Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  Daisy stubbed out her cigarette. “And you tanked?”

  “Completely. It was like losing Erik all over again. More than that, it was like going through the shooting again. Or rather, the weeks before the shooting. Except I was James. Begging and vying for this guy’s attention. Following him home on the streetcar. Stalking his friends.”

  “Oh God, honey,” she said.

  “And hating myself every fucking second.”

  “I wish you’d told me. Why didn’t you… Oh, never mind, I know better than to ask. I was the queen of not telling.”

  “I almost told you. I called you and I got Opie. And he told me you were in the hospital.”

  She closed her eyes. “Shit.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Not then. You were fighting your own war and I couldn’t unload more on you. The only other person who would understand was Lucky, and I’d shit all over that relationship. But I sucked it up hard and called her mother, who took great pleasure in telling me Lucky was on vacation with her rich boyfriend in the Bahamas.”

  “Jesus. What did you do?”

  Will smiled. “Kept sucking it up. Seb left Frankfurt and went to the Dutch National Ballet, which put an end to the daily torture of seeing him. But I knew something else was wrong. Something deeper and Seb was the catalyst. A can of snakes was open and I couldn’t close it. In a way I didn’t want to close it, like I’d deserved what happened. You know?”

  “You were James, out in the yard,” she said. “Staring up at Seb’s window. Wanting him to come down.”

  He nodded. “Everything kept getting darker, colder and more depressing. And when I reached the point where I didn’t even want to get up and go to class anymore, I guess I knew then it was time to do something or die.”

  “You were so far from home. Were you terrified?”

  He started to shake his head, then closed his eyes with a faint smile. “Yeah. It was bad.”

  “How did you find help in Germany?”

  “I knew this girl in the corps. Beatrice. She was American and I knew she’d had trouble with anorexia when she first joined the company but had gotten a handle on it. I figured she might know where to get some help. And she was awesome, she helped me find a shrink and… Well, you know what it’s like. It gets a whole lot fucking worse before it gets better.”

  They drank their coffee in silence for a moment.

  “I wonder,” Daisy said. “We all have our horror story now. Me. You. John and David. And Neil, look how messed up he still is.”

  He pressed a finger into the muffin crumbs on her plate and ate them. “What of it?”

  “Do you think Erik ever… I just wonder if he tanked at some point, too.”

  “Maybe that’s what I was looking for in here.” Will flicked Erik’s note. “Or maybe you put it better. I wanted, ‘Hey, great to hear from you. I miss you, asshole. Call me. Let’s cut the bullshit, we’re too fucking old for it now.’”

  “But what would it be like seeing him? Honestly?”

  Will swallowed, slowly shaking his head. “I miss my friend,” he said. “I love Lucky. I don’t have to tell you. She makes my life so sweet. I love being married to her and I can’t wait for this kid to be born. I’m in a place now that’s so precious, Dais. I wouldn’t fuck around with it if you paid me. But I miss my friend. Every time I look up at the catwalk over the stage, I’m looking for him. I got a problem, I talk to him in my head, working it out. Eight times a day, I want to tell him something funny and crack my ribs open laughing. It’s crazy he wasn’t at my wedding. It’s bullshit I can’t call him when Lucky has the baby. I miss the four of us. I want it back. I’m sorry, it must kill you to hear it and I’m a shit for even say—”

  “I want it back, too,” she said. “I’d settle for a close facsimile.”

  Will sighed. He reached for Daisy’s hand and held it to his lips a moment. “Thanks for listening.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  Over her knuckles his eyes crinkled at her. Then he let go her hand and checked his watch. “We should get back.”

  They reached for jackets and bags, threw some bills on the table. Will picked up the picture of Seb and regarded it a minute, then crumpled it in a fist and tossed it into his coffee cup. He seemed about to do the same with Erik’s note but Daisy stilled his hand.

