Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

  They were only permitted a few moments with Lily before she was wheeled away. They were told a doctor would talk to them shortly, but Daisy knew “shortly” could take hours.

  She and her mother were shown to a small waiting room, and it looked and felt like every other waiting room she’d ever been in. She figured that all hospitals must choose colors from the same palate. Blues, greens, and a dash of maroon.

  They sat together on a small blue sofa, and on the table next to Daisy sat a fake fern, a copy of Reader’s Digest, Newsweek, and the Gideon Bible. She’d read a lot of Reader’s Digest over of the last two and a half years, and she didn’t even have a subscription.

  A man and a woman stood near the door talking in hushed tones as if they raised their voice they’d scream. Daisy knew how they felt. She’d been here before, so many times. Finding distractions so she wouldn’t scream and fall apart, concentrating on nice, even breaths so she could pretend her husband hadn’t been dying. And now that her sister wasn’t lying on a hospital gurney with blood crusted in her beautiful blond hair.

  She picked up the Reader’s Digest and flipped to “Humor in Uniform.”

  “She looked so white,” Louella said, a tremble in her voice. “And there was so much blood.”

  “Scalps bleed a lot, Mom.” She sounded so cool. As if she wasn’t trembling inside, in the place where she shoved it all away. Down deep where she could control it. She’d gotten really good at sucking up her emotions and going numb inside. Never letting things get too close to the surface, because if she let that happen, she’d lose it for sure. Like with Jack today.

  “How do you know?”

  “Steven,” she answered, and concentrated even harder on her magazine. She didn’t want to think about Jack right now. She’d have to deal with him, and the repercussions of what she’d done, but not today. For now she pushed that problem down to the number two spot on her to-do list. Lily and the potential of murder charges moved to number one. She wondered how much a really good psychiatrist cost these days.

  “Why wouldn’t they tell us anything?”

  “They don’t know anything right now.”

  A police officer walked into the room and asked if they were related to Lily. He had a crewcut and wore a blue uniform and looked as if he could bench three hundred. He identified himself as Officer Neal Flegel. “I graduated high school with Lily and Ronnie,” he said.

  “You’re Matt’s little brother.” Daisy shook his hand. “I went to a high school dance with Matt our sophomore year. Does he still live in Lovett?” she asked, because after all, this was Texas and manners came before emergencies.

  “He just moved back from San Antone. I’ll tell him you asked about him.” He pulled out his notebook and got down to business. “I surely hated to see Lily in that car.” He told them that the Taurus had come to a stop five feet inside Ronnie’s living room. And as Daisy tried to figure out a subtle way of inquiring if Lily had killed Ronnie, Neal Flegel asked, “Do either of you have any reason to think she might have done this on purpose?”

  That had actually been Daisy’s first and only thought. “No.” She shook her head and tried to look perplexed. “It must have been an accident.”

  “Her foot must have slipped,” Louella said, and Daisy wondered if her mother actually believed it any more than she did. “And,” Louella continued as if just struck by a thought, “she’s been getting those blinding migraines lately.”

  “We spoke to Ronnie and he told us they’d been fighting a lot lately.”

  “You spoke to Ronnie today?” Daisy almost laughed with relief. “After the accident?”

  “We contacted him at his girlfriend’s.”

  “So he wasn’t even home?”

  “No one was in the home at the time.”

  “Thank God,” Daisy sighed. Her sister wasn’t going to fry for murder. This was Texas. If you were going to commit murder, Texas wasn’t a good state to do it in. On the other hand, juries filled with Texas women did tend to sympathize with the wife of a cheating dog.

  “Has she been suicidal?” Neal asked.

  That gave both Daisy and her mother pause. Lily was depressed and pissed off, but Daisy didn’t think she wanted to kill herself. Just Ronnie.

  “No,” Louella answered. “She just got a job working at Albertsons’s deli. Things are looking up for her now.”

  “I was with her last night, and she was fine,” Daisy told the officer. And it was the truth. Lily had been fine the night before. Daisy had only had to listen to “Earl Had to Die” twice. Once on the way to Slim Clim’s and once on the way home.

