Marrying Daisy Bellamy (5 page)

Seconds later, with one eye swelling shut and a trickle of blood coming from his lip, Logan had snatched up
the box and said, “I meant to surprise you with this, but that son of a bitch forced my hand. I want you to be my wife.”

Julian had made a sound of disgust and stalked away from the platform. More passengers gathered in close, intrigued. Daisy had prayed for a swift, merciful death.

She had refused to see either Julian or Logan that Christmas and had spent the next semester and summer studying photography abroad. After several months in Germany, where her stepsister Sonnet had been living and working, Daisy had returned, as confused as ever.

“The offer's still open,” Logan said now, and she knew exactly what he was referring to.

“My answer is the same.”

Logan smiled a little. “Your lips are saying no, but what you really mean is, not yet.”

“No means no,” Charlie murmured, waking up with a drowsy smile. It was one of those phrases Daisy tended to say to him…a lot.

“Hey, buddy.” Logan hunkered down and freed the little boy from the car seat. “I've been waiting to see you all day.”

“Dad.” Charlie clung to him like a monkey and they kissed.

Daisy watched, caught by fondness and exasperation both. Complicated. That was the word for her life. How simple everything would be if only she could believe she was supposed to be with Logan. The three of them together—a family. What was wrong with her? She and Logan had made this amazing child. Why couldn't they be happy together?

T
he officer in the mirror stared back at Julian with a sense of grave purpose. Who was this intensely serious guy? He didn't even recognize himself. Was that him?

Like so much of officer training, this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the air force. Through all the drills and preparation, the individual was taken apart and remade, perhaps reborn in a way. This suited him fine, dumping a past he couldn't change for one he could control. He was learning to look the part—an officer. A leader. A warrior.

“My, my,” said Davenport, letting loose with a wolf whistle. “Aren't you as sweet as honey?”

“Screw you.” The man in the mirror grinned, appearing a little more familiar now. Then he checked the time. “I'm ready to get the show on the road.”

“Have a seat. We've still got a half hour.”

“Can't,” said Julian.

“Can't what?”

“Can't sit down. Do you know how long it took me to get these creases right?”

“Hours and hours,” Davenport said with a laugh; then he sobered. “Dude, you look like a million bucks. Or at least like you've earned the commission you're getting today.”

Julian had no idea if his suite-mate was right. He'd worked his ass off, but given the nature of his first assignment, whether or not he was prepared could be anybody's guess. The most frustrating thing about the news was its top secret classification. He couldn't tell anybody the details. He didn't even know most of the details himself. For the past year, he'd been groomed to be part of a special team, a highly unlikely designation for someone at his level. Although he knew his base assignment, he could tell people only that he'd been commissioned for active duty.

He shook hands with his friend, and Davenport resumed his jocular air. “I might advise you to go for a short walk to clear your head, but that would be a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“You are way too pretty in full dress uniform. You'll end up going through the whole ceremony dragging along an entourage of drooling women.”

“Right. And how many women do you know who get turned on by the sight of brass buttons and epaulettes?”

“I guess you're about to find out.”

Julian checked out his service dress uniform again, making sure every detail was right. Ribbons, devices, badges, insignia—all present and accounted for. Stuck in the side of the mirror was a five-year-old photo of him and Daisy, standing side by side, laughing at the camera. He remembered the exact instant it had been taken, with the shutter on timer. She'd made him laugh
by saying, “Okay, pretend you like me,” knowing full well they were totally into each other.

He was glad he remembered because otherwise he might not even believe the kid in the picture had ever existed. That tall, skinny kid with waist-length dreadlocks, assorted tattoos and piercings and a bad attitude was a stranger to the clean-cut officer in the mirror. Julian had been a punk—an adrenaline junkie with not much going for him except an unexpectedly stellar academic record and test performances. And of course, his status as a minority. He didn't want people to assume race was the reason he'd been admitted to an Ivy League school and an elite training program, so he made sure he outperformed everyone else.

Taking pains not to mess up his uniform, he slipped his hand into his inner breast pocket and touched the ring for luck.

His phone buzzed, and he picked up. “Gastineaux.”

“Hey Mister Almost-second Lieutenant,” said his brother, Connor. “We're outside. Come on down.”

“I'll be right there.”