  “Keep it,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you returned his treasure and he was grateful. Even if he didn’t make any other overtures, you can tell he was thankful. And he made jokes. It’s a start. Keep it for hope, Will. You did nothing wrong. You did nothing but love him.”

  Will set his hand on her crown, leaned and kissed her forehead.

  “Sometimes I forget who my true best friend is,” he said.

  SHE DREAMED ABOUT ERIK that night. She couldn’t see him but knew he was there. Below her. His arms locked around the back of her neck, giving her his dead weight. Hanging onto her.

  She woke up with a stiff neck and the truth: it wasn’t a good idea to have Erik literally hanging around.

  She came to the theater a little early the next evening, sat at her dressing table and turned on the mirror lights, revealing her shrine. All around the frame, newspaper clippings and memorabilia were tucked—from the Met Opera, from Phantom and Orchorale. Pictures of her friends and colleagues. Her parents and her cat, Sovereign. Small bouquets of dried roses hung from the top of the mirror along with the first pair of pointe shoes she wore when she was twelve. From a white ribbon hung Taylor Revell’s knitting needle.

  Knit one, purl two. Don’t forget, I love you.

  On the table top were her Matryoshka dolls, un-nested and lined up in size order. She’d collected them since she was a child and had several sets at her apartment. This set stayed at the theater. Erik gave them to her for her eighteenth birthday. Every dressing room from Philly to New York to California, she had unpacked and arranged them, and they watched her dress and make up.

  Why had it taken her so long to realize all of her mementos of Erik belonged here?

  She slid the jump ring of the scissors off the gold chain and put them into the littlest doll. The lock of his hair went into the next doll. All the pocket finds—spare change, guitar picks, screws and washers and the ridiculous clump of lint—were put carefully away. Almost immediately she felt better.

  He was off of her neck and out of her closet. Away from her living space and behind the scenes, backstage in the middle of creative production. Exactly where he should be because it was the place he loved best.

  EDWINA MEAGHER, the company’s senior rehearsal accompanist, was turning sixty and throwing a bash. Daisy looked forward to the party all week, but after Saturday’s matinee, she was tired to her bones and had a splitting headache. Two aspirin and a quick catnap didn’t help much. For Edwina’s sake, she gritted her teeth and got into the shower. She’d go and show her face, have a drink and hit the road. She could be back in bed with a book in a couple of hours. As enticement, she straightened the covers and plumped the pillows high, laid out her pajamas all ready to fall into. Sovereign jumped up and curled herself into a purring ball against the bolster.

  “Be home soon, lover,” Daisy said, putting in her earrings. “Don’t start without me.”

  At least it was warm out. After weeks of sulking, spring had finally decided to make an appearance, and the soft June evening felt good on Daisy’s shoulders. She rolled down the windows and sang as she drove along Chelsey Drive toward Indiantown, north of the city.

  Fifteen people were the minimum required to secure the double-long picnic table on the porch of Michael’s Crab House. When Daisy arrived, Edwina’s guests had taken raucous possession of the veranda. Daisy loped up the scuffed steps in the wake of a sturdy waitress confidently bearing two pitchers of beer in each hand.

  Drink in hand and engaged in conversation, Daisy felt herself perk up. Without realizing it she was soon caught in the shuffle of everyone taking seats, maneuvering
their legs under the picnic table and arranging their phones and beers on top.

  Daisy squeezed in, got one leg under the table. To pull the other one in, she practically had to lean back into the lap of the man sitting next to her.

  “Hello,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” he said, moving over a little.

  She smelled him before she got a good look at him. A tiny top note of cologne or aftershave. Barely there. Underneath it was a deeper note. Something much more elemental and male. Skin. A waft of confidence. Maturity. And subtle sexuality. All of it cozied up into Daisy’s nose and smoothed away the last bit of ache between her brows.

  She was seated properly now, stowing her bag under her feet and feeling the man’s eyes on her as she shrugged out of her blazer. Underneath, she wore a black sleeveless top. Her many silver bangles jingled from wrist to forearm as she brushed her hair back. The man’s face was set straight ahead, but his swiveled gaze was still on her. Sideways and a little shy. She offered him her hand. “Daisy. Hi.”

