Clean Slate

by Holley Trent

  She crossed her legs at the ankles and tried not to fall over when Ben brushed her side with his and leaned down to whisper into her curls, “Are you holding out on us? What’s in your hair?”

  She sucked in some air. “Just…just some lavender stuff I’ve been playing with to get the frizz under control.”

  “It’s divine.” He inhaled deeply and straightened up. “Seems almost edible.”

  She let out a little whimper as he pulled and released one of her curls before walking to the other end of the table. Thankfully, he didn’t hear it.

  Daisy, Daisy, dork-dork.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Clara Thys couldn’t make sense of the jumble of emotions she felt, although that wasn’t unusual for her. Her medications generally kept her at even keel at the expense of any significant display of emotion. She hated feeling like a machine, merely going through the motions of life rather than actually living it. She hadn’t always been that way. In fact, when she was a young woman, years younger than her grown sons, she had a certain joie de vivre—downright happy-go-lucky. Trusting.

  Too trusting.

  As a woman of barely eighteen, she had worked the reception desk at a hotel that catered to business travelers. Back then it’d all been so glamorous, or at least she felt that way having grown up in the country. With her blonde hair slicked back in a bun and dressed up in her smart, navy blue skirt suit, she’d felt so sophisticated even amidst the handsome businessmen who flicked their credit cards across the counter at her without even meeting her gaze.

  But there’d been one man who looked at her. He’d smiled at her and told her goedemorgen—good morning—in fairly passable Dutch. He actually thanked her after she registered his room, and made sure to nod at her each time he passed the counter.

  It wasn’t until he returned six weeks later that he asked her name.

  “Clara,” she’d said and he’d kissed her hand.

  She blew the memories away on a ragged exhale and studied the contents of her pill bottle. Three. Her doctor had been stepping her down. He didn’t know how long it would take for her to feel anything again beyond her typical inadequacy, but she worried it’d all barrel into her like a freight train over a soda can.

  What choice did she have, though? Feel nothing and be nothing? Or feel everything and try to be something more than she had been in thirty years, even if it meant she was courting irrationality.

  She’d been dumb. She’d made a mistake—a lot of mistakes—but she couldn’t feel her way through life like a zombie seeking heat anymore. Jerry, the son she didn’t get to raise—the one who was far too accommodating of her, had reminded her of how dead she was. He’d asked if she was going to stand back and watch from distance when his children were born.

  No. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t do that again. She wasn’t going to let Louis steal that from her, too.

  After tucking the bottle back into her toiletry case, she headed to the back garden where she sat at the small cast iron table she’d shared so many glasses of wine with Ben in the past.

  Ben. Sweet, funny Ben. The only salve she’d had during all that time, and now he’d gone off after his brother. She couldn’t blame him. If she’d had siblings she’d probably want to be close to them, too. She knew Ben, and because of that was perfectly at peace with him leaving her behind. He may not have known it, but she’d felt the permanence of his departure in her bones.

  He needed his brother at this point in life more than he needed his sad sack of a mother. He’d want to be near Jerry. She’d seen their camaraderie. It was as it should have been—if she’d had both boys in Belgium with her and not one stolen away and raised overseas.

  She pushed her reading glasses onto her nose and pulled the cordless phone out of her cardigan pocket. She dialed. It took her three tries, but she finally got all the digits in and in the right order.

  An answer. “Clara, is that you?” Trinity asked. “You looking for one of the boys?”

  Clara nudged her glasses off and folded the arms over the lenses. “You can understand me, yes?”

  Trinity laughed. “Most of the time. Ben’s helping familiarize me with the accent.”

  “You can…”

  I wish she spoke a little French or German.

  “…ask him to translate if you need. Would it be well if I went early?”

  A pause. “Went early? You mean, come here sooner than the wedding?”

  “Yes. I have time…”

  “Oh! Yes, absolutely. Come whenever you want. Jerry’ll be so stoked.”

  Stoked? “That is good? Stoked?”

