“Bathroom,” I said, as firmly as I could. “We need to get you under some cold water.”
She stumbled a little as I dragged her into the hallway, but she was pliant as a doll as I filled the tub with cold water, removed her frock and her underthings, and helped her get into it.
“Oh Jordan, cold! You beastly little thing, why is it so cold?”
“It’ll help,” I told her. “Nina Martin told me that cold could sober you up quicker than anything.”
She gingerly sank into the water until she was covered up to the chin, and slowly, by degrees, she relaxed until her head was tilted against the curved edge of the tub. Her left hand, the one she would be offering to Tom tomorrow, was clenched into a fist and pressed against her heart. As she relaxed, tears started to flow down her face, slowly at first, and then more quickly.
She went from looking like the funeral mask of some great queen to looking like a blotchy tomato as she sobbed, eyes screwed tight, and her closed fist striking her chest several times like a mourner from ancient Greece.
I grabbed her fist to stop her from doing herself harm and spoiling her décolletage for the gown she was wearing tomorrow. She gave up easily, and I realized that she had had the letter clenched in her fist. I pulled it away from her trembling fingers, opening it up, but it tore at once, the ink all run together into an unreadable mess. The ink was of a particularly cheap kind, I noted, and when it ran, instead of a deep blue black, it went a kind of scabby reddish brown.
I chucked the ruined letter into the wastebasket close by. No use keeping that or trying to iron it out. Instead, I sat on the edge of the tub and poured cup after cup of cold water over Daisy’s head. She looked calmer with every moment that passed, even if her eyes were swollen almost shut. I folded a cloth soaked with cold water and she pressed it to her eyes, murmuring at the relief, but when she finally stepped out of the tub, steady, and almost blue with cold, we both knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Fifteen minutes,” hissed Mrs. Fay from beyond the door, and Daisy’s shoulders heaved twice.
“I can’t, can I?” she muttered, her voice hoarse.
Before I could answer, she was throwing up, just barely making it to the toilet in time. She was racked with the spasms of her body giving up the alcohol it wasn’t used to consuming, and when she looked up, I could see all the hollows of her face, how corpse-like she could look when the light inside her was flickering.
“No, you really can’t,” I said, and when she was empty, I hauled her back to her own room, where she ended up on her knees by the bed, like a child in prayer.
“Jordan, Jordan, fix this for me,” she implored. “Get me ready for my bridal dinner, I have to go, Jordan. The cousins have come from Columbus, and Tom will be ever so disappointed if I don’t.”
“I’m going to go make your apologies,” I told her, though the last thing I wanted to do was to face Mrs. Fay, who already thought I rather ruined the other matched blond bridesmaids.
“No, no, wait, here…”
She tipped over a basket from under the bed, covering the floor with the detritus of several years. I could see cards from her graduation, hagstones strung on bits of ribbon, tangles of crochet thread, packets of needles, and more, and then she withdrew a pair of large steel shears, slapping them into my hand.
I bit my lip, but Daisy was already moving again, going to her nightstand and breaking a fragile frame that had a picture of her from high school. In it, her face seemed much rounder and the artificial color tinted on the apples of her cheeks and her lips gave her a fevered glow.
“Here, use this,” she said. “I know you can.”
I didn’t know. Ever since the night we had met, I hadn’t even wanted to cut out valentines. It seemed like too much to add to everything I already had going on, and at night, sometimes I dreamed of paper dolls coming alive to push me shouting towards a great pair of snapping scissors.