  Neal asked a few more questions and when he left, Daisy asked her mother, “Do you think she tried to kill herself?”

  “Of course not,” Louella said through a frown.

  “Do you think she tried to kill Ronnie?”

  “Daisy Lee, your sister’s foot slipped, is all.” And that was the end of the discussion.

  Except that wasn’t all. Not for Daisy. With Lily in the hospital and potentially homicidal, she couldn’t possibly go home tomorrow. Nathan was not going to be happy.

  She excused herself and found a bank of phones next to the Coke and candy machines. She used her calling card, and when Nathan got on the phone she tried to sound cheerful. Why, she really didn’t know—other than that’s what she was supposed to do.

  “Hey there, Nathan.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She hesitated for a heartbeat, then cut right to the chase. “I have some news you’re not going to like.”

  There was a long pause. “What?”

  “Your aunt Lily was in a bad car accident this morning. She’s in the hospital. I won’t be coming home tomorrow.”

  He didn’t ask about Lily. He was fifteen and concerned with his own problems. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Nathan, Lily is really hurt.”

  “I’m sorry about that, but you promised!”

  “Nathan, I didn’t know Lily was going to drive her car into Ronnie’s living room.”

  “I got my hair cut! No way. No way, Mom. I am not staying here. They tried to make me eat Swedish meatballs last night.”

  They probably hadn’t tried to make him do anything, but Nathan detested Swedish meatballs and chose to see it as a conspiracy. One more reason why he didn’t like staying with them. Daisy sighed and wedged herself between the pay phone and the deep blue soda machine. “I don’t know what to do, Nate. I really can’t leave your grandmother and Lily right now. It isn’t like I’m down here partying it up while you’re consigned to hell.”

  “I want to come down there, then.”

  “What?”

  “Mom, I hate it here. I’d rather be there with you.”

  She thought of Jack.

  “You can’t do this to me.” Over the phone line, she could hear Nathan’s voice crack with emotion he tried to hold back. “Please, Mom.”

  What were the chances he’d run into Jack before she spoke to him? Next to none. He’d probably just hang out and watch TV at his grandmother’s house. And even if the two did accidently meet, so what? They didn’t look anything alike. They wouldn’t know who the other was. Nathan never asked about Jack, and she doubted he even remembered Jack’s last name. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll call around and get you a flight down here.”

  His sigh of relief carried over the line. “I love you, Mom.”

  “Funny how you only remember to mention it when you’re getting your way.” She smiled. “Get your aunt Junie on the phone.”

  After she hung up from talking to Steven’s sister, she called around and got a flight out of Seattle for the next day. It departed at six in the morning, had a three hour and forty minute layover in Dallas, and didn’t arrive in Amarillo until almost five P.M. She thought about maybe driving to Dallas and picking Nathan up there. It was a six-hour drive, one way. Maybe they could spend the night in the big D. Go to Fort Worth and Cow Town and have barbeque. The more
she thought of it, the more it appealed to her. She needed a vacation from her vacation, but when she called Nathan back, he told her that he’d rather sit for three hours in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport than eat barbeque and drive for six hours the next day. So much for getting away from the chaos. But she supposed that no matter how tempting, she couldn’t leave her mother and Lily right now.

  She booked his ticket, and as she walked back to the waiting room, she wondered if her family had always been this insane, or if they were diving headfirst into crazy creek on her behalf.

  By the time she made it back to her mother, the doctor was sitting beside her on the short sofa. Daisy moved to stand by Louella.

  “Is she awake?” her mother asked.

  “She woke up about fifteen minutes ago. Her CT scans are clear. There isn’t any brain trauma or injury to her internal organs. It’s a good thing she was wearing her seat belt and that the car had air bags.” He glanced up at Daisy. “Her ankle is broken and she’s going to need surgery to pin the bones back together. An orthopedic surgeon is on his way from Amarillo.”

