Beautiful Little Fools(39)

Still, I hadn’t told Daisy that she and France were truly my second choice. My first had been to go home to Nashville with Mary Margaret.

She’d invited me a few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, after she’d crawled into my bed and was holding me in the dark. I’d entwined my leg with hers, in that careless way we had of doing now, as if my limbs were her limbs. And in the black of night, it sometimes felt uncertain where one of us ended and the other one began.

“How will I survive two whole months without you?” I’d whispered into the darkness that night.

Her arms had pulled me tighter, and I’d felt the weight of her body sigh against me. “Don’t,” she’d whispered directly into my ear. “Come home to Nashville with me.”

Her whisper was a promise and a dare, and I told her that I would.

But the next morning, everything had been bright and different, the way it always was. “Do you really want me to come to Nashville for the break?” I’d pressed her, watching her eat a piece of rye toast for breakfast. She chewed daintily around the edges in that funny way she had of eating all the crusts before any of the center. Her eyes widened a little, but she didn’t answer at first, she just kept on chewing. “Daisy wants me to come to France,” I’d said, matter-of-factly. I didn’t mention Aunt Sigourney in New York, a very distant, and unlikely, third.

She’d continued on with her toast, each bite agonizingly precise, until she finished the whole piece. “France, Jordan,” she’d finally said, averting her eyes from mine. “Wouldn’t that be marvelous.”

I’d nodded but understood what she was really saying. Her whisper in the middle of the night had been a half dream. In the light of the morning, fully awake, she was consumed by fear. Afraid of what everyone would see, what her parents might think, watching us together for two whole months.

“France,” I’d repeated then. I’d ripped my own piece of toast in half, eating the center and leaving the crusts behind on my plate. “And, boy, it’ll be good to see Daisy again.” That was certainly true—I’d missed Daisy. But I hadn’t said it for that reason. I’d said it because I’d wanted to watch Mary Margaret’s cheeks redden, wanted to watch her sweet plump lip curl just a bit, with what was almost certainly jealousy.

“France,” she’d repeated, gulping down her grapefruit juice, refusing still to meet my eyes.

And now, here it was before me: France. And Daisy, too, of course. With her baby doll and her happy marriage. And the blue-green Mediterranean Sea out in front of me, almost close enough to touch from my balcony. I had everything here, everything money could buy. So why did I still feel so sad, and so restless, and so empty?



* * *



A FEW HOURS later, Daisy and I lay out on their private beach together, just steps down a path from their chateau. We sat on a blanket in the sand, under a large umbrella. For the first time since I’d gotten to France, I could breathe again. The warm salty air drifted in and out of my lungs, and I sighed.

Daisy lay back on the blanket. I did the same and reached out my hand for hers. She took it and squeezed my hand gently. We lay there like that, just holding hands and soaking in the view.

“Tell me, what’s the best thing about living in France?” I asked her after a little while. My voice, my whole entire body, was hot and lazy.

“Easy,” she said. “This.” It was hard to tell whether she meant this moment, right here, the two of us holding hands on the beach, or just her proximity to the beach itself.

I squeezed her hand again. “Lucky girl,” I said. “Your wealthy husband whisking you away to every beach in the world: Tahiti and Hawaii and Santa Barbara and now Cannes.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she rolled over on her side, faced me. Her eyes were darker, her expression more serious now. “Jordie,” she said, “Tom did something awful in Santa Barbara.”

Something awful? Her words hit me like a punch, and I reacted with a surprised, strangled cry. Daisy seemed so happy here. She’d been so happy when I last saw her then. There was money and a doll-baby, and the Mediterranean! “I don’t understand, Daise.”

She sighed and rolled back over on her back. “I’m not sure I do either.”

“Well… what happened?” I asked carefully.

She was quiet for a moment, and I propped myself up on my elbow and twirled a lock of her hair around my finger. It was just as soft and silky as it had always been in Louisville. I assumed she still bathed it in six egg yolks, once a week. Well, why not? She certainly had the money now.

“There was an… incident. With Tom and a chambermaid,” she finally spoke, her voice flat, her affect matter-of-fact. “They were off together doing god knows what, and all of Santa Barbara found out when they had a bang-up with their car.” All of Santa Barbara found out, and yet, she hadn’t told me. How was I just learning about this now? “We’ve put it all behind us,” she said. “But sometimes I lie awake in the middle of the night, and I wonder… What did she have that I don’t, Jordie?”

I tried to take in what she was saying, an incident with Tom and a chambermaid. Tom had cheated on Daisy? On their honeymoon.

“I shouldn’t have even said anything now.” Daisy was rambling, her voice taking on a higher pitch. “I don’t even know why I told you. It’s over. It’s all in the past.”