28. Daisy
The building site was crowded with well-heeled people — my dad included. I watched as he glad-handed Piers and Gray Cantwell, then turned to smile as a young dark-haired reporter from the Blackwell Bulletin took their picture.
What a psycho. My dad, not the reporter.
He was in his element here, dressed in a suit even though it was Saturday and nearly eighty degrees in July. He didn’t even look hot, and I realized the only time I’d ever seen my dad sweat was when he played tennis.
Then I thought about the Beasts, the tang of man-sweat that lingered when Otis was working on one of the cars or Wolf and Jace were doing demo in the house, and I got wet and sweaty myself.
I pulled my sleeveless blouse away from my skin and flapped it back and forth, trying to cool off while I watched VIPs trickle onto the site for the ground-breaking of the Cantwell resort. At least I’d been smart enough to pull my hair into a sleek ponytail and keep my makeup minimal (other than the heavy concealer I’d had to use to hide the hickey Jace had given me in the hall) so it didn’t slide off my face, although the heels had been a mistake since they kept sinking into the dirt at the building site.
“It’s hotter than fuck out here,” Ruth said, lifting her long hair off her neck as she joined me. She looked pretty and fresh in a drapey summer halter, dressy shorts, and a pair of platform sandals that looked very familiar (because they were mine).
“Shhh. Stop swearing. These people are…”
“Stuck-up assholes?” Ruth finished.
“Yeah.” I was trying to spend more time with her, because when the shit hit the fan with our dad, she was going to need me, whether she realized it or not.
I hadn’t told her about our dad being a predatory trafficker. While I was at the ground-breaking ceremony, the Beasts were talking to Aloha to see if he could find the proof we’d need to take to the police, or at least a clue to get us started.
In the meantime it was better not to sound the alarm and give my dad and Calvin a chance to wipe the trail clean.
“So are we,” Ruth said, “in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Speak for yourself.” I dropped my eyes to the glass of champagne in her hand. “The bartender served you?”
She shrugged. “I guess I look twenty-one.”
She hadn’t even been interested in the ground-breaking ceremony until I’d told her there would be free food and drinks, but when I’d said drinks I’d meant soda, and she’d apparently had something else in mind.
“But you’re not,” I said. “We could get in trouble for serving someone underage.”
She rolled her eyes. “Geez, Mom, would it make you feel better if I threw it out?”
I was doing it again. Being a priss. A good girl.
What could I say? Old habits die hard.
“You know what? No,” I said. “Have fun. It doesn’t matter.”
And I realized it didn’t. I’d helped organize the event, but Piers and Diana had approved everything. If the bartender they’d hired wanted to serve underage girls, that was on them. I’d picked Ruth up that morning and was driving her home, so it was no skin off my nose if she got hammered on champagne.
She narrowed her eyes. “Have fun? It doesn’t matter? Who are you and what have you done with the real Daisy Hammond?”
“I’m starting to realize I don’t even know who that is,” I said.
She nodded like she was impressed by my epiphany. “Damn.”
I laughed. “I need to go do this thing.”
My dad was assembling with Piers, Gray, and a couple of other guys in suits — local politicians — while Natalie and Kyle stood a couple of feet behind them. Diana was there too, holding four shovels with red bows around them.
I walked to the front and stood with Kyle and Natalie while Piers stepped up to a podium that had been set up at the front of the crowd. Natalie smiled at me and I was relieved my working relationship with her and Kyle had normalized in the weeks I’d been back at Cantwell. I’d been careful to show up on time during the two days a week I worked there, volunteering to stay late when there was still work to do as long as I wouldn’t be alone in the office with Gray.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
It was something Joan said, and the advice had come in handy more than once over the years.
My dad started by introducing himself and talking about the land that had been in his wife’s family for generations and how he couldn’t be more thrilled to continue their contribution to the development of the beautiful town they’d helped to settle.
I forced myself to keep smiling until he passed the microphone to Piers, who talked about the Cantwell Ridge Resort and Spa. He described the amenities of the exclusive hotel, which would test a new business model of only opening for guests during select times of the year. The rest of the resort, an assortment of five-star private villas nestled in the woods, would also be available on a limited basis.
Piers assured the investors in the crowd that the exclusivity would increase the resort’s cache, creating an insatiable demand to be one of the lucky few able to secure a reservation.
Intermittent murmurs of excitement rolled through the crowd as he spoke, the upper-crust attendees clearly enthused about the business model.
It was an innovative idea, but I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that only rich people would be able to enjoy the stunning views from the hill where the main resort would be located. From up here, the whole valley was on display, the lush green of the woods dappled by the summer sun. Birds sang in the surrounding trees and the air was fresh and clean with the scent of sun-warmed earth.
Would my mom’s grandfather be proud that his investment in Blackwell Falls had paid off so big for his descendants? Or would he feel the same kind of regret that tugged at my chest now, the feeling that all the meaning — all the history, everything personal about our connection to the town — was being bled out of the land where he’d put down roots?
I thought of Wolf and his mom, whose ancestors had been here long before my grandfather. They’d loved the land and respected it, had taken care of it so everyone could enjoy it.
Then I thought of my mom and that just made me sad. Because I knew my mom would have felt how I felt now. She hadn’t been involved in my dad’s business decisions. At the time it hadn’t seemed strange.
I’d been a kid. It was all I’d ever known.
Now I wondered if it had been by choice. If my mom had meant to hand control of the Mercer family legacy to my dad or if he’d seized it. Through the clear-eyed lens of adulthood, it was starting to look like that was my dad’s MO, and when I really thought about it, I couldn’t think of a single asset, a single business triumph, that he hadn’t built on the back of my mother’s inheritance.
I suddenly wished I could remember more from my childhood, that I could replay all the little moments that had faded into the soup of memory so I could see them from the perspective of the person I was now.
Finally the speeches were over. My dad and Piers exited the temporary dais and walked to a small area next to it that had been roped off for the ground-breaking. Two other men in suits — I hadn’t been introduced, but Piers had pointed them out as primary investors who “shared our vision” — joined them and Diana handed them each a shovel.
They dug the shovels into the ground, freezing long enough for the press to take photos that would doubtless be on the front page of the Blackwell Bulletin, heralding another notch in the belt of Blackwell’s growth.
Everyone clapped, myself included, because I wasn’t looking to draw attention to myself. Then music started to play from a white tent set up a hundred yards from the ceremony site and the crowd made their way toward it like million-dollar sheep ready for their feeding of champagne and caviar.
“Thank god that’s over,” Ruth said. “I’m going to the tent. My underboob sweat is gross. You coming?”
I eyed my dad, walking toward us. “I’ll be right there.”
I couldn’t avoid him forever.