Butternut Summer (2 page)

“The battery's dead,” she mumbled, gesturing to her phone on the table.

“That's probably not going to help it, though,” he said, mildly, and Daisy felt her face flush hotly. She was behaving badly, and she knew it.

She walked back over to Will, feeling contrite. “I know that's not going to help it.”

“Jason'll let you use the phone in the office,” he said, not looking up from the engine.

She considered the offer, then decided against it. Her father's cell-phone number, which she didn't yet know by heart, was trapped inside her cell-phone's directory. That left calling her mother. And if Daisy did that, what exactly would she say to her? Her mother didn't even know yet that Daisy had planned this lunch. And now, Daisy didn't know if she was brave enough to tell her.

She sighed and shook her head. “No, that's okay. I don't need to use the phone in the office. And thank you for replacing the fan belt. I'm sure you're doing it as fast as you can.” Coming closer to him, she added, “It's just . . . it's just I'm running late for this lunch. It's very important that I be there on time.”

“Yeah?” Will said, looking over at her again. “What is it, some kind of high-powered, corporate lunch?” he asked, and his eyes, amused and skeptical, traveled from her faded, Minnesota Twins T-shirt, to her cut-off blue jean shorts, to her slightly battered Converse sneakers, one of which happened to be untied.

“No, nothing like that,” Daisy said, her cheeks flushing again. “But it's still important. It's sort of a . . . a family reunion.”
Is that what it is?
she wondered, anxiously. And then, for reasons she didn't entirely understand, she decided to tell Will more about it, even though his attention had shifted back to the truck's engine.

“I mean, it's not exactly a family
reunion
,” she qualified, brushing a strand of strawberry-blond hair off her face, “It's more of a
homecoming
, I guess. For my dad, anyway.”

He glanced at her, quickly, just long enough to let her know he was listening to what she was saying.

“My dad left my mom and me eighteen years ago,” she continued. “And then, a year ago, he got in touch with me again. He came down to Minneapolis—I go to the university there—and we had coffee. I hadn't seen him since I was three, but when I met him again, I liked him. He seemed like a nice guy. He
is
a nice guy, actually.”

Will looked at her. She had his full attention now. “A nice guy who left?” he asked. “And didn't come back?” Now he wasn't amused and skeptical, he was just skeptical.

“Yeah, I know,” Daisy said. “And believe me, I had trouble with that. I really did. I was
so
angry at him at first.” She shook her head at the memory of their first meeting. “In some ways, I'm
still
angry at him. But you know what? I was curious about him too. I mean, who wouldn't be, right?”

But Will only shrugged, as if to say,
I wouldn't be
. He didn't say that, though. He went back to work on her engine instead.

“Anyway,” Daisy continued, “I got to know him over the last year, and I realized he's changed—for the better. He's not the same man now he was when he left. And when he told me he was moving back here, back to Butternut, I suggested that the three of us, my mom and my dad and me, have lunch together today. The thing is, though, my mom doesn't know about it yet. I mean, she knows she's meeting me for lunch. But she doesn't know he's going to be there.” Slightly breathless, she finished, “Which is why it's so important I be there on time.” She glanced at her watch again. Ten minutes to go.

“So let me get this straight,” Will said, looking back at her. “You've seen your dad since he left. But your mom hasn't?”

Daisy shook her head.

“And she hasn't talked to him since he left, either?”

She shook her head again.

“And she doesn't know she's going to be having lunch with him today?”

“No,” Daisy said. “It's going to be a surprise.”

“A surprise, or an ambush?” Will clarified.

“An
ambush
?” Daisy repeated, frowning. She didn't like the sound of that word. “Why do you say that?”

He hesitated. “Well, I'm just guessing here. But from what you've said, it sounds like your mom probably wouldn't have agreed to this lunch if she'd known your dad was going to be there.”

“That's probably true,” Daisy said.
Probably
true?
Definitely
true.

“But you still think it's a good idea?”

