Marrying Daisy Bellamy (15 page)

When the plates were cleared, he stood and held out his hand, palm up. “Dance with me.”

“Uh…sure.” They joined the other slow-dancing couples. He held her gently and they swayed to a soft song. It occurred to her that she had never danced with Logan before. Strange to think they'd made a baby together, he had once impulsively proposed to her and been turned down, yet they'd never had a date and had never danced together.

She liked it so much that they continued for three more sets. It was easy. Comfortable. They seem to fit together.

“Thanks,” she said as they sat down to share dessert. “You're a good sport about dancing.”

He flashed her a grin. “Dancing's not really my thing. I like dancing with you, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He leaned in across the table and lowered his voice. “Maybe you're my thing.”

The way he said it, the way he looked at her, made her pull back to study his face, trying to read his purpose.

“Don't act so surprised,” he said.

“I'm your thing?” she asked, incredulous. She couldn't imagine how. Not only had she turned down his impul
sive proposal, she'd gone abroad for half a year. How could she be his thing?

“Maybe you are,” he said. “No, you definitely are. You have been for a long time. You simply haven't wanted to see it.”

“But—”

“Tell you what. Let's dance again.” The piano player glissandoed into another slow song and he caught her in his arms. “And just so you know, after tonight, I want to take you on another date. A real, actual date where I pick you up and we go out and I bring you home.”

“Why?”

“Do you have to ask? We had a baby together—”

“We were kids—”

“We had this baby, and now he's our little boy, yet we've never been out on a date.”

“That's because we don't like each other. In that way, I mean. People who don't like each other shouldn't date.”

“I like you,” he insisted, bringing her close against him. “I've always liked you. Even when I hated myself, I liked you.”

She was touched by his stark honesty and by the gentleness of his embrace. “If this is how you like someone, I'd hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

“I have an insurance agency,” he said. “I have no enemies.”

She laughed, and it felt so good to laugh with someone, even Logan, with whom her complicated relationship was about to get more complicated. She was willing to let it, though, to take this risk. Lifting her hand, she ran her fingers up the lapel of his jacket. “I believe it,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said. “I'm glad.”

His hand at her waist hugged her in closer still, and what had started out as a dance hold became an embrace. And it felt so wonderful to be held. It had been way too long.

“What's that smile?” he asked.

“It feels nice to hold somebody who isn't smeared with peanut butter and jelly.”

 

Daisy was still smiling when she got home much later, after a little more dancing and a lot more conversation. What a simple thing it was, to enjoy an evening out. She couldn't believe how buoyant it made her feel, to simply set aside stress and worry, to relax and be with Logan. Logan, of all people.

She sat in the car to hear the end of the song playing on the radio. Then she got out and pulled the garage door shut. Logan said he wanted to take her on an
actual
date. In the restaurant parking lot, they had almost kissed. She caught herself wondering what that would have been like.

The thud of a car door closing startled her. Peering through the darkness, she could make out the gleaming shape of Logan's SUV.

“Hey,” she said, meeting him on the front walk. “Did you forget something?”

“You could say that, yeah.” He pulled her into his arms and gave her a long, sweet kiss. “That's what I forgot.”

For a moment, she couldn't speak. The kiss was a delicious surprise. “I'm glad you remembered,” she told him.

“I can remember a lot of things, Daisy.” He took the keys from her hand and went to the front door, unlocking it.

“I'm not sure this is such a good idea,” she said.

“Then what do you say we find out? We've been together before.”

“For one weekend, we were together. Not exactly something to build a future on.”

“What about this?” he asked, kissing her deeply. “Can we build a future on this?”

Recovering from his kiss, she said, “That's not fair.”

They barely got the door shut behind them. He pressed her against it and kissed her long and hard as she clung to him, reaching out to him with all the aching loneliness inside her. There was no further talking in the suddenly urgent race to shed their clothes. They hurried, as if by silent mutual agreement that they did not want to be talked out of this.

Daisy offered not one more breath of protest. She wanted this, too. She wanted the release and surrender of feeling him next to her, the welcome weight of him covering her, filling the empty spaces and holding her through the night.

 

It was the first time she'd ever spent the entire night with a man. She gave it mixed reviews. On the one hand, it was a heady delight to cuddle up to a large, warm body; she felt cocooned and fulfilled in a way she'd never experienced before. On the other hand, because he was large, he took up a lot of room, and because he was warm, he tended to kick off the covers. She finally understood why people invested in king-size beds.