  After the doctor left, Louella stayed with Lily at the hospital and Daisy left to take care of Pippen. She put him down for a nap and finally changed out of her mother’s Winnie the Pooh dress. With nothing else to occupy her mind, she thought of Jack. Even in that stupid dress, you turn me on, he’d said, which was just absurd.

  She changed into a khaki skirt and white blouse and scrounged around in the kitchen for something to eat. She made a toasted cheese sandwich, some tomato soup, and a glass of iced tea. She took it to the breakfast nook, where the sun lit up the yellow table.

  Having sex with Jack on the trunk of a car had been a mistake. No, having sex with him at all had been a mistake. But at the time, she hadn’t possessed the will power to do much more than put up a half-hearted objection. She’d known she would regret it, but that hadn’t stopped her.

  She dunked her sandwich into her soup and took a bite. She’d had sex with Jack. It had been bad. No, it had been wrong. The sex had been good. Fabulous. So fabulous she’d burst into tears and embarrassed herself. Her face got hot just thinking about that—about that and the desire in Jack’s green eyes when he’d looked at her, hot and alive touching her all over. Just the thought of it warmed her up.

  She blew into her soup. She hated to admit it, but if her mother hadn’t called, it was likely that she would have ended up in his bed. She’d probably still be there.

  She took a drink of her tea. But what now? She didn’t know, and with everything else going on in her life, she didn’t have to think about it until everything settled a bit.

  After Pippen got up from his nap, she took photographs of him out in her mother’s garden. She shot him picking forbidden flowers while standing amongst the pink flamingos. For that short time, while she gazed at the world from behind her camera, her problems receded to the background.

  Later when Louella came home, she noticed her mother looked about ten years older than she had that morning. The creases around her eyes seemed deeper, her cheeks paler. Daisy made her and Pippen some soup and sandwiches then left to go visit with Lily.

  Her sister was asleep when she walked into her hospital room. The cut on her forehead had been closed and bandaged. One side of her face was still swollen, her eyes were turning varying shades of black and blue, but the blood had been cleaned away.

  Daisy wanted to ask her sister what had happened that morning, but Lily was heavily drugged and drifted in and out of consciousness. And each time she woke up, she started to cry and asked where she was. Daisy didn’t even attempt to ask her about the accident.

  She did the next day, though.

  “Have the police talked to you yet?” she asked as she flipped through a People magazine she’d brought with her.

  Lily licked her swollen lip. Her voice was a scratchy whisper when she said, “About what?”

  Daisy stood and filled a plastic glass with cool water. She held the straw to Lily’s mouth and answered, “About the car accident?”

  Lily swallowed. “No. Mom said I wrecked my Taurus.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  She shook her head and winced. “I hated that car anyway.”

  “Did mom tell you how you wrecked it?”

  “No. Did I run a stop sign?”

  “Lily, you ran your Taurus through Ronnie’s front room.”

  She stared at Daisy and blinked her black-and-blue eyes. But she didn’t look as surprised as Daisy expected. “Seriously?”

  “The police asked Mom and me if you’re suicidal.”

  “I would never kill myself over Ronnie Darlington,” she said without hesitation.

  “Did you try to kill Ronnie?”

  “No.”

  “Then what were you thinking? Did something happen?”

  This time she did hesitate and she looked away when she answered, “I don’t know.”

  Daisy had a feeling that she did know and that her memory loss was convenient. Something had happened, but Lily didn’t want to talk about it today. Fine. There was always tomorrow.

  When Daisy left the hospital, she drove into town and bought a car seat for Pippen. His other seat was still in the Taurus at the wrecking yard.

  As she stopped for a traffic light at the intersection of Third and Main, she heard a deep throaty rumble just before Jack’s Mustang blew through the intersection. She was two cars back, and she doubted he saw her. But just the split-second sight of him caused a disturbing tumble in her stomach as if they were in high school all over again and she was waiting for him at his locker. Her feelings for him were definitely a confused jumble of old emotions and new desires and all of it was better left alone.

  At three-thirty that afternoon, Daisy strapped Pippen into her mother’s Cadillac and they headed for Amarillo and Nathan.

