Sonnet made the introductions, and Nina beamed at Daisy. “Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I’ve got the mother of all colds and I don’t want to get you guys sick. I’ve been hoping to meet you, Daisy. My brother Tony says you’re in his homeroom.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re already working at the bakery, I hear. That’s great.”
“Word travels fast,” Daisy said.
“You have no idea. Did you know Jenny Majesky is my best friend? We grew up together.” Nina turned to Zach. “How are you?” she asked. “I haven’t seen much of you lately.”
“I increased my hours at the bakery.” Zach appeared slightly uncomfortable, standing in the doorway as though poised to flee. Daisy knew that there was tension between his father and Sonnet’s mother, undoubtedly because his dad, the current city administrator, was after Nina Romano’s job. Zach didn’t say much about his dad, but she had the impression that Matthew Alger was strict and very focused on money. And he probably didn’t think much of his son coming here, fraternizing with the enemy, so to speak.
The three of them went into the kitchen to find something to eat and get to work.
“Your mom looks like a college girl,” Daisy said to Sonnet.
“She was just fifteen when she had me.”
Daisy didn’t know what else to say. I’m sorry didn’t seem right. “So what happened?” she asked, blurting out the question before she could decide whether or not she should ask it. “I mean, besides the obvious.”
“She met a guy from West Point. He had no idea she was underage. My mom looked way older than fifteen. Now she looks way younger than thirty-one. I’m really proud of her.”
“I don’t blame you. She must be something, to go from teenage mom to town mayor. You’re something, too,” Daisy added. “You’ll only be sixteen when you graduate. Why the rush?”
Sonnet shrugged. “There wasn’t much to it. I doubled up on English classes and that gave me enough credits to finish, so it didn’t feel like a rush. I guess I’m kind of in a hurry to move away, start college. My mom would never say anything, but I just get this feeling she’s waiting for a shot at her own life.”
“What about your dad?”
“I don’t really call him my father or my dad. That implies a relationship that isn’t there. He is…the guy whose DNA I have. The guy who made me biracial.”
“So where is he now?”
She shrugged, the casual gesture probably masking a world of hurt. “He works in Washington, D.C. At the Pentagon.”
“What is he, like some military VIP?”
“That’s what they say. And he has this incredible trophy wife who’s a Rhodes scholar and the granddaughter of a famous civil rights leader, and they have two perfect kids who look like movie stars.”
Again, Daisy didn’t know what to say.
“I’m okay with all that,” Sonnet quickly explained. “Except…”
“Except what?”
“Except sometimes I have no idea who I am. I see my dad maybe once a year. My mom’s like, the town hippie. A throwback to Woodstock.”
“She must be more than that, to be elected mayor.”
They opened their backpacks and took out their notes. Daisy also took out her camera, a digital with Carl Zeiss optics. She’d gotten it for her birthday last summer and had discovered a new obsession. At her former school, photography had been the only class she enjoyed. She absolutely loved taking pictures, capturing a particular moment or image or slant of light.
There was something compelling and oddly intimate in the way Sonnet and Zach sat at the table, studying together, occasionally teasing. The angle of their heads formed a curious symmetry.
“Don’t mind me,” Daisy said, powering up her camera. “I just want to take a few shots.”
The space between them formed a heart shape, but it wasn’t too cutesy because their expressions were so intense. Daisy took a few pictures and then put the camera aside. Sonnet offered her a Coke but she declined. Daisy was starving. Lately she got the munchies in a way that was, like, ten times more intense than when she smoked pot. At odd hours, too, sometimes in the middle of the night. So when Sonnet put out a bag of chips and a tub of sour-cream dip, Daisy dug in as though she hadn’t eaten in days.
She asked for a glass of water. The moment she finished drinking it, all the cold liquid seemed to head straight for her bladder.
“Where’s the restroom?” she asked, suddenly about to burst.
Sonnet pointed down the hallway.
Daisy hurried. She passed the study where Nina was now talking on the phone, something about city finance.
The chips and dip had been a mistake. A huge mistake. She felt them heading northward, until she felt like a volcano about to erupt.
Bathroom. Where the hell was the bathroom?
She wrenched open one of the hallway doors. Damn. Coat closet. Tried the next one. Damn. Cellar stairs. Almost panicking now, she tried door number three. It wasn’t a bathroom, either. She was about to explode when she heard Nina say, “End of the hall, honey.”
Daisy ran. She didn’t know which was more urgent—the need to pee or the need to puke. But she had to get to that bathroom.
Ten minutes later, pale and completely empty, having sponged herself off and rinsed her mouth, she staggered out of the bathroom. Get a grip, she told herself. Go to the kitchen and act normal.
Shoulders back, chin up, she walked down the hall. As she passed the study where Nina was working,
