Princess Daisy (72 page)

“Another espresso?” the waiter asked softly.

She nodded.

She drank as if it might save her life. Slowly her brain began to work again. The evil fastened at her breast with metallic teeth, but she began to think. She had to get help. There was only one person who could help her. She put some money on the table, walked swiftly to the street and stopped a passing cab.

In Patrick Shannon’s office three people sat silently: Shannon, Hilly Bijur and Candice Bloom. Only Candice knew what time it was and that Jerry Tallmer and Daisy were waiting for her at Le Perigord Park. Thank God Tallmer was a gentle, kind man and thank God Daisy knew where to meet him for lunch. They wouldn’t miss her.

Bijur was the first to break the silence. “Pat, this doesn’t have to be a disaster.”

Shannon looked at him without comprehension. He had to find Daisy before she saw this. “Where’s Daisy?” he asked urgently.

“Having lunch—she’s okay,” Candice reassured him.

“Pat, will you just listen! Look, for Christ’s sake, just let me read some of this stuff back to you,” Hilly insisted. He turned to the second page of the article. “ ‘Queen Anne’s, a well known school for retarded children, is regarded as one of the finest institutions of its kind. The fees are high, averaging twenty-three thousand dollars a year for each child. Mrs. Joan Henderson, head of the school, said that four years after Prince Stash Valensky’s death in 1967, Princess Daisy took over the entire financial burden of her sister’s support.’ And then they quote this Mrs. Henderson, ‘It could not have been easy for her,’ Mrs. Henderson said, ‘since we sometimes had to wait for her checks, but eventually one always came. I don’t believe that more than a few days in any week have gone by in the last ten years’—
the last ten fucking years
, Pat—‘that Danielle hadn’t received a letter containing a drawing or a picture postcard from her sister. Princess Daisy always visited every Sunday while she still lived in England, even though she and Danielle were only six when they were separated.’
Six
—only six, Pat! And, look, here she says, ‘The twins are very close in spite of the difference in their intellectual capacities. Danielle certainly understands Daisy better than she understands any of her teachers—indeed, in a long lifetime, I have rarely seen devotion such as Princess Daisy’s.’ End quote. And then there’s the picture of Daisy painting a kid on a pony, and just listen to this caption, ‘Daisy’s expert portraits paid for her twin’s continued residence in the only home she’s ever known, while Daisy herself lived in a low-rent SoHo walk-up and held down a full-time job as well.’ ”

“On the next page, right under the picture of Daisy on a set wearing her baseball jacket and her sailor hat, there’s a quote from North. Let me read that one, Mr. Bijur,” Candice said eagerly.

“Top commercial director, Frederick Gordon North, says that he was very disappointed when Princess Daisy decided to leave her job with him. “She was unquestionably the most creative and hardest working producer any director could hope to have. Everyone who ever worked with her loved her. She has a great talent for this business.”
When he was asked if he missed her collaboration on such widely admired commercials as those he directs for Dr Pepper, Downy, and Revlon, Mr. North said with a rueful smile, “She can have her old job back any time she wants. I wish her well.” ’ ”

“Mr. Shannon,” Candice said, “Daisy’s a heroine.”

“My point, my point exactly!” Hilly Bijur said in increasing excitement “Look, Pat, yesterday we had just another pretty face going for us and today we have a candidate for Joan of Arc—she can fucking get the Helen Keller humanitarian award of the year—look at it that way, for Christ’s sake.”

“But,” Candice said with a trace of timidity rarely heard in her, “how do you think Daisy’s going to feel about having this all come but? Since she’s kept it secret for so long, she couldn’t possibly have wanted anyone to know.”

“What the fuck does it matter how she
feels!
” Hilly Bijur gloated, fairly jumping up and down with glee. “It’s probably the best fucking publicity break anybody ever got in the history of fucking fragrance. Holy shit, it’ll make every paper in the country tomorrow. Ha! Just you tell me Candice baby, what Lauren Hutton or what’s her name Hemingway or Catherine Deneuve or Candy Bergen have in their private lives that could be one-tenth as fascinating as this? Those stores are going to be mobbed when she makes her personal appearances! Every woman in the country will want to see Daisy with her very own eyes. She can get on Phil Donahue … a whole hour! Merv will love her, Mike Douglas, The Today Show’ … maybe even Carson … sure, Carson, too …”

Patrick Shannon stood up. “Get the hell out of my office, Hilly, and don’t come back,” he shouted at the president of Elstree in a passion of disgust.

