Daisy laughed, invited me to sit, and poured me a cup of tea from a tray already resting on the coffee table. “Well, I still can’t believe you’re finally here, in France.” She handed me the tea and then clapped her hands together, letting out a little noise of glee.
“And I can’t believe you actually live here.” And I didn’t just mean France, but this towering chateau perched on the edge of the Mediterranean.
We looked at each other then and both burst out laughing. That was life, wasn’t it? Everything you could never believe happening to you, happening just like that, right before your very eyes.
“Oh Jordie.” She leaned back against the sofa and smiled. She sounded and looked so very happy. And a happy Daisy was the best kind of Daisy. I loved seeing her this way. It almost made me forget that anxious feeling that had risen in my stomach up through my chest during the whole long journey to France. Now, I was just relieved to be with Daisy and also very tired. I couldn’t help myself, I yawned. “Tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to sleep away your travels, we’ll go to the beach, all right? It’s the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen.”
“More beautiful than Santa Barbara?” I asked her sleepily. I leaned my head back against the plush sofa and thought about that last afternoon I’d spent with her there. I’d met her and Tom at the beach, just before I’d gone back to Charleston. Daisy had not been able to keep her hands off Tom then, running her fingers intimately across his face. I’d felt like I was invading a very private moment between the two of them, and I’d looked away, stared off at the beautiful deep blue water. Santa Barbara’s beach truly had been stunning.
Daisy’s expression suddenly turned sour, and I noticed she had new creases around her eyes. But she shook her head a little and then, she was smiling again. “The water here is not just beautiful but warm. It’s like the bath, Jordie. Better than anything back home. I promise.”
* * *
I AWOKE MY first morning in Cannes following a restless night. In spite of my exhaustion from the long trip, I’d slept fitfully, tangled up in half dreams of Mary Margaret. She was here and then she was gone. And then when I opened my eyes and sunlight streamed in through the large French doors, I was relieved to see it was finally morning.
I wrapped myself in my robe and wandered outside, where I sat on the balcony—large enough for the whole women’s golf team to fit and only one of six on this side of the house. I stared out at the blue, blue sea. What had Daisy said yesterday? Better than anything I’d ever known back home. Still, I could not ease that steady ache in my belly, that restlessness that had kept me tossing and turning all night long. Now it hit me: I was homesick.
It was hard to believe it had only been a few weeks since I’d last been in Charleston with Mary Margaret, Mrs. Pearce, and the other girls. We were to have the months of August and September off, and then when we returned, in October, we’d be preparing for our first real paying tournaments, which would start just after the first of next year. I’d been doing well enough in the practice tournaments that I imagined in only a few months’ time I might be able to count on the money I could win golfing as bona fide income. That would be a huge relief, because right now Aunt Sigourney controlled everything Daddy had left for me in trust. And other than sending me a small monthly allowance for clothing and necessities, she wouldn’t let me touch any of it. She hadn’t even wanted me to come to France to see Daisy on my break—she’d wanted me to go to New York and stay with her instead. Daisy had generously paid my fare.
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.