Beautiful Little Fools(48)

“We weren’t going to stay in France forever,” Tom had said, laughing a little at the absurdity of it, when I’d complained about us leaving there.

“Well, not forever,” I’d huffed. “But I was finally starting to feel at home here, and now you want to move again?”

He’d kissed my head. “You’ll love Chicago,” he’d said, his voice taking on an annoyingly condescending tone. Our move hadn’t been presented to me as a choice. That morning, he’d simply walked into breakfast in our chateau in Cannes and announced that he was ready to return to the States. That he’d found a place for us in Lake Forest, not too far from his parents. It didn’t matter that Chicago was the last place Daddy and Rose had been before the train crash, that I could hardly bear to think about that city, much less live there. “And we can’t change our plans now.” He was still talking, while he poured himself a cup of coffee. His movements were easy. He hadn’t a concern in the world. “I’ve already begun preparing the ponies,” he’d added.

Heaven forbid we should change the ponies’ plans. I’d bitten my lip to avoid saying that out loud.

And so in Lake Forest I felt myself constantly pining for Cannes. Or maybe not Cannes, exactly, but for something, somewhere. For the feeling of home, of being settled in one place long enough to get my bearings. Our house here was grand and lovely with views of Lake Michigan. And fully staffed, so I didn’t have to lift a finger. We were just a train ride away from Upper Boul Mich and Lakeshore Drive, the pulsing shiny hearts of the city, where there were so many parties to be found, so many young, beautiful wild people just waiting for us to have a gay time with. But the air was desperately chilly in Lake Forest, even though it was still summer. And I had not been able to truly warm up since we’d left France.

Out on the veranda now, the oak branches crackled, and the thunder rumbled loudly. I stood there frozen, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to settle my senses and my mind and my soul. The rain began, and the wind whipped so hard that water poured at me diagonally in sheets, washing over me, soaking right through my dress to my skin.



* * *



“OH MY GOODNESS, Daisy. You’re positively scandalous,” Tom said to me, his voice taking on a wicked edge. I’d walked up to our bedroom to change before dinner; the rain had soaked me through and through, and I shivered a little.

He walked over to me now, drew me to him, in spite of my sad, wet state. He brought his hand up to trace my breast, and I looked down and noticed it was completely visible through the wet fabric of my beige dress. “Tom, not now,” I protested weakly. “We have company coming for dinner.” It was true, much to my chagrin, Tom had invited a polo friend, his wife, and their teenage daughter for dinner tonight, mentioning it to me only this morning at breakfast. Not much time to prepare myself to put on a show for strangers. Not strangers, Tom had corrected at breakfast. Maybe they’ll become our friends?

“Ahh, yes, the Buckleys,” he said now, a tinge of annoyance in his voice, even though this dinner had been his idea. He let his hand linger on my breast still another moment, before dropping it back to his side. “Daisy…” He said my name, but then didn’t finish his thought.

He looked at me, and we held each other’s gaze for a moment, but neither one of us said a word. So much was unspoken between us now. Perhaps Tom wanted to ask me when we would ever be together again? If not now, when? I’d recoiled from his touch since we’d left France, and partly it was that feeling; I was so unsettled my skin crawled and my limbs twitched. I was so desperately homesick for something or someone or somewhere that didn’t actually even exist. What was my home with Tom? Where was it?

But then there was the other thing, too. That question that lingered in my mind, when I awoke in the darkness and our bed was empty. And I roamed the grounds, listening for him, but hearing only the gentle rush of Lake Michigan in the distance. Where did Tom go in the middle of the night?

“Daisy… I…” he said again.

“What is it, Tom? What do you want to say?” I implored him now, nearly taunting him. Daring him to tell me where it was he went. Who it was he was with.

But instead he broke into a hesitant smile. “I miss you, Daisy. That’s all.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek tenderly in a way that evoked every warm memory I held inside of me from Tahiti, from Kapiolani. From the Punch Bowl, where he’d carried me to the car to keep my shoes from getting wet during another rainstorm, what felt like a million years from this one.

I softened a little. “I’m right here, Tom,” I said.

“Are you?” he asked me. “Are you really?” His hand went back up, and I expected him to reach for my breast again. But instead, he reached around, unbuttoned the brass buttons on my dress carefully, one by one. He pulled the sleeves down over my arms and my dress dropped to the floor, leaving me before him naked, wet, and shivering. “Let me get you a towel,” he said gently. “Before you catch your death.”

He left and returned a moment later with a large white towel from the linen closet down the hall. He threw it around my shoulders, rubbed me gently dry. And I suddenly wondered if he was just restless too. If somehow even living here together, we were simply moving around each other in opposite directions, and all we had to do was walk toward each other once again.