Chapter 8 Daisy - Twenty-Two
DAISY Twenty-Two
Mason texted me near the end of my shift: Can I show you around town tonight?
I would be lying if I said my heart didn’t thud. But I had to get ahold of myself. Was this a good idea? I was so new here and needed to learn more about this person. But I reasoned that he was an educator, a state employee. At the bare minimum, the man had had a background check.
Three hours later, when Mason knocked on my door, I realized that my memory hadn’t actually done him justice.
In the waning sunlight, he was even more handsome.
Tall and broad-shouldered, fit and strong.
He had a solid, square jaw with just a little bit of stubble and wide green eyes that crinkled when he shot me that crooked smile that made my heart, as my grandmama would have said, pitter-patter.
When he noticed me looking around, he said, “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. Has Dateline taught you nothing? You don’t just get in the car with a strange man.”
I laughed, and he pointed in the direction of the sound. “Plus, this is a walking tour.”
A walk on this gorgeous day sounded so perfect. We chatted about school and work and Cape Carolina, and I said, “I always wanted to be a nurse. From the time I was a little girl.”
“And you were a little girl when, exactly?”
“Geez, Mason. Don’t you know a lady never tells?”
He smiled. “Well, I do. I do know that. But see, I’m turning over a new leaf here, trying to date age-appropriate women, so I’m just, you know, checking.”
I thought back to what Laura had said. Maybe this was growth. Maybe he was a serious contender, after all. I knew thirty-four was still young. But sometimes, in the dating scene, every minute over thirty could seem like some sort of strike on my record. “Well, how old do you think I am?”
He looked at me innocently. “Twenty-two?”
I laughed, and a grin spread across his face. “The correct answer is always twenty-two.”
I nodded. “It is. But if you must know, I am roughly twelve years older than that.”
He nodded and exhaled. “That’s good news.”
“Not for me. I’d love to be twenty-two again. And how old are you?”
“Thirty-eight,” he said. He stopped walking and said, “But with the personality and physique of a twenty-six-year-old.”
“Oh, a younger man. Intriguing.”
We reached an imposing iron gate—one I had wondered about—at the end of the street.
Mason typed in a code, and with a series of beeps, the gate began to open.
I looked at him questioningly. “I thought I’d introduce you to Amelia really quickly,” he said, grinning that crooked grin at me. “As promised.”
“Are you trying to kill me and dump me in the sound?” I asked.
“I would never let anything happen to you.”
It’s the kind of throwaway statement that makes women lose their heads and believe that a man can protect them from, well, life. He cannot. All the same, his words were like a warm blanket wrapped around me.
Past the gate, the ancient trees began to grow together, forming a thick canopy. The sun was obscured by them, and the entire sight was magical. “Wow,” I whispered.
“I know,” Mason said. “It still gets me.”
As we walked on, the trees opened up, and in front of us sat the kind of house I’d heard existed but had never seen in real life: a massive white Colonial with wide front porches and thick columns that seemed to sprawl on forever.
To the far left, I could make out a slightly smaller version of a similar house.
“That’s the house I grew up in,” Mason said, pointing to the left.
“My brother Parker and his wife Amelia live there,” he said, pointing to the house that was obviously the star around which these other supporting actor houses had grown up.
“There is so much land back here,” I said. “I never would have guessed.”
“Most people wouldn’t,” Mason said.
He took my hand loosely in his, like he was leading me to the front door. Was that what he was doing? Or was he trying to hold my hand, like, romantically?
“My mom’s best friend Elizabeth lived lived here,” he said, gesturing toward the big house, “until just a few years ago. My brother Parker married Elizabeth’s daughter Amelia, and they moved into Dogwood with their baby twins—and Amelia’s Aunt Tilley, who is…
touched. Is that a scientific medical diagnosis? ”
I laughed. “Yes. Totally. It’s similar to the vapors.”
Mason snapped his fingers. “Exactly. Aunt Tilley’s boyfriend Robert died decades ago, and she has never gotten over it. So she lives in the east wing with Parker and Amelia, bless their hearts. I don’t say that often, so when I do…”
“Small twins and the batty aunt is bless-your-heart-worthy.”
“Exactly.”
We walked up onto the porch of Dogwood. The floor was painted black with a blue ceiling.
Rocking chairs lined either side of a pair of imposing screen doors that you could tell were as old as the house.
I thought about my daddy, repairing ours over and over again, and I wondered how many times the screens in these ancient front doors had been replaced.
Before we could knock, a woman about my age in a brown printed skirt with a matching top sort of sashayed to the door, gesturing for us to come inside.
Mason opened the door, and I walked through it, and I might have swooned a little.
Is this how starved I was for romance? A polite Southern man opens the door for me, and I get all hot and bothered? Get it together, Daisy.
My eyes adjusted to the darker light inside.
In the huge entrance hall with a circular table in the middle, about a million cherry blossoms in a vase reached almost to the ceiling.
Portraits of what I presumed were family members lined the walls, but the rugs were a down-to-earth seagrass.
I stepped forward and could see a huge dining table to the left.
“Hi!” the woman said. “I’m Amelia.”
“Daisy.”
She hugged me, which seemed funny, but, nevertheless, felt strangely normal. I noticed that the vast room to the right that looked to line the entire side of the house held antique wooden tables with large iMac computers and comfortable office chairs. Odd.
