“You don’t understand. Lucas is to me as Wanda Wade is to you. Remember when she bribed the judges with homegrown tomatoes and dethroned you from Hamilton Lawn of the Year from 2013-2015?”
“That is nothing like you and Lucas—Wanda Wade is just a cheating bitch. Lucas is so nice!”
This exchange is nothing new. Lucas and I both have two personas—one for when we are alone together, and one for when we are in public. That’s why nobody on the outside ever truly understands what we represent to each other. I’ve tried countless times to show my mother the error of her ways when it comes to Lucas, but he brainwashed her years ago. I was alone in my hatred for Hamilton High’s prom king, which was especially irksome because we were crowned together. Our senior class apparently thought it would be hilarious to see the two of us slow dance together under the neon lights set up in the basketball gym.
I can still remember the dumbfounded expressions on everyone’s faces, watching the two mortal enemies of Hamilton High pressed together on the dance floor. I remember his hand shaking, enraged at the voters for forcing us together like that. I could feel his pulse through the palm of his hand.
“Did your mom fix your tie for you, or is that a clip-on?” I taunted.
“Just shut up and spin,” he retorted, twirling me like a stupid ballerina.
“If you plan on dropping me during a dip, I’m taking you down with me.”
Halfway into the song, I noticed him looking at my face, his eyes fixed in concentration, his expression tortured.
“Stop looking at me as if I somehow fixed the polls. Trust me, you are the last person I want to be up here dancing with,” I seethed in response to his strange look.
He shook his head and broke away from me, having reached his limit.
The crowd around us erupted.
“A minute fifteen!” someone shouted, waving his watch in the air. “Who bet they wouldn’t go over a minute and a half?! Come collect your money near the punch bowl!”
“Daisy.” My mom shakes me out of my distant memory as we arrive home. “You have that same look on your face that you used to get in high school. Are you still thinking about Lucas?”
I close my eyes. “Not by choice.”
Chapter Six
The next day, I need to get out of the house, so I volunteer to do the grocery store run for the week. Sure, driving with my clunky cast isn’t all that easy, but I manage to pull into a wide space near the back of the parking lot just fine. I’m exhausted from work and could use a nice relaxing evening at home, but my mom is a hoverer, especially now that she thinks I’m damaged goods. Compared to enduring her claustrophobic nurturing, strolling through the grocery store to the crackly tones of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” will be like my own personal spa day.
It’s not long before I realize my mistake. Back in North Carolina, I could typically go out without fear of running into a single person I knew. Here, in Hamilton, it’s the exact opposite. I close my eyes and try to visualize how I must appear. I showered after work and pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. My hair is still damp and my face is makeup free. Not your best look there, Daze.
As if it’s orchestrated by some cruel god, I’m stopped by no less than five people on my walk toward the sliding glass doors. It’s mostly people welcoming me back or asking how my mom is doing, but I make a break for it when a neighbor asks me to look at a mole on her upper thigh.
Once inside I feel safer, but I snatch a People magazine from the rack for camouflage just in case. I’m multitasking, reading an interview about Ben Affleck while bagging zucchini when I see Lucas on the opposite side of the vegetable section. He’s changed since work too. He’s wearing workout clothes and a baseball hat. His glasses are gone and his t-shirt looks damp, as if he’s come straight from the gym.
He looks up, sees me staring, and I whip the magazine up to cover my face.
Go away. Go away. Go away.
I’m repeating the words under my breath, hoping he’ll disappear like a reverse Beetlejuice. Just in case my magic spell doesn’t work, I turn my back toward him and stuff zucchinis into my cart like CNN has just announced a worldwide shortage.
I can only imagine his snide remark: Big fan of zucchini?
I stand there, shaking, wondering how long it will take him to come over and pick a fight, but after another minute or two, I look over my shoulder and realize he’s gone. He didn’t come over.
Huh.
