Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
There were a million things she wanted to say to him in the aftermath.
But the trouble was, he gave her no chance to do it.
He walked away while she was still reeling, and this time he did not come back.
The truck was gone when she went down to the parking garage.
Then in the morning, there was the email from Beck.
He says it’s nothing to do with you, he just wants to finish the tour there.
And honestly I think it’s righter than rain that he does, sales are through the roof, we’ve got everything we need, and I see no reason either of you should keep at it if you’d rather not, it said.
Just say the word and we’ll cancel the last stop.
And she came fairly close to just saying yes.
Yes, halt it all.
It didn’t even seem to matter anymore if everybody realized it was phony, or started wondering why they weren’t together. Who cares, it’s all just nonsense anyway, she told herself as she packed up her things for the car that was waiting for her downstairs to bring her to the plane.
She wasn’t sure what stopped her.
She just got into the thing, and when the driver asked where to, she said Minneapolis. And he took her, too. Seemed happy about it, because apparently it was on Caleb Miller’s dime. “I’m supposed to do whatever you want,” he said. Then, of course, he wanted to know why she was crying.
Tell him I love him, she thought. Tell him I’m in love with him and make him understand it better than I did. Though she had to say, that seemed a little beyond a man who ate a kebab upside down in front of her and then exclaimed in horror when it all fell into his lap.
“It’s all right, Frank, I’ve done the same thing before today,” she told him as he did his best to apologize.
In fact, she discovered burger sauce down her best shirt, just before she went into the Minneapolis Center for Business Excellence.
A squat little building with a revolving door that was temporarily out of service.
No wonder I’m exhausted, she thought, as her liaison there tried to help her in through a window.
“The fire door around back isn’t real either,” she said, apologetically.
Though everything inside was thankfully fine.
The greenroom was actually real this time.
She sat in it with a real cup of a tea in an actual mug, waiting for someone to say it wasn’t a good idea for her to do this.
They really came to see Caleb Miller, she imagined.
But nobody said anything. Instead, they almost seemed excited by the prospect.
The moderator for this particular stop—a woman called Neeta, all avid eyes and perfectly lined lips—had a stack of questions just for her.
“You never seem to say anything, but I suspected you might one day want to,” she said, breathlessly.
Though that wasn’t really what Daisy had in mind.
And the sight of what was on the cards only solidified that inside her.
You are British so could you share your favorite slang, the top one said.
Then Neeta flicked to another one, and somehow that was even worse.
Do you like blood pudding, Daisy read, and walked out onto the stage, resolved.
No sitting in the seat provided. No lingering on the audience, which looked way more fucking enormous than she knew how to process.
Just grab the microphone, and go straight into it.
Whatever it was going to be.
“As you can probably see, Caleb Miller isn’t here today. But I am, because I felt like I should tell you all what we should have done from the start. Or at least tried to explain why he said what he did in a way that doesn’t hurt you all,” she started. And that felt good. It felt right.
Until she realized they were all listening with bated breath. Waiting for her to say, Everything you believed in is a lie, a big joke, a grand old hunk of nothing. And she just couldn’t. She couldn’t do it.
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams, she thought.
Then lifted the microphone again.
“The thing is, I know why you love romance novels. It’s the same reason I do—they make you feel like everything could be okay.
That all those shots you missed, they’re being made in some other world.
All those loves you lost, you didn’t lose them there.
The person you longed for loved you, and they loved you so much, with all of their soul.
And you know it, too. In a better world than this one, you never have to doubt it. But the thing is—”
She stopped there. It was necessary, because her voice was on the verge of breaking in a way she hadn’t believed it would. She had kind of thought, when she stepped onstage, that something inside her had died a little bit.
But somehow it didn’t feel like it.
There were tears in her eyes. Then she looked up to try to make them go away, and saw a girl in the upper tier of the audience. Dark hair, dark eyes, an off-the-shoulder jumper. She had one of his books clutched in her hands, and for some reason there were tears in her eyes, too.
And she knew how to finish.
“I’m so sorry that it doesn’t. I’m so sorry that all we have is this.
I think I wanted you all to have something more than some thin and miserable thing, but I don’t know how to give it to you.
All I can say is: whatever you see happen between people in the dreams you imagine, don’t stop hoping for something else beyond this.
Hold on to love in your hearts. Never let anyone think it’s silly to be passionate, to be soft, to say you adore something with everything in you,” she said, those tears spilling down her cheeks now.
One last thing to get out, without completely breaking down.
One last thing she wanted them all to know.
“And never forget, no matter what, that you do deserve to be loved. Even if you’re not perfect.
Even if you make mistakes. Even if you’re too much, or not enough.
Don’t lose things because you cannot imagine better for yourself.
Reality is harsh enough without you believing that.
The dream of something more is in you, all of you, always. ”