She was right. 'Hey, sugar muffin,' she said after Nathan picked up on the fourth ring.
'Mom.'
Well, it wasn't a great beginning to their conversation, but it was great to hear his voice. 'How are things?'
'Gay.'
'I miss you.'
'Then come home.'
'I will a week from Sunday.'
'Mom, I do not want to stay here for a week.'
She'd had this same conversation with him before she'd even left. Junie and Oliver were not his favoriterelatives. They weren't horrible, just boring. Especially to a fifteen-year-old boy. 'It can't he that bad.'
'How do you know? Have you ever lived with Aunt Junie and Uncle Know-it-Olly.'
'Nathan, they'll hear you!' Unfortunately Oliver was one of those men who liked to impress people with hislimited knowledge on every subject known to man. Steven had started calling him Know-it-Olly years ago.
'No, they won't. They're not even here. They left me to baby-sit Michael Ann and Richie.'
Daisy wedged the phone between her jaw and shoulder. 'Michael Ann is only a year younger than you.'
'I know. And she's a pain in the butt. She follows me around asking me if I get food stuck in my lip ring.'
Daisy had asked him that too and thought it was a fair question. 'I think she has a crush on you.'
'Oh my God! That is so gross, Mom,' he said, his voice cracking with indignation. 'How can you say that?
She's my cousin.'
'Haven't you ever heard of kissing cousins?'
Daisy teased him.
'Yuck. She still picks her nose!'
Daisy laughed and the conversation turned to school. There was only five more days left, than he would be outfor the summer. He'd just turned fifteen in December, and since about first grade, he'd been counting the daysuntil he could take driver's education. He had one more year to go, but he already had his car picked out. Forthis week anyway.
'I'm gonna get a Nova Super Sport. A four-on-four, too. None of that wussy three-speed crap. Why bother ifyou can't burn 'em off? It'll be fat.' She didn't even pretend to know what he was talking about. He'd been borncar crazy. No way around it. She figured it was in his DNA. Plus, chances were good that he'd been conceivedin the back of a Chevy. Nathan had been doomed to be a gear head.
'What color?' she asked, not in the least concerned that he would ever actually drive a Nova 55 and burn 'emoff. Nathan didn't have a job.
'Yellow with a black top.'
'Like a bumblebee?'
There was a long pause before he said, 'White with a black top.'
They talked for a few more minutes about the weather and where he might want to go on vacation when she gotback. He'd just seen a teen skin-flick and thought Fort Lauderdale would be good. Or Hawaii.
By the time she hung up the telephone, they'd pretty much decided on Disney World, although with Nathan thatcould change by the next time she talked to him. She squirted almond-scented lotion into her hands and rubbedit up her arms. A thin white strip of skin barely marked her left finger where her wedding ring had been forfifteen years. She'd slipped the two-carat solitaire into the inside breast pocket of Steven's burial suit. Shethought it appropriate that it should rest above his heart.
As she rubbed the lotion into her hands, she glanced about the room where she was staying. It was her oldbedroom, but nothing remained except the bed itself. Framed posters of windmills, the Alamo, and the RiverWalk in San Antonio hung on the walls, replacing her certificates from local photography contests she'dentered, her cheerleading plaques, and a poster of Rob Lowe she'd pinned up during his St. Elmo's Fire days.
She stood and moved to the closet and opened the door. The closet was empty except for a few old promdresses, a pair of her old red cowboy boots with white heart inserts, and a big box with her name written acrossit in black. She scooted the box across the floor to the bed, then sat looking at it for several long moments. Sheknew what she would find in there. Bits and pieces of her life, the memories she'd long ago shoved in a box andtaped shut. Earlier at the reception, she'd pushed the memories from her head, now here she sat staring at them.
Did she really want to look into her past?
No, not really.
She tore off the tape and opened the box.
A dried wrist corsage, her graduation tassel, and a few name tags that said HI MY NAME IS DAISY, sat ontop. She couldn't recall why she'd kept the name tags, but she recognized the corsage. She touched the dryrosebuds that had once been pink and white but were now a faded yellow. She brought the dried corsage to hernose and breathed deep. It smelled of dust and of old memories. She set it next to her on her bed, then pulled outher baby blanket and christening gown. A heart-shaped box with the necklace her grandfather on her daddy'sside had given her was next, followed by her school annuals. She reached for her tenth-grade yearbook andopened it. She flipped through the pages and paused on a group photograph of the teaching staff standing infront of the school. She'd taken the photo her first year of photography class, before she'd learned much aboutcomposition and lighting.
She turned to the pictures of her and Sylvia and the rest of the cheerleading squad. The picture had been takenof them in their gold-and-blue uniforms doing Herkie, toe-touch jumps, and handsprings. That was the yearshe'd cut her hair short like Princess Diana. While Diana had looked great, Daisy had looked like a boy in ashort pleated skirt.
She flipped to her class picture and cringed. Her big smile was filled with braces, and she had raccoon eyesfrom all the makeup she'd spooned on her face.
She turned a few pages and her finger moved along the row of photos and stopped on Steven. She touched thesmooth paper and smiled. He'd always been such a handsome all-American boy, with his wavy blond hair,smiling brown eyes, and a Texas grin as if he hadn't a care in the world. He'd played football and basketball andbeen involved in student government, going on to be class president his senior year.
Daisy thumbed a few more pages and looked at Jack's yearbook photo. Unlike Steven, Jack never grinned andsmiled as if he didn't have a care in the world. It wasn't that he was more serious than Steven, it was just that hedidn't waste energy laughing and smiling when he didn't feel like it.
During that school year, he'd turned sixteen, a year older than Nathan was now. The two had the same darkcoloring in hair and skin tone, and perhaps their noses were similar. She looked for other resemblances andfound none.
That was also the year jack had quit football because his father needed him after school in the garage. Up untilhis sophomore year, jack had always been the first string quarterback. When he quit, Steven took over theposition. As far as she recalled, he'd never had any hard feelings toward Steven, only a sadness that he could nolonger play ball.
That was also the year she'd started to fall in love with him. Oh, she'd always loved Jack in the same way shedloved Steven, but it seemed that one moment she'd been looking at him as she always had, and in the nexteverything changed.
On that particular day, he'd been waiting for Steven to finish football practice, sifting on the tailgate of hisdaddy's old truck. She'd stayed after school to make posters for the homecoming dance and later saw him in theparking lot, sitting and watching instead of playing.
Perhaps it had been a trick of the light, an early fall sunset casting him in gold. She didn't know, but she'dnoticed more than his usual good looks. More than his lashes that were longer than hers. More than the slightstubble on his jaw. More than his arms folded across his chest and the defined balls of his biceps and the hardcord of muscle of his forearms. Jack did not lift weights. He lifted car engines.
'Hey there,' He said, and patted the tailgate next to him.
'What are you doing?' she asked as she sat. She placed her school books in her lap and looked out over the fieldas the Lovett Mustangs broke practice and the players jogged toward the locker room.
'Waiting for Steven.'
'Do you miss playing, Jack?'
