Clean Slate (14 page)

After Ben slipped out of her house on early Sunday
morning, swinging his tuxedo jacket over his shoulder and whistling a jaunty
tune, Daisy pulled on her old ratty bathrobe and hummed her way down the hall
to the kitchen.

They hadn’t even gotten to the cake, which she was at the
moment making a beeline for. Cake and coffee sounded like a dream after the
night they’d had.

They hadn’t even had sex. They’d cuddled and caressed and
did a lot of things that probably were considered sex in
some
societies, but there was no actual intercourse. They watched television—with
Ben explaining some of the shows he watched in Belgium—and talked in
whispers until their voices went hoarse.

It’d been wonderful. She could do with a lifetime of
nights like those. She giggled as she reached for the coffee pot.

“What’s so damn funny?” came a deep, drawling voice from
the back door. The screen door snapped shut as Barry leaned in against the
nearby counter.

Daisy jumped, but quickly righted herself. She sighed and
lifted the lid of the coffeemaker. “What are you doing here? You weren’t here
this much even when we were married.”

“When’d you go and get all smart-mouthed? Not attractive,
girl.”

“Maybe I’m not trying to be attractive. Maybe I don’t give
a shit what you think.” She reached into the cabinet and wrapped her fingers around
a canister of Colombian extra-dark roast.

“Oh, you cussin’ now, too? Gone downhill, girl, and I
didn’t think the hill was all that steep.” He laughed.

She rolled her eyes and silently counted scoops of coffee.
When she was done, she turned to him, took a deep breath, and said in the
steadiest voice she could manage, “I’d appreciate it if you’d give me your key.”

He stared dumbly at her as if what she’d said was so
outlandish it didn’t even justify a response.

“I’m not kidding, Barry. You don’t live here. You can’t
just let yourself in whenever you want.”

He scoffed and moved further into the room, transferring
mud onto the clean linoleum from his sneakers. “That’s real funny,” he said
with his head inside the refrigerator he’d opened. “Damn, y’all ain’t got no
juice. Guess I’ll have to go through the drive-though.”

The longer he remained in her kitchen, the more her
reserve depleted. The less brave she felt. It’d been the same way back in high
school where she’d say no, and he’d needle her in the subtle ways he always did
and eventually she’d say yes just to make him happy. A miserable Barry always
made
her
miserable, too, so at some
point—maybe halfway through eleventh grade— she’d stopped having
any opinions of her own. Her opinions were
his
opinions. She did what he wanted because that was easiest. As an adult, she
understood how one-sided their relationship was back then. What she didn’t
understand now was why he still affected her in much the same way.

She swallowed and took another deep breath. “Yeah, the
drive-through. Why don’t you go ahead and do that?”

“What’s the rush?” He closed the fridge door and opened
the freezer. “Hell yeah, y’all got those sausage biscuits I like.”

“Ellis bought those.”

He took two out of the box. “He won’t care.”

She ground her teeth.

“What are you so uptight about?” He pulled the microwave
door open and popped the sandwiches in. “You need to loosen up.”

“I was perfectly loose until you walked into my kitchen.”

“I was perfectly loose until you walked into my kitchen!”
he mocked in a high-pitched, singsong voice.

She ground her teeth some more, and turned to face the
coffeemaker. She counted the drips from the filter into the carafe, willing her
pulse to come down from the stratosphere and tried to block out his continued needling
in the background.

He didn’t stop. “What’d you cut your hair off for? You
used to like having your hair pulled. What are you gonna do now? Oh, never
mind. Ain’t nobody pulling your hair.”

“I never liked having my hair pulled.”

“Whatever. You didn’t complain.”

“You wouldn’t have stopped even if I did.”

The microwave beeped, and the smell of sausage and eggs
permeated the kitchen as he opened the door. “Shit, that’s hot. Gimmie a
plate.” He tossed a plastic wrap-covered biscuit from hand to hand like a hot
potato.

“Get your own.” She grabbed a mug from the cabinet and let
it slam shut with more force than necessary.

“Fuck, you’re a bitch.” He got close to her right ear and
sang “Bitch bitch bitch” as he reached overhead and opened the cabinet she’d
just closed.

