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“Oh.”
    “I used to spend my summers with him and he’d try to make me neat and well-behaved so I wouldn’t embarrass him. When I turned sixteen, I wouldn’t go anymore. So I haven’t seen my father much since then.”
    “Oh.” It sounded messy, and Linc really didn’t want to talk about it. “So did your mom remarry?”
    “No.” Daisy fished a pickle from her sandwich with such elaborate unconcern that Linc knew she was upset. “She’s waiting for my father to come back.”
    “What?”
    “I know.” Daisy nibbled her pickle. “Even when I was a little kid, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But she still thinks he’ll come back. She just can’t see reality.”
    So
it’s hereditary
, Linc thought, but all he said was “She must have loved him very much.”
    Daisy looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. It was very romantic the way they met. He saw her behind the counter in a flower shop she worked in, and he swept her off her feet and into his limo, and I guess they were really crazy about each other for a while, and then the crazy part wore off for him, and he got a good look at what he’d married and didn’t like it.” Daisy shrugged. “He’s a very conservative person. Very proper, very serious.” She met his eyes. “Like you.” Linc wasn’t sure what to say, but she went on. “And my mother’s sort of… fluffy. I don’t think she ever caught on that she wasn’t what he wanted. I mean, from her point of view, she was doing all the right things, being a good little wife. He just wanted somebody more sophisticated, somebody who fit with his reality. So he found that somebody and left.”
    “Ouch.”
    “Yeah.” Daisy sighed. “But she still thinks it’s just this error he made, and sooner or later he’ll remember she’s his one true love.” She shrugged.
    “Sooner or later? How long has it been?”
    “Thirty-three years.”
    “Your mother is nuts,” Linc said, and winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”
    “I don’t think she’s actually nuts,” Daisy said. “I think she’s just detached from reality. It’s a coping skill.”
    She met his eyes and read his mind. “I am not detached from reality. I’m perfectly capable of taking short vacations from it, but I always know how to get back.”
    “Good. Try not to go on vacation this weekend. What do I call your mother?”
    “Pansy.”
    Linc looked appalled. “Why?”
    “Because that’s her name.”
    Linc shook his head in disbelief. “Okay. Your mother is Pansy. What’s she like?”
    Daisy thought about her mother. What could you say about Pansy? “She’s little,” Daisy said finally. “Nothing like me. Blond. Cute. Southern. She’d go bananas for this ring.” Daisy narrowed her eyes at him. “She’d go bananas for you too. The big, dark, handsome Yankee come to steal her little magnolia away. Just like Rhett Butler.”
    Linc looked quelling. “Frankly, my dear, I never thought of you as a magnolia.”
    Daisy didn’t quell. “I never thought of you as a Killer Bee either. The things you find out when you’re engaged to someone. What’s your mother’s name?”
    “Gertrude.”
    “Gertrude? For real? Gertrude Blaise?”
    “Her maiden name was Gertrude Schmidt.”
    Daisy nodded. “A German. I knew it.” She sucked in her breath suddenly. “Oh, my God, I can’t possibly marry you.”
    Linc put his sandwich down, alarmed. “Why?”
    “My name.” Daisy invested the words with as much tragedy as possible.
    “Daisy?”
    “Daisy Blaise.” She made a retching face. “Disgust-ing.”
    He grinned. “Cute. Sounds like a stripper.”
    “Maybe that’s how we met.” Daisy perked up. “I was stripping and—”
    ‘No.“
    “Okay, then.” Daisy tried to make her voice reasonable. “How did we meet? We should meet cute.”
    “No, we shouldn’t.” Linc pointed a finger at her. “Forget the fiction. We met because we live in the same building. We lie as little as possible.”
    “That’s no good.