Daisy plucked, p.3
Daisy, Plucked, page 3
Chapter 2
Hana — age 7
The first time Hana met Daisy was at the holiday party for the law firm where their fathers worked together. The lights were bright, the decorations were glittering, and Hana hated the frilly dress her mother forced her to wear. She complained that it was too cold out for something so light, that the lace was scratchy, that she wanted to wear jeans and a sweatshirt like she usually did when she attended her first-grade class. Her mother informed her that she needed to dress like a lady for the event, and ladies wore frilly dresses and didn’t complain about it. Hana complained slightly less but made sure her parents knew she didn’t like or care about looking like a lady.
The first time Hana saw Daisy, she knew the other girl was something special. Daisy was the only kid twirling on the dance floor that wasn’t hiding behind a parent, and Hana needed someone like that.
She walked right up to the dancing girl and said the first thing that came to mind. “Your hair looks like wires.”
Daisy stopped dancing and didn’t quite smile at Hana’s words, but when Hana gave her a gap-toothed grin to show that it was a good thing, the ginger girl smiled back.
“My name is Daisy Polo, and I’m five, but I’ll be six in February,” she said, sticking out her hand towards Hana.
“My name is Hana Holm, and I turned seven last month,” Hana responded.
Daisy grinned at her. “Nice to meet you Hannah.”
“No, it’s Hana, like sauna, not Hannah like banana,” Hana explained. Her mother taught her to say that after she complained about her teacher always saying her name wrong.
“Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, Hana.”
Hana reached out to shake Daisy’s hand like her father taught her, but Daisy used her outstretched hand to twirl Hana instead. Hana couldn’t help but giggle, and she forgot for a second about her scratchy dress and whether or not she was being ladylike. The girls danced for what felt like forever before they were too out of breath from dodging around the legs of the adults and swinging each other around.
“I want water,” Daisy said, walking off the dance floor.
“I want soda,” Hana countered, and Daisy looked at her like it was a scandalous statement.
“My dad only lets me drink sodas on special occasions,” Daisy said.
Hana smiled. “My mom told me this is a special occasion.”
Daisy looked like she was thinking about it. “My brother said this was a stupid party, and he didn’t want to wear his shoes because they hurt his feet,” Daisy whispered.
“Are you allowed to say stupid?” Hana whispered back.
“No, are you?” Daisy asked.
“No,” Hana giggled. Daisy giggled back, and the girls worked together to sneak a can of lemon lime soda from the table next to all the desserts. While Hana was supposed to keep watch, she also managed to grab a slice of cake. The girls hid with their treasures under an empty table, laughing and sharing sips of the soda and bites of the cake.
After they finished, they tried to subtly emerge from under the table, but as soon as Daisy stuck out her head, a frazzled looking boy with the same red hair and freckles as Daisy appeared.
“Daisy! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Who’s this?” he asked. Daisy grabbed his arm and pulled him under the table too, and he gave Hana a weary look.
“This is Hana. She’s my new best friend,” Daisy said. It was confident and sure, and it surprised Hana. The friends Hana made at school were nice, but none of them were really her best friend. She grinned at the boy.
“I’m Will. I’m Daisy’s older brother. I’m eight,” Will declared, crawling under the table.
“I turned seven last month,” Hana said.
“Well, I’ve been eight since the summer. That means that I’m in charge,” Will leveled Hana with a stare.
“I’m only five. I’ll never be in charge,” Daisy pouted.
“You can be in charge when you’re eight,” Will assured her.
“That’s not how ages work. She’ll still be younger than us when she’s eight,” Hana argued.
“I didn’t say that she would be older than us, I said when she’s eight she can be in charge sometimes,” Will explained.
“It’s okay, I don’t want to be in charge. But Will, you have to steal a cookie to stay with us,” Daisy ordered.
“Did Dad say that we can have sweets?” Will asked.
