“It’ll be fabulous,” Julie said. “My girlfriend practically lives on top of Wrigley Park. We can watch a ballgame from her roof. We’ll have the quintessential Windy City tour.”
“Go,” John said. “Have a good time.”
With Julie’s help, Daisy put her resume in order. Starting with the training at the Gladwyne Academy of Dance. Her acceptance into the junior company of the Philadelphia Youth Ballet when she was only twelve. Lancaster Conservatory awarding her the Brighton Scholarship. Her roles and her degree. The year in the corps of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Ending with her present employment at the Metropolitan Opera.
Not bad, she thought. Considering I got shot and had a bit of a mental breakdown along the way.
“You’re talking to yourself again,” Julie said.
“Private conversation,” Daisy said. “Do you mind?”
“I MISS YOU,” John said on the phone.
Daisy lay on her back in the nest of the hotel bed. The ceiling swayed slightly. “I’m a little lit,” she said.
“It’s not even nine o’clock.”
“I know. Drinking beer in the sun at the ballgame. Then I don’t know how many bottles of wine at dinner. I’m gonna be hurting on the plane tomorrow.”
“How did the audition go?”
“I didn’t get kicked or put.”
“Didn’t get what?”
She tried again. “Picked or cut.”
“Oh my God, you are lit.”
“I made it to the third round. Got singled out a lot. Six of us were left by the end and we had to sing. But they don’t tell you if you got a role. They’ll keep your name, headshot and resume on file and if they need someone on the tour, they’ll call.”
“I see. Well, it’s good experience.”
She turned on her side, curling up to the phone. “What did you do today?”
“Worked out, got my ass kicked. Took master class with Danilo Fuertes, got my ass kicked. Stage fighting workshop—we learned the street scene from Romeo and Juliet. I nearly got impaled with a sword. Came home tired and horny to an empty apartment. Poor me.”
Daisy giggled. “Poor you.”
“Took a shower and thought about my gorgeous girlfriend’s hot body.”
“Talk slower.”
“Rubbed…one…out…”
“What was I doing?”
“Helping.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Cuddled with myself and fell asleep. Got up, made something to eat. Puttered around. My brother called wanting to go out. Trying to decide if I’ll go or stay here and be horny.”
“Again?”
“Again. It’s a chronic condition.”
“What’s the cure?”
“Your ass back in New York where it belongs.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Drink a lot of water. I’m gonna be on you whether you’re hungover or not.”
“Promise?”
“I’m gonna put the ‘come’ in ‘homecoming.’”
She smiled against the phone. “Night, Opie. I love you.”
“I love you,” he said. “And don’t fucking call me Opie.”
SHE AND JULIE SHARED a cab from LaGuardia. It dropped Daisy on 110th Street where she could pick up a cross-town bus to the West Side.
“See you at the slave pens,” Julie said, blowing a kiss out the window.
“You’re my favorite.” Daisy blew a kiss back and waved.
The late August afternoon was glorious. The humidity had calmed. A lengthening in the sun’s shadows hinted at fall. On one side of the street, storefronts announced back-to-school sales. On the other, Central Park reared up yellow and green. Daisy gazed out the bus window at her city.
She realized she was happy.
Her chest was open. Her stomach was calm. She stood out at a musical theater audition and made the final cut. Possibly she could get a job out of it. But she already had a job. She was making it. She was paying her way, doing what she loved. In the Big Apple. Warm and gold on an August evening. She was home.
She had done it.
Not bad, she thought again, smiling at her reflection. Not bad at all, Marge.
She transferred to the Columbus Avenue bus and rode smiling to 86th Street, where she pulled the bell and alighted into the soft air. The skies over New Jersey were turning pink and orange. Maybe she and John could take a walk over to Riverside Park tonight, go out to eat.
After homecoming, of course.
“Where’s Johnny?” she called in the front hall.
Silence.
She set her keys down and heeled off her shoes. “The mistress of the house hath returned.”
More silence. She wondered if he was sleeping.
Bag still on her shoulder, she rifled through the mail. Bills and the latest Dance Magazine. And an airmail envelope with Will’s address. “What’s up, asshole,” she said happily.
“Hi.”
She looked up. John stood in the hall. He did not look happy to see her. To the point where Daisy ran a quick moral inventory, wondering what she could have possibly done.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Erik called.”
For a crystal second, the universe ceased. Then Daisy’s heart gave a lurch and dropped a load of adrenaline from her chest into her stomach.
Careful, her mind warned her. Be extremely careful right now, Marguerite.
“When?” she said.
“Last night.”
She stared at him. Sweat trickled from armpit to elbow as her heart kicked her breastbone with thick, audible thuds.
“Oh,” she said. She let her bag slide off her shoulder to the floor. “What did he want?” she asked. Her voice was steady but her body had gone numb. She was nothing but air and stomach and that pounding, thudding heart.
“He was looking for something.”
Her throat tightened up. Don’t cry, she thought. Don’t you fucking start crying.
“Looking for what?” It would help if John would be a little less elusive.
