Chapter Five
Prince Charming
Daisy
I woke up in a cold sweat.
And terrified.
I didn’t even think. I couldn’t coordinate my limbs. So when
I moved, I fell off my bed, right to the floor. I crawled half the distance to
the door to my bedroom before I found my feet.
Once I did, I sprinted to the dinette where I’d left my
purse. I snatched out my cell and sprinted back to my room, slamming the door,
locking the lock, so lost in my head, when I ran across the room, I thumped
into my bed, falling on top of it, but I didn’t hesitate.
I scrambled over it and off the other side, hitting the
floor on my hands. The cell digging into my palm, I just kept going. My knees
falling off the bed, crashing into the floor, I crawled to the corner, turned,
pressed my back in, lifted my knees up protectively in front of me, and fumbled
my phone as I brought it to my face.
I flipped it open and saw it tremble in my hand as I
searched for the number I’d programmed in no matter I knew it was a fool thing
to do.
I was glad I’d done it then.
I hit it, put the phone to my ear, and felt it shaking
against the shell.
I heard it ring.
It rang four times, and with each passing one I wanted to
scream before I heard a deep man’s voice say, “Yes?”
“M-M-Marcus, I do-don’t…I just had a…” I gulped, “I
c-c-can’t—”
“Daisy,” he stated urgently, “is someone there?”
“I, no, I…y-y-es…um, no.”
I was making no sense and didn’t even know it. I was too
busy realizing that my teeth were chattering, and worse, I couldn’t do a thing
about it.
I sensed vaguely he sounded like he was on the move as he
asked, “Where are you?”
“B-b-bedroom.”
“Stay there. In a few minutes, the man I have on your
apartment will be in your apartment. His name is Louie. He’ll call out his name
so you’ll know he’s there. He won’t approach. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“O-o-kay.”
“As soon as I can, darling. Yes?”
“Y-yeah.”
“I have to let you go now.”
“Yeah.”
“Be right there,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I repeated, unable to say anything else, trembling
so badly I was quaking.
I heard the disconnect like it was far away instead of right
at my ear but I didn’t take the phone away. I held it there until my hand
floated down, the phone still flipped open, and I stared through the dark at
the door.
“It’s Louie!” I heard yelled from my living room and I
jumped, crying out quietly, tucking my knees tight to my chest, wrapping my
arms around them. “All clear!” he shouted. “All good! Mr. Sloan is on his way.”
I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t think anything either.
I didn’t think how I’d been a bitch to Marcus after he’d
been nothing but kind and patient with me. Sending me daisies. Bringing me Dom.
Being gentle and sweet.
It had been a week since that night and I’d heard nothing
from him. Saw nothing of him.
But the daisies kept coming.
As they did, I thought it was that he forgot he was sending
them, and the minute the bill showed, he’d cancel them.
I didn’t allow myself to think further on that.
For a number of reasons, I’d wanted to call. To apologize.
It was what a good Southern woman should do, for one.
But it was what I wanted to do. Me. Daisy. For him.
Marcus. To make it better. To take it back. To let him know that I wanted to be
like Shelby from Steel Magnolias. Strong like her. Strong enough to
know that it was better to have a little bit of something wonderful than a
lifetime of just plain nothing.
Then explain to him that he had to go because I couldn’t
allow myself to have a little bit of something wonderful knowing it’d be taken
away.
I was just not that strong.
It wasn’t just about a man like Stretch knowing he shouldn’t
leave me with my mother, and doing it anyway. Maybe because he had no claim to
me. But mostly, I reckoned, because he wasn’t strong enough either.
And it wasn’t just about Miss Annamae giving me all I needed
to live my life right, but not being around long enough for me to show her I’d
listened to every word.
It was about being the kind of girl that the only good thing
a man had given her was a really fantastic boob job and no matter how much she
fought and scratched and worked for a little hint of peace in her life, she
still got herself raped on the blacktop of a parking lot.
So I didn’t call Marcus. I didn’t apologize. I didn’t
explain. I thought it best to leave him be.
I didn’t care what he did for a living. He deserved better.
Much, much better than me.
The bruising was gone, most of the scrapes had healed, and I
was going to go back to the stage next Saturday.
I’d wanted to do it that night but Smithie was not big on
that idea. He wanted me to take more time. He wanted me to talk to some woman LaTeesha had found, a woman named Bex, who worked at some
rape crisis center. And then he wanted me to give it a month or two, still paid
leave, and he also wanted me to move in with him and LaTeesha
for a spell.
I’d put my foot down. We’d had words.
