Daisy plucked, p.6
Daisy, Plucked, page 6
“Right. Of course. Sorry, I just ... Hana never said anything about you knowing about us.”
“I only talked with her about it a few times, but I wish I’d made it easier for the two of you to be yourselves here. I’m sure I could’ve done something, said something, but ...” she paused, her eyes turning glassy before she blinked away the tears. “I regret a lot of things I didn’t say. A lot of things I didn’t tell her.”
Silence settled into the room, wrapping arms around each of them like a familiar friend, tucking them into its chest until there was nothing to hear but a distant neighbor mowing their lawn.
“I’m ... I’m gonna go look through Hana’s room now if that’s okay,” Daisy said, filled with a rush of relief when Noriko just nodded at her and released her from the conversation. Daisy was so happy to be away from Hana’s mom that she forgot all about her anxiety about going into Hana’s room until her hand was on the doorknob.
The last time she was in this room she didn’t know a thing about what was coming. She was still with Hana and still thought they’d be together forever.
Everything fell apart so quickly since then. All the memories of this place she knew so well were flickering through her mind like colors in a kaleidoscope, distorted flashes of moments all passing in and out of her vision as she opened the door.
Daisy expected something dramatic and tragic to happen, but it was anticlimactic, the way that these things always were.
Hana’s room was different, but it was subtle. Daisy knew some things would be gone considering how Hana died, but it was still a shock to see the differences.
In place of the band posters above her bed there were rectangles of darker paint where the sun couldn’t bleach the color over the years. Hana had repainted her room in the seventh grade, and Daisy marveled at the fact she never noticed the sun lightening the blue over the years. Hana’s mattress was gone as well, just the box spring exposed on her oak bed frame remained.
The changes felt uncanny, like Hana took all the homey, comforting feelings from the space with her when she died here. The spirit of Hana was sucked out of this room.
Daisy pulled open the closet doors and was greeted with an overwhelming waft of Hana’s perfume. It was a clean, masculine scent with a bright snap of vanilla, and Daisy half expected for Hana to appear in her real, living form right in front of her. She heard somewhere that smell and memory were closely linked, but she didn’t know how closely until that moment. This was the scent that lingered in the corner of her daydreams, the one that held her while they watched movies, the one that she would smell in her bed the day after Hana stayed over. Tears rolled down Daisy’s cheeks before she could stop herself from crying, and she cursed herself for breaking down so easily.
She closed her eyes for a moment and let herself pretend that none of this was real, but when she opened her eyes, the mattress was still gone and the posters’ reverse shadows were still on the wall. She heaved a shaky breath and reminded herself why she was there. She was on a mission, and she couldn’t accomplish it by standing here and crying over the scent of Hana’s perfume.
She started rifling through the bottom of the closet where a layer of random odds and ends had accumulated over the years. She passed over old algebra tests, book bags she recognized from Hana’s middle and high school years, random pieces of jewelry, and small souvenirs Hana collected and discarded from the vacations she used to take with her parents during school breaks. Daisy opened a plastic bag that was tied shut with a knot, only to find Hana’s mud caked rain boots. Daisy scrunched her nose at the smell and closed the bag up again as quickly as she could.
She didn’t find anything that seemed like a clue, nothing that could bring her any closer to who killed Hana. Still, she pulled a few sweaters off their hangers, the ones that Hana bought to be oversized but that would still comfortably fit Daisy. Noriko was expecting her to take something, and she could hide Hana’s journal in the folds of these sweaters easily enough.
Daisy moved around things on Hana’s desk and nightstands until she discovered the constellation covered composition notebook she remembered seeing Hana carry around for the past six months — her latest journal. Hana loved journaling, loved pouring out everything in her head with the thought of being able to look back at it someday. Once Hana caught Noriko reading one of her journals and she was mad at her for over a month, so Daisy never had a burning desire to read them. Daisy upset Hana on accident often enough that she never wanted to do it on purpose, especially not like this.
