“I brought coffee and tea over from the main house.” She enters the barn, bumping the door open with her butt in a cute way that I’m too stressed to appreciate. Her body lurches to a stop as she surveys the space. “Is it supposed to look like this?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” I scout out a spot in the center of the hanging-supplies hurricane to sit down, utterly defeated.
“Where is everyone?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
Daisy doesn’t ask questions. Instead, she marches straight to the floor across from me, cradling a mug in one hand while offering me the other. Her support makes this hurt even more, because she’ll be suffering because of me. I describe the phone call, and she nods along.
“Dropping out?” she asks coolly. Either she doesn’t comprehend what this means, or she’s doing her best to keep it together for my sake. “She can do that?”
“It’s rare but not unheard of.”
“Well…” Daisy pauses, her eyes roaming over me like she’s calibrating her response to mine. “That’s shitty. Like, really, really shitty of her.”
I nod, then bury my head in my hands and let the self-pitying thoughts win.
“We’ll get someone else,” Daisy says in a chipper tone. “Someone better.”
“I can’t get someone else.”
“We will.”
“It’s not possible,” I say, lying down and ready to forget this whole stupid idea. A pop-up. In Harlow. What was I thinking, dragging Daisy into this? Because this affects me, but it affects her, too.
“I’ve already booked the artists who expressed interest,” I go on. “We can’t replace someone of her caliber on such short notice. It would be an insult to reach out this late in the game.”
“Maybe that one girl, Becs—she’s an artist. She might have a suggestion.”
“That’s not the point. This is more than how many people show up, how many tickets we sell, and how far out your reservations get booked.” At a loss, I sit up and rest my elbows on my knees, enjoying whatever floral body spray follows Daisy around. “This is about a reputation that I can’t separate myself from. That anyone who works with me will get tied to, too.”
She chews on the cuticle of her thumb, and I don’t have the heart to stop her.
“I can tell myself I’m not to blame, but there’s this feeling that Ishouldhave known,shouldhave done something.” That regret gnaws at me endlessly. “And understandably, people aren’t exactly excited to attach their name to anyone who has ties to that place. I want to run away from it, too. I just…more than anything, I don’t want that to affect The Mirage. The exhibit. You.”
If Daisy somehow gets dragged through the mud for working with me, I couldn’t live with myself.
“C’mon.” Daisy startles me by smacking me on the thigh. “You got this. There’s gotta be something.”
“I…I guess I could ask Becs if she knows someone,” I say, my voice straining under the stress. I should never have talked Daisy into this.
“That’s good.”
“But next weekend? Who would go for that? And what if other people drop out? All because of my stupid fucking last job.”
“Don’t do this.” Daisy sounds desperate, and I look up to meet her worried eyes. “You cannot give up on me right now.” Her words come out shaky, like she can’t trust her own voice. “You’re scaring me. If you really think people are going to always associate you with the shit your skeezy ex-boss did, don’t let them. Let everyone know you aren’t your former workplace or your former boss. Everything they stood for—that’s not you.”
Daisy’s unwavering support and belief in me are exactly why I can’t give up. I got her tangled up in this mess, and I won’t abandon her now. And if I were to make a comeback, I’d want it to be with someone like Daisy. Someone who makes me feel like I could make the sun rise and dictate the phases of the moon if I tried hard enough.
“Make this museum incredible, like only you can,” she says, her gaze searing into me as she slides close enough that our knees touch. My mind travels to last night, holding her so tightly our bodies molded together. What would Daisy have done if I hadn’t been there? She would have managed—she did for eight years without me around. But getting to support her, protect her, and cradle her into sleep in the safety of my arms is a heartbreaking privilege I don’t take lightly.
“I’ve seen the list of artists you’ve talked to,” Daisy goes on. “There’s got to be someone on there that can keep us moving inthe right direction, so we won’t have a blank wall where her stuff was supposed to go.” She hands me the printed-off spreadsheet and points to it. “So who’s it gonna be?”
This is the Daisy I know—headstrong, take-charge, no-nonsense. I glance down at the paper. “Someone who is guaranteed to bring folks in on opening night is ideal.”
“Okay. We could have more than one person, right?”
“I guess.”
