Beautiful Little Fools(6)

They danced for so long and then I lost them in the crowd. Daisy had forgotten I was even here. I left the party early and went home and got into bed. But I tossed and turned all night, caught up in half dreams where Daisy faded into an apparition, disappearing right in front of my very eyes no matter how hard I tried to hold on to her.

The next day I avoided Daisy for a while. I got to the club early and drove golf balls, one after another, out onto the range. Farther, harder, faster.





Daisy 1917

LOUISVILLE




I AWOKE TO THE FEEL of him.

Jay’s hand rested gently across my stomach. Claiming me. I tucked my body closer into his and smiled.

He’d climbed up the trellis last night and tapped on the glass of my second-story bedroom window. “What are you doing?” I’d whispered as I’d opened the window for him and he’d climbed in. I’d pulled him to me even as I’d chastised him, breathing in the warm feel of him.

I’d left him only ten minutes earlier in his car, down the street. We’d kissed hungrily. Then, said good-bye. Kissed again. One last time.

Jay would be leaving any day now. First to New York, then Europe to fight in the war. It was hard to let him go, wondering each time, each night, if this would be the last. The last kiss. The last embrace. The last time he sat before me, perfect and alive.

When I’d heard his finger tapping the glass, I’d almost cried with relief. I’d opened the window, and then there he was, in my bedroom. There we were, together.

“I feel like we’re already married,” he’d whispered into my hair, and I’d kissed him in response, tugging at the buttons of his uniform. I’d never done more than kiss a man before, never thought I would until I was married. But I’d agreed with Jay—we would be married. What difference did it make if we waited or not? My fingers kept undoing his buttons, until he’d stood before me, perfect, naked flesh. I’d put my hands on his bare chest and he’d sighed.

I buried my face in my pillow now, heat rising up my neck thinking about what we’d done last night. The linens smelled like him. Like summer and salt water and birch trees. I might never let Fredda wash them again.

“Good morning,” he said into my neck now. I could feel the words more than I could hear them. His breath traced my skin.

“You’d better go before someone finds us out,” I whispered.

He pulled me tighter to him in response. “Just five more minutes,” he whispered into my hair. “Just five minutes more, Daisy.”



* * *



AN HOUR LATER, at the breakfast table, I was worried Mother and Rose would be able to see what I’d done, that it would be noticeable in the new rosy hue of my cheeks. Or that they would be able to catch the slightest scent of him on my skin, the way I still could.

But Rose was getting ready to leave for Chicago with Daddy, and neither one of them were paying much attention to me. Rose was fretting about getting her suitcase packed, and Mother was fretting about whether her coat would be warm enough. Since Rose’s illness Daddy had taken her back to Chicago every four months to be seen by a pulmonary specialist there. The best money can buy, Daddy said. Rose seemed all but recovered to me except for her limp, but Daddy wasn’t ready to declare her completely well yet. I’d been so caught up with Jay this past month, I’d barely even noticed their preparations.

“Daise,” Rose said now, interrupting my thoughts. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? Daddy says you can, if you want to.” She stared at me, her bright blue eyes wide, hopeful.

I smiled at her and patted her hand gently. “You know how I feel about doctors, Rosie.” It was true. I’d feared doctors since I’d had mumps as a little girl and one had sat on me to force medicine down my throat. But what I didn’t say, the real truth, was that I couldn’t leave Louisville now. Not when Jay was still here, not when his time left here was fleeting.

Rose nodded, but cast her eyes down, disappointed. I reached across the table and tucked a stray blond hair behind her ear. “When you get back, it’ll be Christmas,” I reminded her.

I wondered if Jay would still be here at Christmas, and how, if he wasn’t, I would ever be able to keep breathing at that joyous time of year without him.

“You’ll wait for me to decorate the tree,” Rose was saying now. Rose loved everything organized, all the red ornaments together, all the green, and so on. Beauty, to her, was order. Whereas I rejoiced in the beauty of chaos.

“Of course I’ll wait for you,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing it without you.”

“And you’ll look after my victory garden, make sure my lettuce doesn’t die?” she asked.

I nodded. Rose’s victory garden was supposedly helping with the war. But I wasn’t exactly sure how her lettuce patch in our backyard was supposed to do anything. If only I could trade Rosie’s lettuce for Jay’s deployment overseas.

“Don’t overwater or you’ll kill them,” she was saying now. “Just a little water, every morning, Daise.”

“I know,” I told her, kissing her gently on the forehead.

“And Daise—” She grabbed my hand and I thought she was going to tell me more about the lettuce.

“I promise you, Rosie, your lettuce will still be alive when you get back,” I said.