Daisy's Back in Town (7 page)

"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."

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 he 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 55 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 want 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.

During that school year, he'd turned sixteen, a year older than Nathan was now. The two had the same dark coloring in hair and skin tone, and perhaps their noses were similar. She looked for other resemblances and found none.

That was also the year jack had quit football because his father needed him after school in the garage. Up until his sophomore year, jack had always been the first string quarterback. When he quit, Steven took over the position. As far as she recalled, he'd never had any hard feelings toward Steven, only a sadness that he could no longer play ball.

That was also the year she'd started to fall in love with him. Oh, she'd always loved Jack in the same way shed loved Steven, but it seemed that one moment she'd been looking at him as she always had, and in the next everything changed.

On that particular day, he'd been waiting for Steven to finish football practice, sifting on the tailgate of his daddy's old truck. She'd stayed after school to make posters for the homecoming dance and later saw him in the parking lot, sitting and watching instead of playing.

Perhaps it had been a trick of the light, an early fall sunset casting him in gold. She didn't know, but she'd noticed more than his usual good looks. More than his lashes that were longer than hers. More than the slight stubble on his jaw. More than his arms folded across his chest and the defined balls of his biceps and the hard cord of muscle of his forearms. Jack did not lift weights. He lifted car engines.

"Hey there," He said, and patted the tailgate next to him.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she sat. She placed her school books in her lap and looked out over the field as the Lovett Mustangs broke practice and the players jogged toward the locker room.

"Waiting for Steven."

"Do you miss playing, Jack?"

"Nah, but I miss the pretty girls." It was of course true that the football players did get the prettiest girls. But it wasn't true that just because he no longer played, he didn't get his share.

"Now you have to settle for the ugly ones," she teased and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Daisy, don't you know there aren't any truly ugly girls in Texas?"

He was so full of it. "Where'd you hear that?"

He shrugged. "It's just a fact. Like the Alamo and the Rio Grande, is all." He took her hand and brushed his thumb over her knuckles as he studied her fingers. "You'll still be seen with me, though, won't you?"

She turned her head and gazed more fully at him, all prepared with a flip answer, but he glanced up and something in his green eyes stopped her. For about half a second, she saw something, something in the way he looked back at her, something that made her think the answer was important to him. As if he wasn't sure. She got a surprising glimpse inside of Jack that she'd never seen before. Maybe things didn't bounce off him like he was superman. Maybe he felt things like everybody else. Maybe more.

Then he flashed her a smile and it was gone.

"Of course, Jack," she said. "I'll always be seen with you."

"I knew I could count on you, buttercup." For the first time, his voice slid inside her chest and warmed her up with hot tingles. It was all so incredible and fantastic and left her stunned. And it absolutely could not happen.

She couldn't fall in love with Jack. He was a friend, and she didn't want to lose him. But even if he wasn't her friend, she'd be an idiot to let it happen.

He squeezed her hand and stood. "Do you need a ride home?"

She looked up at him, standing in front of her with his hands shoved in the front pockets of his Levi's, and nodded. Jack Parrish had many wonderful qualities. Being faithful to one girl wasn't one of them. He'd shatter her heart like glass. If that happened, they couldn't he friends anymore. And she'd miss him terribly.

By the time Steven walked out of the boy's locker with his wet hair slicked hack, she'd convinced herself that she wasn't falling in love with Jack. He'd made her momentarily confused. Like when they'd been kids and would ride the merry-go-round too long. Jack used to spin it so fast that for a while after she couldn't think or see straight.

But she was over it now. Thinking straight once again. Thank God. "Are y'all going somewhere?" she asked.

"We're driving over to Chandler," Jack answered, referring to a town the size of Lovett and about fifty miles to the west.

"Why?"

"There's a '69 Camaro Z-28 I want to look at."

"A '69?" She'd never understood Jack's fascination with old cars. Or as he called them, "classics." She preferred new cars with upholstery that didn't snag her nylons. With Jack, it was more than just a case of not having money for a new car. Although he certainly didn't. In that respect, she and Jack had a lot more in common than either did with Steven. Steven's father was a lawyer and his family had money. His biggest responsibility was to maintain his grades. By contrast, her mother was a waitress who depended on survivor benefits from the government, and Jack's family had a garage that never seemed to bring in a lot of money. She and Lily were responsible for keeping the house clean and starting supper, white Jack helped out in the family business. "Does the car run?" she asked.

"Not yet."

Exactly.

"Hey, Daisy," Steven said as he approached. "What are you doing at school so late?"

"Making homecoming posters. Are you going to the homecoming dance.”

"Yeah, I'm thinking about asking Marilee Donahue. Do you think she'll go with me?" Steven smiled and there wasn't a doubt that Marilee would say yes.

She shrugged. "Are you going, Jack?" she asked, although she was fairly sure she knew the answer.

"Nope. You know I only put on a suit when my mom forces me to for Sunday School and funerals." He shut the tailgate and walked to the driver's side. "And I hate to dance."

Daisy suspected that it wasn't so much that Jack hated to dance as much as he just didn't know how to dance.

And he'd always been the kind of person that if he didn't do something well, he didn't do it at all. "You could just wear a nice shirt and tie," she told him, but for some reason, the fact that Jack wasn't taking a girl to the school dance warmed her heart more than it should have, given that she was over her earlier confusion.