The Cinderella Deal (13 page)

“Roses? Do you think so, Chickie?” Pansy’s voice was sweet from the backseat. “It just seems like everyone has roses. How about lilies, honey?”

“Lilies?” Daisy turned to look at her mother in the back beside Gertrude. “I thought lilies were for funerals.”

“No, no.” Pansy turned her little nose up. “Lilies are elegant.”

“Carnations are inexpensive and hold their bloom for a reasonable amount of time,” Gertrude said.

Oh, no
, Daisy thought.
Don’t let this be happening
. “Daisies,” she said. “I want daisies.”

“Oh, honey, no,” Pansy began, but Daisy cut her off.

“Linc wants me to have daisies.”

“Oh, well, then.” Pansy sounded doubtful. “Maybe with some baby’s breath…”

“And a few pink rosebuds…” Chickie agreed.

“And some baby carnations,” Daisy said to appease Gertrude. “Why don’t we wait until we get the dress?”

“Well, I’m sure we can agree on the cake.” Chickie looked over at Daisy. “White, of course.”

“But men always like chocolate,” Pansy protested. “Wouldn’t Linc like chocolate, Daisy?”

“Linc doesn’t like sweets,” Daisy said.

“Lincoln used to like walnut cake,” Gertrude said. “He was quite fond of it.”

“Pumpkin cake,” Daisy said desperately. “Pumpkin cake with walnuts and cream cheese icing.”

“Pumpkin cake?” Chickie said, puzzled.

“Pumpkin cake?” Pansy said, shocked.

Gertrude didn’t say anything, perhaps because of the walnuts.

“It’s a… private joke,” Daisy said weakly. “Like Cinderella. Linc would like it.”

“Oh, well, then.” Pansy still sounded doubtful.

“Well, your colors can still be pink and white,” Chickie said.

“Blue and white,” Pansy said.

“Yellow and white,” Gertrude said. “Lincoln likes yellow.”

Well, at least his mother’s showing some animation
, Daisy thought.
If they get to kicking and screaming and pulling hair, my money’s on her
. She smiled at all three women as impartially as possible, the way she knew Daisy Blaise would smile.

Daisy Flattery would have jumped out of the car and run for it.

Linc came down the stairs when he heard her come in. “How bad was it?”

Daisy dropped her bags on the floor and glared at him. “You owe me.”

He winced. “I knew it.”

“You never told me you liked walnut cake.” Linc frowned at her. “I hate walnut cake.”

“Your mother says you like walnut cake.”

“What?” Linc looked shocked. “My mother never let us eat cake. Walnut cake?”

“She also thinks my flowers should be carnations, my dress should be polyester, and our color for the wedding should be yellow.”

“My mother said all that?” Linc ran his hand through his hair. “My mother?”

Daisy sat down beside him, too tired to be mad anymore. “We’re all eating together at the inn tonight.” She leaned against him, grateful for his shoulder. “Make reservations for six.”

Linc stiffened. “Six?”

“The Crawfords, Pansy, Gertrude, and us.”

“I’m sorry I lied, God.” Linc looked up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry I tried to pass this woman off as my fiancee last spring. Please stop punishing me.”

Daisy went on brightly, in her best idiot voice. “And then we’ll do this again at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And Easter, if we’re still married.”

“Pumpkin cake.” Linc stood, bumping her off his shoulder, and went to make the reservations.

They survived dinner.

On the bad side, Chickie got drunk, as usual, and Crawford made a pass at Pansy, and Gertrude left before dessert to go back to her room and sleep.

On the good side, nobody insulted anyone blatantly, Pansy thought Linc was wonderful, and Gertrude didn’t pull her son aside and tell him to get rid of the crazy brunette.

All in all, Daisy thought as she sat in bed making a list of things to do for the wedding, they’d gotten through it.

Now only two more days until the wedding, and all these people would go home.

Linc came into the bedroom wearing sweat pants and nothing else and Daisy lost her breath. He had a beautiful body, firm and muscled without being muscle bound.
I want to draw him,
Daisy thought.
I want to paint him. The hell with that, I want to
—

“Where’d we get those lamps?” Linc pointed to the ginger jars on each side of his high-tech chrome bed frame.