Amelia led me into the room with the computers and said, “Welcome to the Southern Coast office. Parker and I run the magazine out of our house, which is crazy, but sort of works for us.”
“That’s my favorite magazine!” I shrieked. “You are Amelia Thaysden! How did I not put that together? I’m a big fan.” I imagined this room filled with journalists and photographers and graphic designers.
“Well, see, Mason, you were right to introduce us. We are going to be friends.” Amelia winked at me. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You have to stay for dinner. Then you can meet Trina too.”
Mason shook his head. “Nope. No way.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be offended, but, either way, I pointed down at my scrubs. “No, no. I’m not dressed for dinner. This was just an impromptu walk.”
Amelia waved me off like she didn’t look every bit the chic magazine editor she was. “No one cares about that. You have to meet Trina—”
“And all our crazy family members?” Mason chimed in, his voice rising an octave. “Amelia,” he said conspiratorially as though I couldn’t hear him. “I like this woman. She barely knows me. Please let me at least make her think I’m cool for like a minute before we ruin it.”
I laughed, and so did Amelia. “Don’t be ridiculous. Our family is—”
“Uncle Ma-son!” rang out through the air before he could finish that sentence. Straight in front of us rose a grand staircase. A little girl in a white dress with pink hearts flew down the steps and across the floor, her bare feet totally silent.
He scooped her up and spun her around and planted a big kiss on her cheek. She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I missed you soooo much.”
“You did?”
She pulled back and nodded vehemently before sliding down him.
“I had breakfast with Greer this morning,” Mason said. “So much to miss.”
I turned back toward the elaborately set dining room table and looked down at my scrubs again.
I was going to make my excuses to leave, but before I could, the door flew open and a couple walked in, four exuberant boys of all ages pushing by them.
The two largest seemed to be fighting. “Go outside, boys!” called a small woman with platinum-blond hair cut bluntly in a way that accentuated the lovely angles of her slim face.
“Do not get blood on Aunt Amelia’s carpet!
” Amelia and I looked at each other and laughed.
She sighed but looked completely unruffled.
“That’s what Mason and Parker’s mother always said to them growing up. It’s just funny that it’s been handed down to a new generation,” Amelia explained.
The smallest boy, shirt half-tucked, half-untucked, screamed, “George!” at the top of his lungs and then sprinted up the stairs, as the fourth boy, who looked to be five or six, said, “ ’Sup, Uncle Mase.”
“ ’Sup.” Mason fist-bumped him.
“This is Robbie and Trina,” Amelia said. “My brother and sister-in-law.”
I looked at Mason. “So, biologically, no, I am not their uncle.”
“Just their love uncle,” Trina crooned, kissing Mason on the cheek.
“Love uncle. That’s precious,” I said.
“I’m so happy to meet you!” Trina said. “Mason said we’re going to be fast friends.” She peered at me. “Do you play mahjong?”
“Well, a little, but I’m not—” Before I could finish, a voice, in an old-school Southern drawl that you hardly ever heard anymore, called, “Is anyone ever going to ring the dinner bell? I am positively famished!”
A woman in a hoopskirt with an updo that looked like it required quite a bit of work made her entrance at the top of the stairs. I felt as though I should applaud or something. Robbie ran to the top of the stairs and said, “Let me help you, Aunt Tilley,” offering her his arm.
Mason whispered, “Sometimes she’s just, like, regular Aunt Tilley in khaki pants and sometimes she’s this.”
“Seems kind of helpful that you can tell right away which one you’re getting,” I whispered back.
He grinned at me, and my stomach erupted in butterflies. As Aunt Tilley made her way toward us, I did the thing that felt most natural. I curtsied, pulling out a pretend skirt. My cheeks burned. Were they going to think I was making fun of her? But she curtsied back and said, “Tilley, charmed.”
“Daisy. The pleasure is all mine.”
A woman I would learn moments later was Mason’s mother said, “Sugar pie, this one’s a keeper.” Mason was the “sugar pie.” I was the “keeper.”
Mason introduced us, and I felt less sheepish than before, as a fully grown man jumped on Mason’s back and put him in a headlock. “Parker, you don’t want to do that!” Mason said, his voice raised slightly.
Ah. Mason’s brother. I saw why their mother had to make the comments about not getting blood on the carpet.
“Daisy, you’ll sit here,” Amelia said, leading me to the table as, miraculously, everyone began to sit down.
“Oh, but, um, I’m just going to…” I pointed to the door.
“We’ve lost the fight,” Mason chimed in. “Just, please, make this night a compartment in your mind, and put me as ‘hot coach’ in another compartment.” I burst out laughing.
“Hey, who’s that woman?” I whispered once I’d taken my seat, as someone I didn’t know began to speak.
“Ms. Theodora. Pastor’s wife.”
I nodded as the pastor’s wife said grace. And I thanked God for, on my first week in a new place, making me feel so very much at home. This was total chaos of the very best kind, and everything inside me was buzzing with joy.
I thought about our sweet little Jane Doe back at the hospital. I wondered what would happen to her, if her parents would come forward, or if she would get adopted. Either way, I hoped against hope that that little girl would get to be a part of a family just like this.