Princess Daisy (66 page)

“I like you like that,” Shannon said. “It makes another Princess Daisy for my collection. And quite a different one than the Princess Daisy I saw recently, just last night in fact.”

She said nothing but she instantly noted his words.
Another
Princess Daisy? His
collection?
Her grin faded imperceptibly while Anabel’s eyes brightened as she watched them. She supposed they thought she couldn’t read their words and actions as clearly as if they’d made an announcement. Oh, but it was strange to watch old stories being acted out as if they were fresh and new, and had never happened before. Still, one never knew the endings, only the beginnings were the same.

“I’m trying to count how many people kissed you on both cheeks this morning,” Shannon said when they had finally filled their shopping baskets and found a seat at a café looking out onto the arc of the old port with its motley collection of boats bobbing in front of the tall, narrow houses that edged the opposite side of the little harbor. “There was the butcher and the cheese man and the vegetable lady and the fruit man and the fish lady and the mayor and the policeman and the postman—who else?”

“The baker and his wife, the man who sells newspapers, the old fisherman who used to take me out in his boat and the two art-gallery owners.”

“But the waiter here only shook hands. Why is he so unfriendly?”

“He’s new here—It’s been about eight years since he was hired, so I scarcely know him,” Daisy answered, drinking her Cinzano.

“This is really home for you?”

“It’s as close to a home as I’ve had since my father was killed. And remember, they watched me grow up, every summer from the time I was a child. Nothing changes here … only more tourists.”

“You’re lucky to have a place like this,” he said wistfully.

“And you? What do you have? You complained that you didn’t know anything about me. What do I know about you?” She touched his lower lip with one finger, the quirky lip which she found herself looking at so often, that expressive lip which could be thoughtful, humorous, decisive—she didn’t doubt it could be disapproving, angry—perhaps even merciless?

“I have a few faint memories of being a little boy with a mother and father who loved each other and loved me very much—we were very poor, I realize now, and we didn’t have any family in the mill town where my father worked—at least I don’t remember any. He was a mechanic, and I think that he must have been out of work a lot because I remember that he was around the house much of the time—too much.” He paused, shook his head and sipped his drink. “When I was five they were both killed in an accident—a streetcar—and I grew up in a Catholic orphanage—I was a miserable kid, suddenly all alone, not understanding anything and too much of a handful for
anyone to want to adopt me. It wasn’t until I realized that the only way out was working, working much harder than anyone else, getting better marks, being the best at everything, that I changed—and by that time I was too old to be adopted.”

“How old was that?”

“Maybe eight—nine. The nuns put up with a hell of a lot from me.”

“Do you ever go back?”

“The orphanage is closed now. They ran out of orphans—or maybe they relocated it, but I’ve lost track completely. I wouldn’t want to go back anyway. My real life started when I got a scholarship to St. Anthony’s at fourteen.”

Daisy listened attentively, almost painfully, trying to extract the secret meaning of his bare recital. Nobody’s “real” life could begin at fourteen, she thought, too much of what forms the personality of the adult has happened by then. Perhaps she would never know enough about him to be able to share his childhood as he had shared hers. Perhaps it didn’t matter? In any case, they would soon be late for lunch, which would annoy Anabel.

As they walked back, up the steep hill of the Cote de Grace, Shannon was thoughtful. He’d never talked as much about his early years. He sensed that he’d left out something, missed some essential connections. But all he could find to explain himself to Daisy was his favorite quotation from his durable sage.

“Listen—this is the way I feel about life—George Bernard Shaw said it. ‘People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.’ ” He had stopped walking as he spoke.

“Is that your motto, too?” she asked.

“Yes. What do you think of it?”

“It’s almost probably half true … which isn’t at all bad for a motto,” she said. “You might try to give me a kiss … there’s no one to see us.”

He kissed her for a long moment and Daisy felt that she was growing around him as a climbing rose grows around a sturdy arbor.

“Am I a ‘circumstance’?” she murmured.

“
You
are a silly question.” He pulled her braids. “I’ll race you back.”

As the three of them ate dinner Anabel asked, “How long can you stay, Patrick?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said. There was regret in his voice but no touch of indecision.

