Upsy Daisy: A First Love College Romance

by Smartypants Romance

“Trevor?”

  “Yes,” I answered loving the sound of my name on Daisy’s lips.

  “I’m not mad, you know. I know how strongly you feel about keeping your word. Julian told me that was why you felt you had to serve on the TDC as part of your position. I understand why you agreed to be on the council.”

  Jules, bless him, was covering for me. I was obligated to serve, but I was not obligated to serve on her case.

  “Daisy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I stepped down off the case.”

  “You did?”

  “Weeks ago, yes. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want to work on anything that would hurt you. I was—I am tired of hurting you. I just couldn’t.”

  Daisy stopped skating so abruptly that I almost ran into her. I pulled her to the edge under the shadow of a massive snow-dusted fir.

  “Are you ok—”

  I didn’t get to finish my thought. She snaked her hand around my neck, pulled me lower, and kissed me again.

  I kissed her back, loving the way her mouth opened the moment our lips touched. Loving the way she pressed into me, as if she couldn’t get close enough.

  We kissed under the stars and it was perfect. My blood raced and I was wound tight as a drum but it was worth it. I slowed down the kiss, reminding myself to be careful. There were families around. There was even a preacher around.

  Daisy slyly licked my lip then bit it. “Why am I always the one kissing you?”

  I had trouble responding because I was still trying to gather my thoughts. I wondered if she had any idea—any clue whatsoever—what she did to me.

  I took her hand and spun her around so that her back was to my front. Daisy would feel what she did to me, but at least it wouldn’t be on full display for every man, woman, and child at the rink.

  I maneuvered us from the shadows just in time to see Julian skating very close with James, her entire body leaning back against his frame with his arm wrapped round her waist. James’s eyes were closed and he was smiling and whispering in her ear.

  I shook my head. Only Jules could pull off the impossible with that girl. He was charming as hell when he wanted to be.

  We skated all night, Daisy and I and then together with her friends. Eventually, we all got funnel cakes and Daisy and I argued good-naturedly, like old times. I couldn’t stop smiling and neither could she.

  “It’s too messy.”

  “It’s powdered sugar. Of course it’s messy,” she replied rolling her eyes.

  I resisted the urge to tug her hair. “That’s why you have to get it with chocolate sauce instead. Everybody knows that’s the only way to eat a funnel cake.”

  “Everybody knows you have a habit of doing sacrilegious things with food! You’re a sicko. What kind person ruins the crispy, fried, doughy bliss that is funnel cakes by adding chocolate sauce instead of powdered sugar! You—”

  I didn’t know if it was the word bliss, the fact that Daisy always got my blood moving when she sparred with me, or the fact that there was a delectable piece of powdered sugar right at the corner of her mouth, but I leaned down and licked the sugar away with a kiss.

  It did not compare to the sweetness of her mouth or the perfection of having her in my arms again.

  When it was time to leave, we escorted the girls back to their car. I asked after Daisy’s plans for the remainder of the week, wanting to give her space to be with her friends but also desperately wanting to spend every waking moment with her.

  We agreed to go Christmas shopping later that week and I left on cloud nine.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Trevor

  Cloud nine did not last. The following evening, after returning from Big Bun’s Burgers with Julian, my father and mother cornered me in my room.

  It was eerie, at least to me, that my room was exactly as I’d left it. Down to the pieces of Bazooka gum that I’d left on my desk and the Hank Aaron baseball card I’d gotten a few days before. The room was dotted with pictures of me that I didn’t even remember. Me at about aged six in a little league uniform that read Green Valley Grizzlies.

  Me and my mother and father posed for a professional portrait when I’d been about four.

  Another picture, smaller, of me standing over a baby bugging peering inside at Charlie.

  Even my clothes were still in my closet. The room felt like a shrine.

  My mother sat at the desk chair and my father stood in front of the door as if he were barring it.

  I sat up on the bed and put down the copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People that I’d been reading. The book had been an impromptu gift from Dr. Gwinn at the end of the semester. She knew the semester had been a difficult one though she hadn’t known the exact reason for it, and she’d inscribed words of motivation behind the jacket. “Seven down, and I’m so proud. One to go. Remember rule number two.”

  Rule number two was you were either working toward your goal or against it; there was no middle ground. Rule number one was, of course, to be early is to be on time, or as Daisy called it during one of our conversations this week, “time magic.”

  I smiled thinking of her, then dropped my smile as I remembered my parents were in my room and they wanted . . . something.

  “Hey Mom and Dad, what’s up?” The terms were stilted from disuse, and my mother began to fidget with the tea towel she held in her hands.

  “We wanted to talk to you, Trevor. You’ve been home almost a week now and we haven’t seen you much.”

  I bit back the urge to snap with something ugly like, “You haven’t seen much of me for the last nine years, so what’s the difference?”

  My parents were right; I hadn’t been around. I’d made it my business to get out and explore, and Jules was game to go, too. I think he’d fallen in love with Green Valley the moment he saw it covered in snow and looking like the idyllic countryside of some renaissance painting.