Daisy looked around the room to see if there was anywhere else she could look, but she didn’t have the willpower to look under the bed, gripped with the visceral fear that the professional crime scene cleaning crew missed something. Her eyes caught on the only makeup that Hana ever routinely wore, a tube of lip gloss, sitting on the edge of the vanity. Hana had gotten her first tube from her grandma in middle school and loved it because it tasted minty and made her lips tingle. As Daisy stared at it, debating whether or not she should take it, Hana appeared and picked it up herself.
“I love this stuff. I hope when I get to heaven they have, like, a vat of it. That would be cool,” Hana said, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“You sure about that direction?” Daisy joked, but it fell flat if Hana’s tight smile was anything to go by.
“I’m feeling hopeful that I get some only-the-good-die-young points. But who knows. I guess we’ll find out if God really does hate gay people, huh?” Hana replied dryly. She held out the lipgloss to Daisy, who took it and shoved it in her pocket before gathering up Hana’s sweaters and journal.
“I’m doing this now. Sorry it took me so long, but something about Will leaving ... It’s like I just woke up.”
“I want to be mad at you, but ... you remember how I was after my dad died. So I can’t really talk.”
“Yeah, if you tried to solve his murder back then you probably wouldn’t have succeeded.”
“I don’t think I succeeded this time,” Hana said sarcastically, gesturing around her room, the place where she died.
Daisy felt ill. “Right,” she choked out.
Hana grimaced and placed a hand on Daisy’s arm, guiding her out of the room. “I have to go. I just wanted to check in quickly, but ... well, I would ask you to tell my mom I said hi, but I don’t think that would work out very well.”
“No, probably not.”
“Alright. Well, good luck,” Hana said, fading away again. Daisy sighed and stuffed the journal and sweaters into her bag before heading back downstairs.
Noriko was still in the kitchen, sipping coffee and doing something on her phone. She looked up when Daisy walked in and smiled.
“Well, I’ll probably head out. My dad is expecting me back,” Daisy said.
“Of course. Tell him I say hello, won’t you? And thank him again for the food. He’s been so kind.” She glanced at her hands, clasped in front of her. “And you know, he may react better than you think. If you wanted to tell him. I’m sure he might understand your grief more if he knew.”
Daisy wanted to tell Noriko that she didn’t know anything, but instead she just smiled and nodded. “I’ll tell him you say hi.”
When she opened the front door, Hana’s ghost stood there, staring past Daisy with a tortured expression. Daisy glanced over her shoulder and saw Noriko standing there, ready to close the door behind her.
“Thanks again,” Daisy said, not wanting to seem odd for suddenly looking back.
“Of course. Come back anytime,” Noriko said. She shut the door once Daisy was outside of it, but Hana stayed there. Daisy walked past her and got in the car, where Hana’s ghost once again appeared in the passenger seat.
“Is my mom okay?” she finally asked.
“No, she’s not okay. She thinks you killed yourself.” Daisy handed the ghost the pile of her things.
“So you finally believe me?” Hana asked.
“I don’t know, but I want to find out. I mean ... what’s the harm in just doing some research?”
“I knew it. I knew you’d help me.” Hana smiled widely.
“I did promise I would always be there for you, even if you didn’t promise it back, right?” Daisy said.
Hana flinched. “Yeah, you did. I didn’t deserve it then, and I probably don’t deserve it now.”
“Sounds like something I want to hear and not something you would say.” Daisy pointedly focused on the road and not Hana.
“I’m dead. New perspective, remember?” Hana said.
If the ghost was real, it was more likely that she was just saying what Daisy wanted to hear so that she would help her, but she didn’t want whatever excuse or argument Hana would cook up as to why she was being honest and telling the truth this time. She’d already heard it all before in a hundred different iterations. Hana sighed and disappeared again, leaving Daisy to ride home in silence.
When she got home, she put the bundle of Hana’s things on her bed and stared at it like it was a venomous snake. When she finally picked it up, Hana’s ghost appeared, looking expectant.
