Pushing Up Daisies (18 page)

Daisy sat on the porch and heard Adonis out. Marcus had unknowingly lied. Adonis had broken off his engagement months before he and Daisy had gotten involved.

“So you’re positive you’re not seeing Christy?”

Adonis laughed. “You say that as if you know her. But, yes, I’m positive I’m not seeing her. As a matter of fact, she’s involved in a serious relationship with someone else. I think they’re getting married. We’re still friends, though. We didn’t break up on a bad note; we just didn’t love each other anymore. I work in New York, and she works in Seattle. It never would’ve worked, anyway. But I don’t want to talk about her. I want to talk about you. So are you still mad at me?”

“No, I’m mad at myself.” Daisy looked at him and got lost in his deep eyes.

Adonis flashed his killer smile. “Can we kiss and make up?”

Daisy didn’t answer. She just grabbed him and kissed him passionately, hungrily, as if he were her last meal. She’d never needed him so badly. It seemed as if he had a way of stepping in just when she felt as if her world were crumbling. “We can continue this later.”

“Yes, we can. I have a room on the beach. It’s cold out, but we can have our own hot summer indoors.” He kissed her again.

“Daisy?” a familiar voice called out from the sidewalk.

Daisy looked over Adonis’s shoulder, and her breath caught in her throat as she recognized the caramel-colored complexion, the wavy, light-brown hair, and the football-player build. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled.

Adonis turned around. “Calvin? Calvin Harris?”

Daisy stood with her mouth open. She wished she could disappear, evaporate in the wind, when she saw Adonis walk toward Calvin.

Adonis looked at Daisy curiously, then he gave Calvin a brotherly hug and a fraternity handshake. “What’s up, man? Nice to see you. What brings you here?”

“I dropped by hoping I could see my daughter.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a daughter. I didn’t know you used to mess with Brea—”

“I didn’t. I have a daughter with Daisy. She didn’t tell you?”

Daisy ran into the house, slammed the door, and locked it.

D
aisy woke up, instantly stiffening as she took in her surroundings. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t recognize the bedroom furniture, or the decor. She waited in vain for it to register.
Great.
She sat up and squeezed her head as the blood rushed, her temples banging without end.

“Not too fast, Daisy. Don’t sit up so fast,” Ms. Christine said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Hi, Ma.” Daisy smiled, then gritted her teeth. “Yuck. My mouth is tart.”

Ms. Christine laughed. “You tellin’me?” She kissed Daisy on the cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Confused. I don’t know where I am.”

“You’re still here, baby. You’re in Brea’s old room. I redecorated it. That’s probably why you don’t recognize it.”

Daisy snapped her fingers, but her recollection was foggy. She didn’t remember lying down, but took some comfort in knowing that her mind hadn’t completely failed her.

“So, how long have I been here?”

“Not that long. A couple of days.”

Daisy leapt out of bed. “A couple of days! What about Jay? My job?”

Ms. Christine patted the spot beside her. “Sit down, Daisy. Please. You’re scaring me.”

“I feel like I’ve been in a coma or something,” Daisy said, doing as her mother asked. “I woke up and I didn’t—two whole days?”

“Almost three, really.”

Daisy started to stand up again, but Ms. Christine held on to her and started smoothing her hair. “Ssh…let me finish before you speak. You were under so much pressure. I would’ve broken down too. We can only endure so much, you know?”

Daisy nodded, calming in the safety of her mother’s arms. “I know. It just bothers me because my memory’s faint.”

“You really don’t remember everything, do you?”

“No. The last thing I remember is running into the house.”

Ms. Christine shook her head and covered her mouth with her hand. “It was ugly, Daisy. Your father and I tried to keep you in the house, but you insisted. So, what was I to do except follow you to make sure that you were okay?” Ms. Christine shrugged. “You’re a grown woman—a Parker. You can be headstrong.”

“I know.”

“Well, you ran right up to Calvin and stood your ground. You weren’t loud or obnoxious, either. You weren’t putting on a show. Your demeanor was cool—cold, in fact. You kind of reminded me of thunder rumbling in the distance, letting you know the storm’s coming. And you called that boy some names I didn’t think you knew.” Ms. Christine laughed. “You get that from your father’s side.”

“What did he say?”

“Nobody said anything. I think we were all too stunned. You were always a meek child, and you grew into a nonconfrontational woman…at least I thought so.”

Daisy laughed. “Anything with teeth will bite, Ma, if pushed.”

