Chapter Three
Snow White
Daisy
“What happened to your face?”
I looked to the kid standing beside me where I sat on the
bench in Washington Park, a place I’d gone to escape my apartment, my thoughts,
my life.
And those daisies.
Even I couldn’t feel like shit in a house filled with
daisies.
I didn’t think of daisies.
I looked at a kid who was young, in his early teens, maybe
even younger than that, Hispanic and already a very good-looking boy. He had
another boy with him, black, gangly. I could see the other one would be tall
and he wasn’t yet growing into what he’d become, but the promise of it was
there. He was standing further away, shadowed by the shade of a tree, not bold
enough to approach, so I turned my attention back to the one who’d gotten
close.
“It’s not polite to ask a question like that, sugar,” I told
him.
“I hope you fucked him up right back,” he said and I wished
I was able to share that I had.
I looked closer at him.
“Fuck, you didn’t get the shot at fuckin’ him up,” the kid
muttered, his face turning hard, and my attention grew sharper.
When it did, I noted he needed a shower. A haircut. A change
of clothes.
Food.
And he saw things others wouldn’t see.
Primarily, whatever my face had told him that other kids his
age would never have seen. Hell, even most adults wouldn’t have read it on me.
Damn, he was a runaway.
I cocked my head. “When’s the last time you had somethin’ to eat, boy? And by the way, kid your age
shouldn’t say fuck. Comprende?”
His face got even harder before his eyes darted beyond me,
his body grew tight, and his friend said urgently, “P, let’s go.”
He didn’t delay. They both took off and vanished quickly,
even in an open park on a sunny day.
It was then the sun was blocked from hitting me and I turned
my attention swiftly that way, bracing, preparing to launch myself from the
bench and run if I had to.
I stayed still as I saw Marcus Sloan standing there in
another impeccable suit, hands in his trouser pockets, eyes cast down to me.
“Daisy,” he murmured.
Please, God, let this not be happening.
My face was still a mess, as evidenced by that kid coming up
and mentioning it to me.
And I was…
Well…
Me.
“Mr. Sloan.”
“Marcus,” he corrected me.
Okay, this was happening.
I lifted my chin a little and kept it there but said
nothing.
He had sunglasses on, smoky ones that were handsome on him
and probably cost a mint.
Headlining Smithie’s I could afford glasses like those (well
not those, those were for a man, but the like for girls).
Years of scraping by, I’d made it.
Stripping.
Smithie was giving me paid leave. I was going back as soon
as the bruising was out of my face and the scabs were gone from my body.
I was doing this because I had a Porsche to pay for, for
one. And what did it matter what I did, for another. I got paid a load dancing
around for schmucks with hard-ons. No reason not to keep doing it.
And yeah, not even after what had happened to me. I knew
without a doubt that wasn’t why I’d had some asshole rape me. Assholes did that
kind of shit to women no matter what she did for a living, mostly because they
were assholes.
Still, even behind his shades, I knew Marcus Sloan was
studying me.
I didn’t like it but Miss Annamae’s training kicked in and I
said, “Thank you for the flowers.”
He inclined his head but said nothing.
“They’re real nice but you can stop sending them,” I told
him.
He still said nothing.
Whatever.
I looked around our area of the park and back at him.
“You take a stroll through Wash Park often?” I asked.
He spoke then.
“I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight.”
I stared up at him, not wearing any sunglasses, so my
expression was probably not hard to read. Even if I’d had them on, my mouth
dropping open would have given me away.
I snapped it shut and straightened my back. This caused only
a hint of pain as the tightness of the scabs reminded me they were there.
“Thank you, but you’ve made your point with the flowers. And
you have nothing to worry about. I’m coming back to work and I’m not blaming
anyone for what happened, except the asshole who did it to me.”
He nodded but even doing it, he said, “With that, I’m afraid
it’s clear that I haven’t made my point with the flowers.”
What?
“What I’m trying to say, Mr. Sloan—” I began to explain.
“Marcus.”
“Marcus,” I snapped and watched his very fine lips twitch.
Whatever.
I carried on.
“You and Smithie will have no problems from me.”
“I didn’t suspect we would.”
“Good,” I returned. “So thank you for…” I lifted a hand and
flitted it through the air, watching his shades move to it and stay locked on
it in a way that made me feel funny, “your kindness, but there’s no need to
take it further.”
When I dropped my hand to my lap, he rocked back on his
heels, his shades returning to me.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, he just looked at
me, and I fought squirming.
Finally, he spoke.
And when he did it, his deep voice wrapped around the words
warmly, communicating that warmth to me.
