Chapter 18
Daisy
Daisy arched up her chest and wriggled on her inner tube until she could dip her head backwards into the lake, cooling her forehead that was sweating despite her butt and belly being in the lake. Her eyes were closed, the light so bright that the insides of her eyelids had dancing dots like blurry fireworks. It was about a thousand degrees and she could feel the last of her sunscreen melting off her skin. Around her was that peaceful quiet she only found on lakes, the little noises the water made lapping against her skin blending with the gentle noise of the nearby trees swishing in the barely-there, humid breeze.
She could faintly hear the other women near her. Stephanie, Karen, Jesse, Leda, Chase, and she had all met up earlier at the forest preserve for a walk. They’d marveled at Stephanie’s dog’s energy as she ran and tumbled, tongue lolling, big ribs heaving from the heat. Most of the group had decided to continue on to Tristan’s to use his beach, but Stephanie and Karen had headed out.
So now they were relaxing, enjoying each other’s companionship. Chase and Leda were on the beach, reading under an umbrella. Jesse was on a floating chair, her braid trailing in the water, a beer in the cupholder.
This wasn’t the first time they had all hung out recently; it seemed that, the closer Jesse’s move to Chicago drew, the more often they got together. Mostly Daisy was invited to the girls-only things, so that she wouldn’t have to decide whether seeing Dunk was worth spending time with Jesse. It worked out fine because she was busier now that she was getting back into her pottery, and even starting to date a little bit.
“Ugh,” she mumbled, thinking about the sweet, nerdy dentist she’d gone out with a few times, more because she was trying to be open, saying yes to anything remotely interesting, than because she was really into him.
“Hmm?” Jesse said drowsily.
“I need to tell Tim that I… I don’t even know what to say. It’s been three dates. It’s not breaking things off, since nothing really started,” she said, rolling her neck and cracking her eyes open enough to see Jesse. “But it’s not… I don’t know. I’m not feeling it. I can’t see it going anywhere.”
Jesse offered one of her trademarked shrugs. “He’s a dentist, Daisy. There’s no way dentists are crazy emotional. He’ll be fine.”
“I know,” she lamented.
Jesse grunted and muttered, “Yeah, you want to find someone and be stupid happy.”
“Definitely,” Daisy laughed, “don’t you?”
“We’re going to find out how Chicago lesbians feel about a country girl with a slow drawl,” Jesse said, her tone dry but her grin fast and sharky.
Daisy laughed again, then poked her bicep with one finger, watching critically as it changed colors around her faint freckles. “I think I’d better go huddle under Chase’s umbrella, or I’m going to look like a tomato.”
“Yeah, I’m getting hungry. Leda brought some sandwich shit and those cupcakes are probably nothing but gooey frosting.”
They went ashore and flopped down on their towels.
“So,” Leda said, putting aside her book, cocking an eyebrow at Chase. “What are you and my brother doing for your anniversary?”
“Didn’t that already happen?” Jesse asked.
“Work was too crazy for both of us to do it then. So next week we’re taking a long weekend on Emerald Isle,” Chase replied, glowing.
“Y’all are so calm about it, like you’ve been together forever,” Daisy sighed, as if that were her number one relationship goal.
Chase smiled. “That’s how we like it. We’re not twenty-two, we don’t want drama. But we’re not forty, we don’t need to rush.”
“You better think about making babies soon, if you’re going to have any,” Leda said, looking both disturbed by the idea of them making the baby while totally pleased by the idea of having a niece or nephew.
“I’m not talking about family planning with you, Leda,” Chase huffed, rolling her eyes dramatically as she shoved a cupcake in Leda’s face. “Eat this and then try to tell me you’re not asking because you want to have marathons of sex until Jamie knocks you up with, like, triplets.”
Leda took a truly gigantic bite of the cupcake, her cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s, while she glared at Chase and then Jesse when Jesse couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter. When she swallowed it, she bragged, “I have the best stepkid on earth, why would I need to rush another kid?”
“… so you have an excuse for the sex marathon with Jamie?” Daisy suggested as if it were obvious.
“Yeah,” Leda sighed dreamily. “He’s so hot. And I love him.”
“I don’t know, man,” Jesse said slyly, leaning back on her hands, her eyebrows raising up, “Dunk’s been hitting the gym a lot lately.”
Chase laughed and scooped up some of the frosting puddled in the cupcake carrier before popping it into her mouth. “Lady’s got a point,” she agreed, her eyes glinting, just as sly as Jesse in her own way.
Daisy stuck her nose in the air. “So what?”
Leda’s jaw dropped open and she argued, “Who are you trying to fool, Daisy Rhys? Dunk is not our style—he’s just too… upbeat,” she shuddered, right along with Jesse and Chase. “But you two?” She mimed burning her fingers, shaking her hand and hissing. “I have no idea how two people so happy and well-adjusted as you could have that chemistry, but you do.”