“You got that right,” her mother chuckled. “Because baby, you were ready to bite that night. And I have to admit, as ugly as that whole situation was, I was proud of you. It made me realize that just because you’re my youngest child doesn’t mean you’re a baby. And I know I’ve babied you. But not anymore. I’m going to let go of my little girl now and let you be the woman you are. You’re an adult, and you can make the decision about keeping Lani on your own. I’ve done all that I can do as a mother.”

“Oh, Ma. You did a great job.”

Ms. Christine smiled. “I know, and you will too. Because I
knew
that night that you were a mother. You told Calvin that if he ever breathed another word about custody, you’d slit him from his temples to his toes. Your daddy and I laughed about that for days. We shouldn’t have, I know, but Lord have mercy!”

Daisy held her head. “I must’ve made a fool out of myself. And Adonis—”

“Don’t worry about Adonis. He had his say too. He was quiet throughout most of it, and I don’t blame him for that. How else was he supposed to get any answers? Anyway, you were on your way back into the house when Calvin made the mistake of saying that you weren’t a mother. Adonis politely but severely corrected him and told him that you were a damn good mother.”

“Really?”

“Yes, he did.”

Daisy started to feel better as she looked at Ms. Christine’s smiling face. “But you make it sound so comical. If it was so funny…I don’t understand how I had a nervous breakdown.”

“Well, it wasn’t funny at the time. Everyone who was out there that night was hurt in some form or fashion. Especially you. I knew you were angry with Calvin, and that you were embarrassed that Adonis found out about Lani the way he did, but when you threatened to kill Calvin, I realized you were broken.”

“Kill Calvin? I threatened to kill him?”

A faint smile came to Ms. Christine’s face. “Yes, in an old-fashioned way. I hadn’t heard that threat in a long, long time. You told him that if he uttered one more word, he’d be pushing up daisies.”

“Fertilizer, six feet under. Why? What did he say to make me threaten him?”

“Nothing. Brea pulled up with Lani, and then she sped off when she saw what was happening. That’s when you lost it.”

Daisy nodded. “I remember that part. That’s when Adonis and Calvin walked off together.”

Someone knocked on the bedroom door.

Gigi stuck her head in the room. “Am I interrupting?”

Daisy felt horrible but smiled. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Ms. Christine stood up and kissed the top of Daisy’s head. “I’ll be downstairs fixing something to eat.”

“Last-minute trip. I was at my mother’s for Thanksgiving. I wasn’t planning to go, but she insisted. I arrived just in time for dinner. But enough about me. Are you feeling better?” Gigi sat down.

“Yes. Just a little worried about my job, and Jay.”

Gigi dismissed her with a wave. “Girl, you know Ms. Christine took care of everything. She talked to Mr. Wiles, and she found a way to get you a prescription. I don’t know how she got so resourceful, but she is.”

“She’s a woman.” Daisy laughed. “We’re all resourceful when we need to be. Multitasking is our job.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right. Oh, by the way…Ming Li’s had dozens of flowers delivered to you. I moved them downstairs because it was starting to look like a funeral parlor in here. I didn’t like how it felt.”

“Flowers? Ming Li?”

“Weird, hunh? I don’t know what’s gotten into her. I called her and told her that you were ill, and she started crying.”

“Ming Li doesn’t cry.”

“I know. That’s what was strange. The only time I’ve known her to cry is when she told us about Jonathan.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.” Gigi shrugged. “But it must be something serious. I haven’t been able to catch up with her since. She hasn’t been in the shop, she doesn’t answer her phone or her door, and she’s not returning calls.”

U
p to her elbows in dirt, Daisy searched for roots, groaning when her fingers touched the tangles buried deep within the soil. Untangling the mess would be as intricate a task as sorting and fixing her problems. Faint memories of Thanksgiving surfaced and began tormenting her again. With Jay gone, and after only a glimpse of Lani, Daisy missed not only her kids, but also the dreams of the future she might have had with Adonis.

The entire degrading scene surfaced and played over and over in her mind. Adonis’s angry glare, when he’d found out about Lani, had penetrated her. She’d had no answer when he’d asked her why she’d hidden her own child from him. All she’d managed to say was “Sorry.”

