Chapter 9
Daisy
“Knock, knock!”
I turned my head at the odd accent and leaped from my living room couch in delight.
“Neal!” I threw my arms around my cousin. They laughed and hugged me back.
“Hello, Daisy .” Neal exaggerated my stage name-turned-legal name. “I love this for you, by the way. New name, new you.”
“Same, Nail, ” I teased them, mimicking their new accent. “What’s this?”
“Australian, you like? I low-key love how they say my name down there. Who’s this?”
I turned my head to look at Tuth, who’d been sitting beside me. “That’s Tuth, my bodyguard.”
Neal went over and offered their hand, introducing themselves.
“Neal, pronies?”
Tuth and I exchanged confused looks. Neal rolled their eyes and spoke in their usual American accent. “Pronouns. I use they/them. ”
“Oh, same.” Tuth grinned.
I shook my head and laughed at my friends. I tugged on Neal’s arm and dragged them to the couch, where Tuth and I had been lounging, looking for something to do while remaining at the house.
“Tell me everything. I want to know about every country you visited.”
Over the rest of the afternoon, Neal regaled us with tales of their travels. When our grandmother died, she left the two of us, her only grandchildren, a very generous amount of wealth. Neal decided to use some of their fortune to travel the world, and I admired them for it.
I’d only traveled twice. Once to go to school, and then to join my ballet company in Michigan, where we were now settled. I’d wanted to travel, but alas, I didn’t have the courage to go solo like my cousin.
“Let’s go outside,” Neal suggested after dinner. I was grateful that Max had called and lied about working late tonight. I didn’t want to hear his angry, hateful nonsense that would no doubt be directed at Neal on such a happy day. We had a wonderfully light meal and then took our drinks down to the water. Each of us grabbed an extra bottle of wine to take with us.
Tuth brought their speaker and turned the music on. We danced barefoot in the sand as we drank more and more and laughed more and more. Eventually, we collapsed in a fit of giggles, drunk, and absolutely gleeful.
“So, this chick really looks just like you?”
“Not really,” Tuth answered Neal about Skye. “She needs a tan to truly embody her idol. You can’t copy that.”
I reached for the bottle I was drinking from, having completely abandoned the glass. “I doubt I’m her idol. I just think I’ve got something she wants.”
Neal chuckled. “Oh yeah, what’s that? ”
Tuth and I exchanged a look, the mood souring. Neal looked from Tuth to me and scratched their head. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing.” I dusted the sand off my dress and stood. “It’s all so stupid. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“Who? I thought we were talking about Skye, the ballerina.”
Tuth’s phone went off and they checked it, their eyes lighting up.
“I gotta take off. That girl I’ve been talking to is off work.” They stood, wiping the sand off their clothes. “I’ll be around tomorrow, regular time. It was nice meeting you Nail .” With a smile, they pronounced my cousin’s name with the same fake Australian accent Neal had used when they first arrived.
Once Tuth left, Neal put their head on my shoulder.
“Something’s wrong. This is supposed to be a happy day, and yet, all I’m getting from you is utter sadness.”
I swallowed. “Let’s put our feet in the water.” I reached for their hand and tugged them toward the dock. The sun was beginning to set. We drifted down to the lake and sat on the edge of the wooden dock. I dipped my toes in slowly and sighed, looking out across the water. Just then, the dock light flicked on above our heads.
“Is that a green bulb?” Neal asked.
“Would I be Daisy without a green light?” I smiled.
“I don’t know what that means, but it is your favorite color, so…”
“You never were much of a reader, were you?” I asked, my eyes glossing over.
“No, that was your thing, remember? Nona had that huge library. My dad detested books, probably because of her.” They chuckled.
Slowly, my mind drifted back to my childhood. I had spent a lot of time in that library. If I wasn’t dancing, I was reading. There wasn’t much else to do when I wasn’t allowed to leave my Nona’s castle.
“Is green important or something? Some symbolism shit?”
“It is,” I said. I didn’t want to share my love for Fitzgerald’s most famous work with Neal. I didn’t want to share it with anyone. It was mine to cherish.
The last time I did, bad things happened.
“Why are you here?”
Neal pulled me from my memories.
“What?” I asked.
“Why are you living in this guy’s house when you don’t even like him? You’re engaged even. Do you really plan on marrying him?”
I bit down on my lip. That was a good question.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked instead of answering. Neal waved their finger in a circle, pursing their lips.
“This. Something is off. Now, I know I haven’t seen you since Nona’s funeral, but this isn’t the Daisy I know. You’re like a deflated balloon. And every time I’ve tried to talk about your man, you go dark. What’s going on?”
I shook my head and blinked the wetness from my eyes.
“Nothing. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Max is... fine.”
“Fine? Sugar-free energy drinks are fine. Not making it to Kink Night at Bottoms so you have to go to another club is fine. Your fiancé, the man you’re spending the rest of your life with, should not be fine. Daisy, do you even love him?”
I stared at my feet, just barely touching the water.
“I can’t love him. I gave my heart away a long time ago.”
“Okay, to who?”
How could I explain to them that the only man I ever loved was in prison, on death row, for eating a dead woman?
“It started when we were kids, teens really.” I smiled, remembering the good times. “We bonded through our love of literature.”
Neal made an O with their lips and nodded. “Online? You’ve never actually met the guy?”
I shook my head. “No, I did. Once. It was the most magical weekend. He was everything I’d ever imagined and more.”
“What happened? Was he married? Or in witness protection?”
I turned and rolled my eyes. “No, he was perfect. I just told you.”
“Then why didn’t it work?”
I grimaced and opted to give them half truth. “I had to go to school in New York, and he had other plans. He couldn’t come with me.”
“You didn’t stay in contact?”
“No, it would be too hard. To speak to him, knowing that I could never have him again.”
A single tear slid down my cheek. I sniffled and wiped it away.
“Oh, Daisy, I am so sorry. Your first love is always the one of the hardest to forget. I’m sorry he broke your heart. If I was there, I would have kicked his ass.”
I laughed, the tears falling away as I imagined my cousin squaring up with him. Neal was not a large person. They were barely taller than me, and I was an even five feet.
“I would. I’d do it to this Max guy too if you asked me. No one hurts the best ballerina in the Lovelace line.”
“Ha! I doubt that. If Nona heard you right now, she’d give us both a history lesson on our family for hours, proving I am not, in fact, even in the top ten.”
“I’m so glad I got out of that shit.” They laughed. Neal was the first Lovelace in our family to not turn ballet into their profession. Our entire lineage spanned generations and generations of ballerinas. I’d made a joke that it was Neal’s announcement of their retirement from dance that killed our Nona. She died a week later.
“Okay, enough sad stuff. If you want to stay with Max, who is fine , then who am I to protest? I’ll support you because I love you. Let’s talk about me some more. You need to come visit my place. I bet I can see your light from my house.”
“Yeah?” I squinted, trying to see the shore on the other side. There were so many large mansions, their place was eclipsed by the other massive homes. I told them so, and their brown eyes lit up.
“Speaking of, get this. My neighbor to the right?” They pointed, and I looked. It was the largest house on that side of the lake. “He’s fucking insane. Last weekend, he threw this giant party all weekend, and then he’s planning another one for this Friday. Apparently, he’s been doing this since he moved in, and no one has even seen him. No one knows who he is, just that his name is Gatsby.”
I gasped, my hands rushing to cover my mouth.
“Gatsby?”