by Susan Wiggs
She was digging in her bag—chosen because it looked so good with her shoes—for the car keys when a shadow fell over her.
“Going somewhere?”
Her head snapped up. “Logan! What are you doing here?”
He smiled. “Same thing you are. I’m meeting a date.”
Oh, wonderful. Now she really did need to get away. The last thing she wanted was to find herself in the same restaurant as Logan and whoever he was dating.
“You have fun,” she said. “I have to go.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Logan.
He looked wonderful, she thought with a twinge. Like, really wonderful. Good without trying too hard, in a well-cut sport coat over a golf shirt and khakis. It looked as if he’d gotten a haircut, too, and the style made the most of his thick, reddish-brown waves.
She wondered who the lucky girl was. Then she squashed the thought and moved toward the door. None of her business.
He touched her arm. “What about our date?” he asked.
Daisy froze. She thought about her cousin’s sneakiness in setting this up. Yes, this was definitely a setup. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked.
He merely smiled.
“You’re my mystery date?”
“Surprise.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” In spite of herself, she started to smile. In relief, mostly. Thank God, she thought. Thank God he’s not some freak or head case or lech. Finally, a normal guy she actually knew.
“What is going on here, Logan?” she asked.
“Let’s talk about it over dinner.”
The salads were made of butter lettuce, fresh pears and walnuts. The pianist was playing quiet, unobtrusive songs, drifting through the consciousness like leaves in the stream, notes forgotten as soon as they were struck.
“You’re being a good sport about the fruit in your salad,” Daisy pointed out, well aware of his aversion, because he’d apparently passed that on to their son.
“Thanks for noticing. I’m a big believer in separation of fruit, salad and nuts. Tonight I’m making an exception.”
“I’ve been reading Peter Rabbit to Charlie, hoping it’ll motivate him to eat more salad. It could backfire, though. It might turn him paranoid that Mr. McGregor will come after him with a rake.”
Logan regarded her across the table. The linens were white and crisp, the crystal glassware reflecting the glimmering candlelight. “Time,” he said quietly.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Time-out, I mean. I’m going to set one rule for tonight.”
She felt an instant prickle of resistance. “What kind of rule?”
“No talk of Charlie, just for tonight.”
“Nonsense. He’s all we ever talk about.”
“Exactly. That’s why we should try talking about other stuff.”
What other stuff? she wondered. “Why would you want to leave Charlie out of the conversation?”
He took a drink of his Pellegrino water, set down the glass with firm deliberation. “Because I don’t want Charlie to be the only thing we have in common.”
The reply startled her. “Okay,” she said. “Then…how about you begin by explaining what all this is about.” She gestured vaguely around the candlelit restaurant.
“You’ve dived into the dating pool.”
“I said I was going to.”
“So I wanted to take you out on a date,” he said. “Is that so strange?”
“Then why the cloak-and-dagger stuff, getting Olivia to set us up and all that?”
“I was afraid you’d turn me down.”
“Aw, Logan. Come on, what do you take me for?”
“Oh, now there’s a loaded question.”
“Do you honestly think I would’ve turned you down?” After as many disappointments as she’d had, she would have been relieved. No, more than that. Pleased.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “At least this way, you’re stuck with me.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I want to show you a good time.”
She finished her salad and helped herself to a warm roll from the bread basket. “Well,” she said, “honestly, I think it’s working.”
“Cool.”
Their entrées were wonderful. Daisy ordered a terrine of layered roasted vegetables, and Logan had the pan-seared rainbow trout.
Over the course of the meal, Daisy discovered that they had plenty to talk about besides Charlie. She told Logan some of her choice work stories—the bride whose friends shaved off one eyebrow at her bachelorette party, the fainting groom, the canine ring bearer, and they laughed together. He talked about work as well, surprising her when he admitted his struggle to explain to his father that he didn’t want to be in the family business.
“They don’t get it,” he said, referring to his fiercely proud, successful parents. “O’Donnell Industries was founded by my great-grandfather, and there’s been an O’Donnell in charge every generation since. That business, though—international shipping—it’s not for me.”
“What don’t you like about it?”
“God, where do I start? Just for example, deals are made in bars over tons of drinks. Not really my scene, I guess you know.”
“I do know. I’m glad you know it, too.” Sobriety, she realized, could be a fragile thing, and she was grateful Logan worked so hard to preserve it. “Did you ever say that to your dad?”
“Funny, that’s something my sponsor asked me. My sponsor in AA.”
“And?” she prompted.
“And my dad doesn’t quite get it.”
“Parents,” she said. “Everybody has their share of problems with parents. Me included. Things are better with my folks, now that they’re so busy with their new lives.”
“Did you save room for dessert?” asked their waiter, coming to refill the water glasses.
“None for me, thanks,” said Daisy.
“Just coffee for me,” said Logan. “On second thought, bring the chocolate raspberry torte, and two forks.”
“You’re determined to corrupt me,” she accused him, though she knew the dessert would be delicious.