  So we’d stayed busy. Sometimes we let Charlie tag along, other times we didn’t.

  Charlie. The most surprising thing was that I bore no ill will toward my younger brother. He had been a baby and was just as much a victim of circumstance as I was. We’d been deprived of one another’s company. He was so eager to get to know me, he was effusive—too effusive. He reminded me of a bounding Labrador or a nippy poodle.

  I smiled at the thought and could almost hear Gracie saying, “That’s because you grew up in a repressive environment. Look at you, El, and Jules.”

  Charlie got along great with Jules too, and our decision to let him come along or to leave him behind was based on one thing: a deeply ingrained brotherly instinct to torture my younger brother in a good-natured way.

  “You’re right, I haven’t been around much.” There. That was both accurate and not snarky.

  My parents stared at me.

  I stared at my parents.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. And then I prayed for patience because I realized my parents were never going to address the elephant in the room. And I was never, ever going to be able to move forward unless I asked the questions I needed to ask.

  I exhaled the calming breath and decided the present was as good a time as any. “Why was it so important for you that I come home?”

  “You’re my son. Why wouldn’t it be important to me for you to come home?” This from my mother, who had twisted the tea towel into a knot.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because it never has been before.” I replied, my voice rising just a little.

  “That’s not true. We always wanted you home,” my father said.

  Then my father came and sat next to me on the bed. He sighed mightily. “Trevor, I know this isn’t a fancy place like you’re used to, and I know that maybe we’re a bit too plain spoken. But we’re never going to be able to make this work if you can’t come down a little off your high horse. We thought when you decided to come home—”

  “
What?” I was incensed. “Come down off my high horse? I have every right to have a high horse. I have all the horses. You all gave me away. You sent me to live with people that barely cared if I lived or died. You have no right to imply I’m a snob because of the people you chose to send me to live with!”

  My father and mother sat in stunned silence for a moment. And then my mother got up and she hugged me.

  My chest heaved and I felt suffocated by her touch. It was too much; too soft, too caring. She placed her palms on the side of my face and tilted my head to meet her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” She wept.

  I flinched.

  “Trevor, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

  She repeated the words over and over again until something in me broke. Hearing the tenderness and remorse in my mother’s voice sliced me open.

  I began to cry and she pulled me in to her, holding me tightly. She rocked me, patted me on the back and whispered, “It’s okay, son, let it out,” until my tears slowed. I hadn’t realized it but something inside me needed to hear those words. I needed to hear my parents apologize. My tears didn’t last long, but they were hot and cathartic.

  Then my father apologized.

  “I had no idea you felt that way, son. We had no idea.” He kept repeating solemnly.

  And then he told me a story.

  “In ‘62 me and Adolpho decided we were going to support the Movement. We were both too high profile to organize church meetings and the like, but we had financial means and knew we could help out in that way. It was all very hush-hush. We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. We were local business owners and we had enough to deal with facing the jealously that came with that.

  “We were funneling money to Brownsville, to Birmingham, to Memphis, wherever they needed it to do the work. Then the person we were using to move the money died, and we had to figure out another way to get the money to where it needed to go. We couldn’t wire it from anywhere in Green Valley so we tried sending it out of Maryville. We never did prove it, but Adolpho and I believe that’s where all the trouble started. Somehow or another, folks got wind of what we were doing and decided they should send us a message to stop.”

  I sat on my bed engrossed in his words. I had no clue my parents had been a part of any Civil Rights causes.

  “So that’s when business started to trickle and dry up. They boycotted my shop and Adolpho had to deal with a mutiny at the Mill. The difference though, was that too many folks needed Payton Mills for their livelihood so the Paytons weren’t hurt nearly as bad as we were. Us though? They nearly put us under.”

  “The boycott went on for over three years,” my mother said.

  “There years? Humph. Some folks still won’t shop there,” my father countered.

  “And we were desperate. We tried to get a loan from the bank and they called in our debts instead.” He shook his head in disgust.

  That, I remembered. My father coming home looking so defeated after being denied at the bank. My mother and father discussing it in hushed tones, thinking I had no clue what was going on.

  My father blinked hard twice, like he was fighting tears. “That was the lowest point in my life. To not be able to provide for y’all. One day, if you’re lucky, you'll have a family of your own and it’ll be the honor of your life to work to give them everything they need.

  “I don’t think you remember how bad it was but there were nights when there was no food in the house. It was winter and I couldn’t pay for oil to be delivered to the house. I was afraid you were going to catch your death.”

  “And you . . .” He looked at me and I was floored by the sincerity in his eyes, in his tone. “You deserved everything. Every good thing. Still do. I knew we had to get you out of here.”

  I felt a lump in my throat and struggled to swallow as I let this information sink in.

  My father cleared his throat a few times, unable to speak. My mother squeezed my hand and began speaking. “I called my cousin Marcus. He’d been able to help us in the past. He’d even been an investor when we’d first started the business. He put me in touch with May and she and I spoke about having you finish the school year and spending the summer with them,” my mother said.

