Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

  For years he’d forgotten about her and Steven. He’d buried them in the past and got on with his life. Now here she was, dredging it all back up again.

  Cal Turner approached her and she followed him to the middle of the dance floor. Everyone knew Cal was a horny bastard and would naturally take all those buttons on the side of that dress as an invitation to let his fingers do the walking. Maybe that’s what she wanted. To get something going with Cal. Didn’t matter, though. It was none of Jack’s business.

  “The vinyl roof needs to be replaced,” Marvin said, then rambled on about the interior.

  Cal wrapped an arm around Daisy’s waist and she smiled up at him. Light from the crystal ball slid along her cheek and got caught in her hair. Her red lips parted and she laughed. Daisy Lee Brooks, the fantasy of every horny guy at Lovett High, was back in town, turning heads and leading guys on with a smile.

  Some things never changed.

  Only she wasn’t Daisy Lee Brooks. She was Daisy Monroe and she had a kid. A son. A baby with Steven. He didn’t know why that surprised him. It shouldn’t. Of course they’d had a kid. When he thought about it, it was more surprising that they’d just had the one.

  Unexpected and unwanted, the memory of her flat stomach flashed across his brain. His mouth tasting her bare skin just above her navel as he gazed up into her face. At the hot drowsy passion in her eyes as he worked his way down. Her lips moist and abraded from his kiss.

  “Excuse me,” he said just as Marvin was getting all hot about the Ford’s dual carbs. He walked toward the exit sign and out the doors. He moved down the hall and out the front doors of the country club. The warm June night touched his face and throat. The sound of insects was thick in the air. There was some sort of pond to Jack’s right and lightning bugs blinked like white Christmas lights on the golf course beyond. A memory of catching lightning bugs with Steven and Daisy flashed across his brain. That had been back before insecticides reduced their numbers, and they were still easy to catch in Mason jars. He, Steven and Daisy would smear the bugs on their arms, making fluorescent streaks that lasted a good ten minutes.

  He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and walked to a stone bench just beyond the lights of the club. He sat and slid off the cigar band. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and patted his pockets, searching for the box of matches he’d picked up in the tobacco store. He didn’t smoke that often, but he did occasionally enjoy an expensive cigar.

  His pockets came up empty and he stuck the cigar back in his breast pocket. A bank of windows from the restaurant threw watery light on the pond. He ran his fingers through his hair, leaned his head back against the building, and stared out at the night. His life was good. He had more business than he could handle and was making more money than he needed. He’d taken Parrish American Classics and made it bigger and better than his father had ever dreamed. He owned his home and his business. He drove a Mustang worth seventy grand and a new Dodge Ram truck to pull his twenty-one-foot boat.

  He was content, so why did Daisy have to show up now and dredge up old memories that were better left long buried? Memories of him and her. Of him and Steven. Of the three of them.

  From almost the first day in grade school, he and Steven had both been a little in love with Daisy Brooks. It’d started out innocent enough. Two boys looking across the playground and seeing a little girl with gold hair and big brown eyes. A girl who could play baseball, swing on the monkey bars, and outrun them. The attraction had been pure and naive.

  In the third grade, when Daisy had worried about who she’d marry when she grew up, they’d all three decided that she would marry the both of them. They’d all live in the tree house they planned to build, and Jack would get rich and famous driving NASCAR. Steven would become a lawyer like his dad, and Daisy a beauty queen. They’d never heard of polygamy, and neither he nor Steven had thought of Daisy in a sexual way. Not that he and Steven hadn’t talked about sex. They just hadn’t thought about it in relation to Daisy.

  But all that changed the summer going into the eighth grade. Daisy had gone away to work on her aunt’s ranch in El Paso, and by the time she’d come back, she’d popped out a pair of perfect breasts. She’d left looking like the girl they’d always known, skinny and flat-chested, but she came back changed. Her legs longer. Her breasts bigger than his hands. Her hips fuller. Even her hair had seemed shinier.

  Back then, his body had never needed a reason to get an erection. It was just something that happened to all pubescent boys for no reason at all and was embarrassing as hell. Sometimes it’d just happened when he was doing nothing more exciting than geometry or mowing the lawn.

  But that summer, he’d taken one look at Daisy, and his body had reacted to the two very distinct reasons pressed against her T-shirt. His thoughts had dropped right to his crotch, and he’d gotten so hard he’d about passed out from lack of blood to his brain. She’d come over to tell him about her aunt’s ranch, and while she was sitting there beside him on his front porch, talking and laughing and filling him in on the horses she’d ridden, he was trying not to stare at her tits. Yee-freakin’-ha!

  That summer, he and Steven had known without exchanging words that each felt an attraction for her that was no longer innocent. It was there between them. For the first time in their friendship, they had a real big problem. One that wasn’t going to be solved with an apology or an extra slug to equal things out.

  Later they’d talked about it, about how they felt about Daisy. They decided that neither could have her. In order to remain friends, they promised to keep their hands to themselves. Daisy was off limits. Jack had broken that promise, but Steven had ended up with her.

