To See The Daises ... First (7 page)

"Ed who?"

"Never mind," Sunny said, chuckling. "It wasn't important."

Evidently her visitor agreed with her, for she stood and began making a tour of the room, throwing questions over her shoulder at Sunny as she investigated the bric-a-brac and paintings.

"Is Sunny your real name or one of those cutesy things pretty girls usually have? I haven't seen you around here before. Are you married to Ben or did he pick you up on a street corner?"

"Hold on," Sunny said with a laugh, holding up her hand to halt the interrogation. "If you'll sit down I'll tell you all about it." She waited until Mary Louise was sitting on the couch, then spoke. "To answer your first question, I don't know if Sunny is my real name. Probably not. And as for the second and third: no, I'm not married to Ben and yes, he picked me up on a street corner—but, not like you're talking about."

Mary Louise gave her a penetrating glance. "You don't know what your name is? What's Ben running here, a halfway house or something? Or is your mental state a touchy subject?" she added sarcastically.

"No, I admit I'm not all there," Sunny said pleasantly. "Does it bother you?"

"Lady, I've met so many people around here whose elevators don't quite reach the top floor that I'm starting to wonder what in hell normal is."

"Then you've reached a point that takes most people a lifetime to reach," Sunny said. "And don't swear. It's very unattractive in a child."

"You've got to be kidding," Mary Louise scoffed. "You can look at this body and this face and tell me that what comes out of my mouth is going to make it worse? Nothing can do that, lady."

"You're simply at an awkward age," Sunny said, feeling that an outright lie would be met with contempt. "And my name is Sunny. Don't call me lady."

"And I told you Sunny is a dumb name." She paused and stared at her hostess reflectively. "You sure put a lot of restrictions on a conversation. 'Don't swear. Don't call me lady,' " she mimicked. "Would you rather I called you broad?"

"No, I don't think do," Sunny said, laughing in delight at her pugnacious new friend. "But if you want to talk about restrictions—do you always make people change their names just to suit you?"

Mary Louise gave a reluctant grin. "Okay, let's call it a tie. You don't tell me how to talk and I'll ignore the fact that you have a dumb name."

"That's big of you," Sunny muttered.

"If you're not married to Ben, then you must be sleeping with him," the brusque woman-child said casually. "I don't blame you. He's totally awesome."

With that pronouncement, she stood up and began to wander around the room again, apparently, not noticing the way Sunny had dropped back in her chair, fanning her face furiously with a magazine.

"I gotta say though," she continued, "you don't look like the usual type of Ready Betty that sleeps over in this neighborhood."

"What type is that?" Sunny choked out weakly.

"Around here?" the girl asked, looking back over her shoulder. "They usually wear three pounds of makeup and have dirty fingernails—and they always smell like a weird mixture of perfume and bubblegum."

"You make them sound awful." Had she seen them here, with Ben? It was really none of Sunny's business and of course, she couldn't ask this child about Ben's personal life, but—

"They're not bad," she said shrugging. "Some of them are pretty nice. They just never stay long. One day you'll see them with a black eye or they sober up and then they're gone." She ran curious eyes over Sunny. "I shoulda known if Ben ever brought one home, she would be different. He's— well, he's not ordinary like everyone else around here."

Sunny didn't give herself a chance to analyze the relief she felt at hearing that Ben didn't make a practice of bringing women to his apartment. She was too absorbed in the sympathy she felt for Mary Louise.

Lord, what a life for a child, she thought, keeping her expression carefully blank. No wonder she sounded so old. Where were her parents? How could they leave her alone to witness such things?

"But you know," Mary Louise continued thoughtfully, "it's usually the ones who are a little off. . . up here"—she pointed to her head—"who are the nicest ones."

"Does that mean you think I'm nice?"

"What difference does it make?" she asked, sounding suddenly suspicious. "I mean—I'm sure it'll just break your heart if I don't like you."

"Everyone wants to be liked, Mary Louise," Sunny said quietly.

"Oh, yeah? Not me. Why should I care what a bunch of drunks and fruitcakes think about me?"

Sunny smiled wistfully. Another hard-headed realist who refused to see beyond the obvious. "They were people a long time before they became drunks and fruitcakes."

"Well, that's not my problem, is it?" she asked shortly as she perched on Ben's desk and picked up the rose-colored paperweight.

"If everyone thought like that then I wouldn't be here. Ben had never even seen me before yesterday. He thought I was a fruitcake, but he didn't leave me to stay on the street and starve."

That was her Ben. Not the efficient organizer, but the other Ben, the one who had comforted her through her nightmare the night before.

Mary Louise gave her a look that was at once cynical, old, and very, very sad. "And you really think he did it out of the goodness of his heart? Ben's an all right guy—but he lives in this neighborhood, too." She paused, staring down at the paperweight, then glanced up with narrowed eyes. "How long did it take him to get you in bed?"

Sunny caught her breath at the blunt question. "You're wrong. He hasn't laid a finger on me and he won't." She paused, looking closely at this strange child she was already beginning to think of as a friend. "And I think you made that crude suggestion because you're a little girl who's seen too much and missed out on too much love in your life."

