The Cinderella Deal (16 page)

“Go paint. I’ll come when you’ve got a show ready for that gallery. Have you gone down there yet?”

“No, and it’ll be a good long time yet before I do,” Daisy said, but after she’d hung up she went upstairs happier than she’d been before.
I’ll start to paint again,
she told herself,
as soon as I’ve picked up Jupiter.

Jupiter was not a hit at first. He barked a lot, and developed a fondness for Linc that bordered on the pathological since Linc’s first words on seeing him were “That’s the most disgusting-looking animal I’ve ever seen.”

Jupiter had only one eye, so he looked as if he were permanently winking. His tail was bent down at a right angle, he limped, and because he’d lost teeth on one side of his mouth, his tongue tended to hang out that side when he panted.

“I think he’s darling.” Daisy’s heart bled for him every time she saw him. “Poor baby.”

“Poor baby, my butt.” Linc glared down at the little dog. “This is the luckiest dog in Prescott. You’re a mess,” he said to the dog. “We should put you out on the street with a cup to beg.”

“
Linc
.”

“He could sell pencils. We’d make a fortune.”

“Ignore him, baby.” Daisy patted Jupiter’s head, but Jupiter ignored her instead and attached himself to Linc. At first Linc would yell at her to come get the dog when it would sneak into his room, but on Friday, Daisy heard him talking to it when she went past his study door to go to her studio.

“You’re worthless. Here. Have a biscuit.”

A biscuit? He’d bought dog biscuits for Jupiter? The world was coming to an end.

She knocked on the door. “Do you want me to get Jupiter out of there?”

“No,” Linc said from behind the door. “He just sneaks back in. This is a worthless dog.”

“Yes, Linc,” she said, and went away laughing silently.

On Saturday, Linc came downstairs to get the house ready for the party and finally noticed Daisy had redecorated.

“This looks great,” he said as he wandered from room to room. “I mean, it really does. Did you do all this? It’s sort of colorful, but great.” He stopped in front of the painting on the mantel. It was painted in Daisy’s primitive style of tiny vivid brushstrokes, and it showed a Victorian house sitting in what looked like a lush green jungle populated by a lot of unblinking leaf-green eyes. A girl in a bright peach dress stood in the foreground, looking pensive.

“There’s a lot of detail here.” Linc leaned in for a closer look. “You can see in the windows of the house and—” His voice broke off.

“Do you like it? This is one of my favorites.”

“There’s a headless body on the couch in the downstairs room.” Linc turned to look at her. “You painted a headless body on a couch?”

Daisy nodded. “It’s Lizzie Borden’s house. It really is. I found a photograph. They had a picture of the body too. It’s not really headless. Almost, but not quite.”

Be open-minded
, Linc told himself. It was the least he owed her, but he was still thrown. Headless bodies? “Lizzie Borden.”

“That’s her father on the couch. Her stepmother’s in the upstairs bedroom. If you look really hard, you can see her feet at the edge of the windowsill.”

Linc nodded, coping. “Her feet.”

“You do know the story? ‘Lizzie Borden took an ax and’—”

“I know the story.” Linc’s resolve broke. “Whatever possessed you to paint it?”

“Probably my father and stepmother,” Daisy said grimly.

Linc changed the subject. “Why is she looking so calm?”

“Well, nobody knows for sure if she did it. So she’s either standing there innocently while someone evil frames her for the crime, or she’s planning her defense. You choose.”

They stood together and looked at the painting for a while, and Linc realized that even though he was still thrown, he liked the painting. There was something about it that was so Daisy, bright and colorful and passionate with strange things hidden inside. Amazing. “Does every one of your paintings have a story?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Daisy said blithely. “The one in the dining room is based on the legend of Etain.”

“What happened to Etain?” he asked, knowing it was going to be horrible.

“A jealous witch turned her into a butterfly, and she got blown into a wineglass and a beautiful queen drank her.”

Linc nodded, trying to be supportive. “Drank her.”

“Yes. And then nine months later the queen gave birth to a baby girl, and Etain’s lover waited for her to grow up again so he could marry her. Then they lived happily ever after. Something horrible happened to the witch, but I can’t remember what. Her name was Fuamach; you’d think that would be enough of a punishment.”

“Are all your paintings about horrible things?”