I straighten my shoulders and finish weaving through the produce section with a sense of dread. Suddenly, the tall aisles feel like the walls of a maze, with Minotaur Lucas lurking somewhere within. I decide to skip the middle of the store and head straight toward the back wall of meats and cheeses, hoping to spot him before he sees me.
Ugh. He’s two steps ahead, checking out the poultry. I know he sees me out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t turn. He gathers an armful of lean chicken breasts, which I’m sure his body will somehow transform into another row of abs. He continues on, always a few yards ahead of me. It’s torture. I can’t seem to care about spaghetti sauce when I know Lucas is on the opposite end of the aisle choosing between two brands of pasta.
Does he really not see me? What game is he playing?
I purposely linger a little too long in front of the chips—spoiler, Ben Affleck is probably going to get back together with Jennifer Garner. I’m hoping to lose Lucas for good, but it’s no use. We meet up again in the frozen food section, passing right by each other. I brace myself, awaiting the remark he’s taken all this time to craft, but nothing comes. He breezes right past me like we’re strangers. I stop and turn over my shoulder. He’s picking ice cream. Now I know he’s faking—he’s too in shape for desserts. In his workout clothes, I can see every inch of his broad chest and toned legs.
Before I know what I’m doing, I push my cart right up to his. With my cast on, though, I don’t have much control over the trajectory, so I end up ramming it into his like a bumper car. It isn’t an intentional use of force, but I sort of like the tone it sets.
“Hey there, Daisy,” Lucas says. He’s smirking, but his gaze stays pinned on the ice cream.
I bend forward, trying to meet his eyes. “Enough, Lucas. I know you’ve seen me shopping.”
He tilts his head at the ice cream display. “Rocky Road or mint chocolate chip?”
This must be a mind game, but as a self-titled authority on ice cream, I can’t not answer.
“Are you kidding? Rocky Road is gross. Who wants nuts in their ice cream?”
He reaches in and grabs the Rocky Road, plops it in his cart, and turns his back to me. He’s already halfway through the frozen pizzas by the time I realize he’s blown me off.
Out of spite, I reach in for the mint chocolate chip.
I catch up to him in front of the milk. He wants 2% and so do I. He reaches in for a gallon and holds it up for my inspection. I nod and he puts it in my cart.
“Thanks.”
His gaze falls over my cart as he heads toward the yogurt. “Did you leave any zucchini for anyone else?”
“Ha! I knew you would bring up the zucchini!”
I sound disproportionately pleased about this, like I’m an interrogating detective and my perp just confessed.
“I’m just curious about what you—or anyone—could possibly do with that much. It’s filling up a quarter of your cart.”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Bread,” I declare proudly, like a toddler that knows twelve words.
“Zucchini bread?”
He sounds like he doesn’t believe it’s a thing. By some miracle, it is.
“It’s delicious. Like banana bread, but better.”
He nods. “I’ll take your word for it. Yogurt?”
“Greek.”
“Same. Here, try strawberry-on-bottom. It’s my favorite.”
I don’t protest because it’s my favorite too. There are a few one-dollar-off coupons dangling from th
e shelf and I grab them all for myself, trying to provoke him out of this bizarre calm. Infuriatingly, he only smiles and heads toward the front.
“Are you done shopping?” he asks, casually plucking a tube of Crest off an endcap.
I nod, mute.
We walk in silence toward the checkout lines. There’s no one ahead of us, so we finish up at the same time. Seeing my cast, the teenaged bagger offers to help load up my car, but I decline. It’s a slippery slope into old-ladydom, and I won’t be taking my first step at 28.
Lucas isn’t so easy to brush off. “It’s going to take you an hour to load all those bags one-handed.”
It’s like we’re right back at work—me at the mercy of my rival—but while I don’t have the choice to refuse his help from 9-5, I do now.
“I’m okay. Really.”
“Right, then you won’t mind if I help.”
