And there it was, Daisy thought dreamily. The difference between being in your twenties and your thirties; the difference between Hal Shoemaker and all the boys she’d been wasting her time with. Here was a man, an actual, in-the-flesh man, stable and employed and interested in her. It seemed almost too good to be true, and even though she hadn’t planned on getting married that young, hadn’t imagined she’d meet a likely candidate for years, it seemed that the world had set one in her lap, and who was she to turn away such a gift? Daisy could hear her mother’s voice: Don’t let this one get away. She gave Hal a slightly woozy smile. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” He walked her to the door and insisted on taking the elevator back upstairs. In front of her mother’s door, he cupped the back of her neck and pressed his lips briefly against hers.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered. “I bet you can do better than that.” If you want me, show me, she thought. She stood on her tiptoes, and he’d pulled her close and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly, a long, dreamy kiss that left her flushed and breathless and completely on board with whatever Hal had planned for their future.
“There’s just one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You’re going to think it’s silly.”
“What is it?” He was rubbing gently at the back of her neck, slowly and tenderly. Daisy felt like she was melting, her body slowly transforming from solid to liquid. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Can I call you something else?”
Daisy drew back, staring at him. She wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. “Don’t you like ‘Diana’？”
“I knew another Diana, once. I’d rather call you something different. Something that’s special, just for you.”
Like a secret, she thought. He’ll give me a secret name. And when he names me, I’ll be his. She giggled, realizing that she was still very drunk. When she stopped laughing, Hal was still looking at her, still cupping the back of her head, waiting for her answer.
“My middle name is Suzanne. Diana Suzanne. My grandma used to call me Daisy. But she’s been dead—”
“Daisy,” he interrupted. He raised his hand and settled it in her hair, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “My pretty little flower. That’s perfect.”
30
Daisy
Daisy parked her car, unlocked her front door, walked inside, and stood in her beautiful kitchen, still as a pillar of salt while Lester whined at her feet.
She’d managed to stay calm as she’d made the drive home, replaying the conversation over and over again, listing the facts: Diana did not live at the apartment where Daisy had cooked with her; Diana did not work at the company where Daisy believed she spent her busy days. Diana was not a consultant. Diana was not anything that Daisy had believed. Diana lived in a cottage on Cape Cod, in the same town where Daisy had spent every one of the last eighteen summers, the town where, as a teenager, Diana had been assaulted by an Emlen Class of 1987 graduate, a white man with curly dark hair. Diana believed that Hal had raped her, and that Danny had watched. And now Diana had disappeared, and Daisy had no idea of what to do with any of that information. She had no plan, no clue, nothing except a muddied jumble of thoughts and a frantic, overarching need to run. Run from whom? Run to where? She didn’t know.
One part of her mind was screaming the particulars of Diana’s revelations: Not who she said she was! Not living where you thought she’d lived! Everything she told you was a lie! Another part was trying to insist that maybe Diana was wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been an Emlen boy who’d raped her, or, if it had, maybe not from the class of 1987, and, if it was a boy from that class, maybe it hadn’t been Hal, and a third part was saying, You knew. You knew it was something bad. You’ve always known.
Head down, hands squeezed into fists, nails pressing at the flesh of her palms, Daisy walked in circles around her beautiful, airy kitchen. Lester trailed after her, his tail drooping, making worried grumbles in the back of his throat as Daisy walked from the apron-fronted farmhouse sink, around the marble and butcher block island, past the built-in benches of the dining nook and the bump-out bay window, past the rows of cabinets and countertops and specially designed drawers for her utensils and her spices. “Whatever you want,” Hal had told her. “Whatever makes my little bird happy.”
Daisy walked. She thought about Hal, the man she’d lived with for almost twenty years, the man she’d slept beside almost every night. She remembered a famous optical illusion; a drawing that could be either a beautiful young woman or an ugly old hag, depending on how you saw it. For almost twenty years, she’d seen only the good—a loving, kind, generous husband; a beautiful house; a beloved, cherished daughter. But for the past weeks and months, things had been changing. It felt like she had finally seen the witch, after years of only seeing the young woman, and now she couldn’t un-see. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so.