But on balance, the delight won out. She was made for this, for being held and caressed and kissed, deep into the night, and then for falling asleep from sweet exhaustion. She woke early, lying still while Logan slept on,
breathing loudly but not quite snoring. Feeling a crick in her neck, she eased away from him.

“Not so fast,” he muttered, snaking an arm around her midsection and drawing her close. “I'm not done with you. Not even close.”

“I have to get going.”

“Going where? It's the crack of dawn, Sunday morning.”

“I need to take a shower before church.”

“Skip the shower,” he said, nuzzling the back of her neck. “Skip church.”

To be honest, the idea appealed to her. There was something not quite right about heading off to church after a night of illicit sex. Or maybe the service was what she needed. “I have plans to meet Olivia at church and bring Charlie home.”

“Let's shower together, then. And we'll go to church together, too.”

She sat up, tucking the sheet under her armpits. “Whoa. I don't think we should do that.”

“I'll wash your back,” he said. “I'd do a really good job.”

She couldn't deny a small thrill of excitement. Focus, Daisy. “I mean the church part. Not a good idea. Not today, anyhow.”

“I don't know about you, but I'm not worried about coming out as a couple.”

“How can we be a couple? Until last night in the lobby of the Apple Tree Inn, I didn't even know we were dating.”

“Sweetheart. This has been a long time coming.”

“We haven't even figured out what
this
is. How do we even define it?”

“Who says we have to? We're together, we have the
greatest kid in the world and everything is fan-effing-tastic.” He stretched luxuriously, knocking a file folder off the bedside table. “Sorry,” he said, picking up the photo prints that spilled out. “Is this a work thing?”

She bit her lip, feeling nervous as he flipped through the photos. These were very personal shots, her goodbye project to Julian, taken the day she'd revisited all their special places. “It's sort of work. Not for the firm, though.”

“I hope not. Jeez, they're depressing as hell,” he said, frowning at a close-up of a leaf being washed downstream.

Really? When she looked at the shots, she saw layers of emotion, but not depression. “I was planning to submit them to a juried show at the MoMA. It's really competitive, but it's something I've always wanted to do.”

“So even more people can be depressed? Honey, you don't need to run yourself ragged entering shows and taking downer pictures. Weren't you voted best wedding photographer in Ulster County this year? You should stick with what you're best at.”

“I'll think about that while I'm in the shower.” She slipped from the bed and felt instantly self-conscious, so she snatched up her robe and hurriedly pulled it on. “Oh, God, this is an awkward moment.”

He lounged back on the pillows, grinning at her. “Not for me. An awkward moment never killed anyone.”

“True.”

“And they're over fast.”

“That's why they're called moments,” she said nervously. Lame, Daisy. She scurried to the bathroom. Just stop talking before you're so lame you can't even walk.

Since she had made the decision to date, she had to be
conscious of many more things, like the tidiness of her bathroom. Personal grooming took on a new emphasis. Charlie never cared if she remembered to shave her legs, but now she was forced to attend to such details. Not this morning, though. This morning, she just wanted to be quick.

Hers was an older house, and the plumbing creaked and groaned when she turned on the shower. The tub was an antique claw-footed affair, which was great for baths, but who had time for a bath? The shower was a makeshift arrangement consisting of a spray nozzle and plastic curtain on a rickety metal rod. But the hot water felt heavenly as she worked the kinks out of her neck, gently rubbing her soapy hand over the area.

The curtains stirred, and suddenly Logan was there.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself. Hand me the soap, will you?”

“There's not enough room here for both of us,” she said. “We don't fit.”

He gently ran his hands over her neck and shoulders. “We'll make it work.”

Despite the warmth of the water running over her, she felt a shiver of remembrance. He'd said those words to her before, long ago. He'd said them on the night they'd made Charlie.

November 2006

D
aisy had lied through her teeth to get her parents to let her spend the weekend on Long Island. Her friend Frida, from school, would provide the cover. Frida's family had a beach house in Montauk—that much was true. Daisy begged her parents to let her spend the weekend there.

That was the lie.

The O'Donnells had a place in Montauk, too. Logan O'Donnell had let it be known through the school underground that he was planning a massive party. His parents were in Ireland. He and his friends would have the place all to themselves.

Daisy wasn't proud of the deception, but she had to get away. She had to. The house was like a funeral parlor, with unhappiness lurking in the corners, infesting the curtains and seeping up through the cracks in the floor. Her parents had told her and Max that yes, it was official. They were throwing in the towel. Their marriage was over. No more trial separations, no more pretending
things were normal. Mom and Dad were splitting up. The Bellamys would never be a family again.