Daisy’s eyes misted as certain memories seemed to come back with full force: things Ms. Christine had neglected to tell her. Calvin’s words “Oh, you had her too?” had made her feel loose, even whorish. Wearily, she wiped the sweat from her forehead, trying to erase the pain that she’d caused at the same time. She dug deeper into the soil, wishing she had stayed in the safety of her parents’ home. If she had, she wouldn’t have had to watch her dream man walk away in her nightmare.

Daisy’s pulse tripled.
Not now.
She yanked her hands out of the dirt and stood up, holding a clump of roots.
Damn it.
She paced. She needed to move. Everything was closing in on her: the walls, the plants, the heat.

“I need air,” she muttered, and hurried out of the building.

Once outside, she gasped as if she were choking and tried to slow her breathing. The cold air helped. Still, she couldn’t manage the anxiety. Everything seemed to be going too fast, and she couldn’t catch up. After returning to work, she’d gone into overdrive, working as many as fourteen hours a day. She’d been working too hard, worrying too much—doing too many toos.

She retrieved the small prescription bottle from her pocket, bit one of the tiny birth-control-sized pills in two, and swallowed half. No way could she function at work on a whole Xanax. She squatted and waited for the medicine to kick in.

“How’s it going, Daisy?”

She looked up to see Mr. Wiles’s cheery face.

“Fine,” Daisy lied.

“Do you have a moment to spare? I’d like to talk to you about something. How ’bout we grab a cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” she said, although she wanted to say no.
I don’t have a moment, or a minute, not even a second. But I do have anxiety to spare.
“Just let me grab my purse.”

Daisy walked alongside Mr. Wiles, hoping he hadn’t noticed her restlessness. She had missed a considerable number of days at work, and she’d forgotten to ask Ms. Christine what excuse she’d used to cover for her.
Now I have to worry about calming down
and
my mother’s lie. How am I supposed to do that?

Mr. Wiles sat across from her at the Corner Café and drank a large black coffee, while Daisy sipped a decaffeinated cream-and-sugar. She didn’t notice the clinking of cups. The whirring sound of the cappuccino machine. Mr. Wiles’s eyes on her. Her medication had taken effect and begun to lullaby her.

Mr. Wiles cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something, Mr. Wiles?”

Mr. Wiles smiled. “No, but I’m a little curious about something.” He set his cup down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Daisy nodded vaguely.

“Before I ask, I want you to know that I haven’t been prying, or even inquiring. But your hours have been brought to my attention a
few
times.”

“My hours?”

“Yes, the outrageous hours that you work.” He laughed. “I’m not complaining, believe me. What employer doesn’t want a dedicated employee? I’m just wondering why you work so much.”

Daisy shrugged. She hadn’t thought it would be that obvious. “I need the money.”

“But you’re on salary. There’s no overtime.”

“I know.”

“Daisy, is there something wrong? You can tell me. Don’t think of me as just a boss; consider me a friend.”

Daisy wanted to confide in Mr. Wiles. She wanted to tell him about her harsh reality, but she couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted to be her friend, the bottom line was that he was her boss. The last thing she wanted him to know was that he had an unstable employee with more problems than answers.

“I’m okay, Mr. Wiles. Really.”

“Remember, Daisy, I’m a father too. I know when something is wrong.”

“I just need to find an apartment, that’s all. It’s not the easiest thing to do around here.”

Mr. Wiles slapped his hand on the table and laughed heartily. “That’s it? Why didn’t you just say so?”

What the hell’s so funny?

“I have the perfect place for you. A nice little place off Riverside Drive—”

Daisy cut him off with a shake of her head. “I wouldn’t be able to afford the down payment, let alone the rent.”

“I didn’t say it was
on
Riverside. Anyway, it belongs to my son Jacob. He’s going on a yearlong sabbatical, and he needs to sublet it to someone. I’ll talk to him for you.”

Daisy grinned. “That’d be great.”

“Good,” Mr. Wiles said, standing up. “Then it’s all taken care of. One more thing…there’s this training—an apprenticeship program that I think would be good for you. When I get more details, I’ll give them to you.” He downed the last of his coffee. “Well, I have a few meetings left. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? And I’m sorry about your brother Rufus. My condolences.”

As Daisy walked into the house, she heard the dull hum of the vacuum cleaner in the distance. She smiled as she looked around. The furniture and paintings had been rearranged, a new rug had been laid, and candles were burning. She sat down on the salmon, slip-covered damask sofa and fingered the matching pillows.
Ma definitely leaves her mark,
she thought with laughing eyes. She was happy that Ms. Christine was visiting.

“Hey, baby. What are you doing home so soon?”