Connor and Olivia had driven from Avalon with Daisy. His nerves jangled with excitement. He turned to Davenport and was startled to see all five of his suite-mates gathered at the exit. They had shared quarters all year long. They'd fought and laughed and partied and competed and helped one another. Now the five of them formed a gauntlet at the door.

“Good luck, Jughead,” said Williams. “We wish you the best.”

The solemnity of the moment was broken by Del Rio, who played the air force hymn on a kazoo.

Julian saluted them with all the smartness and respect he would afford a superior officer. “Thanks, guys.”

He made one last check of everything. Tie, perfectly knotted. Shoes, gleaming. Hat, well-placed on his shorn head.

He was ready. He was so damn ready. He took the elevator because the stairwells tended to be dusty. He emerged into the small lobby of the residence hall and headed for the door, which opened onto a shady courtyard. In search of his visitors, he strode outside, his heart beating a mile a minute.

When he saw Daisy, he could feel himself smile out of every pore of his body, if such a thing were possible. She was wearing a yellow dress with white dots, white sandals with heels. Toenails painted pink. And a smile he saw every night in his dreams.

“Julian!” She ran over to him but brought herself up short. A shadow of something—uncertainty, bashfulness?—flickered in her face. “Is it okay to hug you?” she asked. “I don't want to muss your uniform.”

He laughed and held his arms wide. He didn't care if she smeared lipstick all over his formal blue shirt, truth be told. She looked like a fantasy to him; staring at her was like staring at the sun too long. So bright, she hurt his eyes.

“Girl, you can mess me up anytime you want,” he whispered into her silky blond hair.

“I might take you up on that,” she said, but then she stepped back, smoothing her hands down his jacket sleeves. “You look incredible. Just so you know.”

His heart hammered against the ring stashed in his pocket. He almost did the deed right then and there, but forced himself to wait, take a breath, try to think a coherent thought.

He greeted Connor and Olivia, and Zoe in her stroller. Julian's half brother, Connor, was also his best friend. If
Connor hadn't stepped in when Julian was an exploding teenager en route to juvey, things would have turned out very differently for him.

Olivia and Daisy were cousins, though they looked enough alike to be mistaken for sisters. There was definitely a Bellamy family resemblance—blond, classy, but not too full of themselves. More than that, they both seemed to be the type of women who inspired thoughts of forever.

“We have a surprise for you,” Daisy said, leading the way to the paved footpath, crowded with families headed toward Statler Auditorium.

“What kind of surprise?” He wasn't expecting anything

“This kind!” She brought him around a corner of the walkway. In the shade of a budding chestnut tree stood a slender woman in a blue dress and high-heeled sandals.

“Mom!” Julian couldn't believe his eyes. His mother? Here?

She had sent her regrets several weeks ago, saying she couldn't get away from work this weekend. These days, she had a job on a cable series filmed in L.A., and was in the middle of taping a new season of episodes.

But here she was, beaming at him. “Well, look at you,” she said. “My lord, but you make me proud.”

“Me, too,” said a deep, sonorous voice Julian hadn't heard in years. Three others arrived from the direction of the parking lot.

“Uncle Claude! And Tante Mimi. Remy!” Julian laughed aloud. “I feel like I'm seeing things.”

Uncle Claude was the brother of Julian's late father. When he died, Claude and Mimi had offered to take Julian in, but there was no room and no money in their
tiny, southern Louisiana house. Remy was their youngest of four and developmentally disabled.

He and Julian were the same age. As kids, they used to be fast friends. “Hey, Remy,” he said, completely elated. “Remember me?”

“'Course,” said Remy, “I got me a book full of pictures of us.” He still sounded like the cousin Julian had known, speaking slowly and hesitantly, as always. The speech impediment was muted now, and his voice rang with a deep resonance, like his dad's.

When the two of them were young, Julian had gotten into many a fight, defending his cousin from the teasing of other kids. Fully grown, Remy looked like an NFL linebacker, and it was doubtful he suffered from teasing anymore.

“I'm real glad you're here,” Julian said. He turned to his brother. “Is this your doing?”

“You can thank my lovely wife. She made it happen. I think she might have been a genie in a past life.”

Julian gave Olivia a hug. “You're the best.”

He glanced at Daisy and caught her eye. Other than Connor, she'd never met any of his family. She didn't know the world he'd come from, how different his upbringing had been from hers. She seemed at ease with them, however, walking alongside Remy as they made their way to the auditorium for the ceremony.

