During the last year the United States spent in the war, I stopped sleeping at home almost entirely, spending the night with whatever girl I was in love with that week. It was Mrs. Christiansen, Mary Lou Christiansen’s mother, who had to take me aside discreetly and tell me that that wasn’t something I could do, that I was overstaying my welcome and making people talk.
I was lucky that they were not talking about what I was actually doing, but it was enough to send Daisy to my house the March after her debut. She showed up on my doorstep in her white roadster, with a bright brittle smile and an offer to take me to school.
“I just thought that it’s been a while since I saw your dear face,” she said, a brown paper bag clutched tight in her hands. “Look, I bought us breakfast!”
She had, from a pastry shop far from where either of us lived. Her usually sleek dark hair looked greasy, and her dress was rumpled and slightly stained. She had been out all night, and I knew the signs well enough to be both concerned and curious.
For the sake of Judge Baker, who was indifferently peering out the window at us, we set off towards the high school, but quickly veered north instead. As soon as we were out of sight of the house, Daisy lit a cigarette and held it between her two long fingers, taking a distracted puff as she drove. When she didn’t offer me one, I took it for myself, lighting it with her silver heart-shaped lighter. The pastries were forgotten in the foot well, but their scent, sugary raspberry jam, rose up to mingle with the dried rose petals in Daisy’s pale pink cigarettes.
We drove along the river before pulling off in the woods across from Twelve Mile Island.
It was March in Louisville. The clouds hung like swagged sails low over our heads, and I was wishing that I had worn a thicker coat before I let Daisy steal me away.
She parked us on a high bluff above the gray winter water. As if in response to our arrival, it grew choppy and agitated, yellow-white foam topping the waves, the water going darker and less translucent. It didn’t stop until Daisy finally smoothed down her hair, taking several deep breaths.
“Jordan, you know people.”
“All right,” I said more calmly than I felt. “Tell me.”
She did. Her mother was in Mobile for the month. There was no one else who would help her. She woke up two days ago to realize that her monthlies hadn’t come for two months now, when she had been regular as a clock since she was fourteen.
“And Jean Bisset?” I asked, pronouncing it properly. We had all learned to do so when he came up from New Orleans with his father’s business connections and his wide and charming grin. Daisy had claimed him almost by accident. They were mad about each other until they weren’t, and right up until a few days ago, it had seemed as if they must be altar-bound.
She shook her head, a narrow little gesture that closed the door on that. It didn’t matter if he knew or not, what he felt or not. In these matters, girls were almost always on their own.
“I won’t be able to look my father in the eye,” Daisy muttered, pressing her hands against her eyes. “This will destroy him.”
It wouldn’t. She would be fine, in the end. She could go off somewhere, send back postcards of what a delightful time she was having in Waukegan or Columbus or Hartford, and come back with her head mostly held high. However, she might not be Daisy Fay of Louisville again, and she couldn’t bear that.
“Help me,” she said, and I nodded.
This was no time for me to play with her. I thought that if I had told her no, she might have driven us both straight into the water. The Ohio River ran a full thousand miles before it fed its secrets into the Mississippi, and among them, every year, I thought, was a sacrifice of young girls lost and betrayed. Some of those girls had babies inside them, and others had broken hearts or broken heads, but they fed the Mississippi all the same, and I had no interest in being one of them.
“All right,” I said. “I know where to go.”