And everyone knew it.
The Saturday of the prom, Daisy worked the lunch shift at the Wild Coyote. She kept it together and acted likeshe wasn't humiliated. She pretended she wasn't sad or hurt. She joked with her coworkers about J. t being aloser anyway.
No one bought it. Getting dumped the night before the prom with some lame-o excuse was the worst thing thatcould ever happen to any girl.
And everyone knew it.
After her shift, she went home and locked herself in her room. With her dress hanging on her closet door, shethrew herself on her bed and had a nice long cry. At four, her mother stuck her head in the room and asked ifshe wanted some mint chocolate chip ice cream. She didn't. Lily made her a cowboy pie sandwich, but shecouldn't eat it.
At five-thirty Jack knocked on her bedroom door, but she wouldn't let him in. Her face was splotchy and hereyes puffy, and the didn't want him to see her that way.
"Daisy Lee," he called through the door. "Come out of there."
She sat up on her bed and pulled a Kleenex from the box. "Go away, Jack."
"Open up."
"No." She blew her nose.
"I have something for you."
She stared at the door. "What?"
"I can't tell you. I have to show you."
"I look really bad?
"I don't care."
Well the did. She slipped from the bed and opened the door a crack. She stuck her hand out.
"What is it?" He didn't answer and she was forced to peer out the crack Jack stood in the hail, the light from hersister's bedroom shining on him like a dark angel or at the very least a choirboy. He wore his navy blue Sundaysuit, and a cream-colored shirt. A red tie hung loose around his neck. "What's going on, Jack? Did you go to afuneral?"
He laughed and brought his hand out from behind his back He laid a wrist corsage of white and pink roses inher palm. "Will you go to the prom with me?"
"You hate school dances," she said through the crack"I know."
She brought the corsage to her nose and breathed deep. Her nose was clogged so it wasn't that deep. She bit herbottom lip to keep it from trembling. And as she looked at him, standing in the hail of her house, wearing a suithe hated and asking her to a dance he loathed, she fell helplessly in love with Jack Parrish. It expanded her heartand flooded her chest and scared her to death. All those years of fighting it faded away to nothing.
She'd fallen in love with Jack and there hadn't been anything she could do about it.
That night Jack kissed her for the first time. Or rather, she'd kissed him. During the dance, while she'd beenfailing in love for the first time in her life, he treated her as he always had, as a friend. While he made her wholebody feel hot and alive, he'd stayed cool. It had all been wonderful and awful, and after the prom, when hewalked her to her front door, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
At first he stood with his hands to his side. Then he grasped her shoulders through her coat and pushed heraway, angry.
"What are you doing?"
"Kiss me, Jack." if he rejected her, she was sure she'd just die right there. On the porch.
His grip tightened and he brought her forward and pressed his warm lips to her forehead.
"No, don't treat me like a friend." She swallowed hard past the ache in her chest. 'Please," she whispered as shelooked up at him. "I want you to kiss me like you do other girls. I want you to touch me like you do other girls,too."
He pulled back and his green gaze slid to her mouth. "Don't tease me, Daisy. I don't like it."
"I'm not teasing you." She ran her hand across the shoulder of his jacket to the side of his neck. "Please, Jack."
Then as if he didn't want to kiss her, but he couldn't fight it any longer, he slowly lowered his mouth to her. Thistime the touch of his lips stole her breath. She tilted her head back and sank into his chest. Until that moment,she'd thought she knew what it was like to kiss a boy. Jack showed her she hadn't a clue. The kiss was hot andwet and filled with so much hunger that it changed her forever.
Even now, after all these years, Daisy remembered standing on her mother's porch as Jack turned her worldinside out. She'd clung to him as he'd fed her those liquid kisses that had made her breasts ache and her bodytremble. His hands had never moved from her shoulders, but he'd made her crave his touch. She'd wanted himto touch her all over. Instead he'd walked away, leaving her stunned and wanting more.
Chapter Five
The next day, Daisy called Jack but he didn't pick up. The longer she put off telling him about Nathan, theharder it was going to get. She knew that, having already put if off for fifteen years. But what she hadn't realizedbefore she'd arrived was that the longer she put it off, the more memories of her life in this town would drag herback into the past. Before she'd arrived, the plan had been to tell Jack, give him Steven's letter, and deal with thefallout: if not easy, at least straightforward. Now, it didn't seem real straightforward either. But it had to bedone. She was leaving in seven days.
Before noon, she tried Jack's number two more times, but he didn't answer. She figured he was probably notanswering on purpose. She went to church with her mother, and afterward, they had an early dinner with Lilyand Pippen. Phillip "Pippen" Darlington was two and had a blond mullet because his mother couldn't bear to cutthe curls at the nape of his neck. He had huge blue eyes like Lily, and he loved Thomas the Tank Engine. Healso loved wearing his faux coonskin cap and shouting NO! loud enough to be heath into the next county Hehated food with texture, spiders, and his Velcro Barney sneakers.
Daisy looked at him sitting in his high chair at her mother's dinner table and tried not to frown as he pouredgrape Kool-Aid from his Tommy Tippy cup into his baked potato. Daisy's mother and Lily sat across the tablefrom her and didn't seem to mind that Pippen was making a disgusting mess.
"He's a rat bastard!" Lily was telling her, referring, of course, to her soon to be ex-husband, The Rat BastardRonald Darlington. "A few months before he ran off with his jailbait girlfriend, he took all the money out of ouraccounts and put it somewhere."
Louella nodded her head sadly. "Probably in Mexico." Growing up, if either had uttered the word "bastard" atthe dinner table, they'd have been sent from the room.
"What is your attorney doing about that?" Daisy asked"There isn't a lot he can do. We can prove the money was in the account, but not where it went. The judge canorder him to give me half, but that doesn't mean he will. And for years, Ronnie was paid under the table in orderto avoid paying the IRS, so it looks like he only makes twenty thousand a year instead of seventy-five." Lilysliced a piece of meat with a vengeance. Even though they were sisters and had grown up together, they weren'tvery close. Growing up, they'd mostly fought or ignored each other. Lily had been in middle school whenDaisy had moved away, and they'd never really maintained a relationship after that. Losing Steven had madeher realize how important her family was to her. She needed to work on her relationship with her sister.
"He said that if I tell the IRS about it," Lily continued, "he'll fight for custody of Pippen. What can I do?"
When both her mother and Lily stared at her, Daisy realized it wasn't a rhetorical question. There were darkcircles under Lily's eyes as if she hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time. Her blond hair was cut short andframed her pretty face with soft curls, but at the moment, she looked anything but soft. No, she looked scared ashell. "You're asking me? How should I know?"