Butternut Summer (18 page)

“Nothing wrong with that,” Allie said gently. “You two care about each other, Caroline. That's what counts.”

“I know,” Caroline said. “But you and Walker, and Jax and Jeremy, you have
both
. You care about each other,
and
you have sex on the kitchen floor.”

“
And
I have a back that's killing me,” Jax reminded her, smiling.

“Maybe.” Caroline sighed. “But you can always take some Advil for that, can't you?”

W
ill, who'd never been early for anything in his life before, was five minutes early for his date with Daisy that night. He parked his pickup on Main Street outside of Pearl's, then he walked around the corner to the side entrance to the building and rang the doorbell. A moment later, she was there, opening the door for him, slightly breathless, and prettier somehow than he'd remembered her being. He always felt that way when he saw her again. When it came to Daisy, he decided, his imagination failed him every time.

“Hi, come on up,” she said, smiling, and as they went up the stairs he stole a sideways look at her. There was no sundress tonight, the way there had been at the beach, only a cotton blouse with little blue flowers on it (flowers that matched the color of her eyes) and a pair of slightly faded blue jeans. Her hair, which had been straight and shiny on that last date, was loose and tousled on her shoulders now. He liked it that way, he decided, a little messy. It made him want to make it messier.

But when they got to the door to the apartment, which Daisy had left open, he had another, less pleasant thought. What if Daisy's mom was home tonight? Will's avoidance of commitment in general, and of dating in particular, meant that he'd never had to meet a girl's parents before. And now that he might have to, he wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect.

Daisy noticed him glancing around the apartment. “My mom's not here,” she said, amused. “She's at a girls' night out. So you're off the hook, for now.”

“I guess so,” he said, relieved.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

“Sure. What are you having?”

“Diet Coke. But we have regular, too.”

“I'll have one of those.” He followed Daisy into a bright kitchen with lemon yellow walls and black-and-white-checked flooring. She took a Coke and a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator, handed him his can, and popped hers open. She started to say something then, but her cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen counter, rang, and Daisy picked it up and frowned at the display.

“I need to take this,” she said apologetically.

“That's fine,” he said.

She answered it. “Hi, Jessica,” she said. She listened for a long time, with what Will could see was forced patience. “Jessica, hold on one second.” Daisy put the phone down and said to Will softly, “I'm sorry. I have to talk to my friend.” She added, with an apologetic little shrug, “Boyfriend trouble.”

“Sure,” Will said, backing out of the kitchen. “I'll wait out there.”

Out there was back in the front hall. He stood there for a few minutes, then looked down a short hallway, where one of the doors was cracked open. He knew, intuitively, that it was the door to Daisy's room, and he walked hesitantly over to it and pushed it gently open. It was a nice room, he saw, looking inside, a pretty room, a girl's room. The furniture was all white wood, and there were pale pink walls, a fluffy pink rug on the floor, and pink curtains hanging in the windows. He edged into the room, thinking about how different this apartment was from the house he'd grown up in. There hadn't been a single feminine touch in that house, he realized, though whether that was because his mother hadn't stayed long enough to leave any or because his father had purged the house of them after she'd left, he didn't know.

He walked farther into the room, drawn to a bookshelf whose top two shelves were almost collapsing under the weight of the trophies they held. He studied them now. Most of them were for volleyball, including two from Daisy's junior and senior years for most valuable player.

On a lower shelf was a collection of Daisy's high school yearbooks, and Will pulled out the one from her senior year. He opened it and flipped through it, looking for pictures of Daisy. They were everywhere. There she was with the Honor Society, the Student Council, the Debate Team, and the French Club. He shook his head. That part of high school was a complete mystery to him. He flipped through some more pages: spirit rallies; homecoming; senior prom. He wondered now, for the first time, if he'd missed anything when he'd boycotted all those things in high school. At the time, he'd never even given it a second thought. He and his friends had just done it on principle, though what principle that was, exactly, he didn't quite know anymore.

He kept turning the pages until he came to one of Daisy with the volleyball team. There she was, in the front row, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her uniform showing her pale, supple arms and legs to what Will thought was their best advantage. As he was looking at the photo, he noticed Daisy's bed out of the corner of his eye and turned to stare at it. It was a double bed, and its pink, ruffled coverlet was piled high with puffy pink pillows. He wondered, idly, what the chances were of him ever spending the night with her on that bed.
Nonexistent
, he told himself, and he pushed the thought out of his mind. He turned back to the yearbook and had just found a candid photo of Daisy at a charity car wash when he sensed, rather than saw, her standing in the doorway.

“Oh, hi,” he said, simultaneously turning around and closing the yearbook. He put it back in its place on the shelf. “I hope it's okay that I came in here.”

“It's okay,” she said, coming over to him. “I just wish my room wasn't so embarrassing.”

“Why? It's nice. It's very . . .” He looked around. “Very pink.”

She laughed. “I know. My mother and I decorated it when I was in the third grade. Now she won't let me change anything. She won't even let me put those trophies away. It's as if, ever since I went to college, she's turned it into a shrine to me or something.”

“I like the trophies,” he said. “But where are the ones from college?”

“Oh, I'm not on the team there.”

“Why not?”

“I didn't make it.”

But you were so good
—he started to say, and then, remembering she didn't know about his watching her games, he amended it to, “But you won all those trophies.”

She shrugged. “It's really competitive at the college level. They recruit players from all over the country. But it worked out all right. I still play, but now I play in a universitywide coed league. It's less competitive, but it's more fun, too.”

“A coed league?” He pictured Daisy playing on a team with other students,
male
students. It bothered him.

“Coed,” she repeated. “That means both sexes.”

