The Cinderella Deal

by Jennifer Crusie

  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?”

  “The wood’s cracked on most of these tables,” he said dully. “The dining room chairs don’t match. The dining room table’s all right, I guess.”

  She took a deep breath. “How long do I have to fix this?”

  Linc leaned back against the couch. “We’re supposed to leave on our honeymoon for four days starting tonight. We’ll be back on Monday. The first time we’re having guests is after a party at the faculty club next Saturday. The Crawfords, the Bookers, and Caroline and Evan are coming over afterward for drinks.”

  Daisy nodded, counting days. “Without the honeymoon, that’s eight days. We don’t need a honeymoon. I can fix this. I’ve got eight days.” She kept nodding. “I can fix this.”

  “Put your flowers in water first,” Linc said quietly.

  She looked at the blooms she had forgotten, still clutched in her hand. Daisies for the living room, yellow carnations for the dining room, a bright pink rose for her bedroom.

  “You were really happy that your things came, weren’t you?” Linc’s voice was gentle. “And I spoiled it.”

  “No.” Daisy felt ashamed. “You didn’t spoil it. I’m not used to living … like an adult, I guess. This stuff is great for me, but it’s a disaster for you. I should have seen it.” She met his eyes. “I’m truly sorry.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders, and they slumped back into the overstuffed couch together and stared at their mutual problem.

  “Do you really think you can fix it?” He absent-mindedly stroked her cheek with his thumb.

  Daisy nodded, feeling his thumb move against her face with each nod. “I can fix anything. I just need to think.”

  Cover up the holes, she thought, leaning her cheek against his hand. That would be a piece of cake. Slipcovers. She’d made slipcovers for Julia last year. Cracked tables that didn’t match could be fixed with wood putty and paint, though she’d miss the wood. She could paint it all a bright blue. No. This was for Linc. She could paint it all white. She could bring out the detailing in the wood with the major color in the slipcovers. If she could find flowered fabric, maybe she could copy some of the flowers on the tabletops. Or stencil them in a border around the walls.

  The more she thought about it, the more enthusiastic she became. It would be like a huge detailed painting, only it would be a house. It could be fun. It really could all work out.

  She fought back her rising panic. She could make it work.

  Linc watched her, her brow furrowed as she thought. I’ve got to be more careful of her, he thought. One cross word and her world was gone. He hadn’t needed to yell the way he had. She wasn’t dumb. He’d just been so … mad. So embarrassed. She embarrassed him all the time. Maybe that said a lot more about him than it did about her.

  He eased his arm out from around her shoulders and gently took the flowers from her grasp. When he took them out to the kitchen to put them in water before he went back to the college, she didn’t even notice he left.

  If I pick up the pressed-wood detailing in the dining room chairs with the same color, she thought, I can make them look like a deliberately mismatched set. She could put seat cushions on them too. And she could stencil the tabletop in the same color. She could make the whole house look like a piece of art.

  “I can do this, Linc.” She looked for him, but he was gone.

  She measured the couch and chairs and then added up the yardage. It was astronomical. Okay, flowers for the couch and one chair. The rest in a nice, cheap solid. And paint. She’d get paint and call Linc and ask him to pick it up on his way home. She could carry the fabric home. No problem.

  And then she had to remember to get married tonight too.

  She found a bolt of yellow fabric flowered in dusty blue and peach that was marked down. Then she took the fabric to the paint store and matched the colors.

  “Two gallons of the peach,” she told the boy at the counter, “two of the blue, two of the yellow, and three of glare white. And I need something to fill in cracks in wood tables. I’ll be painting over the stuff, so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.”

  “Fine.” He finished writing the list and then smiled at her. “Do you want to wait while I mix it?”

  “No. My … husband will pick it up later.” My husband, she thought. Very strange words.

  The boy wrote up the bill and gave her the total and she wrote a check, this time for ninety-eight dollars and forty-three cents. With what she’d dropped on the fabric, she was spending more in one day than she used to spend in a month. It was a sobering thought.

  “Could you give me your husband’s name for the pickup ticket?” the boy asked.

  “Linc Blaise. B-l-a-i-s-e.”

  He looked up. “Dr. Blaise? The history prof out at the college? He’s great. I’m Andrew Madden, Mrs. Blaise. I’m one of the students he tutors.”