Daisy glanced over at her. “Well, I guess I should start sleuthing now, huh?”
“Yeah. You’re smart, Daisy. And I know I gave you shit for all those detectives novels, but I mean—”
“Now it’s useful for you so it doesn’t seem so stupid?” Daisy finished.
Hana winced. “Yeah, I deserved that one. I’ll see you around.” She disappeared again, and Daisy went to her desk to rifle around for a pocket-sized Moleskine notebook she bought a few months earlier. She bought the notebook when she visited Hana at college because Hana insisted that journalling would be good for her. Daisy only wrote her name on flowery script on the first page and jotted down one vague entry about her trip to New Paltz in it though. The problem with a secret relationship was that any time you wrote anything about it down, you created the risk of someone finding it and finding out everything. The journal was abandoned pretty much as soon as Daisy thought of her father reading about what she’d actually done when she visited Hana.
She left the journal entry alone and flipped to the next page, where she wrote “SUSPECTS” across the top of the page. She would have to make sure that no one found this as the contents would be pretty obviously about a murder investigation. Somehow, though, the thought of her father discovering she was researching Hana’s death seemed less world-ending than him finding out she dated Hana.
Hana’s ghost was insistent that reading this journal would help, which probably meant that her murderer, and her father’s murderer, was someone Hana knew. Daisy wrote the names of everyone close to Hana, then flipped a few pages and started writing.
What I Know
- Hana is dead
- Maybe it was murder?
- Mark Holm’s gun killed her
She sighed and tucked the notebook into the pocket of the sweatpants she wore. She needed to start a habit of always keeping it with her.
“I hope this isn’t a waste of time, Hana,” she whispered, not knowing if the other girl could hear her, not knowing if the ghost was even real, and not knowing whether she could solve this mystery with one Moleskine notebook and her determination. She would have to try though, if not for Hana, then to prove it to herself so she might start moving on.
Chapter 6
Hana — age 16
12/31/15
Dear diary,
Well, it’s almost 2016. 2015 has been a weird year. I should probably write some resolutions, but I don’t know why I would. I mean, what’s the point? No one ever follows their resolutions. I have goals for the year, sure, but most of them are sure things. Like, start looking at colleges and get my license so the car Mom and Dad got me for my birthday doesn’t keep sitting in the garage unused.
Maybe I’ll just have one resolution: get over this horrible, terrible, all-consuming crush on Daisy. It’s getting ridiculous, honestly. Not that tonight will help at all. I mean, she’s going to be at my house, hidden up in my room for most of the night, all dressed up. Well, I can start on that resolution tomorrow. That’s the spirit of resolutions anyways, right?
I should probably go get dressed. I’ve been writing this while I wait for this stupid nosebleed to stop. Dad gave me his spray, but it can only do so much, and as much as I don’t want to dress up, I definitely don’t want to see what my mom would do if I got blood on my nice white shirt right now. At least she’s letting me wear pants.
I can hear her obsessing over the floral arrangements right now. I should probably go. That’s near the end of her checklist. Only a few items away from “make sure Hana looks like a human girl and not a gremlin for once.”
Sincerely,
Hana
Hana had barely tucked her journal back in its hiding place when there was a knock on the door.
“Hana? Are you ready yet?” Noriko asked.
“Not yet. You can come in,” Hana replied.
Noriko opened the door and took in Hana with a scowl. “Why aren’t you dressed yet? People will be here in less than an hour!”
“Nose bleed. Didn’t wanna ruin my shirt. But I’m dressed besides that.” Hana gestured at the dress pants she was wearing underneath her fuzzy bathrobe.
Noriko rubbed at her temples. “Of course you got a nosebleed. Well, anything that can go wrong, right? At least your hair looks nice. Are you doing makeup?”
“Maybe mascara,” Hana said.
Her mother nodded. “If you want a little lipstick, I have some that would look nice,” Noriko tried.