  “Oh, sorry. Yes. Stoked is very good.”

  Clara wasn’t sure if she was just blowing smoke up her ass, but she appreciated the enthusiasm all the same.

  “I will fly there on Monday if they let me.”

  “Should be fine. Louis said it was a fully refundable ticket, so…”

  Louis. She hated that he’d spent the money. It felt a bit dirty—like some kind of inadequate pay-off for all he’d put her through, but she’d rather it be his money than Jerry’s. Louis certainly had enough. That heks he married made sure of it.

  “I will call you. Tell you my plans.”

  “We’ll make up a room for you.”

  She disconnected and put the phone back in her pocket. As she studied the sky, connecting stars into their respective constellations, she pondered if Jerry and Trinity would really let her in—wondered what they really thought about her. Did they think she was weak?

  Well, she was, but would they forgive her for it?

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Daisy, honey, you look a little bit shell-shocked,” Liz said as she pushed her phone headset back and turned away from her computer.

  Daisy dead-bolted the front door and shuffled into the living room, dragging her messenger bag behind her. Long day, and an emotionally draining one at that. She’d spent so much time “on” at the trade show, smiling and chatting with strangers, that by the time she and Ben broke down their display, she had nothing left. The drive home had been blessedly short of conversation only because she fell asleep somewhere between Raleigh and Knightdale.

  He didn’t wake her until they were traversing the Chowan River Bridge and he needed help finding her house in the dark. He’d squeezed her knee to wake her and she’d looked over at him, face all perfect planes and angles in the dark, and thought for a one sleep-drunk moment that he was an angel. Then she wiped the drool off her chin and sat up.

  “Long day, Liz.” Daisy hung her bag’s strap over the coat hook and heeled off her shoes.

  “Where exactly were you? I woke up and you were gone. Oops, don’t answer. Call coming in.” She turned around and clicked open a box on her computer display. “Thank you for using Weldon Moving Vans. Are you having a mechanical issue?”

  Daisy blew out a breath and left Liz to her work. She didn’t really want to talk about it, anyway. Liz would pick and prod, and while she was usually well-intentioned and genuinely curious, the fact of the matter remained. Liz was her ex-husband’s sister, and although Liz and Barry weren’t always on the best of terms, information always got back to him. Liz couldn’t help running her mouth. That was how she was wired, and asking her to keep a secret was like expecting a sieve to hold water.

  Daisy padded into her room, the smallest of the three in the house, and collapsed onto her bed with her clothes on. Her first-ever trade show, and if she were lucky, her last. As she watched Ben charm everyone in a half-mile radius, she’d stood back in awe of the ease in which he engaged people. It was so easy for him, and English wasn’t even his second language. Was it his third? Fourth?

  Were all Europeans so fluent in other tongues, or was it just Ben having grown up near the border and spending so much time in International competition?

  “Now, that’s the kind of question you should ask him, dork, if you can remember how to talk the next time you see him.”

  Which would be the next day. She sa
t up, wild-eyed and agape as she remembered her promise to Trinity about the chicken.

  “Daiiiisy, are you talking to yourself again?” Ellis sang from her doorway, wearing a big-ass grin. He’d always thought she was a little nuts. Maybe he was right.

  She didn’t even bother blushing. She just flopped backward onto the bed again directed a groan toward the ceiling.

  The next morning, she drove to Trinity and Jerry’s house and idled her little car in the driveway for a few minutes, staring at the architecture of the single-story modern home and envying their possession of it. Well, Jerry’s possession, anyway. He’d bought the land for a steal and built the house based on the design of one his old surfing buddies. Daisy had always admired it every time she had an opportunity to pass, but had never been invited inside until now. She was rarely extended invitations anywhere because of that whole “wallflower” thing.

  She steeled her resolve, shut off the engine, and stepped out of the car.

  Trinity waved from the door.

  “Did you talk to Nikki?” she called out, voice far more excited than her usual even tone. In fact, Daisy thought the grin on her face was far too animated for her usual mien, too.

