“I’m marrying Lincoln Blaise in Prescott, Ohio, on Thursday,” Daisy repeated. “Can you come?”
“Can I come? What are you talking about? Of course I can come. Oh, Daisy, are you sure?”
Not at all, she wanted to say, but instead she said, “I’m positive, Mom. Let me give you the address and phone number.” Daisy repeated it twice while Pansy dithered on the other end of the line.
“Oh, dear,” Pansy said finally. “Are you sure? Oh, Daisy. Let me call you back.”
There was a dial tone suddenly, and Daisy blinked at the phone. What could her mother possibly be doing?
Half an hour later, as Daisy was going out the door to meet Linc for the blood tests, the phone rang again.
“I found Prescott on the map,” Pansy said. “It’s near Dayton. I’m flying in this afternoon at one-fifteen, so you come pick me up, and then we can talk.”
“This afternoon.” Daisy closed her eyes. “You bet, Mom. This afternoon.”
Chickie called a minute later, catching her again on her way out the door, to tell her that they had a judge lined up for Thursday, and that they needed to order a cake and a dress.
“Let’s do the dresses this afternoon.” Chickie’s voice came over the phone vivid with excitement. “We’ll drive to Dayton and pick them out and then we can make sure the cake and the napkins coordinate.”
“Dresses? Coordinate?” Daisy sat down on the floor.
“How many bridesmaids are you having?”
“Bridesmaids?”
“Oh, honey …”
“One.” Julia was going to drive in for the wedding anyway. She might as well participate.
“Size?”
“Small,” Daisy said, thinking she’d look like a giantess at her own wedding.
“I’ll pick you up at twelve. We can have lunch first. Is that okay with you, honey?”
“Make it twelve-thirty,” Daisy said. “I’ve got blood tests right now and the bank. And we might have to have lunch at the airport because I’m picking my mother up at one-fifteen.”
“Oh, good,” Chickie said, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic.
Daisy headed for the door and the phone rang again. She picked it up prepared to tell Linc she was on her way, but a woman answered.
“This is Gertrude Blaise.” Linc’s mother had a voice like unrisen bread.
Daisy heard herself chirping to compensate for the deadness on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Blaise. How nice—”
“I am driving down today but I am not sure of the location of the campus. Could you please arrange for Lincoln to meet me at the Dayton airport at one o’clock? He is not answering his office phone.”
She heard the front door open and turned to see Linc coming in.
“Daisy, we’re late—” he began, and she grabbed him by his tie.
“He just came in the door, Mrs. Blaise,” she told his mother. “But I’ll be able to meet you at the airport. My mother’s coming in at the same time. We can all talk.”
There was a long silence as Linc looked confused and Gertrude thought things over. “Thank you,” she said finally. “That will be most satisfactory.” Then she hung up.
Linc peeled her fingers off his neckwear. “What’s going on?”
Daisy looked at him with undisguised distaste. She was going to spend the Afternoon in Hell while he went out to the college and taught people who couldn’t talk back if they wanted to graduate. “Your mother and my mother are both coming into Dayton this afternoon. Chickie and I will be picking them up, and then we’re going to buy a wedding dress and order a cake. All of us. Together.” She folded her arms and looked at him.
“I’ll make it up to you somehow.” Linc’s eyes were full of sympathy. “I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way.”
The phone rang again. “We have given that number to too many people,” Daisy told him, and went to get her purse while he answered it. When she came back, he said, “The movers aren’t bringing your furniture until Thursday.”
“I’m getting married Thursday.”
“So am I. Maybe we can make them ushers.”
Linc’s mother wasn’t hard to spot at the airport; she looked just like her son. Tall and broad with dark eyes and iron-gray hair that must have once been black like Linc’s, she looked like the kind of woman who would raise repressed sons. She looked like a prison warden right before the big break, sensing the tension in the air. She looked like Linc when he was being a pain in the butt.
“I’m Daisy.” Daisy walked up to her and extended her hand. “And I’m just so pleased—”
“Thank you for meeting me.” Gertrude did not extend her hand, so Daisy transferred the gesture into a wave toward Chickie.