  His shake was warm and strong. “Ray. Nice to meet you.”

  His short, thick hair was salt-and-pepper, definitely easing into silver. Underneath dark brows, his eyes were denim blue. He smiled at her. His expression seemed to slide an invisible arm around her shoulders.

  “Are you a friend of Edwina’s?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m in the company. And you?”

  Ray set down his empty beer bottle. “You know Daria, Edwina’s daughter? She works for me.”

  “She just started a job at an art gallery, that’s right. Are you the owner?”

  “I am.”

  That was all the small-talk allowed before the food arrived. Service was immediate at the menu-less Michael’s: crabs and beer. Period. Three waiters burst out of the main restaurant with bus tubs held high over their heads, trailing steam and the strong, briny smell of the ocean behind them.

  “Oh boy,” Ray said to no one, looking like a child looks at a birthday cake. People moved glasses and bottles aside in anticipation. The long table was covered with layers of newspaper and brown butcher paper, and down its center marched old mason jars with crackers, mallets and picks, and rolls of paper towels on wooden spindles.

  Women were taking the plastic bibs kept in a basket on the table, unfolding and spreading them carefully across their nice blouses or white jeans. Daisy’s only precaution was to slide an elastic off her wrist and pull her hair back in a ponytail.

  Ray smiled at her. “I see you equate eating well with a good sporting event.”

  Daisy grinned back at him, toes curling in her shoes as the evening took on a whole new flavor. Then, without ceremony, the waiters dumped their cargo on the table in a magnificent sprawl. Hands lunged in all directions, tearing off legs and ripping off claws. Hammering, cracking, picking. Dunking bits in butter and eating with their fingers. The cross-talk and laughter got louder, the beer was flowing and everyone was being a glorious slob.

  Daisy felt her petals unfold in the sunshine of Ray’s attention. He wasn’t leering at her, but she could feel his frequent glances as she licked butter and Old Bay spice off her fingers, or used one clean knuckle to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. She talked equally to him and the people sitting across from her. Ray made friendly conversation around as well.

  But at some point the balance tipped, and their bodies began to angle further and further in toward each other. Beneath the table their calves bumped. Bumped again. Then agreed to stay still and get acquainted. And then it was just the two of them, chattering away in a bubble, sharing one mallet and one pick and one clump of paper towels. One of their many exchanged glances snagged and caught. And held.

  “I’m sure you hear this all the time,” Ray said. “But…”

  She blinked. Waited for him to say something about her eyes.

  “You have beautiful posture.”

  She drew her neck up, holding his gaze. Trying to keep the smile from exploding through her mouth and failing.

  “Your shoulders are lovely,” he said.

  Her hands were fully engaged in dismantling the body of a crab, all ten fingers in. As she looked down, laughing, that strand of hair came untucked and went sliding across her temple. Ray reached a finger and stopped it, moved it back behind her ear.

  “I’d like to see you again,” he said, his voice a low confidence.

  She finished chewing, swallowed and said in the same low tone, “You will.”

  They were the last ones sitting at the table. The busboys cleaned around them as they exchanged cards over coffee and chocolate cake, the restaurant’s single dessert offering.

  “Daisy,” Ray said. “Short for Marguerite.”

  She looked down at his card. Gallerie 247, Ltd. Jean-Raymond Bonloup, owner. Québec City. Montréal. Saint John.

  “Bonloup,” she said, touching the word. “Good wolf.”

  He tilted his head, corners of his eyes crinkling over the rim of his coffee cup.

  “Usually the wolves come for me at four in the morning,” she said in French.

  He put his cup down. “Did you know,” he said, also in French. “That the head of a daisy is made up of several smaller flowers called ‘ray flowers’?”

  He reached a hand and helped her on with her jacket. They extricated themselves from the bench seats and Ray walked her out to the porch. They shook hands and pressed cheeks three times.

