52. Daisy
52
DAISY
“ H e’s still not answering his phone,” I moaned.
“It’s not like you don’t know where he works,” Reese yelled over the music. “You can go talk to him at the office on Monday. Brooklyn and Jordan, get away from that guy. He’s too old for you.”
“Not for me!” Granny Madge danced over to the man in time to the pulsing club music. “I’ve got drugs.”
“She doesn’t mean cocaine!” Alex yelled to the finance bro. “She’s got, like, laxatives and shit.”
“You have to clean yourself out for anal.”
My head flopped down on the sticky bar counter.
“Why don’t they have food here?” Jordan complained.
“It’s a club,” Reese shouted at my little sister.
“I want a hamburger,” Brooklyn said as she and Jordan danced to the music and frat boys offered them drinks.
“Give that here,” Reese ordered, setting the glasses on the table and out of the twins’ reach. “Daisy…”
I drained the glass.
“You need to drink some water,” Reese said.
“Can we get hamburgers after this?” the twins begged Alex as she danced with Gran.
“I wish I’d said yes!” I wailed.
“What?”
“I said I wish I’d said yes,” I screamed over the music.
“I’m too old for this.” Reese leaned on the table. “I can’t hear.”
“We were made for each other!” I warbled.
“That is not the song and also not what’s playing,” Alex hollered over the throbbing techno.
“Come dance,” the twins complained, pulling at me.
I clung to my glass then winced when someone shone a bright light in my face.
“She’s had too much to drink,” a put-out middle-aged bouncer said.
“I’ll take her outside,” Reese assured the bouncer. “It’s not alcohol. It’s heartbreak and regret.”
“Also a sugar crash. She’s been eating a lot of cookies lately,” Alex added.
Reese hauled me upright.
The bouncer shone his flashlight at my little sisters.
“Where’s your IDs? You all don’t look twenty-one.”
“We moisturize?” Brooklyn grimaced, exposing her braces.
“I got minors in the club,” the bouncer barked into his walkie-talkie.
“Oh shit!” Granny Madge yelled. “Run, girls, run!”
“Can we all agree,” my dad said when the officer let us all out of the jail cell, “that we’re just not going to tell your mom? They’re letting you all off with a warning.”
“My constitutional rights were violated,” Granny Madge hollered as Alex dragged her out the door while my dad paid our release fee.
The cop rolled his eyes.
“My sexual regions were exposed,” she continued.
“Ma’am,” the officer stated, “we have asked you repeatedly to keep your top buttoned.”
We all stumbled out into the humid summer night after my dad and piled into his car.
“That’s what you get for going all the way out to Connecticut to go to a club.” Alex inspected her makeup in the rearview mirror.
“We want food,” the twins begged.
“We have food at home, girls.” My dad readjusted the mirror.
“Daisy needs to eat something, Mr. C.,” Reese piped up.
“Open the window,” Alex said, pushing my head out through it and into the open air. “This is a new dress.”
“I need you to take me to Aaron’s house.” The wind cooled my face.
Reese sighed. “If he didn’t want to talk to you the last fifty times you called him, he’s definitely not going to want to talk now.”
Everyone else in New York City must have had our same thought about hamburgers. We waited in line for an hour for burgers at the smash burger place on 83rd.
“I wish I was fifteen again,” Alex sighed as the twins chowed down on their greasy burgers and fries.
“Speak for yourself,” Granny Madge said, polishing off her own meal. “Anyone want brandy in their milkshake?”
“I do!” the twins cried.
“I can’t believe you let them drink, Alex.” My dad sat down beside us on the curb.
“We didn’t, Mr. C.” Reese offered my dad some fries.
“Yeah, Daisy drank all our alcohol,” Jordan complained.
I ate my burger sadly, letting the sloppy sauce run down my hands.
“You’ve had a rough night, Daisy.” Reese mopped up my mouth.
My dad coaxed me to drink a milkshake. “You’re dehydrated, Daisy. Oh, your mother’s going to kill me.”
“This is Daisy’s single-girl evening.” Brooklyn toasted Granny Madge with her milkshake.
“Don’t worry, Dad. She can do the healthy thirty-day challenge with me.” Alex patted our father on the shoulder.
“No one should eat that many bean sprouts. It’s not right,” Dad grumbled.
I checked my phone for the millionth time, hoping Aaron had texted me back. Instead, I saw an email notification. It was him!
I skimmed it, hopeful, then immediately wanted to curl up on the ground.
“This is bad.”
“What?” Reese demanded as I tried to call Aaron again.
“Oh no, Aaron isn’t picking up his phone.” I dragged myself up. “I need to go to his house.”
“If you’re going to see him, you have got to take a shower first.” Alex made a face.
“This is an emergency.” I stuffed the burger into my purse.
“Daisy…”
“I need to go. Now. Taxi! Taxi !”