age-appropriate girl, myself,” she said.
“And the wife?” I said.
“Angela likes me,” Daisy said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “If I can make it work, I’m going to keep her from her father, and I’m looking for someplace to put her.”
“To raise?” Daisy said.
“No, to give her an option.”
“And you think Daisy Dyke is going to play Mother Courage?”
“She can work in the restaurant, sleep in the back. I’ll be responsible for her. Get her registered for school, take her to the doctor, whatever.”
Daisy stared at him.
“She old enough to get a work permit?”
“I think so,” Jesse said.
“Is she a pain?” Daisy said.
“You bet,” Jesse said.
“Might she run off anyway?”
“Absolutely,” Jesse said.
“And you think the town will feel much better about her living with two lesbians than they would about her living with you?”
“I think so,” Jesse said. “More important, though, I think it would be better for her.”
“Because a fourteen-year-old girl living alone with an unrelated man will tie herself into some kind of Oedipal knot?” Daisy said.
“You’re pretty smart for a queer cook,” Jesse said.
“I used to see a shrink,” Daisy said. “When I was trying to figure out if I should be a lesbian.”
“Well, it must have worked,” Jesse said.
“I don’t seem ambivalent about it,” Daisy said, “do I.”
“I don’t know if this will happen,” Jesse said. “It won’t happen until I am sure her father will not present a problem for anybody.”
“This is a just-in-case,” Daisy said.
Jesse nodded.
“You want to discuss it with Angela?”
“No,” Daisy said. “I’ll do it.”
“Like that?”
“I’m not from here, Jesse, and neither are you,” Daisy said. “Neither one of us exactly belongs. And probably neither one of us ever will.”
Jesse shrugged.
“And I didn’t improve my chance for membership by marrying Angela Carlson,” Daisy said. “Of the Paradise Carlsons.”
“I think most people don’t give much of a damn one way or the other,”
