Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  “Why do men always wager that?” She typed Daisy Bell lyrics into the search box and hit the enter key. “Shoes last longer.”

  “The sweetest head is given voluntarily. The next sweetest is the head won on a bet.”

  “What about the head you have to beg for?”

  “Not as sweet but definitely not sour. Well?”

  “Fuck,” Daisy muttered, staring at the screen. “You’re right.”

  “Oh, I love ‘you’re right.’ Say it again.”

  “You’re right. I’m wrong. It’s do.”

  With a flourish, Ray whipped the towel from his waist and tossed it away, narrowly missing Sovereign, who mewed indignantly.

  “I’ve been singing it wrong for thirty years,” she said.

  “It’s never too late to fix these things.”

  “I have to rearrange my entire childhood.”

  Ray cleared his throat. “I do have a flight to catch.”

  Still staring at the screen, Daisy reached and closed him up in her fingers. “I can’t believe it,” she said.

  “I’ll never tell.”

  She sighed with a shrug. Then got up and went back to the bedroom, leading Ray behind her. Not by the hand.

  “You’re a lady of your word,” he said happily.

  THE JACQUES CARTIER BRIDGE spanned Montreal Harbor and averaged ten suicides a year. On a rainy spring evening, Noelle Bonloup became one of 1992’s statistics.

  “Her heart was broken,” Ray said, as he and Daisy lay in bed at his apartment in Montreal. “Arielle wasn’t our only child. Sandrine came a year later. But we lost her to cancer and Noelle…was never the same.”

  Daisy squeezed her eyes shut, involuntarily turning her head from the image of a woman poised on the rail of a bridge. Poised on the edge of a life no longer worth living.

  When asked, Ray went out to the living room and came back with some photos. He showed Daisy the girls as babies, then as toddlers: a pair of gorgeous redheads, like flame under sunshine. Daisy smiled and exclaimed as her fingers turned the years over. In the last shot, the sisters were perhaps five and six, sitting with Ray at a table crowded with paper, brushes and paints. In the background, slightly blurred, Noelle loaded the dishwasher. A beautiful portrait of a loving family. Except…

  “God,” Daisy whispered, reaching with a fingertip to touch the image. Arielle’s hair fell long and lush down her back, but Sandrine was bald, veins showing through the porcelain skin stretched over her skull. From her free hand snaked tubes to the IV pole behind her chair. “Oh, Ray…”

  Ray turned the photo toward him. His smile wobbled, but it was filled with a fierce affection. “She was tough,” he said. “So brave, right until the end.”

  “How old?”

  “Nearly seven.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He showed her the collection of little people he drew for his daughters over the years, now bound into a half-dozen miniature books.

  “Did your wife bind these?” Daisy asked, examining the cloth and leather covers with an almost reverent awe, admiring the meticulous craftsmanship. The pages’ deckle edges were luxuriantly thick against her fingertips.

  “No, my father-in-law,” he said. “I asked him to after Noelle… I wanted them bound for Arielle. I feel the pictures belong to her. But she’s never come to claim them or bring them to live with her. I thought maybe when she had the baby…”

  Daisy set the books carefully on the nightstand and turned to put arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

  His fingers pushed into her hair, carefully tugged their way down and out. His body felt so serene and peaceful under her hands and she didn’t understand how. Something about his peace was upsetting her.

  She pushed the sheets aside, got up on one elbow as her eyes followed the path of her palm over his chest and shoulders. Her touch trailed down and up his arms in a confused search.

  “What?” he said.

  “Roll over…”

  He gave her a puzzled look and turned onto his stomach. The skin was softest on his back, freckled over his shoulder blades and solid further down, like tea with a splash of milk. Her eyes and hands kept sweeping him, searching, moving down the strong muscles of his legs to his feet. He shivered as she touched the hollows of heels and the secret place behind his knees.

  “What are you looking for,” he said.