Daisy stared at Leda blankly.
“Chemistry,” Leda repeated.
“Heat,” Chase supplied. “Like two sexy magnets drawing together.”
“But I’m… I’m not…”
Chase scowled and ordered, “Don’t you dare say you’re not sexy.”
Daisy froze, on the verge of saying exactly that, and then replied, “I don’t have self-esteem issues like that, I know I’m pretty. But—”
“Bap-bap-bap,” Chase interrupted. “Jesse, tell the woman she’s sexy.”
With a groan, Jesse dragged one hand up and pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head so Daisy could tell she was being studied. “I’m only saying this once, okay. When you feel sexy, you are sexy.”
“Nice pearl of wisdom there, Jesse,” Leda snarked.
“I’m serious, dipshit,” Jesse shot back. “I wasn’t saying it like some universal statement. I’m saying, when Daisy’s feeling sexy, then she is sexy. If she’s just feeling normal, like right now, then she’s beautiful, yeah, but not in a sexy way where—”
Leda burped from trying too hard to hold back guffaws.
Jesse threw her hands up and fell back onto her towel, dragging her sunglasses back over her eyes and muttered, “Oh, fuck off, Leda.”
“Thanks,” Daisy said quietly while Chase and Leda went off in gales of laughter at Jesse’s attempts to be honest but gallant at the same time.
Jesse didn’t say anything, but she turned her head in Daisy’s direction so Daisy knew that she was listening.
“Heat’s great, you know, but I lo—had fun when we were dating more because of his sense of humor,” she explained, feeling like she had to defend Dunk, to say that it hadn’t been his muscles that drew her to him like… like two sexy magnets. Now she’d never be able to think of another metaphor for their relationship, she thought, amused at herself.
Chase exclaimed a minute later, “I forgot to ask, did you get into that art fair in Napa? You were telling me all about it and I never asked!”
Daisy beamed and sighed happily, “I did.”
When she had done pottery full-time, she’d never gone to art fairs farther than an eight-hour drive away. But once she’d started working again, Karen had encouraged her to use it as a chance to spread her wings. They’d had so much fun researching fairs in other states and Daisy had gone a little overboard emailing all of her art fair friends. This art fair in California was the first one she’d signed up for so far, and she was thrilled.
“I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but a friend moved to Lake Tahoe. She’s letting me borrow her booth and table and all of that, and she might play my assistant, depending on what’s going on in her life that weekend.”
“Did you buy your plane tickets yet?” Leda asked.
Daisy’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Not yet?”
“Oh, good,” Leda said.
Suspicion rose as Daisy looked among the other women, who looked a little… weird. Smug, maybe. “Why?” she asked, slowly.
“When I left the Bay Area, I left my car with my best friend—”
“Her West Coast best friend,” Leda corrected with a toss of her hair.
“—with my West Coast best friend,” Chase amended easily, barely pausing in her flow as if she were so used to Leda’s interruptions that she didn’t notice them anymore. “But she’s moving to New York, where she absolutely doesn’t need a car because she’s going to live it up in Brooklyn.”
“So cool,” Leda put in.
Nodding in agreement, Chase went on, “So anyway, my car—my baby —is in San Jose. It’s time I had her back. But I can’t ship her here.”
“Because she doesn’t trust moving companies,” Jesse said, as if she’d heard this a hundred times already. “Her car could get lost. Scratched.”
“I’m going to fly out there and then drive it back. I was going to bring Aden with me, of course, but a road trip with you sounds so much better!”
Daisy blinked eloquently. That had not been what she’d expected Chase to say at all. But Chase was grinning brightly, so excited by her own suggestion. Daisy felt that intrepidness and that excitement that she’d been feeling since she started up with her art again grow stronger.
“Yeah,” she said. “That sounds amazing. As long as I can find a temp to come into the firm for a week, I’m in. Wow, I’ve never gone on a road trip!”
“It’s going to change your life,” Chase promised.
The women all exchanged looks, that weird maybe-smugness back.
“Okay…” Daisy said.
It was going to be a really fun adventure, yeah, but she didn’t see how it would change her life. But what did she know? If she’d never been on a road trip before, maybe it would. If anyone knew how traveling could change your life, it was Chase. After all, her vacation to Maybelle had changed her life; she’d come for the 4th of July, but fallen in love with not only Aden, but Maybelle County.
“Great, now that that’s decided, can we please go someplace with air conditioning?” Leda begged. “I think it’s time for margaritas and poker.”
“Amen,” Jesse said, already rolling to her feet and picking up stuff.
Daisy laughed, the weird smugness she thought she’d seen on the women’s faces long gone, forgotten as they joked around and packed up.