Chapter Seven Daisy
Chapter Seven
Daisy
When you ask, the universe provides.
—Rules for Witches
“Nathaniel,” Daisy said, “when you sing, you need to be projecting toward the audience.”
“But I’m singing to her.” He gestured toward the leading lady.
“I know. But that’s where you have to learn a technique called cheating out.
You don’t want to be facing totally to the side, or the audience can’t see you.
” Daisy moved from where she was standing in the auditorium of the old theater, up to the stage.
“You want to stand like this, so when you sing to her, you are singing to her, but you’re also singing to the audience. ”
She started to climb offstage, half folded up, her jeans about cutting her in half. She put a hand over her muffin top as she stepped down to the floor, just as she heard a familiar voice.
“Good direction.”
She looked up and startled. Zach.
Who had probably just gotten a great view of her muffin top. Fantastic.
She straightened and tried not to look flustered. There was no reason on earth she should be flustered. “Thank you. What are you doing here?”
“I’m on the board. We were just having a meeting about the summer schedule.”
The old Holly Theater was a historic building that had been on the brink of being demolished or reconfigured for years, until it had gotten a substantial injection of cash a few years ago and had been restored.
Since then, they’d hosted ballet companies, musical acts, and traveling theater companies, plus it had given a new, better home to the Youth Musical Theater, which Daisy had been involved with since childhood.
She wasn’t good enough to be a professional actor by any stretch of the imagination, and she was too self-conscious to actually act or sing in front of anyone anymore, but directing kids was fun.
Suddenly, she wondered where the money for the theater had come from. And if maybe Zach . . .
“This looks great,” he said.
“Thanks. I don’t know . . . I don’t know. We have about two weeks until we open, and I’m having some logistical issues.”
“Such as?”
She sighed. “It isn’t your problem.”
“Daisy, I asked. Which means I’m open to making it my problem.”
“Jonathan was going to make the sets. But I don’t feel comfortable working with him on that. Not at this point.”
“Fair. I can handle that.”
“What?”
“Either acting as a go-between or just facilitating the building another way. I’m pretty handy. And I know about sets, though I don’t know that I would trust myself to be the one to do all the building if you want them to stay standing.”
She had a feeling that was a lie. He had knight in shining armor written all over him, and it was hard for her to imagine that anything he did could fail. It was such a strange feeling, in the middle of the cynicism that had been choking her since Jonathan had walked out.
It was stunning that this man who barely knew her would offer this when her own husband hadn’t even picked her up when she’d fallen to the floor after he’d told her he was leaving.
Something in her had felt so broken since that day, and now a very small piece of it had mended. Maybe it had been mending since she had linked up with Nora in Alexandra’s hospital room.
She could remember now, Nora looking at her and saying everything would be okay. It was after that they’d gone into the apothecary. And now Zach was here and . . .
She thought about the bay leaf. It had to be a coincidence. It couldn’t actually be . . .
“You really don’t have to do this.” She wanted him to, because it felt so nice. Nice to be thought of, nice to be near him. But she also felt obligated to at least try to let him off the hook.
“I want to.” He waved a hand over her protestations. “These programs mean a lot to me.”
Of course. The program.
“That is just extremely generous of you.”
“It’s really not,” he said. “It’s a small thing. I have your number.”
“Oh. Yeah, feel free to . . . text.”
“I might even call you.”
A strange rush went through her body. Was this flirting? No. She was not flirting with Zach. And he was definitely not flirting with her.
But what a completely disorienting and exhilarating realization.
She could. She hadn’t chosen for Jonathan to walk out the door, but now that he had, she was free to imagine a life that looked however she wanted it to.
She could flirt with Zach. Or the next guy who walked in.
And maybe things would be okay. Maybe she and the other discarded wives had actually done something. Something magic.
Was it normal to be euphoric in the middle of your life falling apart?
She suddenly felt like she might be. This was an ending.
One she never would’ve chosen. One she and her kids were suffering for.
It was like she’d gone bungee jumping and someone had cut the cord.
There was an exhilaration in the free fall.
Though that was just what you thought before you hit the ground and died.
She couldn’t discount that.