Daisy pulled away, surprised. “These aren’t horrible. These have happy endings. Lizzie was never convicted, and Etain lived happily ever after forever with Mider. I can’t do the really unhappy ones. I tried to paint Deirdre once, but I ended up burning the canvas.”

The memory of it clouded her face, and Linc found himself wanting to know all about her paintings because it was telling him so much about her. “What happened to Deirdre?”

“A man she didn’t like forced her to marry him, and she killed herself.”

Linc looked down at her, startled, but she was gazing serenely at Lizzie, apparently without ulterior motive. “The peach dress is nice, isn’t it? It looks like Victorian passion.”

He looked back at the painting. “Was Lizzie passionate?”

“You’d have to be pretty passionate to hack up your father and stepmother, wouldn’t you?”

“I thought she wasn’t convicted.”

“She wasn’t, but I still think she did it.” Daisy gave her alter ego one last look and then turned to survey the living room. “I covered up the holes and the cracks in the furniture. You really can’t tell, can you?”

“It looks great,” he said sincerely, and then shot one last nervous glance over his shoulder at Lizzie.

Daisy was moving on, like a blur of brightness through the pastel room. “I’m buying flowers this afternoon. And I’m making stew in case anyone wants to eat when they get here.”

Linc tensed. Stew. That was bad; these people didn’t eat stew, they ate coq au vin. “They won’t want to eat. Forget the stew and we’ll just have drinks.”

Daisy looked apologetic, and he kicked himself for being so blatant, but all she said was “We’d better set up a bar on the buffet, then.”

“Make a note to pick up liquor,” he told her, and went into the dining room to see how much space there was on the buffet. Over it was a primitive still life of a table covered with blue and white checks. The table held a vase of flowers, a bowl of fruit, and a glass of pink wine. He leaned closer. There was definitely a butterfly in the wine.

He sighed, and then he started to laugh. Lizzie Borden in the living room and a drowned butterfly in the dining room. The place looked like
Better Homes & Gardens,
but it was really Charles Addams. He looked over at the flower garlands that graced the hall, wondering what details they hid. “This is really great,” he told her when she’d followed him. He patted her shoulder. “Cute. You did a good job. Uh, did you hide anything in the flowers and stuff on the walls?”

“No.” Daisy stopped, clearly intrigued. “That’s a good idea. This place is too boring. I could…”

“No, no.” Linc waved his hand at her. “It’s great just as it is. Really.” He looked around again and was surprised to realize he was telling the truth. “It really is. Nice going, Daize.”

Linc’s praise meant more to Daisy than she wanted to admit. It wasn’t easy being Daisy Blaise. She slaved over the party, making lists of things that had to be done and leaving reminders for herself all over the house on mul ticolored sticky notes, and then made sure that every line on every list was crossed off and every note was followed, finished, and thrown away before anyone arrived. It wasn’t her style, and it made her crazy and tense and tired, but she was Linc’s wife, throwing Linc’s party, and she was terrified she’d screw it up, so she watched him for clues. She’d almost served stew until she’d seen Linc’s face when she mentioned it. They’d need cloth napkins and wine sauce, and it wasn’t much consolation that she always threw some wine in her stew. She didn’t think that uncorking the bottle and slopping some in counted as wine sauce, so she left the Crock-Pot on low in case she and Linc were hungry after everyone left and concentrated on getting the house as clean and polished as possible.

An hour before they left for the faculty club, she sat on her bed in her white dress and shook from the tension. It was going to be awful. She’d be on display, just as she used to be with her father. Chickie would be nice no matter what, and Booker and Lacey and Evan would be too, but they’d know she wasn’t right, wasn’t their kind of people, and that would be terrible for Linc. And Crawford was such a snob, he’d say something. And Caroline…

I should never have done this
, she thought.
I can’t be like these people. I’ll never fit in and I’ll embarrass Linc and
—

“Daisy?” Linc called, and she took deep breaths, the way he’d taught her, and went out to join him.

She stayed quiet and polite all evening, terrified she’d do the wrong thing, and Chickie and Lacey both asked her if she was all right. “Just fine,” she said brightly, and

Evan said, “You probably have something catching,” and wandered off to the buffet more from momentum than fear of disease. By the end of the evening Daisy had relaxed a little, but she clutched again when they got back from the club, and they all came into the house.