“Daisy, I’d very much like to take you to dinner.”
“Thanks,” I returned sharply, using my tone to fight back
that funny feeling that just kept growing. “But no thanks. I don’t need a pity
date, not to mention…” I lifted my hand again, this time to gesture stiltedly
to my face, “I’m not feelin’ good about goin’ to some fancy place and bein’
on show.”
“I don’t pity you,” he told me.
“Really?” I asked, cocking my head again, feeling my hair
move and seeing his head shift slightly so I knew he watched it. “A girl who
got the skin scraped off her ass in a parking lot because some guy tore her
clothes off, threw her to the blacktop, and banged the shit outta her when she
was only kinda conscious?” I righted my head and
nodded. “Right. I get it. You don’t pity that kind of girl. My
kind. I work a pole, I got it comin’.”
I stopped talking, but I’d done it so heatedly, I’d stupidly
not paid close attention to him while I was doing it.
So when I stopped talking, I had no choice but to pay
attention because the entirety of Marcus Sloan had changed. Every inch. Every molecule.
The change filled the air and circled around me, drawing me into its snare like
I was Snow White reaching for the apple, even knowing the dangers that lurked
if I took a bite.
“I misspoke,” he whispered, his words slithering over my
skin, not like a snake.
Like silk.
And they kept doing it as he kept speaking.
“I don’t pity you. I’m very sorry for what happened to you.
What you endured. Very sorry, Daisy. However, I don’t wish to have
dinner with you because I pity you. I wish to have dinner with you because
you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Yep.
My mouth dropped open at that too.
“It’s too soon for you,” he murmured. “I apologize. We’ll
take this slow. To that end, I’d be honored if you’d have lunch with me on
Friday. Somewhere quiet where you won’t feel on show.”
“It’s Wednesday,” I told him something he likely knew, but
it being Wednesday, no way my face would be okay to go to lunch anywhere by
Friday.
Not at all.
Definitely not with a man like him.
And taking it slow meant taking it slow. Friday was
only two days away. That wasn’t slow!
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I…you…uh…”
I stopped talking.
“Friday,” he decreed.
“No,” I whispered.
He seemed to lean toward me.
At that perceived movement, I scrambled off the bench and
took a big step back.
His hands came out of his pockets and he lifted them to his
sides.
“Daisy, I won’t—”
“No,” I shook my head. “No more flowers. No lunch on
Friday.”
“Please, I simply—”
“No.”
It came out strangled.
Then I turned and ran.
But I heard him order curtly, obviously not to me, “Make
sure she gets home safely.”
And whoever it was did just that if the Mercedes trailing me
in my Porsche was anything to go by.
Crap.
Damn.
Shit.
I stood at the window in my apartment staring down at the
Mercedes that didn’t move from sitting at the curb in front of my building.
Crap.
Damn.
Shit.
Okay.
Whatever.
Shit happened. Then it stopped happening and you moved on.
Whatever this was with Marcus Sloan would stop happening
too.
And I’d move on.
I turned away from my window.
And all I saw was daisies.
“I’m likin’ it but it needs some sparkle,” I told
Chardonnay late Friday morning while sitting in the dancer’s dressing room at
Smithie’s as she modeled her new stripper duds for me, doing it busting some
moves.
It was pasties, a G-string, and platform stripper sandals.
She still needed sparkle.
“Daisy, where am I gonna put
sparkle?” she asked, staring down at her mostly nude body.
“Glue gun the shit outta some and put it over your coochie, girl,” I advised. “Boys’ eyes go there, least
that’s covered and they’re not lookin’ at your tits.
Well, at least not all the time.”
“This bears contemplation,” Chardonnay murmured.
This bears contemplation.
This bitch slayed me.
Her name wasn’t Chardonnay. It was Penelope. She was
pre-med, a senior, already accepted to medical school. She was also the shit
because pretty much everyone knew she was stripping and she didn’t give a crap.
“By the time I’m practicing rheumatology,” she’d shared with
me, “I’ll be getting paid a whack and it’ll be all mine. I’ll buy myself a BMW
and a big house in Cherry Hills and I’ll do it right off the bat because I
won’t have student loans. So they can think what they want. They can also kiss
my ass.”
I, obviously, could not fault this way of thinking.
“Black on black, but also some silver,” I advised. “Subtle
but packs a punch.”
“I’m not sure my powers with a glue gun are up to scratch,”
she replied.
“Take it off. Rinse it out and give that bitch to me,” I
told her. “I’m hell on wheels with a glue gun and I’ll set you up.”
She grinned at me as a knock came at the door.
I looked that way as Chardonnay called, “Just a minute.” Her