  Daisy made her way up the gravel path and crooked one eyebrow up. “No, was I supposed to?”

  Trinity held the door open and bobbed her head toward the inside. “Come on in, and I’ll tell you about your soap.”

  Daisy stepped over the threshold and paused, taking in the light, open room and marveling at tasteful fixtures and furnishings. Jerry did this? She scanned the great room in search of him.

  Trinity must have read her mind, because she said, “Jerry and Ben are moving some things around in the guest apartment. Clara’s flying in tomorrow so we’re trying not to look like the slobs we are.”

  “Slobs?”

  There wasn’t so much as a coaster out of place.

  Trinity shrugged. “Come on into the kitchen and have a drink with me. I’ve got fruity crap Jerry makes fun of, or you can have something dry.”

  “Fruity sounds fine.”

  “Thatta girl.” Trinity grabbed a glass out of the drying rack and held it under the spout of a boxed sangria. She bobbed her head and winked. “Classy, right?”

  “Convenient. No corks.”

  “You’re logical. I like logical people.” Trinity thrust the glass at her and Daisy took it, sipping it slowly.

  Once she’d filled her own glass, Trinity leaned her back against the counter and said, “So, Nikki called about an hour ago. I guess she didn’t expect to start getting feedback in so soon, but a lot of folks who took soap samples yesterday have already tried them.”

  Daisy’s stomach clenched. She wrapped her fingers around the back of one of the kitchen chairs and pulled it away from the table to melt into it. “Okay?”

  Trinity put down her drink and counted off on her fingers. “One, they were in love with scents, especially the orange cream. There were at least two reports of people trying to lick them and regretting it.”

  Daisy cringed.

  “Two, they liked the way the soaps felt when wet. They were very creamy and melted the way they liked.”

  “I like soaps that are a bit malleable when wet.”

  “Yeah, which is good for sample sizes, but full-sized bars? Might be a problem. That brings us to three. Some people liked the idea of the lemon soap becoming liquid hand soap. They asked if we had it. Nikki hedged.”

  “That’s easy to do. I make my own hand soap.”

  “And you never told anyone?”

  “No one asked.”

  Trinity narrowed her eyes at her briefly. “And related to larger bars, the overwhelming response was that they wanted a full-size orange cream soap, but they wanted a bit more lather.

  Daisy closed her eyes and groaned. “I worried about that.”

  “You’ve got time to fix it. Feedback is coming in, but I fully expect tomorrow by the development meeting Nikki’s going to want to escalate that into a permanent product as well as one more soap.”

  “Which?”

  Trinity picked up her drink and shrugged. “Knowing Nikki, probably something people haven’t seen yet. Be ready with some ideas.”

  “Wow.”

  Wow was an understatement. Daisy had been itching to pitch her own ideas to Nikki for months, and now things were snowballing. It was a small snowball. Manageable. But what next? Did it mean Nikki trusted her now? Or did it mean Nikki was still testing her? What would Momma say?

  She went dizzy at the thought. Momma is going to nag until she turns blue in the face. She pulled her lips back and started laughing uncontrollably. Blue in the Face. Perfect name for a facial soap.

  “Are you all right, Daisy? Do I need to cut you off already?” Trinity held her glass under the little tap and topped off her drink.

  “No, sorry. I’m okay.” She wiped away the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “Just feeling a bit crazed.”

  “Join the club. I was at that place last night when I found out Clara was flying in.”

  Daisy downed her drink in one long gulp and let out a shuddering breath. “So, fried chicken?”

  Trinity’s eyes widened behind her drink glass. She lowered it to the counter and walked to the freezer. Seconds later, she tossed a frozen ice block with a chicken label onto the counter. “Sorry.”

  Daisy pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and laughed again. “Figures. How about you leave it out and I’ll come back at dinnertime?”

  “Eh.” Trinity picked up her glass. “What’s the hurry? You have somewhere to be?”

