Tigers in Red Weather (13 page)

The anticipation gave the house an electric quality and Daisy half expected the candlesticks and flags and spoons and forks to get up and start marching into place by themselves, like in
The Nutcracker
, when all the toys came alive after the people had gone to bed. She felt so infected with the magic of the party that she didn’t mind the constant scolding not to leave her tennis racquet lying around, or to eat on the porch so crumbs wouldn’t attract ants into the house. She noticed that even Ed pitched in, constantly checking the mousetraps in the kitchen and the pantry.

And even though Daisy and Anita had wound up losing in the doubles round-robin, she decided to ask her mother if Anita could come to the party. After all, it wasn’t Anita’s fault if she wasn’t up to scratch.

“Yes, yes,” her mother had said distractedly, before looking up from another round of furious list making and adding, “But she can’t come to the early supper.”

“I’m not even invited to the early supper,” Daisy said loudly.

“No, that’s right.” Her mother chewed her pencil and stared back down at her pad. “When you’re sixteen …”

The early supper was reserved for her parents’ closest circle of friends, who would come at six and dine with them before the party got into full swing. The meal seemed to cause her mother as much anxiety as the main event, although Daisy couldn’t fathom why, given that she didn’t even cook it herself, just fussed at the women she hired from Vineyard Haven to help.

“Simple,” her mother always explained. “Simple, but tricky and impossible to copy.”

With the singles final set to take place the day after the party, Daisy was practicing furiously. She had started biting her nails again, a habit she had given up years before when her mother, in a fit of rage, had started applying Tabasco to her fingertips twice a day.

Pretty is as pretty does
.

She had even found herself crying at the end of each tennis lesson. She wasn’t sure why, only that it felt so good to sit down and choke out the tears, biting the damp collar of her shirt between her teeth. At the end of the week, she played Peaches in a first-to-two practice set.

Peaches did her worst, winning quickly on her own serve and then handily breaking Daisy’s. Daisy felt numb, and yet strangely, her heart was beating so fast she thought it might come crashing out of her chest.

“Not your best tennis,” Mr. Collins said when she reached the
clubhouse. The tennis instructor then put his hand on Peaches’s shoulder. “Nicely played, Peaches. Very efficient. OK, girls, shake hands.”

Daisy walked straight through and out the front door onto the street, dragging her racquet behind her. She didn’t even want to cry, just to be home under her own cool lavender sheets.

She heard the sound of feet behind her, but she didn’t speed up. Even if they tie me up and use Chinese water torture, Daisy thought, I won’t shake hands with that fatso.

A warm dry hand caught her arm.

“Hey,” Tyler said. “Wait up.”

Daisy turned.

“Hey, it’s OK,” Tyler said. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying,” Daisy said and sped up her pace.

“All right, all right, you’re not crying,” he said. “Hey, come on. Wait up a little.”

Daisy stopped.

“Look, I just wanted to tell you I think you played great.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Daisy said, furiously. “I lost.”

“It wasn’t even a real match,” Tyler said. “You only played two games. And anyway, you looked great out there, just made a few mistakes, that’s all.”

“Did Mr. Collins send you? Because I’ll tell you right now, I’m not shaking hands.”

Tyler laughed. “You’re a prickly one, aren’t you?”

Daisy continued to eye him, pushing the top of her racquet into the gravel.

“OK, OK. Look, I’m not Collins’s spy. You just seemed to take it so hard, that’s all.” He held out his hand. “Give me your racquet, it doesn’t deserve that kind of abuse.”

Daisy handed it over, the top now scratched from all the dragging. They started walking.

“You can’t take these things to heart. Anyway, you’re the better player.”

“She still won,” Daisy said, her voice cracking a little. “Not me. She’s the better player.”

“Nah, I was watching you. You’re mean out there.”

“Not mean enough.”

“You’re hotter, and she’s colder, that’s all,” Tyler said. “Two different styles. But I prefer yours.”

Daisy chewed her lip, turning this over in her mind.
I’m hotter, she’s colder
.

“I can’t believe she broke my serve,” Daisy said.

As they turned down Morse Street, the heat of the match began to lift and Daisy realized with a swift, sharp happiness that Tyler Pierce was walking her home. The dusty sidewalk seemed to rise to meet her feet, and the white shutters looked as crisp and clean as fresh laundry against the cedar shingles of the houses. She smelled the honeysuckle trailing near the tips of her tennis shoes. She ached to put her hand in his; she couldn’t imagine anything finer.

