Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

  Nathan looked at Jack then turned to his mother.

  “We don’t have plans this weekend. Go ahead. You’ll have fun.”

  Nathan didn’t say anything and Jack spoke to cover the silence. He opened his mouth and heard himself say, “Daisy why don’t you come along too?” And he couldn’t believe it. The pressure in the back of his skull moved up and squeezed his brain. He’d just done the one thing that he’d gotten mad at Billy for even suggesting.

  All he could do now was hope like hell she refused.

  Chapter 15

  A slight breeze rippled across the surface of Lake Meredith while sunlight reflected off the water like bits of tinfoil. Birds circled overhead, fish jumped, and the heavy bass guitar and hard drum beats of Godsmack pounded the air like a fist.

  Daisy sat cross-legged in the front of Jack’s boat and gazed at Nathan through the lens of the Fuji digital camera she’d brought with her when she’d returned from Seattle. She wore her white one-piece swimsuit beneath a red tank top and jean shorts. A big straw hat shielded her face from the sun.

  Nathan brought his pole back to cast and she snapped his picture. He wore a ball cap, the bill curved low on his forehead and just above his silver and black Oakley sunglasses. His khaki shorts rode low on his behind and showed his red and white striped boxers. He wore skater shoes without socks. His cheeks were very pink, and he’d taken off his T-shirt although she’d warned him against it.

  “You treat me like a baby,” he’d complained like a baby. But he gave in and allowed her to rub him down with sun screen.

  She turned her camera on Jack, who stood across the stern from Nathan fishing from the opposite side of the boat. He’d pushed his straw cowboy hat low on his forehead and wore a pair of sunglasses with mirrored blue lenses. His old green T-shirt was worn around the neck and the short sleeves fit loose around the hard mounds of his biceps. Earlier he’d caught her staring at the little hole in the shoulder, and he’d told her it was his lucky fishing shirt. A pair of faded Levi’s hugged his hips and thighs. The edge of the waistband was slightly frayed, and the five-button fly cupped his package in soft faded denim. She wondered how much luck those pants brought him. Probably a lot. On his feet he wore cowboy boots. What else?

  He glanced across his shoulder at her and she snapped his picture. Irritation wrinkled his brow before he turned his attention back to his line. She didn’t know if he was irritated because she was taking his picture or because Godsmack had just said the F-word again. Although, she’d certainly heard him throw that word around. I’m going to fuck you till you faint came to mind.

  He’d picked her and Nathan up that morning driving a white Dodge Ram truck. To her surprise, it wasn’t “vintage.” It was fairly new and pulling a twenty-one-foot bass boat. When he’d asked her and Nathan the other day if they wanted to go fishing, she’d envisioned an aluminum boat with a little putt-putt motor. She should have known better. Jack wasn’t the kind of guy to have a putt-putt anything.

  The gray-and-red boat had dual consoles with seats that looked better suited for a race car. A third fishing chair was perched in the back by the huge outboard engine. Below the clock on the wood-grain console was the CD player. Earlier as they’d set up camp, Nathan and Jack made a deal. They would alternate music. Jack went first and then Nathan. The problem was that Jack had a human-sized CD case, while Nathan had a case about the size of the New York phone book. They were in for a ground-thumping few days.

  Nathan caught the first fish. A twelve-inch Walleye that brought the first real joy she’d seen on his face in a long time. Jack netted it for him and helped him remove the hook. With their head bent over the fish, Daisy snapped a few pictures. She was too far away and the music was too loud for her to hear what they said to each other, but when Nathan tipped back his head and laughed, Daisy felt it in her chest. The pang in her heart wasn’t solely due to the pleasure of her son’s laughter, though. It was Jack too. He was reaching out to Nathan. Trying to make a connection with his son, and for some reason that Daisy didn’t understand, she felt herself fall a little more in love with him. Not the fast wham-bam love of adolescence. Not the flash of heat and fire like a lightning bolt, which she’d once tried and failed to grasp in the palm of her hand. This was easier. A gentle beat against her heart, a soothing ahh in her chest, which scared her more than the first time she’d fallen for him. This love was more mature. She was more mature, and she knew exactly what to do about it.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Matt Flegel had called her the other night and asked her to dinner. It had been so long since a man had asked her out; she’d been shocked. She’d sputtered something about contacting him once she returned from her camping trip. At the time, she hadn’t really wanted to go. Now she wondered if it wasn’t a good idea. Something to take her mind off Jack and her feelings for him.