“His necklace. The gold one he used to wear. You know.”
Now tears prickled her eyes. “He lost it?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Oh.” She swallowed hard. “Well, that sucks. It was an heirloom. All the men in his family wore—”
“I know what it was, Dais. Where is it?”
“I don’t know.” The accusation should have filled her with outrage. Instead, the clamp around her throat tightened with something that felt like guilt. “I don’t have it,” she said, feeling on trial. “Everything I had of his went back to him in that box.”
“Are you sure you didn’t keep it back as bait?”
“Are you seriously doing this?” she asked. “Springing this on me the second I walk in the door. Hinting I have something to do with him calling?”
“How did he get our number?”
She held out her hands. “Maybe he called my parents. Maybe he called directory assistance. It’s not like I’m in hiding.”
“Do you have his necklace?”
“I do not have it. I don’t have anything of his. I sent it all back. I moved on.”
They glared at each other, prickling and defensive.
“Did he say anything else?” Daisy asked. She meant to be conversational but it came out reeking of desperation.
Oh, what did he want? What? Tell me what he said. How did he sound, what did he want?
Something was smug in John’s narrowed eyes, as if he hoped she would ask. “He asked how you were,” he said. “And I said you were fine now. Told him it was bad before. He asked how and I said you’d been cutting yourself.”
“You told him that?”
“You’re goddamn right I did.”
Her face numb, she opened her mouth and closed it a couple times. “Well,” she said. “That was my story to tell but—”
“Oh your story,” he said, his v
oice raising. “Sure. I have nothing to do with it. I’m just the guy who found you bleeding in the bathroom. That makes me a bit player in this drama?”
“It does not. John, you—”
“Good. Then as your live-in boyfriend, I told him I’d appreciate if he wouldn’t make a habit of calling,” John said. “I was pretty nice about it. Not that I think he deserves it. And not that anyone gives a shit what I think.”
Grabbing his keys, he pushed past her, heading for the door and muttering under his breath. “Son of a bitch couldn’t make a fucking phone call when you were in a death spiral three years ago. Now he finds the stones to call and he gets me. Little ol’ Opie.” He looked back at her with a cruel expression she barely recognized. “It was fucking beautiful, Dais. I enjoyed hearing him squirm. I relished it. Relish, was the word.”
“John, stop it. Don’t leave, I’m just—”
The door slammed.
“Surprised. Fuck.” With a groan of frustration she slid down the wall to sit on the floor, face in her hands. “You called,” she said. “Now you call me? Now? What, you think I didn’t mean it all those other times? I send your stuff back and then you decide?”
She was crying. Half in exhausted despair, half in primal triumph.
He called.
He didn’t have my number. He had my address but he didn’t have my number. He had to go looking for it.
He came looking for me.
He wanted me.
“No,” she said, getting up, mopping her face. “No, this is not fair. You do not get to do this to me. You had a chance. You had three years. You missed it. You’re too late.”
He called me.
He came looking for me.
Erik, Erik, why did you, where are you, how could you…?
She lay on the couch, filled with anger and crushed with sorrow. She was so happy five minutes ago. Now a bomb had gone off and everything she worked for, all her achievements were worthless again.
I missed him. I wasn’t here. My back was turned. He called and I wasn’t here. It’s not fair.
“You can’t,” she said. “I have worked too hard, Erik. You can’t do this.”
His necklace was lost.
Was it really, or was it an excuse he made up? That necklace meant the world to him. It was his history and she added herself to it: the tiny pair of gold scissors had been her gift to him. One of their first private jokes when she thought, upon first hearing his surname, that it meant “scissors.”
Lost.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “If it’s lost, I feel terrible. It was your treasure. But I don’t have it, I don’t have anything anymore, Erik. I’m sorry. I have nothing for you.”
He called, her heart sang, ignoring her. He called, he called. I knew he would. I knew he’d come back.
“Shut up,” she said. She pulled a pillow over her head, clamped it to her ear, as if that could shut out the cacophony of emotion. “Shut up,” she said. A manic laugh poked through the weeping. “And stop talking to yourself.”
She was losing her mind. This was it, she was certifiable now.
“Someone kill me,” she said, laughing and crying. “Please. What the fuck?”
He called me.
He came looking for me.
He came back.
AT THE SOUND OF THE DOOR closing, she woke up.
The apartment was dark. And cold. The air conditioning was up too high. She was curled tight against the crease between the bottom cushions and the top, her feet tucked within.
John turned on a lamp, filling the living room with gold. He took the blanket off the rocking chair and came to her, shaking it out. Tucked it around her. Then he sat cross-legged on the floor. Elbows on knees, hands folded up around his mouth.
“I figure I had a dozen ways to handle that situation,” he said. “I wanted to go with the worst so I picked territorial asshole. How was it?”
“Epic,” she said.
“Jealous douche was my second choice.”
“I could leave and come in again. You could give jealous douche a try.”
“Then I wouldn’t have the element of surprise.”
“True. A lot depended on me.”