  “I almost didn’t come tonight,” Daisy said.

  He tucked her hair behind her ear. “That would have been a tragedy.”

  “Will you call me?”

  “Will you answer?”

  She laughed, and her hand, of its own accord, brushed his cheek. Ran out along his shoulder, down his arm, and squeezed his fingers. “Goodnight.”

  She had only turned onto the main road when her cell phone rang.

  “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met tonight?”

  Her face stretched with pleasure. “Where are you?”

  “Still standing on the porch. Watching you drive away.”

  Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror but she’d rounded a bend and the cove was out of sight. “Aren’t you supposed to wait something like three days before you call a girl?”

  “Three days to call a girl. If it’s a woman like you, call immediately.”

  “I see.”

  “I was thinking of going to the Hopper exhibit at the arts center tomorrow,” he said.

  “Alone?”

  “That was my plan. Would you like to go with me?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Will you have breakfast with me first?”

  “I’d love that, too.”

  “What else do you love?”

  She laughed. “I don’t love talking on the phone while I’m driving so I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Will you call me when you get home or do you have to wait three days?”

  “I can call when I get home. If you want.”

  “I want. Your French is beautiful. You were either raised in the Rhône-Alpes or by someone who was.”

  “My mother is from Lyon. You have a good ear.”

  “You have beautiful eyes.”

  “I’ll call you in a few minutes.”

  “All right, Daisy. Drive safely.”

  “A bientôt, bon loup.”

  SHE SUGGESTED KATE’S BAKERY for breakfast, and declined to be picked up. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Through the glass front doors, she saw him sitting on the wooden bench in the vestibule, elbows on knees, feet tapping a tattoo on the terracotta floor. His face lit up when she walked in. He stood, his tall frame unfolding until it seemed to fill the small space with joy.

  “Good morning,” he said. Something in his voice and eyes reminded Daisy of Kees Justi. How Kees could call your name and say hello as if only you existed for him.

  “Sleep well?” he asked after they were seated. He shrugged his leather jacket off an
d onto the chair back. Under it, he wore a handsome button-down shirt, navy blue with a raised, textured pattern. His hair looked damp and his face gleamed freshly-shaved.

  “I did,” she said, sliding her own jacket off.

  “I feel bad I kept you up so late talking.”

  “I don’t feel bad at all,” she said, smiling.

  The waitress appeared and poured water into their glasses. “Can I bring anyone coffee?”

  “Yes,” Ray said, and glanced at Daisy. “For you?”

  She nodded, digging in her purse for a hair elastic. “No, actually… Make it tea,” she said.

  Because I’m sorry and I’ll always be sorry and I think I can have a cup of goddamn tea now.

  “I love when you do that,” Ray said.

  “What? Talk to myself?”

  He laughed. “I meant pull your hair back when you sit down to eat. But the mumbling is adorable, too.”

  “Get used to it,” she said, opening the menu.

  She ordered the eggs Florentine and he got the French toast. By unspoken arrangement, halfway through their meals, they switched plates. Conversation flowed like syrup, puddling comfortably around their ankles.

  “What did your wife do,” Daisy asked. From last night’s conversation she knew Ray was widowed ten years before, leaving him with a sixteen-year-old daughter, Arielle.

  Ray smiled as he ran a bit of toast around the last of the egg yolk on the plate. “She came from a long line of book binders,” he said. “She lived for books. Loved nothing more than an afternoon in a library or a dusty secondhand bookstore, looking for treasure. If she wasn’t reading, she was writing.”

  “Did she publish anything?”

  “No. After the baby was born, well… You know how it is. Dreams get put on hold during those years. Too little time. Too little energy. She thought about going back to school, but never put a plan together. She worked with her father, but as it suited her.” Ray’s soft laugh was affectionate as he looked out the window. “Noelle had no end of dreams and ideas, but so little drive to make them come alive.”

  “She liked to be there, not get there,” Daisy said.