Red, blotchy patches appeared on Mary Louise's face at Sunny's words. "And I think you're a know-it-all bitch!" she shouted.

Sunny sat quietly for a moment, considering her angry statement. Then she gave her young friend a surprised look and said, "You know, I think you're right. And I thank you sincerely for pointing it out to me."

The girl stared at her strangely for a moment, then began to laugh. "You really are a cuckoo, aren't you?"

"I thought we had already established that."

Sunny relaxed in her chair, relieved to have reached a calm in their stormy relationship, but she found out a few minutes later that she had relaxed too soon. A seemingly innocent question about Mary Louise's parents had sent her stamp-tag out the door, vowing never to return.

"Well," she said, slumping back in the chair as she heard the door across the hall slam. "You blew that one, you—you cuckoo."

***

Ben let himself into the apartment, his eyes roaming restlessly around the living room with an anxiety he knew was unwarranted. He hadn't wanted to leave her today, but Charlie wouldn't have understood his reasons for avoiding him.

And you do, I suppose? he asked himself derisively. Why hadn't he told Charlie about Sunny? It wouldn't have been necessary that he mention her amnesia, but why hadn't he at least admitted to her presence in his life?

That's easy. Because you don't want to share her even in a conversation. Right?

After last night she seemed more than ever to belong to him. And all those logical conclusions he had reached before her nightmare seemed a fragile defense against their need for one another.

Walking toward the bedroom door, he hesitated, remembering the rules; then an aroma coming from the kitchen assailed his nostrils and he turned to follow his nose.

He stood silently in the doorway, smiling in pleasure at the picture she made as she sat at the small wooden table. Her head was bent over one of his spiral notebooks, her hair falling down to partially cover her face.

"Are you writing your own cookbook?"

"Ben!" she said, jumping up to greet him.

A feeling so acute it was almost painful gripped him when he saw her eyes light up at the sight of him, and he had to restrain himself from grabbing her and pulling her into his arms. Well, so much for the fascination dimming, he thought in resignation.

"It's definitely not a cookbook," she said, laughing wryly. "It's a diary."

He let the door swing shut behind him and moved into the kitchen. "A diary?"

"Uh-huh. I decided that even though I don't want to know about my past"—she hesitated slightly, avoiding his eyes as she spoke—"I do want to know about the kind of person I am now. I didn't even know whether or not I could cook. So, I've been listing the things that have happened to me in the last three days; and then I analyze my reactions to them."

Pulling a can of beer from the refrigerator, he popped the top, took a swallow, then said, "Sounds awfully deep. Did you learn anything?"

"You wouldn't believe how much," she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "From the people I met yesterday and today, I know that I like children and old people. Don't you think that's a good sign? I mean, when you hear that someone is nice to kids and old people you almost automatically like them because you know those two groups have the least pull—you know, like money or power. So you wouldn't be nice to them for what you could get out of it. Right?"

He nodded in amused agreement as he sat on the counter. "Very perspicacious of you," he said, keeping his face sober.

"Well, I think so," she admitted. "And right now Tm evaluating the other things I learned while you were gone today."

"Such as?"

"So many things. I read for quite a while today— just browsing through your books, you understand, and in one of them I found out that according to Einstein 'now' depends on where you happen to be standing at the time," she said vaguely, then continued with more enthusiasm. "But that's not important. What's important is what it means to me, and it means nothing to me. So I guess I don't have a giant brain." She stated her opinion casually as if it really made no difference. "I mean, now is now even if it does take three light years to get here. Understand?"

He started to nod, then switched in midstream to a negative sideways movement. "Not a word, but don't let that stop you."

She laughed gaily at his dazed expression, then continued to relate what she had learned from the various books and magazines he kept in the apartment.

There was such enthusiasm in her face. She was so breathtakingly alive. Would he never tire of watching her? Her words were lost as he concentrated on the tiny mole beside her mobile mouth. Did it feel as velvety soft as it looked? How would she react if he reached out—

"What?" he asked in confusion, coming out of his dream with a jerk of his head. "Back up a minute. What did you just say?"

"I said he had a nose and penis that were both eight fingers long," Sunny repeated patiently, staring as he began to choke on the beer.

"Who?" he managed to rasp out when the coughing spasm subsided. "Who had—all that?"

"That Irish demigod," she said. "Weren't you listening?"

"Never mind. What does this demigod have to do with anything?" he asked in exasperation. "What could you possibly learn about yourself from that?"

"I found there is a total lack of delicacy in my makeup because"—she paused, grinning suddenly—"I would love to see that man. How do you suppose he walked or rode a horse?"

Pulling himself together with a visible effort, Ben muttered drily, "In those days they not only had armor, they also had cast iron jockstraps . . . How should I know?" he added irritably. "Anything else?"

"Lots, but are you sure you want to hear it?" she askecd cautiously. "I don't want to annoy you."

"I'm not annoyed," he said, clenching his teeth. "What makes you think I'm annoyed?"

"The beer running down your hand," she said quietly, biting her lip that was twitching strangely.