  The front door of the club swung open, and as if his thoughts had conjured her, Daisy stepped outside. She settled the little gold chain of her purse on her shoulder and glanced around as if she couldn’t quite recall where she’d parked her car. Her gaze locked with his, and she stared at him across the distance. The light from the front of the club lit half her face and left the rest in variegated shadow.

  “Shay’s going to throw her bouquet in a minute,” she said as if he’d asked. “And I don’t want to pretend to catch it.”

  “You don’t want to get married next?”

  She shook her head and her hair brushed her shoulders.

  He didn’t ask why. He didn’t want to give a shit. His gaze moved to her full breasts pressing against the red material of her dress and down all those buttons on the side.

  “This morning I was thinking about my first day at Lovett Elementary,” she said and took a step toward him. “Do you remember that?”

  He stood and looked back up into her face. “No.”

  Her red lips turned up at the corners. “You told me my hair bow was stupid.”

  And she’d burst into tears.

  “My mama made me wear that dumb thing.”

  He looked down into her face, with her smooth perfect skin, straight nose, and full red lips. She was as beautiful as she’d always been, maybe more so, and he was doing a really good job of feeling nothing. No anger. No desire. Nothing. “What are you doing here?”

  She took a step closer. If he reached out, he could touch her. Daisy’s big eyes stared into his and she said, “Shay invited me to her reception this morning when I saw her buying a can of Aqua Net at Albertsons.”

  That wasn’t want he’d meant. “Why are you in Lovett? Dredging up the past?”

  She lowered her gaze to his chest but didn’t answer.

  “What do you want, Daisy?”

  “I want to be friends.”

  “No.”

  “Why, Jack?” She looked back up, her gaze searching his face. “We were friends once.”

  He laughed. “Were we?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “I think we were more.”

  “I know, but I mean friends like in before all that.”

  “Before all that sex?”

  He wasn’t sure, but h
e thought she blushed. “Yes.”

  “And before you had sex with my best friend?” He folded his arms across his chest. Maybe he did feel something. Maybe he was a little more pissed off than he’d thought, because he said, “Are you here to start things up again? Continue right where we left off?”

  She looked away. “No.”

  “I know I’m not supposed to flatter myself, but are you sure you don’t want to tear one off in the back of my car?” She shook her head, but he didn’t stop. “For old time’s sake?”

  Her gaze returned to his. “Don’t, Jack.” She raised her hand between them and pressed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t say any more.”

  The touch of her fingers took him off guard. He caught the scent of perfume, but underneath that, he smelled her. Daisy. She might cover it with perfume and move away for fifteen years, but it hadn’t changed. Even at the age of seventeen, when she’d worked at The Wild Coyote Diner; even beneath the scent of fried chicken and barbeque, she’d always smelled like a warm summer breeze.

  With her fingers pressed to his mouth, he stared at her for several long heartbeats. Sometimes he’d had to search hard for the scent of her beneath the smell of all that grease, but he’d always found it. Usually in the crook of her neck. He grabbed her wrist and took a step back. “What do you want from me?”

  “I told you. I want to be friends.”

  There had to be more. “We can never be friends.”

  “Why?”

  He let go of her wrist. “You married my best friend.”

  “You broke up with me.”

  No, he’d told her he needed time to think. “So, to get back at me, you married Steven.” It wasn’t a question. Rather a statement of fact.

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t like that.”

  It was exactly like that. “You and I were lovers. We were doing it every which way to Sunday. Then you up and married my best friend the same week I buried my parents. What part did I get wrong?” Through the darkness he watched a crease draw her brows together.

  “The timing was real bad.”

  Bitter laughter clogged his chest. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry Jack.” She looked sorry, too.

  He didn’t care. “Don’t be. It all worked out for the best.”

  “I came back because I have to talk to you.”

  There was absolutely nothing she had to say that he wanted to hear. “Save your breath, Daisy,” he said as he walked past her toward the bridge separating the entrance from the parking lot.

  “It’s the reason I’m here,” she called after him.

  “Then you’ve wasted your time.”

  “Don’t make me chase you.”

  That stopped him and he looked back at her. Her hands were on her hips, and although he couldn’t see her features clearly, he could feel her gaze on him, staring him down. It was like looking at the old Daisy.

  “I’m trying to be nice about this, but you really don’t have a choice. You’re going to listen to me; and if you get ugly like you said, I’ll become your worst dang nightmare.”

  Damn, but she was the old Daisy. All hot temper and feisty belligerence wrapped up in such a soft girly package. He almost smiled. Almost.

  “Too late, buttercup,” he said as he turned to go. “You became my worst nightmare years ago.”

  Chapter 4

  Daisy hung her dress in the closet, pulled the red slip over her head, and put on her short nightgown. Then she washed her face. It was a little after ten, and her mother was already asleep.

  She sat on the edge of her bed and dialed her son in Seattle. It was only eight in Washington; she was sure that Nathan was still up.

  She was right. “Hey, sugar muffin,” she said after Nathan picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Mom.”

  Well, it wasn’t a great beginning to their conversation, but it was great to hear his voice. “How are things?”

  “Gay.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Then come home.”

  “I will a week from Sunday.”

  “Mom, I do not want to stay here for a week.”