When the plates were cleared, he stood and held out his hand, palm up. “Dance with me.”
“Uh…sure.” They joined the other slow-dancing couples. He held her gently and they swayed to a soft song. It occurred to her that she had never danced with Logan before. Strange to think they’d made a baby together, he had once impulsively proposed to her and been turned down, yet they’d never had a date and had never danced together.
She liked it so much that they continued for three more sets. It was easy. Comfortable. They seem to fit together.
“Thanks,” she said as they sat down to share dessert. “You’re a good sport about dancing.”
He flashed her a grin. “Dancing’s not really my thing. I like dancing with you, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He leaned in across the table and lowered his voice. “Maybe you’re my thing.”
The way he said it, the way he looked at her, made her pull back to study his face, trying to read his purpose.
“Don’t act so surprised,” he said.
“I’m your thing?” she asked, incredulous. She couldn’t imagine how. Not only had she turned down his impulsive proposal, she’d gone abroad for half a year. How could she be his thing?
“Maybe you are,” he said. “No, you definitely are. You have been for a long time. You simply haven’t wanted to see it.”
“But—”
“Tell you what. Let’s dance again.” The piano player glissandoed into another slow song and he caught her in his arms. “And just so you know, after tonight, I want to take you on another date. A real, actual date where I pick you up and we go out and I bring you home.”
“Why?”
“Do you have to ask? We had a baby together—”
“We were kids—”
“We had this baby, a
nd now he’s our little boy, yet we’ve never been out on a date.”
“That’s because we don’t like each other. In that way, I mean. People who don’t like each other shouldn’t date.”
“I like you,” he insisted, bringing her close against him. “I’ve always liked you. Even when I hated myself, I liked you.”
She was touched by his stark honesty and by the gentleness of his embrace. “If this is how you like someone, I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”
“I have an insurance agency,” he said. “I have no enemies.”
She laughed, and it felt so good to laugh with someone, even Logan, with whom her complicated relationship was about to get more complicated. She was willing to let it, though, to take this risk. Lifting her hand, she ran her fingers up the lapel of his jacket. “I believe it,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”
His hand at her waist hugged her in closer still, and what had started out as a dance hold became an embrace. And it felt so wonderful to be held. It had been way too long.
“What’s that smile?” he asked.
“It feels nice to hold somebody who isn’t smeared with peanut butter and jelly.”
Daisy was still smiling when she got home much later, after a little more dancing and a lot more conversation. What a simple thing it was, to enjoy an evening out. She couldn’t believe how buoyant it made her feel, to simply set aside stress and worry, to relax and be with Logan. Logan, of all people.
She sat in the car to hear the end of the song playing on the radio. Then she got out and pulled the garage door shut. Logan said he wanted to take her on an actual date. In the restaurant parking lot, they had almost kissed. She caught herself wondering what that would have been like.
The thud of a car door closing startled her. Peering through the darkness, she could make out the gleaming shape of Logan’s SUV.
“Hey,” she said, meeting him on the front walk. “Did you forget something?”
“You could say that, yeah.” He pulled her into his arms and gave her a long, sweet kiss. “That’s what I forgot.”
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. The kiss was a delicious surprise. “I’m glad you remembered,” she told him.
“I can remember a lot of things, Daisy.” He took the keys from her hand and went to the front door, unlocking it.
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she said.
“Then what do you say we find out? We’ve been together before.”
“For one weekend, we were together. Not exactly something to build a future on.”
“What about this?” he asked, kissing her deeply. “Can we build a future on this?”
Recovering from his kiss, she said, “That’s not fair.”
They barely got the door shut behind them. He pressed her against it and kissed her long and hard as she clung to him, reaching out to him with all the aching loneliness inside her. There was no further talking in the suddenly urgent race to shed their clothes. They hurried, as if by silent mutual agreement that they did not want to be talked out of this.
Daisy offered not one more breath of protest. She wanted this, too. She wanted the release and surrender of feeling him next to her, the welcome weight of him covering her, filling the empty spaces and holding her through the night.
It was the first time she’d ever spent the entire night with a man. She gave it mixed reviews. On the one hand, it was a heady delight to cuddle up to a large, warm body; she felt cocooned and fulfilled in a way she’d never experienced before. On the other hand, because he was large, he took up a lot of room, and because he was warm, he tended to kick off the covers. She finally understood why people invested in king-size beds.
But on balance, the delight won out. She was made for this, for being held and caressed and kissed, deep into the night, and then for falling asleep from sweet exhaustion. She woke early, lying still while Logan slept on, breathing loudly but not quite snoring. Feeling a crick in her neck, she eased away from him.
“Not so fast,” he muttered, snaking an arm around her midsection and drawing her close. “I’m not done with you. Not even close.”
“I have to get going.”
“Going where? It’s the crack of dawn, Sunday morning.”
“I need to take a shower before church.”
“Skip the shower,” he said, nuzzling the back of her neck. “Skip church.”