Something inside her very nearly snapped, but not quite.
She’d had too much practice.

Any other woman in her situation probably would have sent
an elbow flying to his nose or rammed her knee into his crotch, but her first
reaction had never been violence. Her brain always told her to
run
. Hide. Cower. But now, she was too
angry for that. Too angry to flee. Too angry to yell, even. She was beyond
that. Her mind was reeling into a very scary place, and one she’d never
descended into before. It was dark and she didn’t like it, but she couldn’t see
any way out, except to say it. The magic words.

She slipped sideways and turned to see his face. She fixed
her stare on his bloodshot brown eyes—the ones she thought were so dreamy
back in eighth grade—and squared her chin. “Grow up.”

He got his plate and laughed so loud and so close to her
head, the hearing in her left ear went a bit muffled. “Grow up,” he mimed.
“That’s cute.”

“That’s right, Barry. Grow the fuck up. You’re
twenty-seven years old and you act like you haven’t started puberty. Last I
checked, your nuts had dropped so that can’t be it.” Her voice was absolutely
flat, but she knew her cheeks were redder than Barry’s eyes.

Liz walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. “What’s all
the ruckus?”

“I dunno. Something crawled up her butt, I guess. Can’t
see why I ever married her.” He moved away with his biscuits and took a seat at
the table.

Daisy hated that goddamned table. It’d been one of the
first things she and Barry had bought together after they’d started renting the
house. Now she was loath to even look at it—to remember all the meals
that’d gone cold and uneaten because he wasn’t home.

Liz’s expression was wary as she locked eyes with Daisy.

Daisy didn’t expect her to choose sides, even if she did
know what a buffoon her brother was. There wasn’t anything Liz could do to
change him. He had to want to change, and probably never would.

“What’s going on, Daisy?” she asked.

Truth? Lie?
Something in between?
Daisy studied the worry in her ex-sister-in-law’s expression
and chose her words carefully. She didn’t want to hurt Liz. Liz had always been
kind. Hell, Liz had tried to steer Daisy away from Barry back when she was in
ninth grade and Liz was in eleventh. She’d pulled Daisy aside and said, “You’re
sweet. He’s gonna hurt your feelings, honey. That’s how he is.”

Daisy had said, “Boys will be boys” or something to that
affect. Some bullshit line she’d probably learned from Momma. Her mother
probably thought love taps were acceptable displays of affection, too.

“I asked him for his key.” Daisy warmed her hands around
her coffee mug, and tried to uphold her eye contact, although her nature had
her programmed to cower. Cowering was fucking exhausting. She was sick of being
exhausted.

Liz sighed. “Fuck, Barry. I told you to only use the key
if I locked myself out. You don’t live here anymore. You don’t pay rent. You
can’t drop in uninvited.”

“What do you want, twenty bucks?” A smarmy grin spanned
his face.

There.
That
was
the breaking point.

Daisy set down her coffee mug, having not even taken a
sip, and tightened the sash of her robe around her waist. She walked toward the
hall, talking as she moved. “Liz, I’m not renewing the lease. You and Ellis can
pick it up, otherwise you’ve got thirty days to find someplace to live.” She
slipped into her bedroom and before closing the door said, “Barry, you’re
trespassing. Get the fuck out in the next thirty minutes or I’m calling the
cops.”

She locked the door and sank onto the corner of her unmade
bed. The same one she’d had such a wonderful night on with a man she adored so
much, but was too broken to give herself to. She laughed, and at first it was
just a low chuckle. Then it progressed to true laughter, with her shoulders
shaking as she thought about how fucking foolish she was. Laughter gave way to sobs.
And the sobs…

Well, those ended with nausea.

Daisy called out of work on Monday, but on Tuesday slipped
into the barn with her usual unobtrusive entrance. She’d taken her seat at her
worktable, murmuring a quiet hello to Momma and
Moeder
, whom Francine had put to work preparing trays for soap.

Ben stood upright from where he leaned over Nikki’s desk
and studied Daisy’s face. She looked pale. Well,
paler
than usual, and her eyelids were heavy as if she’d been
rubbing them, and a
lot
.