  “Hi, Andrew. I’m Daisy.” Daisy held out her hand, and Andrew took it a
nd shook it with enthusiasm. “I’ll tell him you like his class. He’ll be so pleased.”

  “Oh, don’t tell him.” Andrew flushed. “He doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “Of course he does,” Daisy said, not at all sure that he did.

  On the way home she passed the vet’s and thought again, absentmindedly, how nice it was that he was close. And then she thought about Andrew.

  She’d never heard Linc talk about him. She’d never heard Linc talk about any of his students. Of course, school had been in session only a week, but she’d talked about everybody she’d ever known. Maybe it was just because Linc wasn’t a talker. But maybe it was because he didn’t get to know his students. She quickly squelched the thought. Linc was a wonderful teacher. Andrew said so. He—

  She heard the squeal of brakes and a thump and saw a car go past out of the corner of her eye, and then she saw the dog.

  A little skinny black-and-white mutt was lying on its side, moving feebly against the concrete. Daisy dropped her paper-wrapped bolt of fabric and ran to it. Its eyes were dull, and it had stopped moving.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re okay.” She pulled off her sweater and wrapped it around the dog and went to get the bolt. She put the bolt on the pavement and gently lifted the dog onto it as if it were a stretcher. Then she picked it up and carried it back down the block to the vet’s.

  She banged on the door, and a young man in a white T-shirt and jeans answered it.

  “This dog’s been hit,” she said, out of breath. “Is the vet in?”

  “That’s me.” He opened the screen door.

  Daisy followed him into a lab room and put the bolt on a table. She watched the vet examine the dog carefully, concerned and gentle. What a lovely man, Daisy thought. What gentle brown eyes. What warmth. You’d need warmth to be a vet. How lucky for this puppy to have this nice man to take care of him.

  He looked up and caught her staring at him, and she blushed. He smiled at her.

  She leaned forward, anxious about the dog. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “When did he lose his eye?”

  Daisy felt her heart break with sympathy. “He’s only got one eye?”

  “Didn’t you know?”

  “I just met him about a minute ago. Is he going to be all right? He’s just a puppy.”

  “No, he’s not,” the vet said. “He’s more than a year, maybe two.”

  “He’s so little.”

  The vet nodded. “He’s underfed. Probably a stray, since he doesn’t have a tag. He’ll be bigger when he stands up. He’s got legs like stilts, and one of them’s broken, so he’ll limp for a while. I can splint the leg and keep him for free for a couple of days but …”

  “I’ll pay for him.” Daisy nodded. “My name’s Daisy Blaise, and he’s my dog now. Just make him well again.”

  “Hello, Daisy,” the vet said, and held out his hand. “I’m Art Francis.”

  Daisy took it and shook it with pleasure. “Hello, Dr. Francis.”

  “No.” His eyes were warm on her. “Art.”

  “Art.” She was so happy about the dog that she smiled at him, her full megawatt smile, and he looked lost for a minute.

  Daisy stroked the dog’s head. “I’ll take him home with me when he’s ready, but he’ll have to make friends with my cats.”

  “The limp should slow him down and help him get acquainted.” Art watched her. “Come in and visit him.”

  “I will.” Daisy leaned close to the dog so he could see her with his good eye. “Every day. Poor little guy.”

  “Got a name for him? Or should I just write Dog Doe on his card?”

  “He needs a powerful name,” Daisy said. “Like Hercules.” They both looked down at the dog doubtfully. “Or Jupiter. Jupiter is the good luck planet too. Maybe he’s my good luck.”

  Art lifted an eyebrow at her. “A one-eyed crippled dog with a broken tail is good luck?”

  Daisy blinked. “His tail’s broken too?”

  “See that bend in it?”

  “Oh, Jupiter, you poor baby.” Daisy stroked his head again.

  “Jupiter is the perfect name for this dog,” Art said. “He just lucked out completely.”

  “Jupiter.” Daisy looked at Art and smiled again.

  “Maybe he’ll be good luck for me too,” Art said. “Come back soon, Daisy.”

  I should have told him I’m getting married, Daisy thought as she carried the fabric home. Except she wasn’t really, not permanently. Only for a year. Ten months. And then …

  If she married a vet, she’d have lots of animals. And he was so sweet. And so warm. And he didn’t look at her as if she were a disaster in the making.