“Mr. Wiles let me off early because I’ve been working too much. Oh…and he said the funniest thing today.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was sorry to hear about my brother Rufus.”

Ms. Christine laughed.

“Ma, Rufus was our dog, not my brother.”

“I never said he was your brother. I told him that we’d lost our baby boy. Rufus was the younger of our two dogs.”

“Rufus died almost fifteen years ago, Ma.”

“And I also never said when. Look, Daisy, I did what I had to do. You still have a job, right?”

Daisy shook her head and laughed. “Right. It’s not exactly how I would’ve handled it, but I was in no position to do it. Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome, baby. Oh, that Mr. Burgess called—”

Daisy sat up straighter. “Kenneth? What did he say?”

“He needs more time. I don’t know about him, Daisy. I don’t trust him. He was Jasper’s attorney, and I have a strong feeling that he knows more than he’s saying.”

“Of course he does. He told me there are things that he can’t tell me.”

“You should get a good family attorney, that’s what you should do.”

“I can’t afford one. Not now. Unless I can sell my Jeep quickly.”

“You can. I already have a buyer.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“Ma, you and Dad already have three cars.”

“That old red one isn’t a car, it’s a 1976 get-out-and-push. And besides, I need a car when I’m here, and you need the money. So give me the title, and I’ll write you a check.”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, look at it this way. I won’t give you the money that you need. I worked too hard for my money to give it away. But I will pay you for the Jeep, and you can buy it back from me later.”

“How much choice do I have, anyway?”

“Not much.”

The telephone rang, and Ms. Christine moved to answer it.

Daisy sat at the kitchen table, her attention drifting from her mother’s conversation to thoughts of Jay. She knew that selling the Jeep was the only way she’d be able to obtain the services of a good lawyer. She sighed, feeling as if she were coming down from a mental and physical high. Exhaustion crept in, and her eyelids became heavy. Her body and mind wanted to relax, but she couldn’t. There was still too much to do.

“You ready?” Ms. Christine asked.

“For what?”

Ms. Christine put on her jacket and grabbed her purse from the back of a chair. “That was Edmund.”

“Who?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Mr. Wiles. His said I should call him Edmund. He’s such a gentleman.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that we can go to his son’s place now. I didn’t know that he was going to rent you his place while he’s away. It’s so wonderful that he’s going on sabbatical. He’s a professor, you know. What a wonderful…”

Ms. Christine was still talking as they made their way to the car. As much as Daisy loved her mother, she was starting to get on her nerves. One could only tolerate so much chat.
I know I should be thankful that she’s here to help, but damn, I swear she’s going to burst my eardrums.

Daisy drove a little faster than usual. She didn’t want to keep Jacob waiting, and she wasn’t about to give Ms. Christine a chance to start talking nonstop again. She was already on edge, and she didn’t want to risk snapping at her mother and putting another wedge between them. She turned on the radio and surfed through the channels, then thought better of it and turned it off. She remembered that Ms. Christine was also a singer, or thought that she was.

Then it came to her. She knew how to keep Ms. Christine quiet: give her the opportunity to eavesdrop. Adjusting her ear-piece, Daisy flipped her cell phone open and dialed Ming Li. She hadn’t heard from her in a while and, like Gigi, was getting worried. It wasn’t like Ming Li to disappear.

“Hello?” Daisy said into the phone after she didn’t hear a ring. “Hello?” She heard someone breathing on the other end of the line.

“Mom?” Jay whispered.

“Jay? Is that you, baby?” Relief, sadness, and happiness spread through her at once. She pulled over immediately, wanting to give Jay her undivided attention. Just the sound of his voice brought her comfort. She paid no attention to Ms. Christine, who’d grabbed the door handle to steady herself. Daisy didn’t hear the blaring horns of the cars behind her. She’d almost caused an accident and wasn’t even aware of it. “Is it really you?”

“Yes.”

Daisy opened her door and got out, practically skipping as she talked. “Oh, baby. How are you? Where are you?”

“I’m okay. I’m at some strange people’s house. I don’t know them.”

“What? Whose house? You mean your dad’s parents?”

“No, some other people. The lady that came and got me from school brought me here. Me and two other kids. When are you coming to get me? You told me that you weren’t going to leave me, ever.”

“As soon as I can, baby. I’m doing everything possible to get you back. I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through this. But I want you to know that I didn’t leave you, Jay. I’d never leave you. Okay? I love you.”