Tyler had her racquet slung over his shoulder and she could see a sweat stain under his lifted arm. His hair was damp and pushed back down. He was pretty, like a girl, with his high cheekbones and long lashes. But really, he was a man with his sweat and his tan, strong arms, carrying her racquet so lightly.

Daisy didn’t take the shortcut on North Summer Street that led to the back of the house. Instead she walked the long way around to North Water Street, trying to think of something to say that didn’t have to do with tennis or Peaches. She was still thinking when they reached her front gate.

“Well,” Daisy said, slowly pushing the latch down.

“Well,” Tyler said, smiling. He handed her the racquet and looked up at the house. “So this is where you live.”

“Uh-huh,” Daisy said, peering up too, wondering what it looked like through his eyes.

He passed his hand over the tops of the red roses climbing the fence, and the movement released the fragrance of the fat blooms.

“It’s big,” Tyler said. “It’s nice.”

“It was my great-grandmother’s.” Daisy couldn’t think of one interesting thing to say. She desperately cast around for some small tidbit to offer up to him. “It used to have two kitchens.” She immediately regretted it. Why would a boy care about kitchens? “My cousin brought me a real Indian arrowhead from Gay Head. Do you want to see it?”

“Sure,” Tyler said. “Actually, I’m kind of thirsty.”

“Oh,” Daisy said. “Do you like lemonade? My mother has a secret recipe.”

“A secret recipe, huh? That would be great.”

“Come on,” Daisy said, leading him up the front path to the porch. “You can sit on the porch and I’ll bring some out.” She didn’t want Tyler to see her aunt Helena snoring in her favorite chair.

The house was still when she walked in. In the kitchen, she hurriedly poured the lemonade into two big tumblers ringed with bluebells. Walking carefully back, she checked the blue sitting room. There was no sign of her aunt. She turned on the old radio, loud enough so that music would float out onto the porch. The sound of Little Anthony singing about the tears on his pillow filled the room. She pushed the screen door open with her hip, relieved to find Tyler where she’d left him.

“Here.” Daisy handed him one of the tumblers. She watched as he turned the rim slightly, looking at the bluebells etched into the glass, before drinking out of it.

She was memorizing him. His white collared shirt had the tennis club insignia stitched onto the breast and droplets of sweat beaded up at his hairline. The laces of his tennis shoes were neatly tied, but
not double-knotted, as if he knew there was no way they would come undone at the wrong moment. She liked the way he had looked at the bluebells, like every detail mattered to him.

“It’s good,” Tyler said, setting the empty glass down on the wrought-iron table between them. “What’s the secret?”

“Only my mother knows,” Daisy said. She almost added that her mother had promised to tell her when she was older, but stopped herself. “Do you want to see the arrowhead?”

“Sure,” he said, but he was looking out onto the street.

“I’ll be right back.”

Daisy tore up the polished stairs to her room, pulled out the unicorn, and began rummaging through her secret drawer. She sifted through the shells and money cluttered at the bottom, but she couldn’t find it. Had she put it in there? Frantic, she tried to think. What had she done with it after Ed had given it to her? Anita had held it for a minute, but she had given it back. She looked under her bed and on the nightstand, then, getting down on her stomach, under the painted radiator below the window, but there was only a dead fly and an abandoned spiderweb.

She decided to go back down, afraid that if she spent any more time looking, Tyler might give up on her and leave. She hopped the stairs two at a time and barreled out to the porch.

There, she found her mother leaning over Tyler and whispering something in his ear. She was wearing a pair of poppy-colored shorts over her strapless bathing suit. Her dark hair, still wet from her swim, brushed Tyler’s cheek.

Daisy froze. Slowly, her mother straightened and smiled at her.

“Hello, darling,” her mother said.

Daisy knew her mouth was open, but no words would come out. She looked at Tyler, who was smiling up at her mother.

“Daisy.” Her mother laughed. “Are you all right, darling? Cat got your tongue?”

“I was looking for my arrowhead,” Daisy finally said. Heat was rising from the very tips of her fingers and spreading across her cheeks, like a sunburn. “What have you done with it?” she demanded too loudly.

“What?” Her mother was still laughing, as if she was being ridiculous.