“Well . . .” Daisy started. But then she stopped. She stopped because she hadn't thought to ask herself that question yet. Well, no, that wasn't true. She had
thought
to ask herself that question, but then she hadn't let herself answer it. And she hadn't let herself because she'd already known the answer: the lunch wasn't a good idea. It was probably, in fact, a very bad idea.

“Hey,” Will said. And when she looked over at him, his gold-brown eyes were resting on her. “Don't worry about it. It'll be all right.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. I mean, it's not going to be like one of those daytime talk shows where family members have to be held apart by security guards, is it? Your parents aren't violent people, are they?”

“Violent?” Daisy repeated. “No, not as far as I know.” Her father didn't seem violent to her, and of all the charges her mother had leveled against him over the years, his being violent had never been one of them. She'd never known her mother to be violent either. But then again, the woman had her limits, and now Daisy wondered if this lunch might actually push her beyond them. “I don't think they'll have to be held apart,” she murmured, more to herself than to Will.

“That's good,” Will said. “And do you know what else is good?”

“What?”

“I'm almost done with your truck.”

“Really?” she said, feeling a rush of gratitude.

He nodded.

“You know, I remember you from high school,” she said suddenly, edging closer. Because there was something about this place—the coolness, the dimness, the quietness—that made her feel almost brave. “You used to sit with your friends on the bleachers at the football field and smoke cigarettes.”

“Yeah, that was me then.”

“Is that you now?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” he said, not looking up. “I haven't been back to the bleachers since I graduated. And I quit smoking a few years ago.”

“Why'd you quit?” she asked, unabashedly curious.

“Smoking's an expensive habit,” he said, with a shrug. “Working here,” he added, looking around, “I can't afford it.”

“Well, that's good,” Daisy said. “I mean, good that you gave it up,” she added, quickly. “Not good that you couldn't afford to keep doing it.” She blushed then, afraid that she'd offended him. But he didn't look offended. In fact, she thought she saw one corner of his mouth lift in amusement.

She watched him work for a little while longer, strangely comfortable with the silence between them. She noticed a smudge of grease on his neck, and she thought, idly, about reaching over and trying to wipe it away with her fingertips. But she came to her senses almost immediately, wondering why she would even consider doing something like that. It was the heat, she decided, and she took a little cautionary step away from him.

“I remember you, too,” he said, glancing over at her. “You were a cheerleader, weren't you?”

“A cheerleader? No,” Daisy said, faintly appalled. “I was on the volleyball team.”
I was the captain
, she wanted to say, but didn't.

He shrugged. “Well, same thing, right?”

“Wrong,” Daisy said, crossing her arms across her chest. “Very different thing.”

“Huh,” he said, stopping his work long enough to pull his gloves off. And Daisy saw then that his eyes were amused again. Amused enough to make her think he knew damn well that being a cheerleader and a volleyball player was not the same thing. Amused enough to make her think he was teasing her, and, what was more, that he was enjoying teasing her.

“That's it,” he said, stepping back and slamming the engine's hood. “Normally, I'd take it for a test drive, but you probably don't want to stick around for that.”

“You're right, I don't,” Daisy said. “But thank you.”

“Anytime,” he said, with a smile. His smiles, she saw, were harder to come by than his coworker Jason's were. But they were worth waiting for.
Nice eyes, nice smile, nice shoulders
, she thought, taking a mental inventory of Will.

But when she realized that he was looking at her, quizzically, she blushed. He was probably wondering why she was standing there, staring at him, when she was supposed to be in such a hurry, when she
was
in such a hurry.

“Well, I'd better get going,” she said, backing away from him.

He nodded. “You can pay Jason in the office. I'll pull your truck out. And, uh, good luck with the lunch.”

“Thanks,” she said, turning to go. But as she walked out of the service bay she looked at her watch. The lunch was starting right now. She felt her earlier panic ebb away, only to be replaced, almost immediately, by an ominous foreboding. Because they were going to have to have this lunch without her.