  “She wasn’t supposed to steal you, Trevor. They were family.”

  “Steal me?”

  “We sent you there so you’d be spared the worst of our blight. Admittedly, we didn't come and get you at the end of the summer. We were still in dire straits. But I was in constant communication with May and she insisted that you never wanted to come to the phone, that you had adjusted so well, and that you never even mentioned our names.”

  I felt my blood pressure rise and my stomach churn. Of course I hadn’t mentioned their names. May told me there was no use whining about people who didn’t want me enough to keep me and who weren’t coming back to get me.

  “But a year went by and that next summer I couldn’t take it anymore. I told your father, poor or not, we needed to go get you. I hadn’t spoken to my baby. I didn’t know if you were all right. I needed to see you.” She gingerly touched my face. “And so we did.”

  “What?!”

  “Borrowed a car and drove all night to Charlotte.”

  Something in the back of my mind whispered, They kept their word. They came for you.

  “No one was there.”

  I knew immediately what had happened. “Julian and I split summers between sleepaway camps and the Marshall’s house in Hamptons.” I whispered more to myself than to my parents.

  “No one that worked at the house would tell us where you were, who you were with, if you were okay, when you’d be back. Nothing.”

  “We went to the cops,” my father said with a disgusted head shake. “They told us if we’d dropped our baby off a year ago, then why were we worried just now. And then they implied that we were making it up for attention, because ‘you know how our people like to carry on for attention.’” The disgust in his voice was palpable.

  “Nobody would help us,” my mother repeated sadly.

  “Adolpho was finally able to hunt down May and Marshall. He was important enough for them to answer his calls,” my father added.

  “And that was how we found you, two and half years later. We were still struggling financially, but things were starting to look up. We told May that we would be coming to get you and she told me flat out, ‘Children aren’t handbags. You can’t just give them away and pick them up when it’s convenient. He’s settled here and happy here.’ And then it was Julian, Julian, Julian. How unfair it was to Julian to lose his playmate. How you and Julian were like brothers. How you and Julian kept one another entertained. I told her I didn’t care, I wanted my son back!”

  Seeing that my mother had become emotional, my father cut in. “And then . . . Marshall called me and said that if we tried to take you they’d deploy an arsenal of lawyers and would keep us in court until you were eighteen. We were just getting back on our feet and we couldn’t have afforded to fight them even if we’d tried. We had no reason to think that the law or anyone else would help us out.

  “I tried to reason with them so many times.” He shook his head.

  Then my mother said quietly, “May called me one day and told me she’d let me talk to you. And you got on the phone . . .”

  Horror twisted my gut because I knew before she spoke what she was going to say.

  “And you told me that you wanted to stay. You didn’t want to come home and that you were having the time of your life.”

  I felt sick.

  Three years had gone by and I’d thought my parents didn’t want me. They hadn’t come for me. So yes, I’d lied to them on the phone. I’d wanted them to think I didn’t need them and that I was happy.

  “I lied. I wanted to come home every day.” I was cried out, yet tears still threatened to fall. I was so drained. I thought of how my parents had been consistently trying to contact me these last three years upon finding out
I was going to Fisk University.

  I’d ignored their letters and their calls. I’d made it worse.

  I couldn’t process how or why May or Marcus would fight to keep me when they never really wanted me. I suspected that May just hadn’t wanted my parents to have me; maybe she enjoyed pitting Jules and me against one another. I had no clue. What I did have was anger. Boiling and bright for that woman and her husband. I would have to work though it because they were Julian’s parents, but I couldn’t help but feel disdain at the thought of them.

  My father sighed wearily. “It never got easier not having you around. In fact, it hurt a lot. But we were able to console ourselves with thinking that you were thriving. Your mother . . .”

  My parents shared a furtive look. My mother looked away and my father swallowed hard before continuing, “You should know your mother was never on board with sending you away.”

  “BJ, there’s no reason to go down this road again—” My mother shook her head but my father cut her off.

  “No, Dell, he should know. They say mothers know best, right? And your mother . . .” He sighed again as if releasing a weight. “She had her doubts from the outset. Said something about May rubbed her the wrong way when they spoke. Tried to convince me that maybe you’d be better off here.”

  My mother squeezed my hand but otherwise remained silent. I couldn’t even begin to wonder how that conflict had played out between the two of them. It was clear after all this time that it was still touchy. My father finished with, “I know you probably don’t agree with the decision to send you away in the first place, but you should know it was me that pushed for it. So if you’re going to lay blame anywhere, it belongs with me.”

  My mother spoke and shook her head. “Stop that. We’ve had enough of that, haven’t we? Where have blame and shame gotten us? Nowhere. Same with anger. This is our chance. Our second chance, one I wasn’t always sure we’d get. Trevor, I might not have one hundred percent agreed with your father but I understood where he was coming from. He thought it would be temporary, he thought the time away would give you access to a better world.” My mother’s defense of my father’s decision, one that had clearly hurt, touched me. She was the type to always look for the good in a situation. I realized faintly that Daisy had that same trait, and maybe I’d been destined to love her because of that.