After sharing I was a pain in his ass, he’d given in but
only if I’d give it another week.
I could do that so I’d agreed.
But I didn’t think of any of that. Not right then, cowering
on my ass in the corner of my darkened bedroom, some man I didn’t know in my
living room who another man I’d insulted had watching my apartment to keep me
safe.
I just stared through the dark at the door, doing it like
the fool I was, the coward, quaking on my ass in the dark.
I heard the knob on the door jostle and then Marcus calling,
“Stay where you are, honey.”
That wasn’t hard since I couldn’t move.
There was some muted scraping before light poured in from
the living room as the door opened and I winced at the bright.
Almost before it illuminated the room, it was gone, and I
stared as Marcus’s tall shadow moved toward me.
I thought he’d stop, and with him there, his man outside, I
tried to pull myself together. The humiliation of cringing in a corner
beginning to dawn, the feel of it spreading over me.
He didn’t stop.
He made it to me, bent low, gathered me up and then he went
right back down. Situating himself exactly as I had been in the corner but
without the trembling and with me in his lap, held close to his chest, one arm
tight around me, the other one slanted up my back, fingers in my hair, pressing
my face to his throat.
I felt his strength. His warmth. Smelled hints of his
cologne.
“What happened?” he whispered. “Nightmare?”
At that word, it came rushing in, and I wasn’t strong enough
to beat it back.
And because I wasn’t, I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t even
feel myself do it.
But I did it.
I burrowed into him, grasping his sweater in my fists,
shoving into him like I wanted his flesh to soak me in and take away the fear,
the shame, a life that was mostly misery.
“Okay, okay,” he soothed, his hold on me tightening. “Shh.
I’m right here. Right here, honey.”
“I got…I gotta build my castle,” I
told him mindlessly.
“I’m sorry?”
“But I can’t. I can’t build no more castles. I don’t got it
in me.”
I was unconsciously rocking.
“Castles?”
I shoved my face in his throat and kept rocking.
“A moat. Big studded door no one can break through. Stone
three feet thick. Keepin’ me safe. Keepin’ me safe.” I sounded like I was
chanting but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t even aware of what I was saying. “I
build my castles so they can keep me safe.” I swallowed, hard. It hurt and it
felt like Marcus felt it too because his arms got even tighter and he took over
rocking me. “Just in my mind. They were always just in my mind. So they
couldn’t keep me safe.”
“You’re safe now.”
“I’ve never been safe.”
He shifted, his arms folding me into myself so I was a
little ball of Daisy held closely against him, “Okay, darling, but you’re safe
now.”
“I wanna believe that. I wanna believe in castles.”
“You’ll believe,” he whispered.
“I wanna believe.”
“You’ll believe, Daisy.”
I said nothing. His warmth and scent and arms around me,
rocking me gently with his body, started penetrating and I pushed in deeper.
The trembling was easing, my mind blanking, my eyelids heavy
when I heard Marcus ask, “In your castle, did you have a prince charming?”
And as I gave up the fight, allowed my eyes to close, I
muttered, “There ain’t no prince charming for a girl
like me.”
With that, I drifted to sleep.
My eyes opened and I saw daisies.
But I smelled bacon.
I dropped to my back in bed and stared at the ceiling, the
night before washing over me.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
I turned again, to my belly, snatching up my other pillow
and shoving my face in it.
I smelled Marcus’s cologne.
“Shit,” I repeated but it was muffled to come out sounding
like, “Shfft.”
I pushed the pillow away, rolled again, tossing back the
covers and pulling myself out of bed.
I wandered to my bathroom, flipped on the light, and went to
the mirror.
I looked into it.
Well, at least that was good.
As any good Southern woman should, I had a big head of hair.
And like every girl who knew good hair knew, you didn’t wash it every day and
with every day you didn’t wash it, the natural product God gave you made it
look better and better.
I was on day three. My hair looked full, the curls I’d set
in it with my hot rollers were still bouncy but now a bit flippy, and it was
cute. Not to mention, one of the only good things my momma gave me, radiant
skin, looked just that (even if I had a nuance of dark circles under my eyes).
I opened a drawer and grabbed some hair ties. Using them, I
tamed my curls into pigtails. Then I went about my routine: brush teeth, floss,
cleanser with exfoliation, brush out of lashes, and smoothing of brows.
And even though I only had on a pair of silk pajamas (shorts
with a deep, deep edge of hollow-out lace and a camisole of the same
but a shorter edge of lace at the top and cute little cream bows at each hip,
the rest of it all in the shade of pistachio), I walked out of my bathroom and