  She surfed up his body and stretched out on his back, curving her arms around his arms. Beneath the pillow, she wove their fingers together.

  “You had to explain to your child she was going to die,” she whispered against his head. “You buried your daughter. Then you had to go claim Noelle. You got the call and you had to go… Did you go to the bridge?”

  “The morgue,” he said, his fingers curling around hers.

  “And you had to tell Arielle what happened. Twice you had to tell her.”

  “Yes.”

  She swallowed. “Did you feel to blame? For Noelle? Wonder if you could have done something differently?”

  “Of course. I tore my soul to shreds wondering what I could have done to stop her. And I bore the brunt of Arielle’s grief as well. She was young and needed justification, something or someone to blame for the loss of her sister and her mother. I know our relationship suffered because I was her whipping boy when she needed a father. For years, it seemed everywhere I looked, including the mirror, I only saw incriminating eyes.”

  “And yet…” She slid off him again and set her palm in the center of his back. “You don’t have a mark on you.” Tears blurred her vision as she gazed upon the whole, unmarred and intact surface of his skin. “Not one cut, not one scar, not even a tattoo. You felt no need to make the blame visible on your body.”

  He rolled to his side. “No, I didn’t.”

  His fingertips gently touched her wet face as her hand moved along his arm. “This is hard to explain,” she said. “But it’s like your skin is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He looked up at her, bewilderment in his expression but understanding as well. “Thank you,” he said.

  SHE WOKE UP ALONE in bed the next morning, which was typical. Ray didn’t sleep in—up at dawn no matter what day of week. He never disturbed her rest, although he insisted she get up by ten for practical purposes.

  “You must get up,” he would say, opening the drapes. “Or you won’t nap properly later.”

  She gathered the sheet around herself and went down the hall, trailing 500-threadcount Egyptian cotton like a bride. The apartment smelled of fresh coffee. Ray had a fire going and Chopin on the stereo. He sat at his drafting table wearing the textured, navy blue shirt she loved. The sun through the window making a halo around his head. His quiet, rugged handsomeness making Daisy’s heart press against the wall of her chest.

  Are you the one?

  He looked up. Took off his glasses and smiled at her.

  “Can this be mine,” he said, opening his arms.

  She went to him, wriggled between his knees between the high stool and the drafting table, which he preferred to a desk. She snuggled back against him as his arms circled her and went on drawing.

  “I’m so happy,” she said.

  He put his forehead down on her shoulder, kissed her neck. His hand, she noticed, was covering up his work.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Just a bit of an idea.”

  “What?”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Show me.”

  He shuffled drawings around and brought to the top a sheet where he’d written the lyrics of “Daisy Bell.”

  Daisy, daisy give me your answer true.

  “True?” she asked.

  “True,” he said, kissing the side of her face. “From now on it will always be true.”

  I’m half-crazy all for the love of you

  It won’t be a stylish marriage

  I can’t afford a carriage

  But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

  O
f a bicycle built for two.

  Surrounding the words was a bower of daisies. And beneath it, a couple on a tandem bicycle. Ray’s distinctive creatures made human. The same button eyes and mouthless faces but they were definitively people, not fairies. A mid-century feel was in the illustration. A bygone time rendered soft with watercolor and detailed with India ink.

  “Did you make this for me?” she said.

  He turned over another page. “Here’s where it gets stupid.”

  A skyscape now, going from pastel day in the bottom left to indigo twilight in the top right. A hot air balloon piloted by a man in cap and goggles. His passenger a blonde lady, a long white scarf waving floating behind her like a banner. Out the back of the basket dropped tiny purple flowers, drifting down and about the page, circling another verse:

  Violet, Violet, give me your answer true.

  I’ll be a pilot and fly away with you

  On top of the clouds we’ll tarry

  Among the stars we’ll marry

  And songs we’ll sing upon the wings

  Of an air balloon built for two.

  Every page a woman’s floral name, a made up verse and an illustration.