He’d tried calling her the day before, if only to hear her
voice and perhaps solicit an invitation so he could see for himself that she
was fine, but she hadn’t answered. Francine hadn’t known where she was, and
that revelation left him feeling unsettled. He drove to Edenton, parked in
front of her little house, and got out, only to pause at the sidewalk when he
encountered a man on the porch with his booted feet up on the railing.

“Who are you, Ellis’s boyfriend?” the man had asked after
taking a long draw on his cigarette.

Ben had shaken his head. “No. I’m here to see Miss
Mooring.”

The man scoffed. “Well, Miss Mooring is currently
indisposed. Ain’t answering the door. I’m waiting on my sister to let me in so
I can get some stuff I left inside.”

Ah
, Ben had
thought.
The infamous Barry.
“What do
you mean
indisposed
? Is she well?”

“Why do you care?”

Ben had crossed his arms over his chest and stared the man
down.

“The fuck you looking at?”

“An idiot, apparently.”

“Come say it to my face.”

Ben had taken two steps toward the man when a late-model
sedan pulled into the driveway, and the driver’s door sprang open.

“Can I help you?” the woman had asked as she pressed a
plastic grocery bag into her purse and shut the car door.

“Daisy wasn’t at work. I wanted to see if she were well.”

The woman’s mouth had opened into a slack O shape. She’d
looked from Ben to Barry and tightened her grip on her purse. “Um, just a
little cold. It’s hitting her harder than it should because she was tired, you
know? Uh…I had the same cold last week.” She’d sniffled and wiped her nose.

Ben hadn’t bought it, but he didn’t have time to press.
He’d needed to go back to Tyner. “Could you tell her to call Ben at home,
please?”

She’d nodded and Barry had stood, stubbing his cigarette
out on the railing.

“Hey!” Barry had called out.

“Yes?”

“What you want with Daisy?”

Ben hadn’t answered. He understood the reason why she
hadn’t wanted to go to Jerry’s reception, and it was a damn shame.

At the barn, he paused the discussion he was having with
Nikki and her lawyer about his immigration paperwork and left her office. He
walked straight to Daisy and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hello,” he said
when she looked up.

She managed a tiny smile. “Hi. Leaving tonight?”

“Yes.”

“When are you coming back? Do you know?”

“Belated Monday meeting in five minutes!” Nikki yelled.

Ben cringed and turned his attention back to Daisy. “No.
Nikki’s trying to get the employment documentation in place just in case.”

She nodded.

He wanted to ask her how she felt—not just physically,
but about how she was coping with Nikki’s impeding announcement about the new
soaps. As far as he knew, no one had let Francine in the loop yet. And of
course, he wanted to pull her aside and ask her how she felt about
him
—about his departure and tentative
return. It hadn’t come on Saturday night. They’d kept the conversation to light
things such as how it was that Daisy had never learned to swim and how he’d
managed to obtain fluency in four languages. He knew a lot about her. He knew
that inside that quiet shell, was a stunning brilliance. He imagined that
people probably thought she wasn’t smart because she didn’t talk much, but the
truth was she had a mind that was always churning, even if she didn’t provide a
running commentary about it.

She’d go minutes saying nothing, and then in a sentence or
two reveal some simple poignancy that made him stop and think. One of those
little
bons mots
had made him pull
her in close and kiss the top of her head. He’d murmured, “I love you” in
Dutch, but she hadn’t understood.

“Can I…” She stopped fiddling with the paperwork on her
tabletop and looked down the line at the other women. “Uh.” She swallowed and
stood. “We need to talk to Nikki about that trade show.”

He let his face slacken with his confusion, but something
in her eyes impelled him to nod. He headed up the aisle to Nikki’s office with
Daisy on his heels.

Nikki raised an eyebrow as they entered.

Daisy shook her head and turned to look through the office
window out into the production area. Neither woman at the soap station could
see them from their current angle. She wrapped her hand around his wrist and
pulled him through the outer door. “Nikki, can I talk to Ben in your house?”

“Can you do it in five minutes?”

Daisy seemed to think about it. Finally, she nodded, and
pulled again.