  She snapped another picture and watched Jack through her lens as he returned to his fishing pole and picked it up. The sun glinted off the silver reel as the spool spun around and around. The movement of his hands and arms was smooth and precise, and his boots were planted a shoulder’s width apart. The CD player shut off and she could hear the soft tick-tick-tick of his reel. Her heart picked up its soothing pace and she clicked his photo.

  White sunlight poured over one side of him while the shade of his hat slashed across his nose and mouth. He brought in the line and reached up to pull a weed from the hook. Then in one fluid motion, he flipped the bale with his thumb, flung the tip of the pole straight out to his side, then whipped it forward again. His lure sailed across the water as a breeze bowed the line, catching it on a current like a spider web, suspending it in air for a few short moments before the lure hit the water with a kerplunk and pulled the line down with it.

  She lowered her camera and looked away. She couldn’t hide behind her lens from either her feelings or his. Jack hated her, and he’d never forgive her. He’d made that perfectly clear. Around her, he was very guarded, and she didn’t even know why he’d asked her to come along on this fishing trip. He acted like she was a necessary evil, like bug spray. She was leaving at the end of the summer, and she probably wouldn’t see him again until next year. There was no future for her and Jack, except that at some point she hoped it would be possible for them to be friends again.

  She wasn’t going to hold her breath, though.

  She was making a future for herself and Nathan a thousand or so miles away in Washington. She’d talked to Nathan about selling their house, and he was okay with it. He’d been sad, like she was. The house held as many good memories as bad, but he liked the idea of moving into a loft in Belltown even if it meant a change in schools. She’d already called a realtor, a friend of Junie’s, and put the house on the market. Junie had always had an extra key, so she arranged to give a copy to the realtor.

  Daisy was definitely getting on with her life now. She’d never been on her own before. Never solely responsible for all decisions. She was scared. And if she thought about it too much, she got little anxiety attacks, but she knew things would be okay.

  It was well past noon and everyone was hungry by the time they made it back to camp. While the boys cleaned the fish they’d caught, Daisy set the picnic table with a red-and-white checkered cloth and red plastic plates and utensils.

  When she spoke with Jack the night before, she insisted that they split the meals. He was in charge of dinner. She wondered if he’d pull out a package of hotdogs and a bag of chips and call it good.

  She set a roasted chicken, salad, and a loaf of rye bread on the table. By the time she’d sliced the chicken and added dried pieces of fruit and raspberry dressing to the salad, Nathan and Jack were walking from the shore toward her. Nathan had put on his shirt and he carried his ball cap. His hair was sweaty and smashed to his head. She couldn’t help but notice that when Nathan forgot to act cool, he moved a lot like Jack did. More easy and relaxed. Jack took off his sunglasses and brushed the side of his face against t
he shoulder of his lucky T-shirt—which had proved to be lucky once again, since he’d caught two smallmouth bass and a crappie.

  “I’m going to change and be right back,” he said as he tossed his hat and glasses on the table. He moved toward the four-man tent they’d pitched beneath a cottonwood tree. “Watch out for faaar ants,” he warned, drawing out the vowels. “I saw a nest of ’em over by the toilets.” He grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled it over his head as he threw the tent flap back.

  “Mom,” Nathan called to her.

  Daisy pulled her gaze from the tent and the fleeting glimpse of Jack’s bare back, the smooth planes and indent of his spine, the sliver of the white elastic just above the bluer waistband of his jeans . . . “Hmm?”

  “What’s a faaar ant?” he asked just above a whisper.

  “Fire.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Fire ant. They have a nasty bite that burns.”

  Nathan smiled. “Well, why didn’t he just say fire?”