  “Ray,” she said again, completely drawn in. “It’s…”

  She couldn’t think of a word to do the illustrations justice. Charming. Precious. Breathtakingly simple and innocent.

  “I want to live in them,” she said. The sweet, lullaby tune filled her head. Her finger touched a scene of a couple on a back porch, cozied on a glider swing. Beneath the railings was drawn the sword-like foliage of irises.

  Iris, Iris, give me your answer true.

  I’ll blow one kiss across the lawn to you

  You’ll catch it on your finger

  And through the day ’twill linger

  ‘Til fireflies dance and hold us entranced

  On a back porch built for two.

  “If I were a little girl, I would want a book like this on my shelf,” she said. “I’m a big girl and I want it.”

  “It’s yours.” His warm hands ran up and down her back, gently pushing the sheet open and away, turning her to face him. “And so am I,” he said.

  Ray was well-connected, and friends and colleagues were more than happy to help him get it published. Within a month he’d finished the verses and drawings. Pitched the book and sold it and partnered with a children’s charity to donate all the proceeds.

  He arrived in Saint John one weekend and brought Daisy one of the first printed copies. He drew her into his lap and opened the book to the dedication page.

  For Daisy.

  Because you do these things when you’re in love.

  THE SAINT JOHN Herald

  December 15, 2003

  “Nutcracker Brings Endings and Beginnings For New Brunswick Ballet Theater”

  Saturday evening’s performance of the second act of Nutcracker was a charming and heartfelt farewell for Marguerite Bianco and William Kaeger, who are retiring as principal dancers with the company and taking up reins as co-artistic directors in January.

  Since 1999, this partnership has been bringing a magical joy to NBBT’s repertory. But the roots of Kaeger and Bianco’s affinity stretch back another decade, to when they met at Lancaster University in 1989.

  “Our teacher put us together in partnering class,” Kaeger says. “I don’t know if it was a random choice or she had an idea we’d dance well together. But within ten minutes we had a connection.”

  “It was magic,” Bianco says. “I don’t typically believe in magic but right away dancing with Will was extraordinary.”

  “We’re not alike,” Kaeger says. “She’s a much more cerebral dancer than me. She’s pragmatic and thoughtful and I do everything on impulse. But somehow it worked. She made me think a little more.”

  “He made me let go a little more.”

  “And then we were partners.”

  Partners and friends through Lancaster’s 1992 tragedy, when a fellow dance student came into the theater with a gun and opened fire, killing five students and a professor before turning the gun on himself. Kaeger was shot once in the side and again in the left hand, losing two of his fingers. Bianco was shot through the leg and did not dance for a year. When she did come back to the studio, she and Kaeger had to learn to partner in a new way, working around their injuries.

  “We were even closer then,” Bianco says. “The trust and the love were so much stronger between us. I’ve never had with any other partner what I have with Will. And I feel so fortunate I was able to be in a company with him for four years. And now taking over as artistic directors. There’s no one else I’d want to do with this with.”

  “No one who’d want to do it with me,” Kaeger says. “She’s the only one crazy enough.”

  Both Kaeger and Bianco are accomplished choreographers. Bianco’s memorial ballet Rakewind won Capezio’s coveted A.C.E. award and has been staged for the Anaheim Ballet, Charlotte Ballet Theater and Miami Civic Ballet. Kaeger’s Powaqqatsi, set to music by Philip Glass, was featured at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival this summer. Both ballets are planned for NBBT’s coming season, as well as other works in progress.

  Their final performance as Sugar Plum and Cavalier in Nutcracker brought the Imperial Theater to its feet Saturday night. Kaeger and Bianco danced not as storybook characters but as dear, human friends. And as they took their rightfully-deserved multiple curtain calls, one can only see this finale as an overture.

  JUNE 17, 2004

  Dear Rita,

  It’s been an exhausting, exciting time. I feel like I’ve reached a creative apex in my career and I feel so happy. So complete.

  “And?” I can hear you say.