“And this is Chickie Crawford. She’s having the wedding and the reception for us in her garden.”
“We just love your son.” Chickie grabbed for the hand that Daisy hadn’t captured. “Linc is just the sweetest thing.”
She exhaled a lot of gin, and Gertrude looked at her with distaste. “Thank you. I am parked in the short-term parking lot, so if we could go to the hotel now …”
“Oh, no,” Chickie said gaily. “We’re going to pick out Daisy’s dress first.”
“I have to get over to gate thirty-one.” Daisy backed away. “I’m late. My mother—”
“We’ll be right behind you, honey,” Chickie said, and Daisy left the two women together and ran for the other gate, where she found Pansy pacing and checking her watch.
“Oh, Daisy!” Pansy fell on her and cried, her fluffy yellow curls bobbing with her sobs. “My baby.”
“Easy, Mom. I’m all right.”
“You’re getting married.” Pansy hung on Daisy, looking up from her five feet two inches at the giant of a daughter she’d borne.
“You’re going to love him, Mom. He’s a nasty-looking Yankee. A carpetbagger if I ever saw one.”
“Did he just sweep you off your feet?” Pansy had pulled back and was clasping Daisy’s shoulders, looking up into her eyes. “Do you just love him to death?”
“Absolutely,” Daisy said, and stopped when she realized she sounded like Linc. She waved her ring hand at her mother. “Isn’t my ring cute?”
“He got you pearls,” Pansy said in a flat voice. “Why not diamonds?”
Oh, boy. “Because I wouldn’t wear diamonds. He gave me my own checking account to do whatever I want with. And he wants me to paint full-time. He calls me Magnolia. And”—Daisy searched desperately for something else that was true that would make Linc look good—“and he’s never been married before. And he bought me this darling little Victorian house and told me I can decorate it any way I want, and—”
“Oh, Daisy, he sounds wonderful.” Pansy began to cry again.
Good, Daisy thought, because I was running out of things to say. I was down to the Nazi car and furniture, and that would have been bad.
“Yoo-hoo!”
“And this is Chickie and Gertrude!” Daisy made the introductions as cheerily as possible. Gertrude took being called by her first name fairly well for a prison warden. Chickie and Pansy sized each other up, two southern belles not happy to share the charm sweepstakes.
“Gotta get my dress!” Daisy swept them all off to the car, cursing Linc, who was safe in Prescott.
“Now, for your flowers I think you should have roses,” Chickie said as they drove down the interstate. “Pink roses.”
“Roses? Do you think so, Chickie?” Pansy’s voice was sweet from the backseat. “It just seems like everyone has roses. How about lilies, honey?”
“Lilies?” Daisy turned to look at her mother in the back beside Gertrude. “I thought lilies were for funerals.”
“No, no.” Pansy turned her little nose up. “Lilies are elegant.”
“Carnations are inexpensive and hold their bloom for a reasonable amount of time,” Gertrude said.
Oh, no, Daisy thought. Don’t let this be happening. “Daisies,” she said. “I wan
t daisies.”
“Oh, honey, no,” Pansy began, but Daisy cut her off.
“Linc wants me to have daisies.”
“Oh, well, then.” Pansy sounded doubtful. “Maybe with some baby’s breath …”
“And a few pink rosebuds …” Chickie agreed.
“And some baby carnations,” Daisy said to appease Gertrude. “Why don’t we wait until we get the dress?”
“Well, I’m sure we can agree on the cake.” Chickie looked over at Daisy. “White, of course.”
“But men always like chocolate,” Pansy protested. “Wouldn’t Linc like chocolate, Daisy?”
“Linc doesn’t like sweets,” Daisy said.
“Lincoln used to like walnut cake,” Gertrude said. “He was quite fond of it.”
“Pumpkin cake,” Daisy said desperately. “Pumpkin cake with walnuts and cream cheese icing.”
“Pumpkin cake?” Chickie said, puzzled.
“Pumpkin cake?” Pansy said, shocked.
Gertrude didn’t say anything, perhaps because of the walnuts.
“It’s a … private joke,” Daisy said weakly. “Like Cinderella. Linc would like it.”