“Where is it? You shouldn’t have touched it. It wasn’t yours. Ed gave it to me.” She stamped her foot, causing the bluebell glasses to shiver on the iron table.

“Daisy,” her mother said, a bit sternly now. “I haven’t done anything with it. I only put it in your top drawer so you wouldn’t lose it.”

“I wanted to show it to Tyler,” she said, trying to push back the tears threatening to spill out. She felt confused and changed tack. “What were you talking about?”

“Well, now, don’t be mad,” her mother said, her smile returning as she glanced at Tyler. “But I was telling him the secret recipe for the lemonade. He pestered me so.”

“It’s true, I did,” Tyler said, beaming up at Daisy’s mother. “Mrs. Derringer said you were the only one who she could really tell. But I told her you wouldn’t mind, seeing as we’re friends and everything.”

“Well, I expect you to do something very nice for Daisy now,” her mother said, her hand resting lightly on Tyler’s shoulder. “To make up for tricking me into telling you.”

“Anything,” Tyler said.

Daisy watched the exchange in agony. She recognized her position in this game: She was the spectator watching a rally from the bench.

“I think,” Daisy’s mother said, winking at Daisy, “that you should be her escort for the party we’re throwing next week.”

This clearly was not the kind of task Tyler was expecting, but he smiled at Daisy gamely, saying, “Of course. I’d be honored.”

Daisy wanted to die, to sink into the floor and disappear. She had been angry with her mother before, but at the moment, she hated her.

1959: AUGUST
I

T
he day of the party, Daisy’s mother appeared in her bedroom at 6 a.m., ordering her out of bed like a general in a green silk dressing gown.

“I can’t believe you’re still sleeping,” she said, pulling back the warm blanket and sending a chill of fresh morning air down Daisy’s legs. “Early bird catches the worm. And the girl has to clean the rooms, for heaven’s sakes. You all know that. Do I have to do everything myself?”

Daisy wanted to point out that if the girl was cleaning the rooms, then she wasn’t doing everything herself, but her mother had already marched out.

Daisy stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, where she found her father and aunt sitting bleary-eyed at the kitchen table. Her father’s stubble cast a shadow across his jaw as he sipped his coffee. Her aunt, encased in voluminous yellow, was staring morosely into her own cup.

“What’s for breakfast?” Daisy asked.

At the mention of breakfast, Aunt Helena groaned and put her head down on the table.

Her father smiled and stood up, tightening the belt of his flannel bathrobe.

“Ah, Daisy, my sweet, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Come over here and give your old man a kiss.”

Daisy walked obediently over to her father, who put his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. Her father smelled like sleep and something sour. Daisy wriggled out of his arms, squinting up at him.

“Everyone’s feeling a bit out of sorts. Except your mother, of course. Nothing save a natural disaster could stop her at this point,” he said, chuckling. “How about some scrambled eggs for my best girl? Not sure I’ll be able to do them as well as Mummy, but I’ll give it a go.”

“OK.” Daisy sat down. “Can I have some coffee, too?”

“Coffee?” Her father stopped and turned back toward her, brandishing the frying pan. “When did you start drinking coffee?”

“Mummy lets me have a little with lots of milk.”

“Mummy has some interesting notions.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I suppose it’s all right. I’ll pour a drop into a mug and you put in the milk. Deal?”

“Deal.” Daisy walked over to the icebox and took out the bottle of cold milk.

“Daisy, dear,” her aunt’s muffled voice said behind her, “will you pour me a glass of that lovely milk? In fact, just bring the whole bottle.”

Daisy looked at her father.

“Crikey, Helena,” her father said, laughing.

“It’s your fault, Hughes. You and your whiskey sours.”

“Well, you didn’t have to drink ten of them,” he said.

“You didn’t have to keep pouring them. You know how I love whiskey sours.”

“I think the secret’s out.”

“Well, I’m paying for it now. Badly done, Hughes.” Her tone was petulant, but Daisy could see she was trying not to smile.

She brought her aunt a glass and the bottle of milk. Her aunt pressed the bottle against her forehead. Daisy thought about the strange effects parties seemed to have on adults, like Christmas, when there were no rules. Her father and aunt, in their pajamas, acting crazy. It reminded her of the grown-up movies her mother sometimes took her to, where the adults said things to each other and everyone in the audience laughed, except Daisy, who couldn’t see what was so funny.