  Daisy opened her mouth to talk, then closed it. No, actually she had absolutely no place to be, and couldn’t even go home. Barry was at the house. When she’d left, he’d been sitting on the sofa next to Liz with his hand stuffed down the front of his pants, waiting for coffee to brew.

  “Where the fuck you going?” he’d asked as she pushed her feet into her shoes at the door.

  She hadn’t answered because it wasn’t any of his goddamned business anymore. It’d stopped being his business the day her surname reverted to Mooring.

  Liz had called her during the drive out to the county and asked a similar question, but Daisy actually answered for her. “Work stuff, she’d said.”

  “I’ll try to get him out of here before too late. I’m sorry, honey. You know how he is,” Liz had said.

  “Too well,” Daisy had responded before disconnecting.

  Thunder shook the Earth and Daisy startled, splashing her wine onto her good white blouse. Shit.

  Trinity leaned over the sink and craned her neck to see the sky through the window. “I think the sky’s going to open up.” She set down her glass yet again and jogged to the side door. “Need to close the Jeep windows. Be right back.”

  No sooner had the screen door slammed did the rain—fierce, ferocious torrents of rain—begin to pelt the windows. Daisy moved to the door and just barely made out Trinity’s shape scurrying around the yellow vehicle and pulling open the doors. She was hardly twenty feet away, yet the heavy rain made her a blur.

  She ran back shrieking—completely doused with her mascara running down her cheeks. “I bet you those idiots are going to try to bodysurf it.”

  Daisy let her face scrunch with her confusion. “Surf?”

  “Just wait.”

  She didn’t have to wait long. The undeveloped field visible from the wide kitchen picture window began to flood, and suddenly two tall, lean figures carrying boogie boards ran out into it and slid into the muddy water, skimming across it until they both flipped and fell into the boggy ditch.

  Daisy turned to Trinity for explanation.

  Trinity shrugged and sipped.

  * * *

  Ben felt foolish playing in the mud like some kid in new galoshes, but it was so damned liberating a thing to hang loose and let his inhibitions fly away. He knew how it must have looked to the women standing under the protection of the porch roo
f—a couple of guys in their early thirties, surfing into a flooded ditch in drowning rain. They probably looked pretty immature. Well, he’d never been one to pretend to be anything he wasn’t, and being with Jerry was just fun.

  “I think Trinity could use a bit of a mud facial before the wedding,” Jerry shouted, wearing a shit-eating grin and jostling Ben back to reality.

  Ben put up his hands. “I refuse to be a witness to the ensuing bloodshed.”

  He didn’t think it was possible, but his brother’s grin went even bigger. He pushed his drenched, long hair back from his eyes and tucked his board under his arm. “It’ll be worth it if only for the make-up sex.”

  “I so didn’t hear that.”

  “Yeah, you might want to sleep in the apartment tonight.”

  Ben followed his brother to the house, his curiosity gnawing at him far more than his sense of self-preservation ever did.

  “Hey, pixie?” Jerry dropped his board in front of the porch and leapt onto the edge.

  Trinity leaned against one of the porch columns and crossed her arms over her chest. “What?”

  Jerry held up one of his hands and showed her front and back. “I lost that ring I got in Hawaii after winning that surfing tournament. Can you help us look? It’s hard to see. Maybe if we all look…” he turned his gaze toward Daisy who’d been watching them with bemusement. “It won’t disappear into the muck.”

  Trinity rolled her eyes and wedged her cell phone out of her shorts pocket. She set it inside the door on the console table and kicked off her leather flip-flops. “Where do you think it is?”

  Jerry bobbed his head toward the road. “Few feet from the ditch, probably. Let’s find it before it gets washed in.”

  She hopped off the porch and squeaked at the force of the rain. They ran off, hand-in-hand.

  “Can I help?” Daisy asked, already heeling off her shoes.

  I should say no.

  “What does it look like?” She peeled her baseball cap off and let her bountiful hair expand into a magnificent red halo.