Shannon had told all his three secretaries to go to lunch and he was still sitting, his elbows on the desk, his head in his hands, a copy of
People
open before him, when Daisy silently opened the door of his office. She saw immediately what he was staring at although he slid the magazine into a drawer the instant he realized she was in the room.

“You don’t have to hide it,” Daisy said, in a voice without color, as if she were apologizing to someone in a dream.

Shannon jumped up from his chair and strode across the
room. He took her in his arms as she stood just inside the door, wearing her fine new dress, with the face of a punished, terrified child. She was so cold, so frighteningly icy that he did nothing but try to warm her, clasping her with all his warmth and strength, kneading her back with his big hands, cuddling her head to his chest, murmuring endearments like a mother. When he touched her hands and felt how frozen they were, he took them and slipped them under his jacket so that the heat of his chest might thaw them. Daisy pressed into him as if he were the only refuge in the world. As he hugged her to him, as she felt his heart beating strongly under her hands, as he stroked her hair and tried to fit her ever more closely to the shelter of his big body, she could feel the shattering pain in her heart becoming less shrill, as if it were being absorbed into him, melting from her coldness into his warmth. The relief was so great that at last she felt tears come to her eyes and, as he kept holding her and stroking her, she thawed even further and was able to sob, great howling sobs that came from her guts, but no matter how violently she shook, Shannon continued to clutch her firmly, taking her grief into himself with a total acceptance that gave her the freedom to hold nothing back. At last, after a long time, her shuddering, open-mouthed sounds became weeping and she finally reached for his handkerchief to try to dry her cheeks.

“Candice said you were having lunch or I’d have come to find you.”

“She didn’t know. They sent me an advance copy and I got it this morning.”

“Daisy, come sit down. There.” He nestled her close to him on the couch, one arm protectively around her shoulders. He found another handkerchief in his trousers and mopped gently at her face, but soon gave up the hopeless job and simply took both of her hands in his free one. She sighed deeply and laid the whole weight of her head on his shoulder. They sat there like that, breathing together for many minutes, before Daisy broke the silence.

“It was Ram.” Her voice was unemphatic and flat, without emotion.

“Ram?”

“My half-brother. He was the one person I didn’t tell you about.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me about him?
Why should you hate him so much? Why did he do this to your?”

“He must have gone to the school and taken the picture,” Daisy said, not answering his questions. “It was on the wall of Dani’s bedroom. And then he told them those terrible lies about my mother. They must be lies if Ram told them. And I’ll never know the truth—I’ll never,
never
know it—everybody who might know is dead. Even Anabel said my father would never talk about it.”

“But
why
would your brother want to hurt you?” Shannon persisted. “What was his motive? He says it’s commercialization of the family name—but I can’t buy that, it’s not enough of a reason, not in this day and age.”

Daisy gently disengaged herself from Shannon and pulled herself back on the couch so that they were sitting six inches apart. She clasped her hands tightly together and looked straight into his eyes.

“When I was a little girl, I loved him best next to my father. And then, when my father died and I was fifteen, Ram was the only one left. That summer … that summer …” She shook her head with impatience at her own cowardice and went resolutely on. “There was a week that summer after my father died when we were lovers. The first time he raped me. And he had to rape me the last time, too. But the other times in between, I—I didn’t try hard enough to stop him. I let him. I didn’t tell Anabel. I wanted someone to love me so badly … but that’s no excuse.”

“The hell it isn’t!” Shannon said, taking her interlaced fingers in both his hands, and trying to pull her toward him.

