Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,35
I’m double-parked.”
Charlotte keeps watch at the door while Alma and Rocco carry in four more pails of sunflowers. Charlotte’s already imagining what she can do with them.
“The MacCrae wedding,” says Charlotte. “How hard will it be to talk the bride out of pink roses and blue delphiniums into something brighter and bolder and . . . yellow?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” says Alma.
Rocco says, “I have a favor to ask.”
Charlotte should have known.
“Ruth’s birthday is coming up.”
“Let’s do something fun.” Charlotte instantly reverts to the welcoming-older-sister mode.
Rocco says, “The weird thing is, her birthday is right around Daisy’s.”
“That never came up,” Charlotte says coldly. But why would it? She can’t remember telling Ruth when Daisy’s birthday was.
“Ruth wants the three of us to celebrate together. She wants me to get tickets to the Moon Circus for her and me and my little niece.”
It takes Charlotte a beat to figure out that little niece means Daisy. Then her heart starts to pound. A series of disasters plays out in front of her, a shuddering loop of horror. They will lose Daisy in the crowd. A stranger will take her. Car crashes, mass shootings. Children screaming, blood everywhere. They won’t know what to watch out for.
Charlotte falls into a chair. She can hardly breathe. Come on! The city is full of lucky kids being taken to the circus by their uncles. It’s called family. That’s how the childless play at parenthood. The survival of the species depends on couples practicing on their relatives’ kids.
Charlotte trusts Rocco. Daisy loves Rocco; she seems to like Ruth. They’re capable of taking Daisy to the circus and having fun and bringing her safely home. Still, Charlotte wishes that everyone would just forget about it and the whole thing would go away.
“Is the circus in town?” She’s stalling. “Where?”
“Where it always is. Under a tent at Battery Park City.”
“Daisy’s got parties coming up. And school and . . . she has a lot on her plate.”
“Charlotte. Seriously? How much can a five-year-old have on her plate? I’m asking you. As a favor. Daisy’s my niece, Ruth is my girlfriend. We won’t keep her out late. We could pick her up at school and bring her home afterwards.”
It’s the most that Rocco has said to Charlotte at one time in a long while. “I’ll ask Daisy.”
“Good,” says Rocco. “Do that. Ask a five-year-old whether or not she wants to go to the circus.”
Charlotte says, “Let me ask Eli too.”
Rocco says, “Is this a complex decision?”
“You should try making one of those sometime.” Oh, why did she say that?
“A pleasure to see you as always, Alma,” says Rocco, and he stalks out of the store.
A few minutes later Charlotte gets a text.
Yes or no on the circus. Don’t contact me to discuss.
She knows that Eli will urge her to say yes. He’s sure to think that a tiny bit of independence will be good for Daisy. And, though he’s too tactful to say it, that it will be good for Charlotte as well. A baby step toward . . . the future.
She texts back to Rocco, OK. GIVE ME TIMES AND DATES.
It feels right, like a gesture of surrender, of trust and faith. At the same time Charlotte is praying that the circus will be sold out, or that Daisy won’t want to go.
10
Ruth
I was Daisy’s age when Mom left Dad and loaded me and Tweets the parakeet into the family car. I’ve seen films in which a movie star does something like that. But real life was less of a madcap adventure than it looks like on-screen. Tweets died outside Taos. We stealth-buried him in a church known for its sacred dirt. We drove around a lot. Mom waitressed and met the kind of guys who pick up waitresses.
I was ten by the time Mom landed in Tucson with my stepdad, who was not interested in having me around.
One day Mom took me to visit my grandparents in New Jersey and went out to get something from the car and didn’t come back. I loved my grandparents so much, I didn’t even miss her. Or maybe I did, for a while. Granny Edith says I cried myself to sleep at first, but I don’t remember that. I just remember how sweet my grandparents were. How safe they made me feel.
Maybe Mom did me a favor. The best times I ever had were with Granny Edith and Grandpa Frank. At Christmas, we’d go into the city to see the