“No, but Dad isn’t in charge under the table,” Daisy answered. Will took this as good enough logic, and he disappeared to go steal cookies for them. By the time he got back, Daisy and Hana had started playing fairies.
“I don’t want to play this game. It’s stupid,” Will complained.
“Well, we don’t think it’s stupid. You can only stay if you’re the jester, and that means you have to make us laugh,” Hana said. Daisy stared expectantly at Will, and he sighed.
“Fine. But first we have to have a contest to see who can eat the most,” Will compromised. Hana nodded in agreement, and Daisy mimicked her a second later. The three gorged themselves on cookies and once there were only crumbs left under the table they stumbled out, their game forgotten, thinking that they were clever. Hana’s mother spotted them and clucked while wiping chocolate from their faces and hands. She didn’t have to say anything for the three to feel admonished.
“No more sweets before dinner, you three, or I’ll have to tell your parents that you were sneaking cookies,” Hana’s mother said once she was done wiping chocolate from the corner of Hana’s mouth. Daisy looked sad while watching, and Hana didn’t understand why.
By the end of the night Daisy and Hana had already decided they would be best friends forever. It was the kind of friendship that was born purely out of convenience, but when you’re that young it feels like it’s destiny or magic or that God brought you and your new best friend together. Hana made them pray together before they left, thanking God for bringing her a new best friend and double checking that Santa received their Christmas lists. Daisy said she never heard of praying before except for in TV shows and movies, and she was confused when God didn’t answer them.
“That’s not how it works,” Hana explained after Daisy had asked how long they had to wait to get an answer.
“Then why did we ask him questions?”
“My mom says that He answers in funny ways,” Hana explained. “Like once I prayed for new soccer shoes and then my soccer shoes ripped and my mom had to get me new ones, and she said that it was because God heard me.” She didn’t say it out loud, but she was thinking about how the girls in her class had been calling her names, and she had been praying for a friend who would be nice to her for once, and it seemed like He finally heard her.
“Oh, okay!” Daisy said as if she understood, though Hana could tell she didn’t.
Before they left, Hana’s mom took a picture of them. They threw their arms around each other, and the sparkles from Daisy’s dress got all over Hana. Her mother was annoyed that night when they got home and kept complaining about how she would have to take the dress to the dry cleaners, but Hana didn’t care.
“I think Daisy is going to be my best friend forever,” Hana said, interrupting her mother’s complaints.
“Oh really? Why do you think that?” her mother asked while removing the bobby pins in Hana’s hair with gentle hands.
“I think that because she’s really nice and because I prayed for a friend that wouldn’t be mean to me, and she was nice to me all night,” Hana said.
“That’s wonderful, darling. I’ll make sure to call her dad so the two of you can play together soon,” Noriko said. Her voice was gentle and a little bit sad, and Hana didn’t understand why at the time. Still, she let her mom brush her hair without complaint and fell asleep to the familiar action and her mother’s humming.
Chapter 3
Daisy — July 2019
Before Hana died, Daisy had gotten herself a summer job as a lifeguard at a local day camp. After she got the news about Hana, her dad insisted that she quit, but they compromised by having her switch to only working mornings instead of the entire day. She almost forgot about her first day until Will woke her up, groggily handing off his car keys so he didn’t have to get up to drive her to work.
Her dad told her that with her afternoons free, she could take time to find a hobby or get ready for college, suggestions that sounded straight from a self-help book. In reality, Daisy spent the first afternoons lying in her bed and sleeping. She usually woke up before her dad got home because the sun angled in through the gap where the two panels of her curtain didn’t quite meet each other around four in the afternoon, but she didn’t tell him how she spent her time. He would just worry about her.
However, on Thursday when she left work, she saw a text from her father.
Dad
I forgot my lunch. Wanna pick us up lunch from Dibella’s and we can eat at my office? It’ll be like old times.
Daisy
Haha, sure, always love an office lunch. See you soon!