My more dramatic brain cells tell me he just wants to get me alone in the back of the parking lot, stuff me into the trunk when no one’s watching. In reality, he unloads the bags into my mom’s car swiftly and then steps back, hands in the air like he’s under arrest.
“That wasn’t so bad, right?”
God, he’s cute in the hazy light from the parking lot, almost boyish in his baseball hat.
“Torture,” I muse.
He shakes his head and drops his gaze, smiling at the pavement a few feet in front of me. It’s almost like he enjoys my cheekiness. I guess he would. After all this time, he has to enjoy our fighting as much as I do. Anyone else would have walked away a long time ago.
He starts to back away, over to where he’s parked his cart by his truck. “For the record, you’re the one who came up to me in there.”
“What?”
“I know most women don’t enjoy bumping into people when they’re out in their sweats. I was trying to do the polite thing—pretending not to see you.”
“I thought you were trying to psych me out.”
He laughs and turns, throwing his last few words over his shoulder. “Right, yeah. I guess it doesn’t matter. I think you look pretty cute like that.”
He means in my sweats and no-makeup state. I’m actually taken aback; even my dramatic brain cells think he sounds genuine. I’m left staring out after him, trying to decipher the last thirty minutes in my mind. It’s only during my drive home that I catch sight of myself in the rearview mirror and scream. No. No. Dear god no. I forgot I was wearing stupid under-eye masks my mom wanted me to try. They’ve been stuck to my cheeks for the last hour. I look absolutely insane, like an over-moisturized raccoon.
That’s why Lucas was giving me space. He was trying to save me from the embarrassment.
My mom assures me it’s not as bad as it seems.
“On the plus side, your skin looks really great now.”
I groan and stuff the carton of milk in the fridge.
“Also, Daisy…what the hell are we going to do with all this zucchini?”
Chapter Seven
A lot of people used to wonder if my friendship with Madeleine was purely strategic, as if she existed only to be my eyes and ears behind enemy lines. Though I was sometimes tempted to use her as a spy, my love for Madeleine had nothing to do with the intel she provided me on her brother. Living next door to her for nearly two decades, she became the little sister I never had.
Madeleine was everything Lucas wasn’t: friendly, decent, human. She was two years behind us in school, but I often forgot. She was wise beyond her years, and though I’d tried many times to turn her against her brother, she never picked sides. He’s really nice to me, she said as I tried to enlist her help in procuring a voodoo doll. Don’t be so hard on him, she insisted after I dreamt up a diabolical plan to get him deported.
After moving away from Hamilton for college, I weighed the pros and cons of continuing my friendship with Madeleine. She was indisputably my dearest and closest friend, but she was also my last remaining connection to Lucas—something I refused to hold against her.
In college, I could block Lucas on every social media account and delete him from my phone, but if I wanted to maintain my relationship with Madeleine, I had to endure the occasional mention of him. The occasional mention turned into regular updates as I began to enjoy the ability to keep tabs on him from afar—all the juicy gossip with none of the personal investment.
“He’s met someone,” she said during one of our Skype calls in my second year of medical school.
“Another demon?”
“I think he really likes her.”
“Watch out for a lobotomy scar, or the mark of the devil. It might be tucked beneath her hair.”
“They’re coming home at Christmas so he can introduce her to our parents.”
“Hold a mirror up to her and see if she has a reflection.”
A month later, Madeleine had informed me that Lucas had broken up with his girlfriend just before the holidays. Cold. Suddenly, I felt bad for the poor girl. She couldn’t have known what a heartless monster he was when she signed up. He really ought to be on a government list.
It became a sort of game over the years with Madeleine. I acted bored and disinterested when Madeleine brought up Lucas, but not so annoyed that she would stop doing it. I could never, under any circumstances, bring him up first. Fortunately, I had become very good at this game of plausible deniability over the years.
“My mom wants to do a game night soon,” I say, scooping out another bite of the brownie à la mode.
