Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
‘Grandma June!’ Daisy yelled, bursting into her grandparents’ apartment at the senior living facility. Daisy was hoping she wasn’t at one of her daily activities. Between her bocce-ball league and her watercolor class, Grandma June had a packed schedule.
Luckily, both her grandparents were parked in their matching recliners watching the evening news when Daisy stumbled into their living room.
‘What on earth is going on?’ June asked, her eyes wide. Daisy’s grandpa Jim didn’t bother to take his eyes from the TV.
‘Your Aunt Daisy never had kids, right?’
Her grandmother frowned. ‘You come charging in here like it’s the end of the world to ask me about people that are long dead? Again?’
‘May they rest in peace,’ Jim muttered. ‘Someone should have peace.’
‘Yes! I just … really need to know if she had any children.’
‘I already told you she didn’t. That’s why I’m named Daisy.’
‘But like she probably didn’t have any secret babies, either … right?’
Her grandmother looked truly scandalized at that. ‘Secret babies? Daisy, what is going on with you?’
Daisy shrugged, trying and failing to pretend this wasn’t a matter of the utmost importance. ‘I’m just curious about our family history. That’s all.’
‘Sounds fishy to me,’ Jim said, his eyes still focused on the news.
‘You shouldn’t watch that,’ Daisy told him. ‘It’s bad for your mental health.’
Grandpa Jim scoffed. ‘My mental health’s just fine. You’re the one going on about secret babies.’
Daisy stuck her tongue out at him, but he didn’t see; his eyes were still on the screen.
She turned back to her grandmother. ‘I just look so much like her, I’m wondering if somehow …
she’s actually my … great-grandmother?’ Was that even right?
Daisy was getting all these distant relationships confused.
‘Do you really think someone could keep a baby secret in this town?’ her grandmother asked with a laugh. ‘It was the same then as it is now. Probably even worse. If your Aunt Daisy had a baby, we all would have known about it and I’m telling you she didn’t.’
Daisy blew out a sigh. ‘This is amazing news!’ She leaned down and kissed her grandmother on the head before wandering into the kitchen. ‘Do you have any of those cookies I like? You know the ones in the blue tin?’
‘Of course I do. Top cabinet.’
‘Thank you!’ Daisy found her cookies and joined her grandparents back in the living room.
She sat at her grandma’s feet and let her run her fingers through her hair like she used to do when Daisy was a little girl.
She picked her favorite butter cookie from the tin (the pretzel-shaped one with crystals of sugar coating the top) and munched on it happily.
Who knew that finding out you’re not related to someone could be so exciting?
‘Feeling better now?’ Grandma June asked.
‘Much. Thank you.’
‘Are you going to explain why that was so important to you?’
‘It will just sound crazy if I do.’
‘Already does,’ Grandpa joked, and Daisy smacked him playfully on the knee.
‘I just needed to make sure I wasn’t getting myself into a situation that I shouldn’t be getting into and now I’m sure, so everything is fine.’
‘Not crazy at all.’ Grandpa leaned down to snag a cookie.
Her grandmother just hummed a little skeptical sound but didn’t comment. At least not on that.
‘And how are things at the shop?’ she asked instead, and Daisy would rather discuss her near brush with incest.
‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Well, thanks to some new business with the inn, we can pay our bills this month, so, fine.’ Daisy had been so relieved when she got the call from Mary.
She’d be providing monthly arrangements for the lobby for now, and then once the breakfast room was done, she’d be doing mini arrangements for each table.
It wasn’t a season filled with weddings, but it was something.
Another skeptical hum.
‘I heard you and your new boyfriend were caught in the act at the bookstore.’
Daisy nearly choked on her cookie.
‘We were not!’
‘Well, according to Marissa who heard it from Gladys who heard it from Iris who heard it from Jeanie, you and that Elliot were looking mighty disheveled when they spotted you.’
‘We were looking at books! That’s it!’ Maybe they had been too convincing that day. Now she had the whole town thinking she got plowed between the shelves at the bookstore. Hazel was going to kill her. That was not the kind of publicity she would want for the store.
‘The book club seemed to think you were doing more than that. They said you looked flushed and with your hair all a mess…’
Daisy groaned.
Grandpa Jim turned up the volume on the TV. Apparently, he’d heard enough about his granddaughter’s bad decisions. Decisions she hadn’t even really made!
‘I would never…’ Daisy started to protest, raising her voice above the din of the news but Grandma June patted her shoulder, giving her an encouraging squeeze.
‘Keep it up, dear. The town thinks that boy is in love with you and that’s just what we need.’
The town thinks that boy is in love with you.
Now there was a sentence that was sure to keep her up at night.
But the town could think whatever they wanted. In fact, they were thinking exactly what she wanted them to think. So, everything was going as planned. She and Elliot were pulling it off.
And besides, there was no way Elliot was in love with her. He was like her. Neither of them were capable of falling in love again. Neither of them wanted to.
But if they wanted to make out a little, now that she was sure they weren’t some kind of cousins, then what would the harm be in that?