J
ack Keegan sat in his pickup truck, which he'd parked on Butternut's Main Street across the street from Pearl's, and considered the possibility that he was crazy. And not just sort of crazy, either, but completely and totally crazy—insane asylum, straitjacket, padded-cell crazy. How else to explain his actions today? He was back in a town he'd sworn he would never return to. He was following the advice of a daughter who, until a year ago, had been a stranger to him. And he was waiting to have lunch with an ex-wife who, he was pretty sure, still hated his guts.

But it got worse. Much worse. Because Jack, who'd given up gambling two years ago, was taking the biggest gamble of his life. He'd decided to move back here, into a cabin an old friend of his—an old drinking buddy of his, really—had left Jack in his will. Jack had quit his job at an oil refinery in South Dakota, given up his apartment, sold all his furniture, and given away anything he couldn't fit in the back of his pickup truck. And then he'd gotten into that pickup truck and driven five hundred twenty-five miles to this lunch date.

But there was no turning back now, he reminded himself, running his fingers through his hair. Besides, there was no life for him to turn back to anyway. So depending on what happened next, he'd either risked it all for everything. Or nothing.

And that was assuming, of course, that this lunch actually took place. He and Daisy had agreed to meet at twelve thirty in front of Pearl's, and it was already twelve thirty-five. Under ordinary circumstances, five minutes barely qualified as late. But these weren't ordinary circumstances. Besides, Daisy had suggested this lunch a month ago, when they'd last met in person, then e-mailed him a reminder last week, and then confirmed by cell phone last night. Now for her to be late? Or to not show up at all? It didn't make sense. What was more, it seemed completely out of character for her.

Here, though, he had an uncomfortable thought: What if he didn't know Daisy well enough to know whether this was out of character for her or not? Maybe being late, or not showing up at all, was
in
character for her. As soon as he had that thought, though, he rejected it. Because whatever else could be said about Jack Keegan—and a lot of things
had
been said about him over the years—he was a good judge of character. He'd never have won so many poker games if he hadn't been. And he knew, when it came to Daisy, that she was as good as her word. As good as gold, really; if she said she would be here, she would be here. That was all there was to it.

He reached for his cell phone on the seat beside him and punched in her number again. But it went straight to voice mail. He didn't leave a message, since he'd already left one when he'd parked here an hour ago. He pressed end on his cell phone and tossed it back onto the seat. Then he blew out a breath, ran his fingers through his hair again, and tried to think about something, anything, really, other than this lunch.

So, instead, he thought about Butternut, Minnesota, population 1,200. He'd hated this town when he'd left it, hated everything about it: its hypocrisy; its small-mindedness; its gossipy mean-spiritedness. It hadn't helped, of course, that so much of that gossip had been about him. Still, when he'd seen Butternut receding in his rearview mirror that morning eighteen years ago, he'd felt a grim satisfaction.
There. Take that, stupid little town
.
I'll be damned if I'll live here anymore, and damned if I'll ever come back again either
.

But the joke was on him, apparently. Because judging from Main Street's tidy storefronts and well-swept sidewalks, Butternut had done just fine without him. Better than fine.
So much for the supposed disintegration of small-town life in America
, Jack thought, looking up and down the block at businesses and shops with cheerful striped awnings on them and brightly painted wooden benches sitting in front of them. And there were old-fashioned streetlights, too, every half block, with big baskets of flowers hanging from them.
Very pretty
, Jack thought.
Very Butternut
.

But unlike some towns in summer communities, which seemed to be staged simply for the benefit of tourists, Butternut had more to offer than fudge shops and ice cream parlors. It still had Johnson's Hardware, for instance, which had been owned by the same family for over a hundred years. And there was Butternut Drugs, where generations of teenage girls had spent countless hours poring over lipsticks and glossy magazines. And there, too, was the Butternut Variety Store, whose original five-and-ten-cent sign had been amended to also include “$1 and up.”