  “He thinks he did.” She placed some chicken and salad on a plate and handed it to Nathan. She’d brought a Thermos of ice tea, and she put ice in three red Dixie Cups and poured. “Are you having a good time?” she asked her son.

  Nathan sat and shrugged in that way of his that could have meant anything. “I guess.” Then he grinned and drawled like a Texan, “I’m gonna catch my limit if it harelips the governor.”

  “Just don’t get bit by faaar ants,” she warned him.

  Nathan tipped back his head and laughed a steady heh-heh-heh.

  “What are y’all laughing about?” Jack asked as he walked toward them, closing the snaps on his shirt. It was beige, cowboy cut, with the arms hacked off.

  “Nathan says he’s going to catch his limit if it harelips the governor.”

  Jack looked up and his green gaze touched Daisy’s face from across the table. “Damn straight.” He grabbed a plate and placed a few pieces of chicken on it. “What is that?” he asked as he looked into the salad bowl.

  “Salad.”

  He scowled. “It looks like chick food. Like flower petals, weeds, and leathery fruit chunks.”

  Nathan laughed and Daisy frowned at him. “It’s very good.”

  “I’m going to take your word on that.” He put three pieces of bread on his plate and then looked across the table at her. “Butter?”

  “You still eat butter?” She hadn’t used butter in so long, it hadn’t occurred to her to pack any. “I have cream cheese.”

  He shook his head and walked away. He moved to the back of his truck, lowered the tailgate and rummaged around in his cooler. When he returned, he had a stick of butter. He unwrapped the stick then set it on the table. “You’ve been living up North too long, Daisy Lee.” He pulled a pocket knife out of his front pocket and made wafer-thin pats. “Do you want some of this?” he asked Nathan.

  Nathan nodded and Jack stabbed a few thin pats with the knife, then handed it over to him. Nathan laid them out on his rye bread and paused a moment to eye the knife before he handed it back.

  “How about you, Daisy?”

  “When was the last time you cleaned that knife?”

  “Hmm.” He finally sat down and pretended to think a moment. “Last . . . no, the year before last. It was right after I used it to gut an armadillo.”

  Nathan laughed as he took a big bite of his bread.

  She was sure he was lying. Well, almost sure. “No thanks,” Daisy answered.

  “Pansy-ass,” he said right before he sank his teeth into his bread covered in little squares of yellow butter.

  She took a big bite of her salad. “Scardy-cat. Afraid of a little arugula and raspberry dressing.”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said as thin creases appeared in the corners of his green eyes. “If a man eats stuff like that, the next thing he knows, he’s wearing pink and tying a sweater around his neck.”

  Nathan held up his hand and Jack gave him five.

  “I thought you liked my raspberry salad.”

  “No,” Nathan said. “I’m hungry.”

  Daisy didn’t believe him. Jack was turning him into a traitor. A guy just like him.

  “So what did you bring for dinner?” she asked.

  Jack used his armadillo-gutting knife to cut his chicken. “Wild rice.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No, I brought some real lettuce and some bleu cheese dressing.”

  “We’re having wild rice and salad?”

  He stared across the table at her as if she couldn’t possibly be so dense. “And the fish.”

  “You were that sure you’d catch our dinner, that you didn’t bring anything else?”

  “Hell, yeah. I wore my lucky shirt.”

  Daisy turned her attention to Nathan, who was highly amused.

  Jack took a long drink of tea then set the glass on the table. “I coat the fish in flour, then fry ‘em up.”

  “Sounds good,” Nathan said.

  Jack lifted a finger off his red plastic glass and pointed at his son. “It’s the kind of meal that’ll put hair on a guy’s tea bag.”

  Her confusion must have shown on her face because Nathan cleared things up for her. “Gonads.”

  Gee, she probably could have gone all weekend without knowing that. “But,” Daisy said weakly, “I’m not a guy.”

  “And you don’t have a tea bag,” her son pointed out needlessly.

  She shook her head and placed a hand on her chest. “And I sincerely don’t want a tea bag. Ever.”

