7. Daisy
Chapter 7
Daisy
What I am doing is very, very stupid, I'll admit. But you know how sometimes something is really dumb and you do it anyway because you just can't help yourself? You need an answer, even if you don't dare to hope you'll receive one definitively. Even a hint, the tiniest morsel, would be enough to subsist on.
After helping my mother into her house, where her in-home nurse, Bonnie, awaited her, I loaded Kathleen's car with everything she'd brought out to the St. James farm. Vivi left to go start food prep for dinner service at Dama Oliva, the upscale but still attainable restaurant she owns in town.
With my dad busy caring for the horses, and my mother napping, I decided it wouldn't hurt to swing by Lickety-Split.
That's how I got to where I am now, winding through town in the opposite direction of the home I live in by myself, slipping past the recently-built neighborhood of houses with their trimmed yards and HOAs. Leaving behind Pour Me with its neon sign lit and the words dive bar scrawled underneath. I pass the Rowdy Mermaid hair salon, and Lunker, the bait and tackle shop with the secret entrance for the moody underground speakeasy, King's Ransom. Locals are under strict orders to never, ever share the location of that door, not even if the tourist offers sexual favors in exchange. Oddly specific rule, but it exists because things got drunk and disorderly a couple years ago at Pour Me when some tourists tried to convince Crazy Cliff the information was worth a blowie. Personally, I think if someone wanted to get into a secret speakeasy enough to contemplate performing that act on a fifty-something man who refuses to wear matching shoes and gave himself the nickname he now goes by, she should've been given directions. Sans blowie.
I leave the most populated part of town, and with it goes my grasp on the present. I am firmly in the past, sitting in the passenger seat of my father's brand-new Lincoln and bumping over the road to Penn's house while he tells me to be nothing more than friends with a boy like Penn. Sympathy is important, but don't mistake it for attraction.
I was twelve, flat-chested and certain boys were mostly disgusting. Except for Penn. He was the exception to every rule, though I couldn’t have articulated why. I knew I liked the way he laughed, and how he’d scrunch one eye and look up when he was thinking, but was that enough to set him apart from all others? It must have been something else, something undefinable.
I readily told my dad Ok , because I couldn't fathom being attracted to any boy. Not in the way I knew he was talking about. Penn climbed in the back seat when my dad pulled up and honked. Polite and talkative, he held up his end of the conversation about Arizona's newest sports franchise, the Diamondbacks. I cared for baseball almost as much as I cared for the idea of wrestling a rattlesnake, but I was happy to sit there listening to their back-and-forth. Penn was going to spend the day at our thoroughbred farm, helping my dad and his employees. It was a trial run, to see if he'd be a good fit and able to work for the farm all summer. I was just happy to get to see Penn all day, until my dad crushed my spirit by informing me that I was to leave him alone while he was working.
I was crafty though, and when Penn went to work for my dad that summer I came up with ways to see him. Mostly they involved me needing help with something, like repairing the tire swing, or setting up a raised garden bed. My favorite was asking him to help me reach a pitcher on a high shelf. He knew what I was doing. He always knew, and that was sort of the fun in it. My dad caught on, telling me to knock it off. So I got craftier, making sure to call Penn in from his work when my dad was too busy to notice. Penn, smirking the whole time, would wait for me to make my request, then respond with the same three words: Anything for you.
If I heard that phrase tomorrow, I'd drop dead. Well, maybe not dead . But I'd hit the deck for sure.
Memories envelop me as I turn onto Lickety-Split. I didn't spend much time at that house with Penn, at least not after his mom went downhill. He preferred anywhere else to his home, and I knew it was because he didn't want me to see what his home life was like. He had me and our friendship, and then he had the other half of his reality, and he kept us on parallel paths.
The day he moved away, I cried the kind of ugly cry my mother called unseemly . Penn and I hadn't seen each other in weeks by that point, because I'd been told not to see him after the accident. I'd agreed because my father was irate, and I believed the faster I went along with the consequence of my choices, the quicker he'd be to take back the ban on my friendship with Penn. But the call came that day, and Penn had said My mom and I are moving away. I'm sorry. For everything. He hung up, and ugly sobs wracked my body. My mother said I hope you cry like that for me when I die and I carried that with me until the day she announced her cancer was too far along to fight. That damn sentence moved like ticker tape through my mind, and soon after, Duke and I devised our plan.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, clearing my throat and straightening my shoulders. Even if that busybody Margaret got it all wrong and somehow it really is Penn come back to handle his mother's house, I would be just fine with that. I would shake his hand, maybe offer the slightest, friendly embrace, and that would be that. My heart wound has healed and scarred. Is there anything stronger than scars? Scars know. Scars have been there. Visible scars are like messages to others, and emotional scars are messages to ourselves. Like little pieces of information, they inform us. Stay away from that person, avoid that situation, keep them at arm's length, guard your heart.
And Penn? He left a long, jagged scar over the top of my heart, and the message it left is tattooed on my soul.
Is my breath quickening as I approach the Bellamy house, knowing somebody is in town with the specific purpose of handling affairs that concern Penn? Someone who probably knows him? Maybe. Do my knuckles turn white on the wheel until the joint aches? Possibly.
Creeping up to the Bellamy house with a belly full of cake and not nearly enough champagne was not on my agenda for today. But, here we are.
The truck parked out front catches my eye. It's a newer model, shiny black. And I recognize it. My eyes squint at the car parked beside it.
"Hugo," I whisper into my air-conditioned cabin. At least this confirms Peter really does know Hugo. I was not in danger of being made into confetti.
A waving hand catches my attention. Hugo, rounding the house and walking until he stops beside the porch steps. I slow but don't stop, delivering my best impression of a nonchalant wave. A man strides from the home, glaring at my car. Peter.
But...wow. Ok. He looks mad. Or maybe it's just unhappy. Either way, he scowls in my direction.
He strides to Hugo, those well-honed arms crossing as he settles into place. He's not in all black today. He wears a gray T-shirt, and light colored jeans. I know it's not Penn, but still, my heart hammers my breastbone, doing its best impression of a toddler banging on a drum. It's the house, playing tricks on me. Making me get creative and envision the man Penn may have grown to be.
For the briefest of seconds, I consider stopping and saying hello, but given the scowl that may have taken up permanent residence on Peter's face, I'll pass.
I tap the gas pedal, picking up speed and leaving the two men in the rearview. I don't know what I was expecting to find, what answers I wanted, or even what questions I had. I only wanted to see for myself what Margaret was telling people about.
For years I held back from trying to find him online, or ask Hugo if they were still in touch. I guess hearing that one mention of him from Margaret really tapped a nerve.
But I know better. Peter being hired to handle the abandoned Bellamy house changes nothing. Penn left without a trace, leaving not even a breadcrumb trail to follow. The smartest thing I can do for myself now is remember that if someone wants to be found, they'll make a way.
Penn must not want to be found, because he's not who returned.