“Oh, here, I have it…”
Daisy stuffed the fingers of a fine pair of white silk gloves with scraps of fringe torn off her bedspread. When the gloves were on, Daisy’s double looked all right, and Daisy stepped up to her, taking the pearls I had been holding in my pocket and threading them around her double’s thin neck.
“All right, you,” she said. “You’re made for going out to dinner, for being utterly charming in the best possible way, for making sure that everyone loves you, and then for coming back here, all right? Have you got that?”
To my discomfort, the paper double’s eyes flickered to me. I was sitting slumped on the floor, hot and sweaty and as done as I ever had been. I felt I had already done my part, and I did not want to be involved any further. I waved at her, nodding.
“What she said.”
Just then, Mrs. Fay knocked again, hard enough that it suggested that it was the last courtesy we were going to get. Daisy slid herself flat behind the door, opening it with her lip bitten hard between her pearl-like teeth.
“There you are at last, Daisy,” her mother said. “Don’t think you can give yourself airs because you’ll be gone tomorrow…”
Mrs. Fay’s lips trembled a little upon seeing Daisy’s frock. I had thought it was silly that Daisy might go out in something she probably gave away after high school, but Mrs. Fay nodded.
“All right. You were always a sentimental little thing. Jordan?”
I jumped.
“Yes, Mrs. Fay?”
“Of course we’ll have Wilfred see you home…”
For the first time, the Daisy made of paper spoke.
“Oh no, Mama, Jordan must stay! She’s taking care of securing some of my laces on my dress before tomorrow…”
Wordlessly, because hearing the Daisy made of paper speak took my breath away, I held up the shears still in my hand. I don’t know what kind of strange little goblin-like creature I appeared to be, on the floor, drenched in sweat and working a pair of scissors, but it was good enough for Mrs. Fay, who threw her hands up in the air.
“Fine, fine, you’ll be running your own household soon enough. Jordan, if you want something to eat, just go down to the kitchen. They’ll take care of you. Now come along, Daisy. You know that your aunt Opal has never been able to abide lateness…”
The door shut behind them, and Daisy bent over, knees buckling, a knuckle between her teeth. We were both frozen until we heard the telltale squeak of heels on the carpeted grand stairs, and then she burst into panicked laughter.
“Oh my God,” she said over and over again, and I crawled to where she lay still naked on the floor, legs out flat and her hands crossed over her breast as if she were prepared for burial. Kneeling by her side, I took her hands in mine, wincing at how cold they were, and how I could see a little crescent of blue at the base of each of her nails.
“It’s all right, Daisy,” I said. “Come on, it’s all right. She’ll do fine, no one will be the wiser.”
“I don’t care about that,” she said, shaking her head, and I nearly bit my tongue in half to keep myself from asking why on earth I had done it, then? The answer came to me while she was still sobbing: because there was something in me that wanted to do it, and I felt far too young and new to pursue that. I shoved it to the back of my mind and locked in the closet I kept for such things as Eliza Baker, vague memories of a slow river I had never seen, and how I felt after Janie Greenway broke my heart.
She finally stilled, lying on the ground by the door like a corpse. The minutes ticked by on her ormolu clock, and slowly, her hands warmed in mine. Her face lost its vaguely blue tint, but her fingers kept it. She was bad at the cold; it was a miracle she had lasted in Chicago as long as she had.