Daisy found her voice. “Chickie’s wedding present.”

“They’re yellow.”

Right. He didn’t like color. Her lust faded a little. “I don’t think ginger jars come in black leather. I’ll move them when my furniture comes.”

He got into bed beside her. “Yellow.” He opened his book.

Daisy looked at his shoulders.
Say something
, she told herself.
Say something fast before you lean over and bite him
. “My mother loves you.”

“I know,” he said, reading. “She told me.”

“Aren’t you glad?”

“Yes,” he said from his book. “My mother likes you too.”

Gertrude? “How can you tell?”

“She spoke to you.”

He was so close and he wasn’t paying any attention to her and it was all she could do to breathe. Daisy put her hand on his book, and he looked up.

“I’m glad she likes me. She’s really very nice. She bought me long underwear today because she said it gets cold in Ohio in the winter. She bought you some too.”

Linc’s face was blank. “Long underwear.”

“It’s really sweet, Linc. She wanted us to be warm.”

“You’re warm enough for both of us.” Linc went back to his book. “I like it better cold.”

Well, that was in character. Daisy sighed and gave up and went back to her list.

“Did you get the rings?”

“What rings?”

“Wedding bands.”

“Oh.” Linc frowned. “Why don’t you go get one that will
go
with your ring? You can get the right size that way too.”

“What about yours?”

“Mine?”

Daisy looked at him, exasperated. “Not planning on wearing a ring?” she said, and for some reason Caroline sprang into her mind.

“Well, no.”

“It’s traditional,” she said, investing the words with enough weight so that he could translate them into
You’d better
.

Linc did what he’d been trying to avoid doing ever since he’d walked into the bedroom: he looked at Daisy, propped on the pillows beside him. The thin cotton T-shirt was pulled over her breasts by the weight of the covers, and her curls gleamed in the lamplight and her eyes were huge, and he clenched his hands into fists on his book to keep from reaching for her.

That’s not all that’s traditional
, he thought.
If I wear a wedding ring, do I get a wedding night
?

Then another thought chased that one away:
Are you out of your mind
?

“Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.” He got out of bed.
Make a note to stay out of beds with Daisy
, he told himself.
A big note
.

“What did I say?” Daisy asked.

“Nothing. We’ll go get rings tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eleven again. Good night.” He gave himself one more glance at her where she sat warm and round and glowing in the lamplight and then he bolted from the room.

Daisy spent Tuesday trying to organize a wedding with the three witches helping. Chickie and the mothers fought over napkins, centerpieces, vows, showers, favors, appetizers, the bar, the music, and the judge. The only thing they agreed on was that Linc and Daisy should get married, and Daisy wasn’t sure Gertrude was behind that one hundred percent.

Tuesday night they had another dinner from hell.

At one point, when Pansy was away from the table, Chickie brought up the question of who was going to give Daisy away.

“Linc said your father’s still alive. Don’t you think he’d want to give you away?”

“My mother will give me away.” Daisy’s voice was so tense that even Chickie caught on and didn’t mention it again.

Wednesday, Julia drove in and stopped at the house. She looked around and approved. “This is great. I’ll have to come back when you’ve got it done.”

“Oh, please do.” Daisy sat down on the bottom stair step and started to cry. “I’ve been so lonely and frazzled and crazed, and everything’s been nuts here, and the three mothers are driving me insane, and I haven’t even had a chance to paint the walls, let alone a canvas and—”

Julia looked confused. “Three mothers?”

“—and the wedding’s tomorrow and that’s when my furniture’s coming, and you’re going to be a bridesmaid and everything’s just a mess.” Daisy sniffed and looked up at Julia. “I thought this was going to make my life easier.”

“Marriage?” Julia shook her head. “You thought wrong. Safer, maybe, more secure, but easier? Nope.”

Daisy scowled at her. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

Julia sat down beside her on the stairs. “Because I wanted to be a bridesmaid. Explain the three mothers part to me again.”

They managed to get through the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, the bachelor party, and the shower without losing their minds, and Daisy woke up at six the morning of her wedding day feeling almost relieved. She listened to Linc clatter down their back steps as he went out to run.
He
would
be an organized fitness nut,
she thought. Running at the crack of dawn. She had nothing in common with this man.