When she got to the office, she parked in a visitor spot and walked up to the front door. The front reception area was spacious and bright with floor to ceiling windows and furniture with sharp, clean lines. The focal point was a large granite reception desk where Sheryl, the receptionist that had been there ever since Daisy could remember, sat clicking away at her computer.
“Hi, Sheryl. How are you?” Daisy asked. Sheryl looked up from her work and beamed at Daisy.
“Daisy! I’m doing well, thank you. And look at you! You’ve grown up so much since the last time I saw you,” Sheryl said. “Are you here to see your dad?”
“Oh, yeah. He forgot his lunch,” Daisy said.
Sheryl smiled. “You’re such a great daughter. I won’t hold you up any longer with my gabbing. Just make sure to tell your dad to get started on that pile of paperwork he has before it gets too tall and topples off his desk, alright?”
“I’ll lay on the puppy dog eyes just for you.”
“You’re a darling. Have a good lunch.” Sheryl buzzed Daisy through the door to the offices, which you usually needed a keycard to get through. Daisy began navigating towards the area where her dad’s office was, nodding hellos to the people she recognized.
“Lunch is ready,” Daisy joked when she walked into Henry’s office.
“Daisy! Hi. Thank you, you’re the best. Did you remember to get napkins?” Henry asked, barely looking up from what he was working on.
“Oh, no, I totally forgot. I’ll go grab some from the break room.”
“Great, thanks, I’ve got to finish up this memo quickly anyways.”
Daisy walked to the break room quietly and made a beeline for the area where there was a napkin dispenser, not wanting to delay getting home and falling asleep any longer than she needed to. While she was pulling out napkins from a dispenser, two younger attorneys, Walker and Heindel, strolled in and headed straight to the coffeemaker, completely oblivious to her presence.
“I just found out that she did it with Mark’s gun. I mean what a slap in the face that must have been for Nori, right?” Walker said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Daisy felt her stomach drop.
“And no note? I mean, you didn’t hear it from me, but I have a friend who’s a cop, and he said they had a couple of idiots working the scene. I don’t know if they even looked for one,” Heindel said, picking up a donut. Daisy didn’t understand how they could be so careless about discussing Hana’s death, but she felt frozen in place and stayed silent.
“I mean, a gunshot wound like that is pretty obviously suicide. And you remember what Dennis was saying about her acting strange for weeks leading up to it.”
“Such a tragedy. I’m just sorry that Nori had to be the one to find her. My friend said it was apparently a pretty nasty sight. It always is when someone puts a barrel in their mouth, though. The bits of skull just go every—” Daisy let out a choked noise at the attorney’s description, and the two finally looked up to see her standing there.
“Oh, hi Daisy, have you been here long?” Walker said sheepishly.
“Oh, uh, no, just walked in. I’ll just be going,” Daisy stuttered before bolting from the room, trying not to imagine Hana’s skull splattered around her childhood bedroom.
Daisy dropped the napkins on her father’s desk and mumbled something about needing the bathroom before rushing back out.
When she got into a stall, she leaned over the toilet and revisited what ate for breakfast. She tried not to picture what the men had described, but her mind flashed the image in front of her over and over again.
After flushing the evidence of the overheard conversation, she walked up to the sink and stared at her puffy face in the mirror. She’d always hated the roundness of her jaw and the way that her cheekbones weren’t sharp like Hana’s were. She was all soft edges and gentle touches, a flower petal when she wanted to be the thorns on rose stems. Daisy wished for a moment that she knew what the other girl looked like, the one Hana cheated on her with, and whether she was thorny and sharp-edged or petal-soft like Daisy. Not that it mattered now.
She turned on the faucet and splashed water on her face before sipping some out of her palms to rinse her mouth. She felt raw and unbalanced, and she stared in the mirror to try to motivate herself to walk back to her dad’s office. She took a deep breath, and it dragged through her lungs like a rush of water, thick and unwelcome.