  “That’s what they all say before they try it,” Jack said through a grin, then he and Nathan busted up laughing as if they got some secret joke that she didn’t.

  As she looked across the table at her son laughing, she felt left out. Left out of the guy club, but this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Since she’d flown down here weeks ago? Jack and Nathan to get to know each other? For Nathan to know his real father? Tea bag and gutting knife and all?

  Yes, but not at her expense. She didn’t want to be excluded. She wanted to be a part of the tea bag club, too. It wasn’t fair to be excluded because she didn’t have the right equipment. Growing up, Jack had used the same tactic to exclude her from a lot of things.

  “I know what you’re doing, Jack,” she said.

  He looked at her.

  “You’re trying to exclude me like you and Steven used to when you didn’t want me around.”

  His brows lowered but his smile stayed in place. “What are you talking about, buttercup?”

  “Remember when you excluded me from your television club. You made a rule that in order to be a member, I had to pee on a tree while standing.”

  “I remember that, but I don’t remember anything about a television.”

  She thought a moment. “It was the CBS club or something like that.”

  He thought a moment, then said, “Ahh. You mean the NBBC. I forgot about that.” He grinned. “You thought that was a televison club?”

  “Of course.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Honey, that was the Nekkid Boobs and Butts Club. It’s where we got together and looked at porn.”

  “Sweet.”

  “You guys had porn? You were in the sixth grade, for cryin’ out loud.” She was appalled. “You were little pervs and I didn’t even know it.”

  His grin told her that she didn’t even know the half of it.

  Chapter 16

  After lunch, Daisy dragged a chaise longue to the shore and dropped her shorts. She wore sunglasses and her white one-piece swimming suit, cut high on the hips. It had a built-in bra top and thin straps. The boys had gone fishing again, and she’d opted to stay behind. She pulled out the latest issue of Studio Photography & Design and stretched out on the chaise. She read an article on the Hasselblad V-System and dreamed about the spectacular photographs she could take with it. Then she must have fallen asleep for real, because she dreamed she’d won first place in a Kodak photography contest and she hadn’t even entered. She dreame
d she was up on stage, bluffing her way through a speech about a photograph she didn’t remember taking, and Steven was in the front row watching.

  She dreamed about him often, and in her dreams, he always appeared as he had before his illness. Healthy and happy and she was always glad to see him. He never spoke, he just gave her a smile that let her know that he was okay, and that she was okay too.

  The sound of an outboard engine woke her up and she opened her eyes. Her sunglasses where still on her face, but the trade magazine had slipped to the ground. She sat up and wondered how long she’d been asleep. She swung her feet to the side and took off her sunglasses. The sun was definitely lower, although it would be a long time before it set. Her tan skin had a twinge of red; she would pay for falling asleep in the Texas sunlight.

  She tossed her glasses and the magazine on the chair then stood. She moved toward the shore as Jack’s boat came toward her, parting the water with its pointed nose. Daisy raised a hand to her forehead and shielded her eyes from the sun. Jack stood at the bow; his cowboy shirt unsnapped, the edges fluttering against his bare chest and stomach. Nathan sat in the driver’s seat, his intent gaze on Jack.

  “Turn it off and raise the motor,” Jack called out.

  Nathan looked down and the sound of the engine got louder as it rose out of the water, then it stopped. The boat drifted closer and gently bumped into the shoreline.

  Jack looked over his shoulder as he spoke to Nathan, telling him what a great job he’d done. He turned back and went down on one knee to grab a rope tied to the front of the boat.

  “You got sunburned while we were gone,” Jack said as he slowly raised his gaze to hers.

  Daisy looked down at herself. She pressed her fingers to her chest above her suit. Her fingertips left white prints on her pink skin. “I fell asleep.”

  He dropped the anchor over the side of the boat into shallow water, then he jumped down from the bow and stood in front of her, blocking the sun. “You burned your love bite.”

  Again she glanced down at herself. Visible just above the top of her swimsuit, her birthmark was a little darker than the rest of her skin. “What are you doing staring at my birthmark?”