“You'll have to tell me stories about you and Julian, growing up,” she said to his cousin.

“I got stories.” Remy offered a bashful grin. “I can tell you stories 'bout me and Julian, for sure.”

“We're going to dinner after the ceremony,” said Connor. “He can fill you in then.”

Even with the extra family members, they were one of the smaller groups to attend the commissioning. He
spotted Tanesha Sayers with her mother and a whole entourage of aunties and cousins, a colorful garden of black ladies wearing fancy hats. A beaming Sayers waved at him from across the yard. “Good luck, Jughead,” she called.

“Same to you.” Where she was going, she'd need it. To her disappointment, her plan to attend med school had been deferred because the air force needed her elsewhere. The good news was, she was headed to a posting in the Pentagon to work in protocol. With that sharp tongue of hers, it would be a challenge.

“Friend of yours?” Daisy asked.

“Sayers is in my detachment.” He was dying to figure out if Daisy was jealous. He kind of wanted her to be, because of what that would mean.

“She calls you Jughead.” She laughed. “I like it.”

“Hey, how about some family pictures before we go in,” Connor suggested.

“I'm on it,” Daisy said.

Julian's family didn't resemble anything people pictured when they thought of “family,” but they were all connected, and it meant the world to him that they had come. Daisy took photos of him and the others in every possible combination. They were definitely a picture of diversity. Connor, whose father was white, looked like Paul Bunyan in a new suit. Their mother, who these days called herself Starr, was as blond as Olivia and Daisy, while his aunt, uncle and cousin had the same fine ebony coloring as Julian's late father. Julian himself was a mixture of dark and light, and was sometimes mistaken for Latino. Which, where he was headed, was not necessarily a bad thing.

He was dying to tell Daisy what he could of his news, to really have a chance to talk to her, but now was not the time. Likely the same thought had occurred to her;
she was doing that thing she sometimes did, lifting her camera up, like a shield between her and the world.

“She's a famous photographer,” Connor told Uncle Claude as she crouched down for a shot of a manicured campus garden with Remy and Mimi in the background.

“Get out,” said Daisy, her face flushed. “I'm not famous.”

“She's a professional,” Julian explained, happy to contradict her. “She's one of the youngest photographers ever to be published in the
New York Times
.”

“Your work was in the
New York Times?
” Julian's mom perked up. Anything having to do with fame and image generally intrigued her.

“It was one assignment,” she said. “I had a lucky break involving a local baseball player.”

“Everybody starts somewhere,” his mom said. “I'd love to see the pictures.”

“You're going to love this even more.” Daisy positioned Julian and his mom side by side, with Cornell's clock tower behind them. “The light's really pretty here.”

Starr glanced back at the tower. “Looks like the set of a sniper movie I was in a few years ago. The shooter was up on the ledge surrounding the clock, and we had to figure out a way to escape.”

“And did you?” Julian asked.

“Yep. As I recall, I set something on fire and created a smoke screen. Who knows, now that you're going to be a hotshot in the air force, you'll be doing things like that for real.” She turned her gaze up to Julian, and he recognized a rare flash of pride in her regard. His mom knew so little about his life. In a way, that saddened him, but in another way, it was very liberating. She never had any expectations for him to live up to, so he had no trouble exceeding them.

“Has anyone ever mentioned you look like Heidi Klum?” Daisy asked.

Julian could feel his mom's gratification in her posture. “You think?”

“Sure.” Daisy took several shots.

“I like this girl,” said Julian's mom. “Where'd you find her?”

His eyes met Daisy's, and he read the question there. No, he'd never explained Daisy to his mother. In the first place, Starr was too self-absorbed to actually care. And in the second place, his relationship with Daisy often seemed to defy explanation.

Since Starr had asked him a direct question, he went with the digest version. “We met the summer before our senior year of high school. Remember, the summer I spent at Willow Lake.”

Looking back, Julian now realized he'd been saved in more ways than one that summer. Camp Kioga and the Bellamys had been a revelation to Julian. He met not just Daisy, but a whole group of people who were nothing like the cholos he hung out with in his industrial town east of L.A. The people he'd met that summer saw life as filled with promise, not a dead end, even for a kid like him. He simply had to pick his path and do what he needed to do in order to get where he wanted to be. Despite its simplicity, this was a concept that had not occurred to him before.

“You've been together since high school and you never told me?” his mother chided him.