He glared at the crushed can in his hand, then back at Sunny. This young lady got entirely too much pleasure from teasing him.

"Are you going to tell me or not?"

"Yes, sir," she said, laughing openly at him now. "After I read the thing about the saber-toothed possums, I decided to put the books away."

"Oh God, do I really want to ask this question?" he said under his breath, then with narrowed eyes, "Saber-toothed what?"

"Possums. You know, those things that hang by their tails and—"

"I know what possums are," he said weakly, feeling sanity slowly slipping away. "But there is no such thing as a saber-toothed possum."

"Well, of course not." She laughed. "Not now. They lived millions of years ago, when North and South America were separated by water. The magazine stated clearly that there were saber-toothed marsupials living in South America back then. Possums are marsupials," she added as though that cleared everything up.

He silently watched her stand and walk to the lrefrigerator, then pull lettuce and tomatoes from the vegetable bin. He took a slow, deep breath and said quietly, "So are kangaroos."

She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Saber-toothed kangaroos? Don't be silly, Ben."

"I should have known, somehow I should have known," he mumbled.

Holding a knife in one hand and a tomato in the other, she turned back to Ben, apparently unaware of his frustration. "There's something else I thought of today. It wasn't anything I learned in your books—I beg your pardon? Did you say something?"

"I merely said 'That's a relief.' Now what were you saying?"

"Well, when you made breakfast this morning, it didn't occur to me to offer to help. What do you think that means? Do I seem thoughtless or lazy to you?"

"Of course not. It probably means you haven't ever had to worry about cooking your own meals."

She cocked her head in inquiry. "You mean someone else did it for me? Servants?"

"It could be. Or your mother. But at your age— which I judge to be about twenty-five—you probably wouldn't still be living at home."

She turned away and began to cut the tomato silently. After a moment, she said over her shoulder, "Well, I don't suppose it really matters. How was your lunch with Charlie?"

"Boring," he said succinctly. "Is that all you did today—read?"

"No, I watched television for a while and from that I learned quite a bit." She gave him a devilish smile; then, when he refused to take the bait, she shrugged and continued anyway, "I found out that if I get depressed because my floors have a waxy, yellow build-up, I should overcome my depression by having an affair with the plumber who in reality is my long-lost sister who had a sex-change operation after her chromosomes were affected by an explosion in a deodorant factory."

"Did you really see all that on television?" he asked, laughing as he reached around her to take a piece of tomato.

"No," she admitted with a grin. "But it was almost that bad, and I only watched for fifteen minutes. After that, I switched to Tom Terrific and Mighty Manfred the WonderDog, which made a lot more sense."

She paused for a moment, focusing silently on the cabinet in front of her, then turned around to face him with a strange look on her face. "Ben, do I seem like a nervous sort of person? You know, the kind who jumps at her own shadow?"

He stared at her face, trying to interpret her strange mood. "No, why?"

Giving a hesitant laugh, she turned back to the vegetables. "Oh, it was nothing really. Just something that happened when I went for a walk today. I saw a man who was angry because he was lost or traffic was slow or something silly like that and I went all to pieces. Why should a stranger's anger affect me like that?"

Ben's heart began to pound violently as he listened to her quiet voice. "You went out while I
was gone?"

"Yes, I wanted—"

"Sunny," he said tightly. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to go out?"

"I didn't know." She sounded confused and a little hurt by his intensity. "What difference does It make?"

He took several deep breaths, slowly forcing himself to stay calm, then sat down at the table and looked up at her. "I talked to you about this last night, but I guess I didn't make it clear. Until we find out for sure what happened to you, we have to go on the assumption that someone wants to harm you. I don't want you to go out alone until you get your memory back."

"You can't be serious!" she gasped.

"It won't be that bad," he soothed. "I'll be here most of the time and if you want to go out. I'll go with you."

"No!" she said, then more calmly, "No. I know you're only trying to do what you think is best far me and I appreciate it. But Ben, I can't live with those restrictions. If anybody had wanted to harm me, they had plenty of opportunity while I was still in that room unconscious." She paused. "I know it sounds strange, but the thought of living with those restrictions somehow frightens me more than anything that could happen outside here."

"Sunny, you don't know what you're saying," he said, speaking slowly and patiently. "You're confused."

"Don't patronize me, Ben," she said firmly, then grinned. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid."

Reluctantly he began to chuckle. He felt—deep inside him—that what she was asking was wrong. He felt he had to protect her from whatever might be out there to harm her. But he also knew that she wasn't lying about fearing the restrictions he mentioned. Ben could see it in her face.

He leaned back in the chair and watched her work, finding pleasure in her movements. Don't get used to it, he warned himself silently. This was only a temporary thing. She could wake up tomorrow knowing exactly who she was—and who she belonged to. Then the fantasy would be over and he could go back to the real world that had existed for him before her appearance.

She turned then and smiled at him, unaware that a painful tightness was gripping his throat and chest when he thought of a bleak reality. No sunshine ... no daisies.

Sunny, my sweet illusion, he thought, smiling back with an effort as a new and uncomfortable helplessness overcame him, what kind of fool am I becoming?