. Whatever you’re about to say to try to rewrite the truth, just don’t. No matter what you say to me, I know the real deal. If your friends were here right now, you’d turn and walk out that door, and leave me behind just like you did the first day.”

  It landed like a blow because there was a kernel of truth to it. I didn’t love my friends more than my sister but I’d always seen Dolly as so strong and totally together, I didn’t think she needed me.

  And I had neglected to consider her feelings.

  You neglected them a lot.

  She took a deep breath and one of the tears that had been brimming spilled over. I had to look away.

  “You want to know why I told Daddy about you being a double major? Because you weren’t ever going to tell him. You avoid everything. You smother your feelings. Maybe not the fun ones, but the big, messy, ugly, feelings we all have? You try to pretend yours don’t exist! You don’t own up to them at all even when asked about them directly. You think ignoring something will make it all just go away.” She glanced around then looked at the ceiling and said bitingly, “And how has that worked out for you?”

  Every word hit hard because it was the truth. I had no idea Dolly saw me so well, but it also irrationally made me angry, because what else did she want me to do? Maybe ignoring it is my way of dealing with it. Perhaps, putting bad feelings in a jar and sealing them off wasn’t the best way to deal with them, but it’d helped me face the day. Perhaps Dolly wouldn’t be so pushy if she tried sealing her own feelings in a jar once in a while.

  “Dolly, I do deal with my feelings, I just don’t deal with things the same way as you,” I responded a little defensive.

  “You’re still lying,” she said tiredly.

  “And I was going to tell Daddy,” I responded, letting her comment go by.

  “When, Daisy? You’ve been in school for three months. When were you planning to tell him? At the end of the semester? At the end of the year? When you graduated from college?”

  I remained quiet during her inquisition. I had no answers and she knew it.

  “If I hadn’t been the one paying for your tuition you probably wouldn’t have told me either. But this isn’t even about you double majoring. The double major is just indicative of my point. You’re double majoring because you don’t know how to deal. You don’t know how to cope with big emotions, Daisy, so instead of telling Daddy the truth, that you wanted to be a home economics major because you couldn’t give a flipping flying fish what happens at or to Payton Mills . . .” Her tone was so accusatory even if her words were right. Saying I didn’t care about the Mill was like saying I was less of a Payton. Further, I knew how important the Mill was to Dolly. Of all of us, she’d been the only one interested in it since we were children. Ado had wanted to be an architect, and my father had suggested that maybe he could add a design portion to our lumberyard when he took over the Mill. Dolly had been listening to their conversation and she'd stonily countered my father’s surety with one word: “If.”

  I winced. “I do care what happens to the Mill. I just . . .”

  I trailed off and she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the ceiling.

  “I told Daddy this was a bad idea.”

  “What?”

  “I told Daddy back in July I didn’t think you were ready to go away to school, that you needed to stay home in Green Valley and work on your issues.”

  “What?” This felt like a betrayal—that Dolly hadn’t believed in me, or thought I was ready to go off to school. She may have been right.

  She rubbed her forehead like she was getting a headache.

  “Dolly, why would you—how could you have . . . what?”

  Dolly closed her eyes and when she opened them again she slipped a knife right between my ribs. “Do you know one of the last things Mommy told me before she died? She said—”

  “Stop,” I said. I can’t deal with this right now.

  “She told me to make sure you would be okay.”

  “Stop, please, Dolly.” Please, please, please.

  She shook her head and laughed a little and said so softly I wondered if she spoke to me or to herself, “Look at how hugely I’ve failed with that. How am I supposed to take care of someone when I can’t even get them to return my phone calls?”

  I will not cry.

  “And I get it. You’re mad at me. And you’re mad at Daddy. We dropped the ball on you.” A twinge of something clawed at my gut. I refuse. I refuse. I stood there hoping my sister would run out of fuel, that she’d change the topic or leave. Anything to keep from . . . feeling. I can’t.

