The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [69]
“The hell with him. Write and tell him not to come.”
“No.” She swallowed. “You have to meet him sometime. And if they come during the show, we’ll be too busy to have to spend much time with them. This is best.”
Linc took the letter from her and read the typewritten lines. It was cold and impersonal and ended with the hope that she had matured over the years and that her new husband, a man respected in his field, had had a beneficial influence on her appearance and behavior.
“Your father’s a jerk.” He threw the letter in the hall wastebasket. “Stick with Pansy.”
“That’s what I’ve done all my life.” Daisy stared dully at the door in front of her. “I have to face him sometime. He’s my father.” She got up and walked upstairs, and Linc watched her go, helpless to ease her hurt.
I will never shut my child out like that, he thought, and realized that it was the first time he’d ever thought about a real child, not some well-pressed fantasy. A curly-headed baby with Daisy’s smile. He thought about following her up the stairs and suggesting they start one now, but he knew it was too soon. After this show was over and their lives were back to normal, he and Daisy were going to have to do some serious talking about their future. But not now. She had enough to think about with her show and her father.
He went in and found her sitting on the edge of their bed, and he put his arms around her and pulled her down onto the comforter with him, and she said, “I love you like nothing else in this world.” And he comforted her.
Daisy made Julia go shopping with her for a dress for her opening at Bill’s gallery. Then over Julia’s protests, she bought a plain, high-necked black linen dress with fitted sleeves that made her look chic and adult.
“That dress is not you.” Julia crossed her arms and scowled. “You’ve never worn anything that conservative in your life. I saw a boutique down the street. They had tie-dyed chiffon. Let’s go.”
“No.” Daisy admired her black starkness in the mirror. “I look like a real person in this. Not even my father could complain about this. This is something Caroline would wear.”
Julia made a face. “Why would you want to wear what she’d wear? She’s so conservative, she doesn’t wear colors.” Then Julia saw the light. “Ah. Just like Linc. Daisy, you dummy, Linc likes you in colors. You don’t have to dress like him.”
Daisy turned sideways in the mirror. The black made her look slender. Sophisticated. Serious. “This is a real dress for a real adult. I’m buying it.”
“That’s the most boring dress I’ve ever seen,” Julia said flatly, but Daisy bought it anyway. It made her look like Daisy Blaise, and that was all that mattered.
TEN
DAISY THREW UP the night of the opening. She sat on the bathroom floor in black lace underwear and shuddered with fear. All those people. Her paintings. Her father. She’d been so paralyzed with fear for the past week that she hadn’t painted. Bill had come over with a couple of his employees to pick up her work, and she’d told him that her paintings were in the studio. Then she’d sat down on the couch and put her head between her knees.
“Nerves,” Bill had said. “Happens a lot. Leave it to me. I’ll get everything.” And he had, even the collages from the hall. He’d even come back to take pictures of the cherubs in the bathroom and the trompe l’oeil in the kitchen. Everything she had ever done was going to be at this show. She felt naked when she thought about it.
Pull yourself together, she lectured herself. Be an adult. You’re acting like Daisy Flattery. Grow up. Right. She stood and brushed her teeth. There was something about brushing your teeth that was civilizing. Very Daisy Blaise. She tried to tell herself a story about Daisy Blaise, about her hugely successful gallery show and even more successful marriage, but it didn’t work. Daisy Blaise was reality, and