Max, her younger brother, actually took the news okay, better than he'd taken their marriage. Something about the strain of all those years of trying used to get to Max. He had tantrums and refused to learn to read, which drove their parents nuts. Once they resigned themselves to splitting up, however, Max actually started acting like a normal, happy kid, which probably meant that in the long term, this was the right thing to do.

Daisy was slower to come around. The shrink they took her to said she had to feel her feelings, whatever the hell that meant. She turned her pain and anger into a deep capacity for deception and won their permission to head out for the weekend. Probably they were being lenient because they felt so guilty about everything.

The promised weekend party was a full-blown crazy-fest. It was exactly what she needed. Even before she entered the house, perched at the top end of Long Island, she could hear the deep belly pulse of the stereo, blasting Usher's latest hit. The place was a stone's throw from Bernie Madoff's, and he was, like, one of the richest guys in New York. She turned to her girlfriend Kayla and grinned. “I think we found it.”

“After you,” said Kayla. “Let's go. It's freezing out here.”

It was a blustery day on the jagged edge of winter. Daisy went inside to find the downstairs crammed with kids from school. Every surface was covered with open bags of chips, bottles of wine and beer. A giant lobster pot stood on the counter, filled with Everclear punch. Okay, she thought. Sweet oblivion. She guzzled down a few cups of punch, wincing with every gulp. The sweetness failed to mask the sharp bite of the liquor. But it
made her feel good, and she moved happily into a group of kids who were dancing in the dimly lit living room. An aroma of pot wafted through the air, the scent an evocative promise of forgetfulness.

Maybe she would smoke some pot later. Maybe she would bum a cigarette from someone.

No, not that. She'd sworn off cigarettes for good last summer. Last summer, with Julian Gastineaux. She had promised him.

It was funny how just thinking about him took her to a better place. She shut her eyes and swayed to the music, and within a few minutes, she was back to the summer, surrounded by warm breezes and majestic views of Camp Kioga.

If not for the renovation project at the summer camp, she and Julian never would have met. He was from a small industrial town east of L.A., while she came from Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Fate was funny that way.

Daisy and Julian had not had a summer romance. A summer romance only lasted for a season. The bond she felt with Julian, even now that he was three thousand miles away, was deeper and stronger than a single summer, stronger than anything she'd ever felt before.

Yet she and Julian had not done anything together all summer except become friends. They hadn't made out or fooled around, even though they'd both wanted to. Daisy had been too messed up. She needed a friend, not a boyfriend. She didn't want to blow it with him by turning things physical too soon. He was too important.

Then again, maybe they would never be more than friends. It was entirely likely they'd never see each other again. Still, she cherished what they had been to each other last summer. She was only sorry she couldn't be
with him all the time. He made her know she was special, and maybe more importantly, he made her want to be a better person. More like him, honest and strong and able to deal with whatever the world hurled at him.

She was having trouble keeping her chin up through her parents' divorce, though. It was hard to be good when you felt so bad.

She finished her punch and decided to switch to white wine instead. A grown-up drink. The kind of stuff people drank when they were getting a divorce.

“Hey there, Daisy-Bell.” A strong arm slid around her waist.

“Hey, yourself,” she said. “Great party, Logan.”

“It is, now that you're here.” They grinned at one another.

She had known Logan O'Donnell since they were tiny, when she had accidentally bloodied his nose with a tetherball. It was the first time she could remember making someone bleed. She'd felt as though the world was coming to an end, crying louder and harder than Logan himself. She had vowed that day never to hurt anybody ever again.

Through the years, they had known each other with the comfort and familiar ease of old friends. This fall, Logan had started paying a different kind of attention to her. He was in a rare spot for Logan O'Donnell—between girlfriends. He'd been persistent in trying to get Daisy to go out with him. So far she had resisted. Studying him now, she wasn't sure why.

The last of the wine tasted overly sweet. “You're cute, you know that?”

“So people tell me. I bet they tell you that, too.”

“I'm a mess. I'd rather be…interesting. Smart. Tal
ented. Or at least, capable of filling out a college application form without feeling as though I'm lying.”

He tightened his arm around her. “Tell me about it. My folks have been nagging me about college since preschool. They want me to go to Columbia or Harvard or a good Jesuit school like Boston College. See? No pressure.”

“Where do
you
want to go?”

He hugged her against his side. “Wherever life takes me.” Lifting a longnecked bottle, he polished off the last of his beer. Then he took her hand. “Let's go to the beach.”