“Oh fun!” Madeleine agrees from across the booth. We are wrapping up dinner two days after my mother first suggested the idea of a game night to Lucas in the car.
“Yeah, personally, I’d rather sit through a root canal, or maybe a spinal tap, but she’s set on the idea, so I just wanted to get a quick headcount. So it’ll be me, you, my mom, your parents, and Lucas. That makes six, right? Unless you or Lucas want to add a plus one? I just need to know how many extra chairs to pull out of the garage, and I was going to make a dozen cupcakes, which makes two for each person, unless…”
“You want to know if he’s with someone, don’t you?” She doesn’t sound overly accusatory, just as if she’s stating a fact. I suddenly realize I am not as good at this game as I thought.
“No, it’s just that those chairs are super heavy…”
“Daisy, I know you better than anyone. I also understand the weird friction you have with my brother, so you don’t have to worry about any judgement from me.”
“Friction implies contact. What we have is magnetic repulsion.”
“Well however you want to describe it, you don’t have to worry. He hasn’t dated anyone since his second year of residency, and he definitely has not shacked up with anyone since he got home.”
I scoop another bite of brownie out of the bowl.
“You’re smiling,” she accuses.
“I’m not one of those people who derives joy from other people’s sadness, but I can’t help but love the idea of a sad, lonely Lucas.”
“Well enjoy it while you can. Now that word has gotten around that he’s back, I’ve been getting a suspicious number of calls from old friends and acquaintances. They pretend to want to catch up, but every conversation leads to Lucas and his relationship status.” She narrows her eyes theatrically. “Not unlike your line of questioning just now…”
“Don’t lump me in with those bottom feeders. I just want to get an accurate headcount for charades.”
“Uh huh. You’re pathetic. Can I have that bite?”
“It’s the last one.”
“How about you give it to me and I don’t tell my brother you’ve been asking about him.”
I hand her my spoon. “You’re diabolical.”
She grins. “Blackmail suits me. You two aren’t the only ones to learn a few tricks over the years.”
We finish off the dessert and debate whether our stomachs can suffer through another round.
“Count me out,” I say, dropping my sp
oon and reclining in the booth. I am more chocolate than woman at this point.
“Same. Let’s just finish our wine and then I’ll drive you home.”
I nod.
“I meant to ask earlier, have you been seeing anyone?” she asks.
“Madeleine.”
“What? I’m just asking.”
“As you know, I’m still building my Tinder profile. Once it’s up and running, guys will be swiping so fast their thumbs will fall off.”
“You’ve been trying to build that for the last year. It’s two lines of text and a couple pictures, how hard can it be?”
“Oh Madeleine. You’re still young and unlearned in the ways of love. There’s an art to attraction.”
“Yeah, put up a bikini picture and sit back while the guys start to sweat.”
“If I wanted to find a guy who only values me for my bangin’ bod, I’d just wear a bikini every day,” I say sarcastically.
“You’re right, you need pictures that show that you’re more than just a pretty face. Maybe pose with your white coat and list your name as Dr. Love.”
Truthfully, dating isn’t exactly my specialty. There seems to be no in-between with doctors fresh out of residency: they are either married with four kids, or they’ve missed the boat and remain totally and hopelessly single. I am in camp #2. Medical training has delayed my life. Because of it, I have a long history of half-baked relationships that never quite made it out of the oven.
Now it’s time to focus on my love life again. At 28, I feel like I’m right in my prime. Mostly by accident, I’m in good shape despite having no time to workout. In residency, I couldn’t stomach much of the hospital food. Coupled with frenetic sprints around the hospital and daily bike commutes, I maintained the illusion that I paid a modicum of attention to my physical fitness. Another bright spot for me is that men regularly mistake my exhausted ramblings and honest deprecation as humor and personality.
In conclusion, if dudes can look past the lime green cast and my impressive list of shortcomings (more added every day!), they’ll see that I am one stone cold fox.