Daisy took another bite of her cookie and pretended that she totally believed she could kiss Elliot with zero repercussions.
Daisy was getting very good at pretending.
* * *
‘What do you think the moral implications of sleeping with one’s fake boyfriend are?
’ Daisy asked as she weaved another flower stem through the wire frame of the crown she was working on.
She didn’t need to lift her head to feel Iris staring at her from her spot across the worktable Daisy had hauled out of the storage room.
They’d been working on crowns for so long that Owen had fallen asleep in his baby seat beside them.
Long enough for Daisy to work up the nerve to bring up what had been weighing on her mind since Elliot confessed to having fantasies about her. Which was only yesterday. But it had been a long (and mentally graphic) twenty-four hours.
‘Are you asking me if you should have sex with Elliot?’
‘Maybe.’
Iris laughed. ‘I’d say if he wants to have sex with you, then you are morally good to go.’ She placed her completed crown on top of her head with a flourish. The purples and blues looked lovely against Iris’s copper hair.
‘I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea about the whole thing.’
‘And what would the wrong idea be?’
‘That I want something more than what we’re doing. A real relationship.’
‘So just tell him that.’
‘Do you think we can do it and get it out of our systems?’
Iris laughed so loud that it startled Owen awake. He looked at her accusingly. ‘Oops.’ She winced, leaning down to pick him up when he started to fuss.
‘That’s a no, then?’ Daisy asked.
Iris arranged herself in her chair, positioning Owen so he could nurse before she looked back up at Daisy.
‘You do realize that this little guy exists because me and Archer were getting it out of our systems, right?’ She gazed down at her baby as he ate, the flower crown still on her head.
And with the golden light of the evening streaming in, they looked beautiful together.
It was quite a change from the last time Iris was in here crying. Motherhood, what a ride.
‘How are you feeling, by the way?’
Iris raised her head again, a bemused smile on her face. ‘Don’t think you’re off the hook. We are circling back to you and Elliot. But…’ She ran a finger down the plump curve of Owen’s cheek. ‘I’m doing better. I think. Crying less, so that’s nice.’
‘You know I’m always here to help. And my mom would die to hold the baby for the afternoon.’
Iris smiled. ‘I know. Thank you.’
‘And Archer’s been…?’
‘Incredible. He jumps up at the littlest peep from the baby. Gets to him before I’m even half awake.’ She smiled as she said it. ‘And he makes sure I’m eating and Olive is feeling included, and it’s a lot. He’s basically holding us all together.’
‘That’s good.’ Daisy liked Archer, but he was new to the whole parenthood thing, too. So much had been thrown at him in such a short amount of time. It was good to hear they were working it out together.
‘Now,’ Iris said, pointing an accusing finger at Daisy. ‘Back to you. What is going on with Elliot?’
Daisy picked up a new wire ring and started on her next crown, trying to think of another change of topic but coming up with nothing.
She sighed. ‘I don’t know. He’s cute, you know? And we’re spending a lot of time together. And I think it’s just been too long since I’ve…’
‘Made love?’ Iris said with a grin.
‘Ew. Don’t ever say that again.’
Iris laughed and Owen snorted at the disruption to his meal.
‘Okay, so it’s been a while since you’ve been intimate with a man.’
‘I don’t love that, either, but yes, it’s been a long while and … I don’t know… That combined with being around an attractive guy all the time, it’s—’
‘Making you super horny?’
Daisy thunked her head down on the table in defeat. ‘Yes. It’s making me super horny.’
‘Well, then it sounds like you should probably do it with your fake boyfriend.’
‘What are the odds it doesn’t end in disaster?’
‘Fifty-fifty, I’d say.’
Daisy lifted her head, and Iris was burping Owen, his small body curled in a ball on her chest. His little footy pajamas were covered in turtles which made Daisy smile.
‘And I’d recommend two forms of birth control, unless you really like staying up all night,’ Iris added.
‘Right.’ Owen was adorable and it had worked out for Iris and Archer, but a baby with Elliot was…
Something that made her feel dizzy to think about.
She shook her head.
‘I think he’ll understand,’ she said weakly, trying to convince herself more than Iris.
The town thinks that boy is in love with you.
Her grandmother’s words reared their ugly head.
Maybe fooling around with Elliot would be a mistake.
Her mother came bustling in through the door carrying a poster board, glitter and paint before Daisy could think about it further.
‘I got sign-making supplies, girls!’ she said, cheerfully. ‘Now, hand over that baby.’ She put the supplies on the table and held her arms out to Iris, who happily gave her a full and sleepy Owen.
‘Thanks, May,’ Iris said.
Daisy’s mom dipped her face and breathed deep, right over Owen’s head. ‘New-baby smell,’ she said. ‘Divine.’
Daisy and Iris laughed as they made space for the art materials. Her mom hummed and rocked Owen while they worked on the sign to hang on their Beltane booth. And between the work and the laughter, Daisy managed to put Elliot out of her head until later when she was alone in bed.
Alone and lonely in bed.
And that was when Daisy thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to work out some of her physical frustration with Elliot.
Maybe it was a great idea.