“Oh, well, then.” Pansy still sounded doubtful.
“Well, your colors can still be pink and white,” Chickie said.
“Blue and white,” Pansy said.
“Yellow and white,” Gertrude said. “Lincoln likes yellow.”
Well, at least his mother’s showing some animation, Daisy thought. If they get to kicking and screaming and pulling hair, my money’s on her. She smiled at all three women as impartially as possible, the way she knew Daisy Blaise would smile.
Daisy Flattery would have jumped out of the car and run for it.
Linc came down the stairs when he heard her come in. “How bad was it?”
Daisy dropped her bags on the floor and glared at him. “You owe me.”
He winced. “I knew it.”
“You never told me you liked walnut cake.”
Linc frowned at her. “I hate walnut cake.”
“Your mother says you like walnut cake.”
“What?” Linc looked shocked. “My mother never let us eat cake. Walnut cake?”
“She also thinks my flowers should be carnations, my dress should be polyester, and our color for the wedding should be yellow.”
“My mother said all that?” Linc ran his hand through his hair. “My mother?”
Daisy sat down beside him, too tired to be mad anymore. “We’re all eating together at the inn tonight.” She leaned against him, grateful for his shoulder. “Make reservations for six.” Linc stiffened. “Six?”
“The Crawfords, Pansy, Gertrude, and us.”
“I’m sorry I lied, God.” Linc looked up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry I tried to pass this woman off as my fiancée last spring. Please stop punishing me.”
Daisy went on brightly, in her best idiot voice. “And then we’ll do this again at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And Easter, if we’re still married.”
“Pumpkin cake.” Linc stood, bumping her off his shoulder, and went to make the reservations.
They survived dinner.
On the bad side, Chickie got drunk, as usual, and Crawford made a pass at Pansy, and Gertrude left before dessert to go back to her room and sleep.
On the good side, nobody insulted anyone blatantly, Pansy thought Linc was wonderful, and Gertrude didn’t pull her son aside and tell him to get rid of the crazy brunette.
All in all, Daisy thought as she sat in bed making a list of things to do for the wedding, they’d gotten through it. Now only two more days until the wedding, and all these people would go home.
Linc came into the bedroom wearing sweatpants and nothing else and Daisy lost her breath. He had a beautiful body, firm and muscled without being muscle bound. I want to draw him, Daisy thought. I want to paint him. The hell with that, I want to—
“Where’d we get those lamps?” Linc pointed to the ginger jars on each side of his high-tech chrome bed frame.
Daisy found her voice. “Chickie’s wedding present.”
“They’re yellow.”
Right. He didn’t like color. Her lust faded a little. “I don’t think ginger jars come in black leather. I’ll move them when my furniture comes.”
He got into bed beside her. “Yellow.” He opened his book.
Daisy looked at his shoulders. Say something, she told herself. Say something fast before you lean over and bite him. “My mother loves you.”
“I know,” he said, reading. “She told me.”
“Aren’t you glad?”
“Yes,” he said from his book. “My mother likes you too.”
Gertrude? “How can you tell?”
“She spoke to you.”
He was so close and he wasn’t paying any attention to her and it was all she could do to breathe. Daisy put her hand on his book, and he looked up.
“I’m glad she likes me. She’s really very nice. She bought me long underwear today because she said it gets cold in Ohio in the winter. She bought you some too.”
Linc’s face was blank. “Long underwear.”
“It’s really sweet, Linc. She wanted us to be warm.”
“You’re warm enough for both of us.” Linc went back to his book. “I like it better cold.”
Well, that was in character. Daisy sighed and gave up and went back to her list.
“Did you get the rings?”
“What rings?”
“Wedding bands.”
“Oh.” Linc frowned. “Why don’t you go get one that will go with your ring? You can get the right size that way too.”
“What about yours?”
“Mine?”
Daisy looked at him, exasperated. “Not planning on wearing a ring?” she said, and for some reason Caroline sprang into her mind.
“Well, no.”
“It’s traditional,” she said, investing the words with enough weight so that he could translate them into You’d better.