“What’s the big fuss, Daisy?” he asked, nudging her
vise-like grip on his wrist free. She didn’t need to manhandle him. He would
have followed her wherever she went, even to the ends of the Earth.

She didn’t answer until they’d stepped up onto the
Mitchells’ screened-in porch and had a seat on the swing. She looked down at
her hands and wrung them. “This is bad timing.”

“What is it? Are you quitting?”

She let out a little scoff and shook her head. “No. I like
working here. More so now that I get to be a little creative.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t want you to think it means anything, or that you
need to act a certain way.”

He squeezed her hands and she looked up. “Daisy,
liefje
. Please.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “Only me and Liz and now
you will know.”

“Tell me.” He asked, but he thought he already knew.

“I’m…” She closed her mouth and ground her teeth. “I’m
usually pretty regular, but I was a couple of days late and I didn’t feel right
so I—”

“You’re pregnant?”

She nodded and looked at her lap, jaw tense, worrying at
her lip.

Bad timing, indeed. What was he supposed to do with that
information? Board a plane, fret, and count the days until he could return?
Because he
would
return. There’d be
no question about that. He wanted to be there for it all, assuming she’d let
him. And assuming she’d…

“Daisy, you’re going to keep it, aren’t you?”

She looked up, eyes wide, shock evident on her face.

“I mean, it’s your choice, but I don’t want you to feel
like I won’t help. I want it—him or her, I mean.”
Verdomme.
He raked his hands through his hair and grunted.
This isn’t coming out right.

“Assuming it’s viable, yes. I’m going to have the baby.”

“We should get married.”

She shook her head.

His stomach lurched at her rebuff, but he gripped her
hands tighter. “Why not? We should be together under one roof. Maybe we don’t
have to be married to do that, but I want to show you I’m committed—that
I’ll come back and stay. Not just because you’re pregnant, but because it’s
right.”

“I never pegged you as the conservative type.”

“I’m not,
liefje
,
but I’m a swimmer—competitive. Finding opportunities and seizing them is
part of who I am. This is an opportunity.” He laughed. “It’s a sign. Can’t you
see that?”

She fixed a wary gaze on him and her jaw spasmed. “You
don’t have to do anything for me.”

The flatness in her voice broke his heart. Had he been
wrong? Did she not feel what he did? “Daisy,” he said, voice soft. “We should
be a family. Don’t you want to belong to someone?”

Anger flashed in her eyes and she drew back from him. “I
don’t want to belong to
anyone
. I
belong to me. Just me.”

She stomped down the stairs and walked with a renewed
purpose up the path to the barn, and he sat there, mouth open, brow furrowed,
completely stunned.

What had happened? It was like a switch had been thrown in
her. She hadn’t been so cagey before, and now, with something that could
potentially bind them together for the rest of their lives, she wanted nothing
to do with him.

“Fuck,” he spat, pushing open the screen door and
following her at a respectful distance up the path. “Fuck,” he whispered again
as he pulled the office’s rear door open. “Fuck.”

Nikki raised that same eyebrow at him as he growled and
shut the door.

“I’ll take the job.”

She didn’t say anything. She just pushed a manila folder
toward the edge of her desk and stood. She walked to the conference table and
shouted, “Let’s go folks, long agenda today.”

He grabbed a pen out of the cup on the desk, signed the
employment contract, and penned in his start date. His eyes darted up to the
clock on her computer monitor and he tossed the pen down.

His shuttle to the airport should have been outside. He
passed the gathering staff at the conference table, paying no special heed to
Daisy, and intercepted his mother on the way to his pile of bags near the door.

They embraced and he leaned to whisper in her ear. “You
don’t have to do this. You can go home and go back to work. Whether she wants
me or not, I’m coming back as soon as I pack up my apartment.”

“What happened?” she asked in Dutch.

He gave her a squeeze. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

She nodded, and he grabbed his duffel, his backpack, and
his wheeled suitcase and carried it all to the barn door. He took one last look
toward the conference table to find Daisy watching him walk away.

Her expression wasn’t hard and impassive anymore. Now she
just looked scared.

Good. That’s better
than feeling nothing.