Hana gave her a look. “Mom, you know how I am with lipstick.” It usually ended up smeared across her face because she forgot about it.
“Just for pictures, please?” Noriko asked.
Hana gave a dramatic sigh. “For pictures, sure, I guess,” she relented. She would be wiping it off as soon as they were done taking their yearly photo.
“Great. I’ll leave you to get ready, but be downstairs in twenty minutes, okay? Your nose should stop bleeding by then. If not—”
“I’ll let you know.” Hana ushered Noriko back out of her room.
Getting dressed and swiping on mascara only took a moment, and the only accessories she put on were the pieces she wore every day — a small silver cross necklace from her grandmother and a silver ring with a green gem she’d bought at the boardwalk during their family vacation that summer. She got Daisy a matching one, and the pair were rarely seen without them.
When Hana walked downstairs, her mom was speaking to the caterers with a wide, fake smile. Mark stood next to her, his arm casually slung around her middle, subtly claiming her as his. Hana wished she could hold Daisy like that, wished Daisy wanted to be held by her like that.
“I’m ready,” Hana said. Her parents turned and smiled.
“You look great, honey. The pants were a great idea,” Noriko admitted.
Hana held back a smirk, happy to be recognized for being right. “Thanks, Mom.” She hoped her mother would forget she was supposed to put any more makeup on. This hope was, of course, in vain.
“Let me just put that lipstick on you real quick then we can do pictures. People will start arriving soon — you know that the Johnsons are always so punctual,” Noriko said, reaching into the pocket of Mark’s pants and pulling out a small black tube. Hana sighed, resigned to be prettied up by her mother.
“You look so grown up, Hana,” Mark said, a bit of emotion leaking into his voice. Hana wished she would’ve hugged him and told him she loved him. But at that moment she didn’t know he would die less than two months later, so she played it off.
“I am grown up, dad. I’m sixteen,” she reminded him.
He laughed and squeezed her shoulder. “Of course, kiddo. I know that,” he teased. She rolled her eyes and stood in place when her mom pulled them to the staircase where Noriko’s camera was sitting on a tripod, already connected to the wireless remote in her hand.
Hana kept that picture hanging in her dorm — her dad smiling with one arm slung around Noriko’s middle, his other hand placed on Hana’s shoulder. Before he pulled them closer, he told a joke that was lost to time, and the ghost of a laugh was in the smile on her face. Even Noriko’s smile was genuine, her eyes crinkling with laughter in spite of how stressed she was every year hosting this party.
Taking the picture was quicker, more painless than previous years, though Hana didn’t want to admit it was because she wasn’t putting up as big of a fight as usual.
“We should do a last-minute check, Nori,” Mark said. “Hana, you’re free to go wipe off that lipstick with something that isn’t your shirtsleeve.” Hana scampered off to the nearest bathroom, annoyed that even after scrubbing at her lips there was still a faint red stain left behind.
Before the party really got started, when there weren’t as many prying eyes, Hana walked confidently into the kitchen and plucked one of the almost countless bottles of champagne from the fridge before turning and confidently walking out of the kitchen. Her parents bought cases of expensive champagne for every New Year’s Eve party for the midnight toast. There were always leftover bottles that Noriko and Mark broke out during special occasions throughout the year, so the bottle she swiped wouldn’t really be missed.
When she passed through the entryway, she saw her father and tried to hurry more, but his always-observant eyes saw the bottle. He held a finger to his lips before tilting his head towards her mother, who was chatting amicably with one of the waiters. Hana smiled brightly at him and took it upstairs.
This was the first year that she’d felt she could get away with sneaking the adults’ drinks. Hana didn’t really drink aside from when she went to parties, but she only went to a few before she swore off them. The boys there treated her like a novelty, either trying to get her to kiss straight girls who wanted to “experiment” for their viewing pleasure or insisting that she couldn’t really know that she was a lesbian if she’d never been with a guy before. They never liked when she used their logic back on them and asked how they knew they weren’t gay if they’d never kissed a man.