Linc did what he’d been trying to avoid doing ever since he’d walked into the bedroom: he looked at Daisy, propped on the pillows beside him. The thin cotton T-shirt was pulled over her breasts by the weight of the covers, and her curls gleamed in the lamplight and her eyes were huge, and he clenched his hands into fists on his book to keep from reaching for her.
That’s not all that’s traditional, he thought. If I wear a wedding ring, do I get a wedding night?
Then another thought chased that one away: Are you out of your mind?
“Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.” He got out of bed. Make a note to stay out of beds with Daisy, he told himself. A big note.
“What did I say?” Daisy asked.
“Nothing. We’ll go get rings tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eleven again. Good night.” He gave himself one more glance at her where she sat warm and round and glowing in the lamplight and then he bolted from the room.
Daisy spent Tuesday trying to organize a wedding with the three witches helping. Chickie and the mothers fought over napkins, centerpieces, vows, showers, favors, appetizers, the bar, the music, and the judge. The only thing they agreed on was that Linc and Daisy should get married, and Daisy wasn’t sure Gertrude was behind that one hundred percent.
Tuesday night they had another dinner from hell.
At one point, when Pansy was away from the table, Chickie brought up the question of who was going to give Daisy away.
“Linc said your father’s still alive. Don’t you think he’d want to give you away?”
“My mother will give me away.” Daisy’s voice was so tense that even Chickie caught on and didn’t mention it again.
Wednesday, Julia drove in and stopped at the house. She looked around and approved. “This is great. I’ll have to come back when you’ve got it done.”
“Oh, please do.” Daisy sat down on the bottom stair step and started to cry. “I’ve been so lonely and frazzled and crazed, and everything’s been nut
s here, and the three mothers are driving me insane, and I haven’t even had a chance to paint the walls, let alone a canvas and—”
Julia looked confused. “Three mothers?”
“—and the wedding’s tomorrow and that’s when my furniture’s coming, and you’re going to be a bridesmaid and everything’s just a mess.” Daisy sniffed and looked up at Julia. “I thought this was going to make my life easier.”
“Marriage?” Julia shook her head. “You thought wrong. Safer, maybe, more secure, but easier? Nope.”
Daisy scowled at her. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
Julia sat down beside her on the stairs. “Because I wanted to be a bridesmaid. Explain the three mothers part to me again.”
They managed to get through the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, the bachelor party, and the shower without losing their minds, and Daisy woke up at six the morning of her wedding day feeling almost relieved. She listened to Linc clatter down their back steps as he went out to run. He would be an organized fitness nut, she thought. Running at the crack of dawn. She had nothing in common with this man.
She rolled over and went back to sleep.
Linc left for the college at nine, and Daisy got up and began to move up to the second floor everything chrome that one person could carry. She filled the right front bedroom with Linc’s lamps and chairs and bookcases from the living room. Since his desk was already in there, the extra furniture made the room into a study for him. She’d already moved his living room end tables into his bedroom to act as bedside tables. The only things she couldn’t move were the awful glass dining room table and the couch. When she was finished, his half of the upstairs was done in black leather and metal. She shuddered and closed the doors.
Then the doorbell rang, and she went to meet the movers.
“The couch goes in here,” she told them, sliding open the pocket door to the living room. They brought in her threadbare flowered couch and three mismatched worn brocade chairs. They carried in her collection of miscellaneous chipped and scratched end tables in all sizes and woods. They set her crated paintings behind the couch and rolled her worn Oriental on the floor. They moved Linc’s couch and table upstairs to her studio and rolled her big round oak table into the dining room, and the sun came in and highlighted the six unmatched pressed-wood chairs she grouped around it. There was just room enough for the little buffet with the cracked top by the door to the kitchen. They carried her brass bed upstairs and put the mattress on it for her. Her unmatched end tables went into place beside it. They brought up her cheval mirror with the tiny crack, her cedar chest, her dented brass-bound trunk, and her bentwood rocker. Liz checked it all out and then went to sleep in the middle of her bed, satisfied that things were getting back to normal. Annie hid underneath and bitched at the movers with a voice that sounded like breaking glass.
The Cinderella Deal Page 9