Evan came to her rescue in the living room without really meaning to. “This painting is really excellent.” Evan peered closely at Lizzie’s house. “Of course, the artist will never receive the recognition he’s due since it’s a primitive, but it’s excellent. Who did it?”

“I did,” Daisy said.

Evan’s eyebrows rose above his glasses. “Did you do the collages in the hall too?”

“Yes.” Daisy relaxed again, but she kept an eye on Caroline while she talked. Linc might be determined to say no, but Caroline looked pretty determined too, drawing Linc down onto the flowered couch with her. Speaking of determined… she turned back to Evan. “Julia gave me the idea for the collages.”

“Then you should invite her to see them,” Evan said with uncharacteristic firmness. “Invite her soon.”

“All right.” Julia and Evan. Daisy shook her head.

Evan seemed a little taken aback by his own audacity and changed the subject. “Do you sell your work?”

“I try, but not since I’ve come to Prescott.”

“It’s quite good. You should take it to the gallery and show it to Bill. I’d like to see your other things sometime, if I may.” Then, as if he realized he was sounding optimistic, he added, “Although you probably won’t want to show them to me.”

“Of course I want to show them to you.” Daisy put her arm around him. There was something about Evan that made you want to comfort him, something beyond his rampant gloom. “Are you hungry?” she asked without thinking. “I made stew.”

“Yes.” Evan turned toward the kitchen bravely. “It will probably give me heartburn, but I am hungry, and I would like some stew.”

The Bookers followed them into the kitchen.

“Daisy, this house is darling,” Lacey said.

“Something smells really good in here,” her husband said pointedly.

“I made stew,” Daisy said, and forgot about Linc and gourmet cooking. “Would you like some?”

Crawford had trailed along after them. “Nothing like a little woman who can cook,” he said, and when Chickie stuck her head in the door to see what they were doing, she agreed.

“You’re just going to have to give me that recipe, honey.”

“Better taste it first.” Daisy handed Chickie a stack of bowls, Lacey the silverware, and Booker the paper napkins. “We’re not formal here,” she told them. She handed Evan the Crock-Pot and shooed them all into the dining room.

She went back for a pitcher of milk and a basket of bread and came out in time to hear Booker say, “There are whole mushrooms in here.” He speared one with his fork. “Real, whole mushrooms.”

Linc and Caroline joined them, and Daisy watched with her fingers crossed as they sat crowded around the big oak table and talked about the paintings and the house and the food.

Caroline sat next to Linc. “This is really wonderful.” She looked over at Daisy, her head almost touching Linc’s shoulder. “It must be terrific to be a housewife and do all these little decorating and cooking things. My apartment is just wall-to-wall books and a microwave.”

“Thank you,” Daisy said.
Drop dead, Caroline
.

“Daisy’s a painter,” Linc said. “She’s not a housewife; she’s an artist.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a housewife,” Daisy said over her bowl. “It’s an art too. I just don’t have the concentration to sustain it. Linc gets food when I remember to cook it and feeds himself when I don’t.”

“I like it that way.” Linc smiled at her.

She smiled back at him.
Put that in your pipe, Caroline. And then get out of my house
.

Jupiter came down to see everyone as they were leaving.

“My God, what is that?” Caroline shrieked.

“That’s Jupiter.” Daisy glared at her. “My dog.”

Caroline smirked and looked over at Linc to exchange mutual glances of contempt, but he wasn’t playing.

“Jupiter’s an original.” Linc looked down at the dog with pride. “He’s not one of those soulless purebreds.”

Jupiter lurched on his bad hip and fell over sideways.

“No, that he isn’t,” Booker agreed. “What is he anyway?”

“Part beagle,” Daisy said. “And part a few other things.”

“He looks like he’s been recycled,” Evan said. “A very practical dog.”

“A dog with personality.” Lacey Booker bent down to pet him. Jupiter rolled over on his back in ecstasy.

“What a sweet baby,” Chickie said.

“We’ve got to be going.” Crawford hugged Daisy, letting his hand slide down to her rear end.

After their good-byes, Daisy closed the door behind them with a sigh. “If we could lose Crawford and Caroline, we’d have a very nice group of people there.”