She rolled over and went back to sleep.

Linc left for the college at nine, and Daisy got up and began to move up to the second floor everything chrome that one person could carry. She filled the right front bedroom with Linc’s lamps and chairs and bookcases from the living room. Since his desk was already in there, the extra furniture made the room into a study for him. She’d already moved his living room end tables into his bedroom to act as bedside tables. The only things she couldn’t move were the awful glass dining room table and the couch. When she was finished, his half of the upstairs was done in black leather and metal. She shuddered and closed the doors.

Then the doorbell rang, and she went to meet the movers.

“The couch goes in here,” she told them, sliding open the pocket door to the living room. They brought in her threadbare flowered couch and three mismatched worn brocade chairs. They carried in her collection of miscellaneous chipped and scratched end tables in all sizes and woods. They set her crated paintings behind the couch and rolled her worn Oriental on the floor. They moved Linc’s couch and table upstairs to her studio and rolled her big round oak table into the dining room, and the sun came in and highlighted the six unmatched pressed-wood chairs she grouped around it. There was just room enough for the little buffet with the cracked top by the door to the kitchen. They carried her brass bed upstairs and put the mattress on it for her. Her unmatched end tables went into place beside it. They brought up her cheval mirror with the tiny crack, her cedar chest, her dented brass-bound trunk, and her bent-wood rocker. Liz checked it all out and then went to sleep in the middle of her bed, satisfied that things were getting back to normal. Annie hid underneath and bitched at the movers with a voice that sounded like breaking glass.

When the movers left, Daisy danced through the house, holding Annie and singing. All this room. All this sun. All her lovely furniture.

She put Annie down and went out to buy flowers for her lovely house.

When Daisy got back, the Nazimobile was parked in front. “Linc?” she called as she came through the front door.

He erupted from the living room. “What is this?”

“What?” She stepped back, startled.

“All this old”—he waved his hand around wildly—“junk!”

“What junk? These are antiques.”

“This stuff has holes in it,” he said, incredulous. “The rug, the couch, the chairs. It’s junk!”

Daisy felt the familiar tightness come over her; this was her father all over again, making her feel guilty for the things she loved. Well, it wasn’t going to work this time. “It’s real furniture,” she snapped back. “It has personality. It’s not that five-and-dime science fiction crud you sit on.”

“Five-and-dime?” Linc’s eyebrows climbed so high, they almost disappeared into his hair. “That furniture cost me a fortune! It’s
designer
furniture.”

“Designed by whom?” Daisy crossed her arms and charged. “Darth Vader? The Hitler Youth? You said, the house is yours, Daisy. You said, you’re the one spending the most time here, Daisy. You said—”

Linc waved that off. “I know what I said. But I can’t have people in here to see this… this…”

“Careful,” Daisy said through her teeth. “I love this, this—”

Linc sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands. “This isn’t going to work,” he said quietly. “This is not going to work.”

Daisy sat down beside him, her back stiff as a ramrod. “I cannot live in a soulless home. That furniture of yours was made by machines for machines,” she told him. “I know you’re not emotional, I know warmth isn’t important to you, but I can’t live without light and color and warmth. I can’t live with that horrible, horrible, cold, dark furniture.”

“All right.” He took a deep breath. “But I can’t live in squalor.” He turned to her, calm but still upset. “Daisy, look at this stuff. It’s so worn, you can’t see the pattern in the upholstery. The carpet has holes in it. Daisy, it isn’t warm, it’s worn out.”

She looked at the furniture through his eyes, and for the first time it wasn’t beautiful to her. She bit her lip as she saw the scratches and chips and holes. He was right. It hadn’t mattered when it was just hers. Her friends didn’t care about the worn spots and the holes. But his would. Crawford would be horrified. Caroline would sneer. Linc would be embarrassed.

“All right.” She fought back her tears, feeling as if she’d lost more than furniture. “But we can’t afford new stuff. And I can’t afford to throw this stuff out, because when I leave in June, I’ve got to take it with me.”

They stared hopelessly at the furniture together.

“All right,” she said again. “Aside from the holes and the faded upholstery, do you have anything against the rest of it?”