  Ray and I hit our first major pothole a few months ago, when Daisy, Daisy was released. His daughter Arielle called on the phone screaming at me. Screaming at him. How dare he take the pictures he drew for her and her sister, publish them and dedicate them to another woman?

  I’d never been on the receiving end of such an ugly scene. And I have to say, even though they weren’t exactly the pictures he drew for them, I could understand how she felt. In her mind it was her mother’s unfinished project, now finished and given to someone else. I was shocked Ray hadn’t told her about the book. It seemed so thoughtless and out of character for him.

  The situation has cooled down but so has the air between Arielle and me, which was never warm and fuzzy to begin with.

  Meanwhile, Ray and I have been talking about getting married. Oh God, I don’t know. I love Ray, but his family dynamic is so strange. His parents are stiff and formal and one of his brothers is a real misogynistic prick. Do I want to marry into this? Furthermore, do I want to bring a child into this?

  Which raises another issue: Ray had a vasectomy years ago. It didn’t matter when we started dating. Now that our eyes are turning further down the road, I’m feeling like it’s going to start mattering. I am not getting the feeling he wants to have a family with me. I think he wants just us.

  God, the crossroads suck. In a way, Ray has been the perfect boyfriend for me. He’s elbow-deep in his own ventures and he isn’t possessive of me or my time. So our affair continues along with neither of us making demands or making plans. It stays in the present. Ray goes from Montreal to Quebec City to Saint John to Halifax. And he’s toying with the idea of opening a gallery in Toronto.

  And me, I’m racking up the frequent flier miles as well. Will and I go here and there to give master classes or workshops, stage ballets on other companies. Ray and I simply arrange our time so it works. We’re here. We’re there. And in between, we’re together as much as possible.

  His is certainly a style of life I could get used to. He doesn’t throw his money around but he cherishes me. Gifts. Weekends to Paris. Concerts and shows and museum openings. Black tie events. Any time I’m homesick, he puts me on a plane. Or gives my parents the keys to his apartment.

  “And…?”

  I love him. Yet on
the Sunday nights when my apartment door closes behind him, or when I’m buckled into my seat on the plane, it’s the tiniest frisson of luxuriant relief. Not that I want to escape him. But I look forward to my solitude again. Home in my little apartment with only Sovereign’s company.

  I miss Ray when we’re apart, but not enough to die over it. Certainly not enough to change my life for it.

  And it kind of bothers me.

  Anyway, between life’s accomplishments and struggles, between certainties and doubts, I’m hanging in the middle doing all right. I hope you are too.

  Daisy

  RAY’S HAND WAS ALMOST rough as it turned Daisy’s face to him. “I want to marry you.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes, but not from joy.

  “Will you marry me, Daisy?”

  To shake her head would be cruel, as cruel as saying no. But she had no words. She bowed her forehead into his palm and did nothing.

  “Give me your answer true,” he said.

  A smile tried to break through her mouth and failed. She slid her arms around his waist, taking handfuls of his shirt as she lifted her head. “I will want to have children, Ray. This won’t change. I need to know if it’s part of your vision. Do you want a family with me? Or do you want to be just a couple?”

  His hands gripped her shoulders. “I want to be your husband.”

  “And that’s all? Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Give me your answer.”

  “I don’t want to lose you. I love you more than I ever…” The bravery of speaking the truth made his voice crack open. Knowing the truth could cost him.

  “I want you and me,” he said. “I want you to myself. I have no doubt you’d be a wonderful mother but… Being a father at twenty and being a father at fifty are two completely different things.”

  “Honey, this isn’t about your age,” she said.

  “Of course it’s not,” he said, breaking away. “You want the ugly, selfish truth? That I’m afraid to have a child with you? Afraid at best I won’t be the sole recipient of your attention and at worst, to see the light sucked out of your eyes if God forbid, something should happen? Will hearing it make you feel better?”

  Deflated, one of his hands dropped onto the back of a chair, the other dragged across his face.