Psychosis was a real possibility here.
“I’ll let you get back to it.” Zach gestured at the stage.
“Yeah. Thanks,” she said.
The rest of rehearsal went well, with only one forgotten-line meltdown by one of the kids, and she watched from inside the theater as her children went into the lobby, peering through the window as Jonathan greeted them. She just . . . She didn’t want to have to face him unnecessarily.
It was better to keep him far away. Through a window, if possible. It wasn’t always. Of course not. He was the father of her kids.
And a stranger. And the man she had loved since she was sixteen.
All those things.
She waited until everyone had cleared out and then picked up the multiple bags she carried all the time and walked out to her car, feeling empty-handed despite them, because the kids weren’t with her.
She was so glad she wasn’t going home to an empty house.
During any other time in her life, she would’ve said she craved being alone.
Now it just felt sad, her rattling around with her thoughts.
It was atrocious, truly.
“Nora sent a message: Daisy, I need to know what you want.”
The text popped up on Daisy’s car system, the message from Nora read to her in a robotic voice as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“Nora sent a message: Teriyaki chicken?”
Daisy responded. “Is that a question?”
“Nora sent a message: I don’t know. Is there something better that I should be getting?”
“Soraya sent a message: I’m getting teriyaki noodles.”
“Not salad?” Daisy asked.
“Nora sent a message: I asked the same thing.”
Soraya and Nora must be together, which was strange and hilarious, because Daisy would have said the two of them would never, ever willingly hang out alone.
There was a saying about strange times and strange bedfellows.
It had never felt more apt than it did now.
But as she listened to robot versions of Soraya and Nora banter in text, Daisy experienced a riotous sense of relief.
Like everything might actually be okay. Or at the very least, tonight would be.
It was a short drive back to her house, and she pulled in and unlocked the door, then went inside and did a cursory cleanup of the kids’ trinkets strewn all over the house.
There was more of her own detritus than usual too—likely a reflection of her mental state.
But she didn’t have it in her to be hard on herself right now. Everything felt hard.
She made a quick call and checked in with her mother, then made another to her grandma, and that was when Soraya and Nora knocked on the door.
Daisy opened the door to let them in and had the strangest realization that it had been years since she’d had friends over.
Having friends over had been a staple of her life growing up.
It was for most kids. Hanging out, spending the night.
It was the most exciting thing, and she just didn’t do it anymore.
She met people for coffee, went out to dinner sometimes, but this felt like the kind of slumber party she hadn’t had since she was a teenager.
“I have the craziest news,” Nora announced, sweeping into the entry. She was burdened with take-out bags, and Soraya was holding one small one.
“Pork rolls.” Soraya brandished the bag.
“We ended up ordering the entire left side of the menu.” Nora raised each bag up as an example. “Soraya has found an appetite.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But what happened?” Daisy asked, trying to corral the conversation back to where it had been.
“Oh.” Nora closed the front door behind them. “I got commissioned to do a mural for the Holly.”
“The Holly Theater?”
“Yes. Your Holly Theater. The one that you’re doing Seven Brides in.”
“That’s . . . incredible. You haven’t done a mural since you did the gym in high school.”
“No. I haven’t. And that isn’t in my portfolio for a reason.”
“I liked it,” Soraya said.
“Really? I think all the basketball players have arms that are about four inches too long. But, anyway, the woman who runs the committee for the theater saw the community painting I did for the art center, and she loved it. She wants me to do a bigger version, with symbols that are important to Hemlock. And it pays well. So not only do I now have money coming in from being at Lady’s Mantle, I have this payment for the mural. ”
“That’s amazing. I . . .” Daisy snagged the takeout from Nora’s hand and gestured for her friends to move into the living room.
She had put plates and forks in there earlier and now set the takeout on the coffee table.
She was glad she’d decided they should eat in here, because it added to the slumber-party feel. “Zach came by today. Zach Woods.”
“I knew exactly which Zach it was before you clarified,” Nora said. “Because there is a reverence with which you speak his name.”
Daisy huffed. “I think we all do?”
“Who can blame us?” Nora tore into the food and put forks into the containers of noodles, rice, meat, and rolls.