  Pippen wore little jean shorts, cowboy boots, and his DON’T MESS WITH TYRANNOSAURUS TEX T-shirt. Daisy held him in her arms while they waited in the baggage claim area. The half hour they stood there seemed to take forever, but when she saw Nathan’s familiar face, it was like the sun had suddenly decided to shine after a week of gloomy weather.

  His green Mohawk was gone and the tips of his short dark hair had been bleached white. He looked like a tall skinny porcupine carrying a big backpack with his skateboard attached to the back. She didn’t care. She was so happy to see him she forgot about the No Public Displays of Affection rule. She stood on her tip toes and wrapped her free arm around his neck. She kissed his cheek and held on tight. He must have forgotten the rule too, because he dropped his backpack and hugged her—her and Pippen, right there in the Amarillo airport.

  “Man, Mom. Don’t ever leave me like that again.”

  She laughed and pulled back to look into his blue eyes. “I won’t leave you. I promise,” she said and turned her attention to Pippen. “This is your cousin. Isn’t he cute?”

  Nathan studied him for a moment. “Mom, the kid has a mullet.”

  She pretty much figured that a guy with porcupine hair shouldn’t cast stones at a guy with a mullet. “It’s not his fault,” she said and looked into Pippen’s face. “His mother won’t cut off his baby curls.”

  Pippen stared up at her through his big blue eyes so much like Lily’s, then returned his gaze to his older cousin. Daisy didn’t know if Pippen’s attention was drawn to him because he was another male or if he was attracted to the lip ring and dog chains.

  “Hey there, little dude. Nice hair.”

  “Don’t make fun,” Daisy warned.

  “I’m not.” Nathan slicked his palms over the side of his hair. “He’s got business in the front, party in the back. Heh-heh-heh,” he laughed as he tipped his head back.

  “Watch ’toons!” Pippen said, then started to laugh too as if he’d just cracked a joke like Nathan.

  “He wants you to watch cartoons with him. His favorite is ‘Blues Clues’.”

  “‘Blue’s Clues’ suck.” He pi
cked up his backpack. “You gotta watch ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants.’”

  Nathan hadn’t brought a suitcase, and as they headed for the car, it struck her that if everything had gone according to her original plan, she would have been back home now. In Seattle. Getting on with her life. Free of the past. Making a new start. Her and Nathan.

  Since she’d arrived in Lovett, nothing had gone according to her plan, and she’d had to put her life on hold for just a little while longer. Her mother and sister needed her, and perhaps she could do something to help. Maybe just being here and taking care of Pippen was enough for now.

  Her life hadn’t completely gone to hell, she reminded herself. She’d been in hell. Lived it for over two years, and this wasn’t even close. Not yet, anyway. Nathan was here and at some point, things had to get better.

  Chapter 11

  The whine of a bench grinder filled the garage and filtered into Jack’s office as he glanced over the master-parts list for the fifty-four Corvette; he simultaneously thumbed through Polaroids snapped of each part taken off the car so far. Everything from the chrome to the screws holding the taillight buckets had been cataloged and carefully stored away. The Blue Flame Six engine had been plucked from the cavity and would be torn down and steam-cleaned later. All rubber parts would have to be completely replaced as well as the leather interior. The fifty-four was supposedly a bitch to drive, but that was beside the point. The late and great Harley Earl had designed the sports car in his typical flamboyant style. The car had been designed for show rather than go.

  Jack tossed the photographs aside and stood. That morning they’d removed the windshield and discovered more rust damage than he’d anticipated. The damage would have to be cut away and the brace rebuilt. He grabbed the Dodge Viper coffee mug that Lacy Dawn had given him for his birthday and walked from his office into the reception area.

  Penny Cribs didn’t come in until ten-thirty on Monday mornings, and a stack of mail sat on her empty desk. He refilled his coffee, and as he moved from the outer office into the garage, the noise from the bench grinder stopped. Jack blew into his mug and looked up at Billy who stood at the workbench. His safety glasses were pushed up his forehead, and he held a brake rotor in one hand. A skinny teenager stood talking to him, and they both turned as Billy pointed in Jack’s direction.