  But she didn’t stop. She kept poking and prodding and tossing her pebbles at the dam that held back all the things I couldn’t afford to feel. Nope. Nope. Nope. I’d deal with those feelings later.

  “When Ado died, Mommy held us together. But when Mommy died . . . me and Daddy . . . we didn’t show up for you. We weren’t there for you.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “We didn’t even celebrate one of the biggest milestones of your life—graduating from high school.”

  I flinched, then squeezed my eyes tighter, digging deep, deep, deep, finding my calm. I dressed myself in numbness, warding off the tide of emotions trying to spill over the walls.

  I opened my eyes and said calmly, “Dolly, why are we are we talking about this? Mommy had just . . . no one felt like celebrating. It was no big deal.”

  “Is it ever a big deal to you, Daisy? You stand here preternaturally calm despite facing expulsion and the possibility of criminal charges. You’ve ripped out our father’s heart and disowned our family.”

  “I did not disown my family.”

  “You’ve shown me one hundred different ways that you could take or leave our relationship. Even your precious friends, who jumped ship like rats on a sinking boat as soon as things got really, really serious—not that I blame them since you’ve been lying to them too—are upset with you. Doesn’t any of that make you feel . . . anything?”

  The blanket of calm rippled but it did not tear. I tried to think of the words my sister wanted me to say, words that would make this right.

  Either I took too long, or she never expected me to answer because a second later, she stepped back as if coming out of a daze. Likely noticing that under the sacks of dry goods, all of the things she’d placed to remind me of home were gone. Likely noticing the way I’d erased them. Seeing my room through Dolly’s eyes multiplied my shame.

  My sister, who was made of iron and who hardly ever cried, blinked away another tear. Then she nodded her head twice and said quietly, “So be it.”

  She nodded again as if reassuring herself, and she didn’t look back as she left.

  I didn’t know if my sister and father left that day or if they stayed the rest of the weekend. The only person I could even think to ask was Trevor goddamned Boone.

  And I couldn’t ask him.

  What on earth were the odds of Trevor and I being from the same place and only meeting in college? Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world. Or I guess more accurately, of all the dorm rooms, in all the colleges, in all the world, he had to walk into mine. Irony was determined to have its way with me, because I’d finally found a practical application for statistics.

  Around midday there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find Charl
ie Love and Mr. Jimmy standing there with a dolly.

  Mr. Jimmy’s eyes popped open as he took in the scene of the crime. “Well I’ll be damned! You had a whole ‘nother storeroom in here!”

  Charlie was mostly silent but looked at me with pleading eyes. I tried to communicate that I was not going to snitch on him.

  They worked diligently loading the items on their hand truck and wheeling them out of my room and returning for more as Mr. Jimmy’s comments got more colorful with each trip. “I thought I’d seen it all, but this here takes the cake. Or, I guess it takes the cookie!”

  I was glad he could find humor in the situation. I was really, really glad. Honestly, I was ecstatic for him.

  Before he wheeled his last load out, he paused, introspective for a moment, then asked, “What in the world possessed you to do something like this?”

  I gave a half-hearted shrug, tired of trying to explain myself. He looked back at me. “Well, if it weren’t for the room checks you might not have gotten caught. I mean how did you did manage to steal all this stuff out of our pantry anyway?” he said it as if it had just occurred to him that the goods had been stolen under his nose. Then he looked at Charlie with unbridled suspicion. “Y’all two know each other?”

  Charlie looked down at the floor silent, so I responded, not wanting to tell any more lies. “We’ve seen one another around.”

  “Mm hmm, seen each other around? I just bet you have.” Then he pointed to Charlie. “If I get wind that you had anything to do with this, you’re gonna be cleaning toilets for the next four years, you understand me?”

  Charlie swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Girl, I can’t decide if you’re crazy smart or crazy stupid, but either way you’re crazy.”

  I sighed as he shook his head and began to push the dolly out of the door until the only sound I could hear was the soft click, click, click of the wheels as they moved down the hall.

  At four, I headed to the library to see if Trevor would show. I hoped and prayed he’d come so I could offer him an explanation.