“You’re crazy.”
“I’m not.”
“What are you doin’ now?”
“Indy and I are meeting Daisy at the Cruise Room for a drink.”
His eyes flared.
“You are crazy.”
“I’m not.”
We stared at each other again, I was preparing for another battle but to my surprise, he gave in again.
“For Christ’s sake, Chiquita, be careful,” he said.
I snuggled deeper into his body, I didn’t have a choice since his arm went super-tight around me, and I said,
“Okay.”
Chapter Seventeen
Daisy, Indy and Me - The Unholy Trinity We met Daisy in the ultra-cool, art deco Cruise Room of the Oxford Hotel.
Daisy was already sitting in a booth, waiting for us. She was decked out in second-skin denim and rhinestones, the two-buttoned jacket exposing acres of cle**age. The purply-pink neon that had been giving cool ass atmosphere to the Cruise Room for nearly one hundred years was shining in platinum-blonde hair that was so teased and sprayed I figured environmental watch groups had campaigns dedicated to stopping her single-handed destruction of the ozone layer.
We ordered dirty martinis and settled in.
Daisy turned cornflower-blue eyes to me, “Al right, Sugar, tel Auntie Daisy al about it.”
I didn’t hesitate, she knew some of it anyway after my Smithie’s meltdown, so I told her the story of my life, reciting it for the mil ionth time that week. Any hopes I held of quietly going it alone were long since gone.
Halfway through my story, she took my hand and didn’t let go.
When I was done, she squeezed my hand.
For some reason, she asked, “Jet, darlin’, you seen Steel Magnolias?”
I nodded.
“That’s my favorite movie of al time,” she told me.
This wasn’t a surprise.
She leaned into me, “You and me, Sugar, we’re Steel Magnolias.” Then she let go of my hand and without further ado, she launched into her story.
It was a whole hel of a lot more sad and scary than mine.
Halfway through her story I grabbed her hand and didn’t let go. When I did, tears fil ed the bottoms of her eyes but she didn’t let them fal .
This wasn’t a surprise either. If her story was anything to go by, Daisy hadn’t been touched by kindness a whole lot in her life, either physical y or emotional y. In fact, Marcus and Smithie were the only two men she’d known that treated her right.
When she was done, I squeezed her hand.
“Now I’m with Marcus and, don’t get me wrong, I’m mostly happy. But a girl has to have girlfriends, comprende?” Indy and I both nodded, we comprende’ed.
“And, I’m here to tel you, the snooty society bitches of Denver just do not get me. I don’t have a single friend in the whole world who isn’t laughing behind my back or scared to death of Marcus.”