  She’d had this same conversation with him before she’d even left. Junie and Oliver were not his favorite relatives. They weren’t horrible, just boring. Especially to a fifteen-year-old boy. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever lived with Aunt Junie and Uncle Know-it-Olly.”

  “Nathan, they’ll hear you!” Unfortunately Oliver was one of those men who liked to impress people with his limited knowledge on every subject known to man. Steven had started calling him Know-it-Olly years ago.

  “No, they won’t. They’re not even here. They left me to baby-sit Michael Ann and Richie.”

  Daisy wedged the phone between her jaw and shoulder. “Michael Ann is only a year younger than you.”

  “I know. And she’s a pain in the butt. She follows me around asking me if I get food stuck in my lip ring.”

  Daisy had asked him that too and thought it was a fair question. “I think she has a crush on you.”

  “Oh my God! That is so gross, Mom,” he said, his voice cracking with indignation. “How can you say that? She’s my cousin.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of kissing cousins?” Daisy teased him.

  “Yuck. She still picks her nose!”

  Daisy laughed and the conversation turned to school. There was only five more days left, than he would be out for the summer. He’d just turned fifteen in December, and since about first grade, he’d been counting the days until he could take driver’s education. He had one more year to go, but he already had his car picked out. For this week anyway.

  “I’m gonna get a Nova Super Sport. A four-on-four, too. None of that wussy three-speed crap. Why bother if you can’t burn ’em off? It’ll be fat.” She didn’t even pretend to know what he was talking about. He’d been born car crazy. No way around it. She figured it was in his DNA. Plus, chances were good that he’d been conceived in the back of a Chevy. Nathan had been doomed to be a gear head.

  “What color?” she asked, not in the least concerned that he would ever actually drive a Nova SS and burn ’em off. Nathan didn’t have a job.

  “Yellow with a black top.”

  “Like a bumblebee?”

  There was a long pause before he said, “White with a black top.”

  They talked for a few more minutes about the weather and where he might want to go on vacation when she got back. He’d just seen a teen skin-flick and thought Fort Lauderdale would be good. Or Hawaii.

  By the time she hung up the telephone, they’d pretty much decided on Disney World, although with Nathan that could change by the next time she talked to him. She squirted almond-scented lotion into her hands and rubbed it up her arms. A thin white strip of skin barely marked her left finger where her wedding ring had been for fifteen years. She’d slipped the two-carat solitaire into the inside breast pocket of Steven’s burial suit. She thought it appropriate that it should rest above his heart.

  As she rubbed the lotion into her hands, she glanced about the room where she was staying. It was her old bedroom, but nothing remained except the bed itself. Framed posters of windmills, the Alamo, and the River Walk in San Antonio hung on the walls, replacing her certificates from local photography contests she’d entered, her cheerleading plaques, and a poster of Rob Lowe she’d pinned up during his St. Elmo’s Fire days.

  She stood and moved to the closet and opened the door. The closet was empty except for a few old prom dresses, a pair of her old red cowboy boots with white heart inserts, and a big box with her name written across it in black. She scooted the box across the floor to the bed, then sat looking at it for several long moments. She knew what she would find in there. Bits and pieces of her life, the memories she’d long ago shoved in a box and taped shut. Earlier at the reception, she’d pushed the memories from her head, now here she sat staring at them. Did she really wan
t to look into her past?

  No, not really.

  She tore off the tape and opened the box.

  A dried wrist corsage, her graduation tassel, and a few name tags that said HI MY NAME IS DAISY, sat on top. She couldn’t recall why she’d kept the name tags, but she recognized the corsage. She touched the dry rosebuds that had once been pink and white but were now a faded yellow. She brought the dried corsage to her nose and breathed deep. It smelled of dust and of old memories. She set it next to her on her bed, then pulled out her baby blanket and christening gown. A heart-shaped box with the necklace her grandfather on her daddy’s side had given her was next, followed by her school annuals. She reached for her tenth-grade yearbook and opened it. She flipped through the pages and paused on a group photograph of the teaching staff standing in front of the school. She’d taken the photo her first year of photography class, before she’d learned much about composition and lighting.

  She turned to the pictures of her and Sylvia and the rest of the cheerleading squad. The picture had been taken of them in their gold-and-blue uniforms doing Herkie, toe-touch jumps, and handsprings. That was the year she’d cut her hair short like Princess Diana. While Diana had looked great, Daisy had looked like a boy in a short pleated skirt.

  She flipped to her class picture and cringed. Her big smile was filled with braces, and she had raccoon eyes from all the makeup she’d spooned on her face.

  She turned a few pages and her finger moved along the row of photos and stopped on Steven. She touched the smooth paper and smiled. He’d always been such a handsome all-American boy, with his wavy blond hair, smiling brown eyes, and a Texas grin as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He’d played football and basketball and been involved in student government, going on to be class president his senior year.

  Daisy thumbed a few more pages and looked at Jack’s yearbook photo. Unlike Steven, Jack never grinned and smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It wasn’t that he was more serious than Steven, it was just that he didn’t waste energy laughing and smiling when he didn’t feel like it.