  Tomorrow I’ll tell him I’m married, she decided. It was only fair, but when she got home, she sat at the bottom of the stairs and shivered. She shouldn’t have been smiling at a vet. She was getting married. In five hours. To a cold man with chrome furniture who was constantly embarrassed by her instead of to someone warm who loved animals. This was wrong.

  Julia found her there still shivering half an hour later.

  “Daisy?”

  “I’m scared,” she told Julia. “I’m really, really scared.”

  Julia nodded. “I would be too. Come on, I have the solution.”

  Linc stood by the judge and endured a friend of Chickie’s who was singing “True Love.” Chickie must have picked out the music. Daisy would have chosen something a little more vivid, like “Great Balls of Fire.” The music changed and he looked out of the gazebo and down the white carpet that stretched across the Crawfords’ lawn.

  Julia was walking unsteadily down the carpet with a ring of daisies in her hair, dressed in some sort of gold floaty dress. She looked very cute but very wobbly. She’s drunk, he thought. Which meant Daisy was too. Julia must have had to get her loaded to get her through this.

  He looked past Julia and saw Daisy.

  She was wearing white again, and she had daisies in her hair, and a little piece of veil over her eyes. She met his eyes and smiled at him, her megawatt smile loosened a little by alcohol. She looked unstable, and wild, and absolutely enchanting, and her smile made him weak. She stumbled slightly when she got to the steps of the gazebo, and he moved forward and took her elbow to steady her.

  “Easy, Magnolia,” he whispered.

  She looked into his eyes and smiled that smile again. “Hello, love,” she said, and he closed his eyes because she was so warm.

  “Dearly beloved,” the judge began, and Linc concentrated on propping Daisy up through the ceremony. She did very well, but he held on to her tightly anyway in case she suddenly developed a lurch. He knew the people watching probably took it for husbandly devotion. Good for them.

  Daisy said her vows clearly, none of which involved lying in front of God, and he slid the ring on her finger.

  “You may kiss the bride,” the judge said, and Linc looked down into eyes that were full of warmth and love and wine.

  He bent and kissed her. She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, and his arms went around her to keep her from falling backward and to hold her close. Her lips were so warm and soft that he felt himself drowning in the feel of her mouth on his, and his breath went away. There are people watching, he thought, and he let her go. Her eyes were half closed and her mouth was full and open, and he wanted to kiss her again, immediately, again and again.

  She opened her eyes and said, “Wow,” and he pulled her hand through his arm and walked her back down the aisle while she clung to him.

  “That was some kiss,” Daisy said breathlessly when they were alone by the rose arbor.

  “You’re some bride.” Linc kissed her forehead, not trusting himself with her mouth. “How much did the two of you have to drink?”

  “A bottle of wine. I was a little nervous.”

  “About me?”

  “No!” Daisy looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I know all about you. I just don’t
know about marriage.”

  You don’t know all about me, he thought. If she did, she wouldn’t have married him. Because she didn’t know how much he wanted her, and how much he wished he didn’t. Make a note not to kiss Daisy again, he told himself.

  “Congratulations!” Chickie grabbed him and kissed him and then fell on Daisy with glad cries, and the reception started. Gertrude kissed Daisy’s cheek and patted Linc on the back, an absolute outburst of emotion for her, and Linc was touched. Pansy wept on everybody. Crawford patted all the women. Julia met Evan York and stayed with him for the whole afternoon, fascinated by his prophecies of doom.

  Linc and Daisy just smiled and drank.

  Later, the things Linc remembered most about his wedding were Daisy’s kiss at the altar, his mother’s look of grim approval, and the taste of the pumpkin cake.

  It was really very good cake.

  SEVEN

  BY THE TIME the reception was over, Daisy was so tired and so full of champagne that Linc carried her over the threshold, not because of any tradition but because she couldn’t walk. He put her on her bed, threw her quilt over her, and staggered back to his own bed. In the morning he didn’t mention the wedding kiss, and neither did she, and they both went to work on their own projects. Linc noticed that Daisy was trying to fix the house, but mostly he worked on his classes, his tutoring, and, wonder of wonders, his book.

  “You know,” he told Daisy two days after the