Page 14 of Summer Ever After
“What?” The three girls seemed to momentarily sober up, their eyes were trained on me. “What do you mean she’d never heard of her?”
I was going to have to spell it out for them. “Daisy had me drop her off at the wrong house. She didn’t live there. She doesn’t know her phone number.”
Jess shook her head. “I doubt that her name is even Daisy. It’s sounded suspect since the start.”
I slapped my hands on the arm of the chair and prepared to pull my exhausted and mildly stoned/drunk body from the chair. “That’s the story. I met an awesome girl who I will never see again.” The reality set in and I slid back in the chair. “Maybe I will have another one of those.” I pointed to the cooler.
“Not so awesome if you ask me.” Jess got up from her chair and handed me a bottle of water. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.” Her eyes were kind as she smiled at me.
“I just don’t understand.” The anger had officially left my body and it had been replaced with something I didn’t like – sadness. I had been looking for a woman like Daisy all my life. I had started to wonder if someone like her existed. Now I had proof that what I wanted was real, and somehow that made it seem worse.
Jess sighed. “Jenny is probably right. Maybe she got wrapped up in the moment and has a boyfriend.”
I shook my head. “I just can’t believe that. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe she’s a fugitive.” Ramona leaned her head against the wooden slats of the chair. “She was going to murder you, but you charmed the knife out of her hand. Consider yourself lucky.”
The smile spread across my face, even though I didn’t want it to. “I didn’t get a serial killer vibe from her either.”
“Ooh. What if she’s in the witness protection program and told you the RIGHT name, now she’s freaking out that the mafia will find her now.”
Ramona’s scenario was the least likely. “Keep them coming, this is making me feel better.” I laughed. I was Max Starling, I could have any woman in the world. Why was I letting a woman with holes in her shoes get to me?
Amanda tapped her lip. “Maybe she lives in the trailer park and was embarrassed. You hooked up with a trashy townie.” She slapped the arms of her chair and giggled as she drew her knees to her chest.
“That doesn’t feel right either.”
“Did she have all her teeth?” Jenny asked. Her voice was sincere.
I chugged the entire bottle of water. “Alright. I’m done with you ladies.” Standing, I tossed the plastic bottle into the recycling bin. “Yes, she had perfect teeth.”
“Good night, Maxine,” Jess smiled. “Have a safe drive to the city tomorrow.”
“Good night.” I waved. “I hope that the hangover gods are looking over you four tomorrow.”
Leaving the bonfire behind, I headed to the boathouse to get my saddlebags. The waves lapped against the hull of the small boat I used to get back and forth from the island. It sat next to my wakesurfing boat, and the antique boat my dad had given me on my twenty-fifth birthday.
I was able to bypass the bonfire and slipped into the quiet of my cottage. My mudroom had a cubby specifically for my motorcycle gear, and I hung my jacket and kicked off my Blundstones. I emptied the saddlebag and hung my gloves on a hook. There was an unfamiliar jangle in my saddlebags after everything was removed. I shook the bag and wondered if a pebble had found its way in with my stuff.
Running my finger along the seam, I hit a small stone. I pinched it between my fingertips and was about to toss it out the door when it registered with me just how smooth it was. I stepped into the overhead light and rolled the stone around between my fingertips. It was a ruby, about the size of a small BB pellet.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I dropped the stone into the palm of my hand and squeezed it tightly. Unless rubies were falling off cartons of milk in the grocery store, the ruby had to have come from Daisy.
I went into the kitchen and put the ruby in a small bowl and left it on the windowsill above the sink. Chugging a glass of water, I squeezed my eyes tightly and tried to conjure up an image of Daisy. Was she wearing a ring? No. I had watched her hands on the handlebars of my motorcycle and could picture them as though they were in front of me. I had kissed her neck, was there a chain in the way? I wasn’t sure that I trusted my memory, all the blood from my brain had been somewhere else at the time. Could there have been a bracelet on her wrists? Maybe.
Fuck. I didn’t know. The three things that I could be sure about, were that I’d met a girl who called herself Daisy, she was short one tiny ruby, and I had no way of finding her.
FIVE
DAISY
One YearLater
All through thecold dark winter, while I scrubbed toilets, cleaned grout, and sprayed mirrors, ten digits ran through my mind on a loop. I even turned Max’s phone number into a song with the same tune as 867-5309. By the time the days started getting longer, and the snowbanks had melted, my hands were chapped and raw. The cleaning company provided gloves, but even with that protection, a full day of cleaning with bleach left my hands in rough shape. With all the palatial cottages closed for the winter, I’d had to take a job cleaning at one of the local factories. It was hard work, but as a nighttime gig, it left me time to study. I’d gotten the reading lists for all my engineering courses and was hell-bent on keeping up my research and critical reading skills until the day that I was declared an actual student.
Christina and Chloe didn’t get up before dawn – they were focused on their beauty sleep, so they let me take the car to the factory job. Christina hadn’t had much luck in the gold digger department over the long cold winter in Windswan. She hadn’t considered the fact that all the rich dudes packed up their cottages and the remaining inventory of men in town were blue-collar workers. Some went to ski chalets in Chance Rapids. I wasn’t sure where the rest of them went. Wherever it was, it wasn’t Windswan in January. The lakes had frozen over and colorful fish huts dotted the harsh white landscape. But local fishermen and construction workers weren’t in Christina or Chloe’s target demographic. For the first time since I’d known her, Christina had gotten a job at the land registry office.
It wasn’t because we needed extra money, well we did, but her paycheck went directly to her cosmetic injections. Mine took care of the groceries and the rent on the trailer. Christina was a beautiful woman who played up the dumb blonde stereotype. As if the part had been written for her in a movie – but underneath that glassy skin and high-end makeup, she was as devious as they came. The land registry office gave her access to information. Namely, the addresses and property values of every single person in Windswan and the surrounding areas. Information that came in handy to anyone who could be considered a gold digger?