“Yeah, I know what coed means,” he said, giving her a quick smile and glancing around the room again. Something hanging on one of the walls, a framed, typed letter, caught his attention and he sidled over to it. But before he could take a closer look at it, Daisy angled herself between him and the letter and blocked his view.

“Please don't read that,” she said, blushing.

“Now I'm really curious,” he said, straining to see it.

She sighed and moved away. “My mom again,” she mumbled. “I asked her not to hang that in here, not to hang it
anywhere
, but . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Will read the letter. It was dated three years ago that spring, and it was from the University of Minnesota, offering Daisy a full academic scholarship.

“You're really smart,” he said, turning to her.

But she shook her head. “No. I get good grades.”

“Isn't that the same thing?”

“Not really. Getting good grades is about ten percent intelligence, and ninety percent hard work.”

“That doesn't sound right,” Will objected.

“No, it's true. I mean, there are those people—those very
few
people—who are naturally brilliant. But I'm not one of them. And neither are most of the other people I know who're good students. We just study harder than everyone else.”

“But why?” Will asked, genuinely curious. “Why do you study so hard?”

Daisy frowned, as if she'd never asked herself that question before. “I don't know,” she admitted. “I guess in the beginning, in grade school, I studied because my mom and I had a deal. If I was studying, I didn't have to help out with any of the work at Pearl's. So I studied—I thought it was better than wiping down counters or refilling ketchup bottles. Then, later, when I was in high school, I had to help her anyway, but by then, studying had become a habit. Besides, I liked what I was learning. I understood it. As opposed to everything else in my life.”

And Will nodded. Because he understood; he'd felt the same way when Jason's dad had shown him how to take apart, and then put back together, a car engine. Nothing else at that time had made sense to him. But that engine had.

Still, it was hard to believe that Daisy's home life had been quite as . . .
complicated
as his had been during high school. “What was it that you didn't understand about your life?” he asked.

“Why my dad left,” she said, simply.

“You missed him,” Will said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I did miss him,” she said. “I was only three when he left, so I didn't have a lot of memories of him, but the ones I did have were so . . .
so good
. Which is kind of strange, when you think about it, because my mom said my dad was almost never around then, and that when he was around, all they did was fight. But I didn't remember any of that. What I remembered was being with my dad and, you know, feeling safe with him. And feeling like, well, feeling like he loved me. I think that's why I felt so confused when he left. And I know that's why I wanted to study psychology in college. I wanted to know more about why people do the things they do.”

She blushed then, and Will could tell she was suddenly self-conscious about telling him so much. “Sorry about taking that phone call before,” she said, changing the subject.

“How's your friend doing?” Will asked, taking a step closer to her. He was so close to her now he could smell her shampoo.

“She's okay.”

“So she's not heartbroken?” he asked, reaching out and taking a strand of her hair between two of his fingers. It was so soft. He gave it a little tug and let go. He saw her swallow slowly.

“No, she
is
heartbroken,” she said. “But she's always heartbroken. It's a habit with her. But it's also kind of her own fault. She has bad taste in men.”

“That's too bad,” he said, bending down and kissing her, very softly, on the lips.

“It
is
too bad,” Daisy breathed, as soon as he took his lips off her lips.

“So are you going to tell me what we're doing on this date?” Will asked.

Daisy smiled. “Yes, I am. Because tonight, Will, it's dating 101 for you.”

“Dating 101, huh? Is there going to be a test at the end of the night?”

“No test, Will. Just a classic, all-American date.”

“And what might that be?” he asked, wanting to kiss her again.

“Pizza and a movie.”

“Are we going out?”

“No, we're staying here. I ordered the pizza, and I rented the movie.”

“What's the movie?” he asked, sliding his arms around her waist. He didn't just want to touch her; he
needed
to touch her.

“That one about zombies,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders and looking up at him shyly. “It just came out on DVD.”

“Oh, yeah. I want to see that. But I didn't have you pegged for a zombie kind of girl, Daisy.”

“No? I like horror movies.”

“But are they intellectual enough for you?” he teased.

“Oh, I think I can slum it for one night,” she said, smiling.

“All right, but next time we'll choose a movie for you. Something for someone in your IQ range. A documentary,” he said, kissing her lightly on the lips again. “With subtitles.”

She laughed, right as the doorbell rang. “That's the pizza,” she said, and this time she kissed
him
on the lips.

“Let me pay,” Will said, sliding his wallet out of his pocket.

“Next time,” she said, and she went to answer the door.
So there would be a next time
, he thought, with a half smile. And he was careful not to look at her bed again as he left the room.

The rest of the night was easy, and fun, even if it all felt a little unfamiliar to Will. They sat on the couch in the living room, ate pizza, and watched the movie. Will was on his best behavior. He put his arm around Daisy, which he thought was acceptable, under the circumstances, and he kissed her, twice, on the lips. When the credits started rolling and it was time for him to go, Daisy walked him downstairs. Standing there in the little vestibule was the only time that night he let himself do what he'd wanted to do since he'd gotten there. He backed her up against the wall, tilted her chin up to him, and kissed her, deeply, tasting the sweetness of her mouth. He stopped when he found himself thinking, again, about the pink bed upstairs.

“I want to see you again,” he said, brushing his lips against her ear.

“I want to see you again too,” she said, and he could actually feel her heart beating through the thin cotton of her blouse.

“Good. Are you free tomorrow night?”

She nodded, and he stroked her cheek, and then he left quickly before he started kissing her again. When it came to Daisy, he decided, as he drove back to the garage, he'd draw a line for himself. And as long as he didn't cross it, he figured they'd be fine. But the problem with that line, as he soon discovered, was that it was a
very
fine line, and it kept moving around. So that soon, all it took was a single word or a single look from Daisy, and he'd completely forget where the damned thing was.