“It does.” One of his hands dropped lightly on her head, smoothing her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She put her hand on his, fingers intertwining. “Thank you.”
“I was just…a jealous, territorial lunatic and I had to pee on what was mine.”
She chuckled under her breath.
“It threw me off when he called. So springing it on you made me feel back in control. I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t here when he called.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t have anything of his. I don’t have anything for him.”
She put her hand on John’s face. Snugged his jaw into her palm and ran her thumb along his cheekbone. He turned his mouth into her and exhaled.
“I need to say something and I just want you to listen to me.”
She nodded.
“I love you. You know that. But I don’t think you know how fiercely protective I feel of everything you’ve worked so hard to get back. You nearly killed yourself over him. You gave up the things you loved and you starved yourself. Cut open your old scars and cut new ones in your skin. And I feel protective about my role in this story. It’s mine to tell, too, because I found your scars, Dais. I was the one you showed the glass to. I was the one who called for help.”
“John—”
“Me, Dais.” He shied from her caressing hand and his eyes narrowed. “I watched you fight back to this place. Watched you come home from therapy like a broken doll and then get up the next day and go back out to fight again. Watched you bleed and cry and hurt and… Fuck him if he thinks…”
His head dropped back into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know he was hurt and I know he’s not a malicious person at heart. But I only had to hear his voice on the phone to think I was gonna lose you.”
“You won’t.” She ran gentle fingers through his hair but he still seemed wary of her touch. She took her hand away and let him be.
“Fuck him, Dais,” he said. “He had his chance. Three years of making it crystal clear he couldn’t have cared less if you lived or died. Three years when he couldn’t give you the time of his fucking day. He’s out of chances. He doesn’t get to pick and choose. He doesn’t get to dictate your state of mind anymore. I live here now and I am not going to step aside, invite him in and watch him destroy you again.”
“He won’t. Honey…” She pushed the blanket aside, slid off the couch into his lap. She wrapped both legs and arms around him. “He won’t,” she said, rocking their bodies. “He was looking for something and I don’t have it. And if he was looking for me, I’m not her anymore.”
She held him tight, rocked with him until a trembling shook his shoulders and his arms went around her waist.
“I missed you,” he said along her neck.
“I’m home.” She took his head and set her eyebrows on his. “So are you. You’re more than just the guy who picked up the pieces. You live here. I came home to you.”
“I GOT THE JOB,” Daisy said. “The Phantom touring company called a few nights ago, wanting me to play Meg Giry starting in January.”
“Did you now?” Rita said. “Congratulations.”
“I went for my wig fitting, it was a scream. I fly to Chicago after New Year’s for rehearsals and then join up with the tour in Michigan.”
“How exciting.”
“John got a job offer too, from the Boston Ballet. It’s a soloist contract and a really great opportunity.”
“Is he going to take it?”
“He’d be crazy not to.”
“What about your apartment?”
“Well, all these pieces seem to be falling into place. Lucky and Ed broke up over Thanksgiving. She moved out and she’s been living with her mother in Rockland County and com
muting into the city. It’s a horribly stressful situation. So we asked if she wanted to sub-let from us and she couldn’t pack up fast enough.”
“It all came together.”
Daisy nodded. “As for John and I… It won’t be easy, we’re not kidding ourselves about it. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
“And communicate. Often.”
Daisy sighed. “It’s been a little tense since Erik called.”
“How so?”
“The phone rings and John narrows his eyes. I don’t think he realizes he does it but it’s like he’s braced.” She spread her hands. “And I’m human. I’m a girl. The compulsion to know what your ex-boyfriend wanted when he called out of the blue… I still have moments when I want to grab John and shake him and squeal like he’s one of my girlfriends, ‘Oh my God, tell me everything, what did he say?’”
Rita smiled. “Perfectly human.”
“But I can’t,” she said. “I can’t ask him for the play-by-play. I mean, I can but I won’t. And he could tell me but he won’t. It’s like this little power play. This tiny elephant on the bedside table or a ghost dragging around two pathetic links of a chain. Not enough to haunt but enough to be. And I find we’re bickering over the stupidest things. Like we can’t fight about Erik so we’ll fight about who last bought toilet paper or who ate all the leftover Chinese food.”
Daisy pulled on her ear, chewing on the silence. “What if I need you? While I’m on the road?”
“Excellent question. If you get me a list of cities where you will be, I’ll see if I can locate any colleagues in the area. But certainly if you are in a crisis, you can call me and I hope you will. I don’t consider this relationship terminated because you are no longer seeing me on a regular basis.”
Daisy exhaled in relief. “Thank you.”
“Were you worried?”
“I just didn’t know what the rules were.”
“You can call me. If you want, drop me a letter every now and then. I can’t counsel you by mail or be your pen-pal, but I would love to know what’s going on.”
“I’ll feel so much better knowing I can do that. I’m more than a little nervous, mostly because it’s the unknown.”
“Do you need refills on any of your scripts?”
Daisy drummed fingertips on her mouth. “The Xanax is a little low.”
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