To be honest, the idea appealed to her. There was something not quite right about heading off to church after a night of illicit sex. Or maybe the service was what she needed. “I have plans to meet Olivia at church and bring Charlie home.”
“Let’s shower together, then. And we’ll go to church together, too.”
She sat up, tucking the sheet under her armpits. “Whoa. I don’t think we should do that.”
“I’ll wash your back,” he said. “I’d do a really good job.”
She couldn’t deny a small thrill of excitement. Focus, Daisy. “I mean the church part. Not a good idea. Not today, anyhow.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not worried about coming out as a couple.”
“How can we be a couple? Until last night in the lobby of the Apple Tree Inn, I didn’t even know we were dating.”
“Sweetheart. This has been a long time coming.”
“We haven’t even figured out what this is. How do we even define it?”
“Who says we have to? We’re together, we have the greatest kid in the world and everything is fan-effing-tastic.” He stretched luxuriously, knocking a file folder off the bedside table. “Sorry,” he said, picking up the photo prints that spilled out. “Is this a work thing?”
She bit her lip, feeling nervous as he flipped through the photos. These were very personal shots, her goodbye project to Julian, taken the day she’d revisited all their special places. “It’s sort of work. Not for the firm, though.”
“I hope not. Jeez, they’re depressing as hell,” he said, frowning at a close-up of a leaf being washed downstream.
Really? When she looked at the shots, she saw layers of emotion, but not depression. “I was planning to submit them to a juried show at the MoMA. It’s really competitive, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“So even more people can be depressed? Honey, you don’t need to run yourself ragged entering shows and taking downer pictures. Weren’t you voted best wedding photographer in Ulster County this year? You should stick with what you’re best at.”
“I’ll think about that while I’m in the shower.” She slipped from the bed and felt instantly self-conscious, so she snatched up her robe and hurriedly pulled it on. “Oh, God, this is an awkward moment.”
He lounged back on the pillows, grinning at her. “Not for me. An awkward moment never killed anyone.”
“True.”
“And they’re over fast.”
“That’s why they’re called moments,” she said nervously. Lame, Daisy. She scurried to the bathroom. Just stop talking before you’re so lame you can’t even walk.
Since she had made the decision to date, she had to be conscious of many more things, like the tidiness of her bathroom. Personal grooming took on a new emphasis. Charlie never cared if she remembered to shave her legs, but now she was forced to attend to such details. Not this morning, though. This morning, she just wanted to be quick.
Hers was an older house, and the plumbing creaked and groaned when she turned on the shower. The tub was an antique claw-footed affair, which was great for baths, but who had time for a bath? The shower was a makeshift arrangement consisting of a spray nozzle and plastic curtain on a rickety metal rod. But the hot water felt heavenly as she worked the kinks out of her neck, gently rubbing her soapy hand over the area.
The curtains stirred, and suddenly Logan was there.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself. Hand me the soap, will you?”
“There’s not enough room here for
both of us,” she said. “We don’t fit.”
He gently ran his hands over her neck and shoulders. “We’ll make it work.”
Despite the warmth of the water running over her, she felt a shiver of remembrance. He’d said those words to her before, long ago. He’d said them on the night they’d made Charlie.
Fifteen
November 2006
Daisy had lied through her teeth to get her parents to let her spend the weekend on Long Island. Her friend Frida, from school, would provide the cover. Frida’s family had a beach house in Montauk—that much was true. Daisy begged her parents to let her spend the weekend there.
That was the lie.
The O’Donnells had a place in Montauk, too. Logan O’Donnell had let it be known through the school underground that he was planning a massive party. His parents were in Ireland. He and his friends would have the place all to themselves.
Daisy wasn’t proud of the deception, but she had to get away. She had to. The house was like a funeral parlor, with unhappiness lurking in the corners, infesting the curtains and seeping up through the cracks in the floor. Her parents had told her and Max that yes, it was official. They were throwing in the towel. Their marriage was over. No more trial separations, no more pretending things were normal. Mom and Dad were splitting up. The Bellamys would never be a family again.
Max, her younger brother, actually took the news okay, better than he’d taken their marriage. Something about the strain of all those years of trying used to get to Max. He had tantrums and refused to learn to read, which drove their parents nuts. Once they resigned themselves to splitting up, however, Max actually started acting like a normal, happy kid, which probably meant that in the long term, this was the right thing to do.
Daisy was slower to come around. The shrink they took her to said she had to feel her feelings, whatever the hell that meant. She turned her pain and anger into a deep capacity for deception and won their permission to head out for the weekend. Probably they were being lenient because they felt so guilty about everything.
The promised weekend party was a full-blown crazy-fest. It was exactly what she needed. Even before she entered the house, perched at the top end of Long Island, she could hear the deep belly pulse of the stereo, blasting Usher’s latest hit. The place was a stone’s throw from Bernie Madoff’s, and he was, like, one of the richest guys in New York. She turned to her girlfriend Kayla and grinned. “I think we found it.”