“But can’t you stay just one more day? You’ve just come,” Anabel protested.

“Impossible. I’ve been out of the office and out of touch for days. The people at Supracorp will think I’m dead. It’s never happened before.”

“Don’t you take vacations?” Anabel asked curiously.

“Not out-of-touch vacations. Not even out-of-touch long weekends. It makes them nervous or it makes me nervous; I’m not really sure which.” He laughed, the buccaneer again.

“Daisy, you can stay a while, can’t you?” Anabel inquired hopefully.

“No, she can’t, Anabel,” Shannon said firmly. “She has to get back to New York. There are dozens of things going on—interviews, photographs—my publicity people have been working on stuff that I don’t know about yet. Remember, Supracorp has a ton of money tied up in Princess Daisy. The commercials were only the beginning.”

Daisy bit the inside of her lip in vexation. She was perfectly aware that she had to return, but she bristled to hear Shannon answering a question Anabel had asked her. But there was a gulf between her responsibility to the corporation and being told by Shannon what she could or could not do. Did he, by any grotesque chance, think that now
he
owned her? Bugger that!

She turned to Anabel, ignoring Shannon’s words. “Actually I really have to go back for Kiki’s wedding.… Nothing Supracorp needs me for is more important.”

“Well, thank heaven that wedding’s taking place,” Anabel said with that slightly condescending appreciation of respectability to which only the most successful of retired courtesans feels entitled. “From what you’ve written me, and what her poor mother has hinted at, I’d say it comes not a minute too soon.”

Daisy
giggled
wickedly. She had a pretty shrewd idea of Anabel’s life history.

Anabel looked at her sharply with the eternal, invaluable complicity of females. Although they were speaking of
Kiki they were both thinking of Shannon. He’s a good man, and you deserve this—go to it! Anabel’s glance told Daisy. Don’t jump to conclusions, Daisy’s eyes warned Anabel, as clearly as if she had spoken.

24

W
hat do you mean I ‘tried so hard to get him’? I’d never sink so low,” Kiki fulminated.

“Selective memory,” Daisy marveled.

“You’re the one who forgets. Who was a free agent? Footloose, jaunty, jolly, lighthearted, having the most wonderful time in the best of all possible worlds? ME! You never saw me go out with the same guy for two nights in a row,” Kiki swaggered.

“Or in the same bed for more than three months at a time,” Daisy replied.

“Oh, that. You know, Daisy, you have a sort of shit-eating grin now that I get a good look at you. And you used to be almost pretty.” Kiki hunched her bare shoulders in a way which indicated clearly that she had given up on her friend. Dressed only in a pair of unqualifiedly indecent black lace underpants from Frederick’s of Hollywood, she pawed in an idle way through a pile of spidery, suggestive garter belts, some black, some red. Around her neck she had draped a pair of thin black nylon stockings with seams down the back.

“Just answer some questions for me,” Daisy said patiently. “Do you actually hate him?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kiki answered in a disobliging voice. “Hate is too strong a word to use—indifferent might be more like it.”

“Does he bore you?”

“Not totally—he just doesn’t fascinate me. My God, Daisy, the world is full of men, absolutely crammed with them. Do you realize how many men there are out there?
Each one different, each one with some particular kink or craziness or talent or charm or sweetness that
you’ll
never know about because you’re too lazy to investigate them? You really lack something—
tempérament
I think they call it in France—it’s what makes great amorous women, the legendary lovers—George Sand, Ninon de Lenclos and
me
, damn it, only you won’t admit it.”

“I’ll admit it,” Daisy said in a conciliatory voice. “You were really something.”

“I still am!” Kiki objected like a bad angel. She shook her head until her hair looked like a ball of tumbling tumbleweed, and her tanned naked breasts quivered in indignation.

“When you make love,” Daisy asked, “can you tell him how it feels—you know—tell him that you like this or that, or do it more, or three inches farther to the left—can you tell him things like that just as easily and freely as if he were rubbing your back?”

“Well, naturally,” Kiki said in a mean-spirited tone. “But so what?”

“Just asking, just indulging my prurient curiosity.”