The door opened, and Daisy bolted upright, reaching for a paper towel. Sheryl walked through the door with a look on her face that told Daisy she somehow knew everything.
“Your dad saw you rush in here, and he wanted me to check on you,” Sheryl said.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to make him worry,” Daisy said, “I’m okay, I just ... overheard something.”
“What was it?” Sheryl asked.
Daisy started washing her hands just so that she didn’t have to look at Sheryl’s concerned face. She wasn’t used to the maternal worry, so she didn’t know how to respond without telling the truth.
“Just some people talking about how Hana ... how she died.” Daisy could barely say it, but Sheryl understood.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Who was it? I’ll talk to them about it.” Sheryl’s genuine concern made her voice feel warm and silky. Daisy swallowed down the sob that threatened to break loose.
“It’s okay. They didn’t know I was there,” Daisy said, deciding to go headfirst into the conversation instead of skirting around it.
“I saw the way the two of you were,” Sheryl said, and Daisy froze. Did Sheryl know the way the two of them really were?
“Yeah, we were close,” Daisy said, testing the waters.
“I lost my best friend a few years ago to cancer. Even seeing it coming, it was hard. I only got through it because of my husband and the kids. You just have to really lean on your family in times like this.” Sheryl placed a comforting hand on Daisy’s shoulder. Relief rushed through her, and she gave a small nod.
“Thanks, Sheryl.”
“Of course, honey. And I think I know who was talking about Hana. I’ll have a word with them. I mean, who knows, Dennis or your father could’ve walked in on them discussing it too. They should know better than to gossip about something so sensitive.” Sheryl shook her head. Daisy gave her a tight smile and followed her out of the bathroom.
On the short walk back to her dad’s office, it nagged at Daisy that they talked about the officers at the scene. She’d spent every day since Hana’s death wondering why she didn’t leave a note, but it would be just like Hana to hide one somewhere that an idiot cop rushing to finish processing a scene would miss it. Maybe the ghost was right, and she did leave something behind, but the ghost couldn’t be real. If ghosts were real, she would’ve seen her mother in the years since she was gone. Daisy put it out of her mind and tried to think of what excuse she would give her dad for her rush to the bathroom.
“Are you alright? I sent Sheryl in to check on you because you seemed to be moving pretty quick,” Henry asked.
“Oh, yeah, just ... I think I got too much sun this morning and the heat hit me all of a sudden. I needed to splash some water on my face and cool down.”
“Yeah, it’s a hot one today. How was it at work this morning?” he asked, biting into his sandwich to show he was ready to listen.
“It was good! I think I’m getting the hang of things already. The kids seem to think I’m special and interesting because I’m only there for half of the day, so they’ve been listening to me pretty well,” Daisy said, trying to think of something other than ripping apart Hana’s room until she could look for anything like the ghost described.
“That’s good! You know, if you do go into teaching, this will be great experience,” Henry said.
Daisy tried not to grimace. “Yeah, I’m still not sure what I’ll study yet. I might do English or something,” Daisy countered noncommittally. She picked at the toppings that fell off her sandwich, but her unsettled stomach begged her not to take any bites. She took a sip of her soda instead, hoping it might settle her nausea.
“You have some time to decide. You’ll find what’s right for you once you’re out in the world a bit more. I mean, you’ve seen more than you should for your age, but you haven’t seen everything. I know what it’s like to be young,” Henry said. According to Will, he spent the entirety of her graduation ceremony trying not to cry, and she really didn’t want to go down that route right now. She was drained enough from acting like she was alright the rest of the day.
“Yeah, sure, Dad. What was it like growing up while the triceratops roamed?” Daisy teased, falling back on an old joke amongst their family to steer away from any more discussions about her day.
Henry groaned. “You wound me. My own daughter calling me old? This feels like patricide,” he joked, a smile on his face.
“Wouldn’t want that. There are enough fossils down at the science museum already.”