She followed him outside. The night was cold, yet the air was sea-scented, a subtle reminder of warmer times.

The beach at Montauk was vast and timeless, a moonscape of whipped-cream dunes rimmed by the occasional erosion fence and tufted by dry grasses. The beach itself flattened out, disappearing into the late-autumn darkness. Tonight the moon was up, its light glinting in the rushing waves, infusing the foamy water with a bluish glow.

Seized by impulse, Daisy kicked off her sneakers and ran down to the breaking surf. “Come on!” she called.

“Right behind you,” he said.

A moment later, they had their pants' legs rolled up and were knee-deep in the surf. The water actually felt warm in contrast to the air.

Daisy flung out her arms and offered up a wordless yell. Logan joined his voice to hers, and they ended up laughing until they were weak. She collapsed against his chest. “Hope we didn't wake the neighbors.”

“Nobody's home, not at this time of year.”

Indeed, the other houses had only security lights on.
The O'Donnell place was ablaze with noise and light. A gut-level thunder of bass pulsed from the stereo. Through the windows, she could see little toy people bobbing around as they danced or talked.

“It's exactly what I needed,” she said.

“Me, too,” he said, then laughed. “So why are we outside, in the cold, getting soaking wet?”

“Because you're out of your gourd.”

“And drunk.”

“That, too.” She gave his hand a tug and led him to dry sand, where they had a seat together, facing out at the moonlit sea.

“I wish I had my camera,” she said. “I'd take a special picture of this night.”

“All your pictures are special,” Logan said. “Didn't you, like, get offered some big prize for photography?”

She nodded. “The Saloutos Photographic Arts Award last September. In the nature category.” She'd entered a shot of Willow Lake at sunrise, one she'd taken last summer. She'd awakened at dawn on a clear day to do a series of sunrise shots. The winning picture had captured a moment when a loon was taking off toward the sky. A chain of water droplets streamed out behind, making the bird appear tethered to the lake by a slender golden thread that shone with a metallic gleam. The thin sweep of amber-tinged clouds created a dramatic backdrop. On hearing that she'd won, she had rushed home to tell her parents, only to find them locked in yet another argument about the same stuff they'd been fighting about forever. It hadn't seemed fair to tout her success at that moment, and her triumph deflated. She hadn't said anything, but put the news on her Facebook page.

“Maybe you can come out here again and bring your camera,” Logan suggested.

“Maybe you'll be my model.” She framed him with her hands. “You've got that Ralph Lauren vibe going on.”

“Right. Let me show you a little leg.” He peeled back his damp jeans and flexed his leg, burlesque style.

“What's that scar?” she asked, lowering her hands. The moonlight glinted off a thick zipperlike scar that curved around his knee.

“Old war wound,” he said with a chuckle.

“Seriously.”

“It's from when I blew out my knee playing soccer. My dad didn't realize how bad it was and there was a title at stake, so he told me to keep playing. Which, like an idiot, I did, until my knee was so trashed they had to do this big procedure on me, replacing all kinds of stuff in there. We won the tournament, though, so that's something.”

“My God,” she said, outraged. “I can't believe parents sometimes. The stuff they make us do, I swear…if I ever have kids, I am not going to be like that.”

“My old man didn't mean anything by it.” Logan's tone was conciliatory. “And hey, the whole ordeal introduced me to my new friend, Oxy.” He leaned back and dug a prescription pill bottle out of his pocket. “Ever try one of these? Here, give this a shot.”

All the right words popped into her mind: Dangerous. Illegal. Addictive. But the word she spoke was, “Okay.” She popped the pill into her mouth, telling herself adults always overstated the danger of things.

“What am I supposed to feel?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing sounds good to me.”

“It's, like, a vacation for the mind. You'll see.”

“Speaking of vacation…” She jumped up and peeled
off her sweater, shirt and jeans, flinging them to the sand. “Last one in is a rotten egg,” she yelled, and raced into the surf. The water felt wonderful, a warm liquid embrace.

Logan followed, wearing only his boxers. “You're crazy,” he said, putting his arms around her. “Crazy Daisy.”

“This is not going to work,” she warned him, even as she leaned in, pressing her hands to his chest. “You and me, I mean. It's not going to work.”

“We'll make it work.”

And that was the night they made Charlie. Actually, it could have happened on any of several occasions. They did little else. They were into each other and they were careless, and the sex helped them escape their own lives. Neither thought about the fact that there would be permanent and irrevocable ramifications. Both of them believed—if they thought about it at all—their relationship was only temporary.