“Indulge mine—what about Patrick Shannon?” Kiki asked, suddenly fizzing with interest “Just precisely what is going on with you two?”

“We’re getting to know each other,” Daisy answered with dignity.

“Oh-ho—so you won’t answer the kind of questions you expect me to answer.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Is he in love with you?” Kiki pounced.

“He’s very … attentive.”

“You mean he hasn’t said anything definite, hasn’t asked you to marry him?” Kiki put aside her own troubles. She’d been so busy complaining that she just hadn’t had time to interrogate Daisy.

“No, and that’s the way I prefer it.”

“Keeping him at a safe distance, like your other men,
is
that what’s happening?”

“The distance is too narrow to be called safe. There’s a confusion—he’s so much
there
—I love to watch him dealing with the world, but he’s so dominating that it scares me … a little anyway. Or maybe a lot I find myself wondering if he doesn’t intend to run everybody and everything, and yet I can tell him almost anything and count on him to understand. Still … I’m not absolutely
sure that it isn’t just another one of his many ways of getting what he wants. I just don’t know. Sometimes—it’s so right, so
honorable—
and then I’ll find myself wondering if he doesn’t think of me as just another
acquisition
, like having the Elstree company embodied in one person. One thing is clear—he’s totally in love with that whole ‘Princess Daisy’
idea
. And I don’t like
that
one bit! Oh, shit, I’m mixed up.”

“But is he a good lover?” Kiki probed. Daisy blushed. “Hmmm?” hummed Kiki encouragingly. “You promised you’d tell.”

“The best—oh—better than that! But that’s no reason to get a fix on the future. I’m not ready to even think about making decisions. I don’t want to jump into anything prematurely. I want to stay the way I am, and I’m not going to get deeply emotionally involved …”

Kiki jumped on her like a hellcat. “But you’re the one who’s telling me to let myself be corralled, captured, rounded-up and branded and tied up in chains like a galley slave! Daisy Valensky, you have one hell of a nerve! How dare you give me advice when you’re not ready to get involved! Of all the revolting clichés!”

“Well,” said Daisy mildly, “it’s not
my
wedding day, those three hundred people downstairs in your mother’s living room aren’t waiting to see me get married, I’m not the one with eight bridesmaids and eight ushers, to say nothing of a groom, all dithering around and wondering why you’re locked in here with me and when you’re coming out.”

“It’s all his fault!” Kiki cried, her slender body looking as forlorn as if she were a kitten who’d been left out in the wet all night. “That smooth-tongued advertising man, I should never ever have let him talk me into this. Oh, Christ, what a horrible mistake.”

“You’re the one who’s a cliché, darling Kiki. You’re just like all the others before they get married, don’t you realize?” Daisy asked kindly.

“They’re the clichés, I’m the
real thing!
” Kiki stormed. “What
am
I going to do? I
s
it too late to call it off? No, it’s never too late. Who cares what people say? Daisy, look, I won’t ask you ever again to do anything for me, but could you just go and find my mother and tell her to call it off? She can handle it, she’s good at organizing things. I think she’d take it better coming from you.” She looked at Daisy with low cunning.

Daisy shook her head. “Tergiversations. I should have known.”

“What the hell are they? Don’t change the subject!”

“Repeated changes of attitude or opinion—Kiki, you know perfectly well that your mother would never call it off. And even if she did, would that make you happy? How long would it take for you to change your mind again? Nope. You’re going through this if I have to haul you down there myself. But you’d be more comfortable if you put on your wedding dress first.”

“You’re a cold hard
bitch
, Daisy Valensky, and I’ll never forgive you as long as I live.”

“Oh,” said Daisy, looking out of the window of Kiki’s bedroom, “I just saw Peter Spivak drive up. Here comes the judge! We’re practically in business.”

“No!” Kiki said frantically. “I
can’t!
”

“Do it one day at a time, Kiki. The way AA tells people to give up drinking, just one day at a time. Don’t sit around thinking about how you’ll feel living with the same man for fifty years—just ask yourself if you could stand being married to Luke until tomorrow morning—or even just till midnight tonight. Could you possibly endure it? Just till midnight?”