“No, let me tell you the rest,” Daisy said, holding herself away stiffly. “Ever since, ever since I got away from him I’ve refused to answer his letters. Finally, I wouldn’t even read his letters—that’s why my money was all lost I think. Of course, I could never ask him for a penny. But then, finally, when Anabel got cancer, Ram knew I couldn’t manage it by myself anymore. Last Christmas I was trapped into seeing him. He said he’d take care of everyone, Anabel and Danielle, too—In exchange, he just wanted me to move back to England. But I know Ram and I knew enough to be afraid. That’s why I took your offer, to be safe from him. This—this story—it’s his way
of having his revenge. He doesn’t hate me, Pat, he loves me in his own way, he wants me the way he used to, he’s never stopped wanting me.”

“Daisy, he’s a monster, a madman! That happened when you were
fifteen?
”

Daisy nodded.

“Didn’t you tell anybody? Couldn’t anybody
do
anything?”

“I finally told Anabel—when it was all over—and she found a way to send me far away from him. And now you know. Nobody else. I’ve never told anyone else, not even Kiki. I was too ashamed.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Shannon said quietly.

“But what good would that do?” Daisy dismissed his threat. The damage had been done. Done and done. She reached into her handbag for the copy of
People
and opened it to the photograph of herself and Danielle. “I wonder if Dani ever noticed that this picture is gone? It was her favorite, because we looked the most alike in it,” Daisy said in sad wonderment “She probably didn’t notice. Oh, I hope she didn’t.”

Shannon reached for the magazine and put it behind him. “Daisy, don’t think about it anymore.”

“Don’t think about it! You’re crazy! My God, that’s
all
they’re going to want to know about now. I know how they’ll slide into it ever so tactfully—’How did you feel about that piece in
People
, tell us more about your sister, how well does she talk, what exactly do the two of you find to say to each other, what does it feel like to have an identical twin who can’t, can’t’—oh, they’ll find the way to ask, they’ll find a way to accuse me of keeping her a secret because I was ashamed of her instead of the real reason … and Pat, I just don’t know anymore. Oh, God, Pat, those questions, it’ll be like having fingers tearing at my face, it’ll be like being naked to everybody. Can’t you hear them too? You don’t think they’re going to pretend they don’t know, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter what anyone would like to ask you,” Shannon said. “Nothing would make me put you through more publicity. Candice will cancel all your interviews and all the store appearances. You’ll never have to talk to anyone from the press again for the rest of your life.”

“But the
launch
, the whole campaign? Pat, you can’t do that.”

“Don’t worry about details. It’s all going to go as
scheduled except for your personal participation. Just leave it up to me.”

“Pat, Pat, why are you doing this? I’ve been in advertising too long not to know what difference it’s going to make. You can’t fool me.”

“Daisy, you know how to make commercials, but you’re not an expert on Supracorp’s business.” He took her in his arms again and kissed her lips. “I am, and I say you are
not
going to do it.”

“Why are you being so good to me?” she asked as relief began to creep over her.

“Would one reason be enough?” He kissed her again and she nodded in acquiescence. “I love you, I’m in love with you, I love you absolutely and completely. Three reasons, and I could go on and on … but they’d all be variations on the same theme. I love you. I think I forgot to tell you that at
La Marée
. That was a serious omission, and I’m going to spend a lot of time making up for it.” He wanted desperately to ask her if she loved him, but he didn’t think it was fair. She was too open, too raw, too wounded. She’d feel gratitude and she’d say yes and if she didn’t really love him, she would never tell him. He felt tingles as if from a million injections of love. He was tatooed for life. He could wait.

“It was a bloodbath,” Luke said, dropping wearily into a chair. “And that’s just for openers.” Kiki gave him the martini she had just made, her only domestic sitili, and watched like a mother wolf to make sure he drank up every last medicinal drop. That’s what wives were for.

“I called Daisy,” she said when he’d drained the glass. “She knew already, she’d seen it. I’m having lunch with her tomorrow.”

“Christ! What kind of shape is she in?”

“Weird, didn’t want me to come down to be with her tonight. Kind of strange, far-away, detached, terribly tired.”

“Maybe we should both go down anyway.”

“No, I’m convinced that she wants to be alone. She just didn’t want to go into it anymore.”

“I’ve been talking for the last six hours—I have a faint notion of how she feels. Could you give me another of those splendid martinis, sweetheart? Did you know that a theory exists that it doesn’t hurt if you put a tiny drop of vermouth in it?”