Daisy Gay Decides To Be Social

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Our Story So Far

Daisy Gay was the midwife who delivered Mister Kidd, he disappearing for the first time during the process. Daisy later got good and drunk and forgot the whole thing. Daisy and Mister shall meet again but not for some time.

In This Episode

Daisy Gay wasn’t getting any younger. She got satisfaction from the delivery of children but couldn’t help wanting one of her own. In her youth Daisy had been nothing special in the attraction department but most other women are in this lot and find husbands and lovers nevertheless. Daisy had here own modest share of admirers but lacked something and nothing ever seemed to come of it. Perhaps Daisy worried too much about the future. “Everything is fine and dandy now, but surely we will grow bored with one another, his habits grow tiresome to me and mine to him, what was beautiful be forgotten, and the end come in an ugly divorce. How sad that would be." Better to leave things as they are.

Daisy had begun a career as a midwife, was diligent in her studies and conscientious in performance of her duties. Daisy made her share of mistakes and that was hard but always did her best, which helped with the bad memories, and the good memories held the advantage in number and being greeted by former patients pushing prams was always nice. Births seemed to come in sets and times tended to be either overly busy or slack The currentless slack water was difficult to navigate. Daisy started to hit the bottle. If a job came up meanwhile Daisy would pass it on to a colleague, and since the births came in waves Daisy would sober up in time for the later labors. By then the other midwives were busy or tired out and Daisy could step in fresh, so it worked pretty well.

One day when Daisy was thirty-two she went out to the corner convenience store to restock. The Pakistani owner gave her a bright smile and said, “The susual?” He could not have been moiré friendly and polite. This was the problem. Daisy nodded yes and when she got home with her groceries and bottle could not get that out of her mind. “The usual,” she said to herself, looking around her flat with its flowers and mirrors and books neatly shelved, that was cozy and decent enough but somehow suddenly seemed empty. “The usual,” she said again as the loaves of spelt bread, organic greens, and tiramisu cakes went into the energy-saving half-sized refrigerator. “The usual,” she murmured, as she lifted the elegantly labeled and sealed bottle from the brown paper sack and cradled it like a you-know-what. “The usual,” she groaned as she set the bottle gently aside on the end table and sprawled on the couch in front of the Dell. “The usual,” she muttered, “the usual.”

“Damn. Damn damn damn,” she said quietly. Daisy Gay was still for quite some time, then quietly said,.“I’m hooked.”

Daisy tried not drinking, but it didn’t work. Life wasn’t always pleasant, Daisy got irritable, and that was murder on business. No future there. “I need help,” Daisy said to herself. She tried therapy. There were plenty of therapists in town, graduates of the University of More who didn’t want to leave town after school, and they were quite a capable lot on the whole. After a few false starts Daisy found a therapist who was on her own wavelength. The therapist was a straight talker, not the wait-for-client-to-work-it-out kind, and after some preliminary conversation about Daisy’s unremarkable childhood the therapist leaned over and said, “You’re lonely, Daisy, and you need to do something about it. Your needs aren’t going to go away, and if you don’t satisfy them in a good way, you’ll do it in a bad way. It’s the same for everybody.” Daisy knew sense when she heard it. Now that she knew what her problem really was, it was just a matter of getting the job done, and Daisy had never had any problem with that.

More was right on the cusp between being a big town and a small city so there was no shortage of things to do, and having the university there filled with young people hungry for each other meant there were always concerts and films and talk groups, all listed in the weekly tabloid, the More Knows. “Underground” newspapers came and went but the More Knows hung on and grew, and had even begun to make serious inroads on the custom of The More News. The More Knows had begun to advertise aggressively on television with the slogan “Even I can believe The Knows” uttered by well-known Mornicks*, many of whom did not approve of the News’ stand during the latest international political crisis, the News having been shown to be embarrassingly credulous of official government statements. The latest endorsee of the Knows was Mayor Hinkley, the More News having regrettably endorsed his opponent during the most recent election. Of course the Mayor did not appear in official advertisements, this being against the law, but an amateur version ostensibly recorded at a party of Mayor Hinkley declaring that even he could believe the Knows made the rounds of the Internet, the mayor’s office declaring it a phony. Be that as it may there was no question that the Knows was going places.

Daisy got two copies of the latest Knows at the corner store along with a loose leaf notebook and three-holed paper and some mucilage. Back at her flat she got a pair of scissors and carefully clipped out everything that had social potential, the second copy of the Knows coming in handy when there was an article of interest on both sides of a page and overlapping. Each clip was glued onto its own sheet of three-hole paper, leaving plenty of room for contact information and a dated record of the future results, if any, and the sheets sorted into alphabetical order Daisy labeled the binder My Great New Social Life. “Hokay, I’ve got Potentials, time to make ‘em Actuals, Daisy Gay,” she said to herself. Daisy made a list of the Potentials and assigned each a serial number from one to fifty-two with one being the most Potential to be Actual and fifty-two the least. Number one was a hatha yoga class that met that night and Daisy went out right away to get a black leotard and mat. The leotard was blue with daisies, which seemed like a positive sign. Dance class on the weekend in three different styles, political discussion in the afternoon, bird watching in the arboretum on Sunday, that was numbers one through seven. Plenty left in reserve, all the way down to number fifty-two, the Wednesday night kung fu class.

Hatha yoga bored Daisy and the pink mat found its way to a dark corner in the closet. Modern dance was too lonely and self-involved – whatever would they do without all of those mirrors, Daisy thought -- and the ballroom dancers were politely unfriendly to beginners. Bird watching had Potential but what Daisy really liked was Madam Time’s belly dance class. Madam Time entered the room precisely on the hour bedecked in an old-fashioned low-slung belt like Daisy’s mother had worn in her youth -- “Oh please don’t look at those old photographs, it’s so embarrassing, I’m almost naked” Mom would say, but somehow the photo album always seemed to be close at hand – the belt hung with coins that rattled with each shimmy, a skimpy top of thick dark-on-dark patterned cloth with white piping and more coins and best of all a tall white cone on her head with a gauzy pastel scarf attached to the top, curving down to drape about the throat, and more scarves from the belt that could be used with the hands. The class was warm and welcoming and Daisy felt right at home amongst all those straining bellies. “Busman’s holiday,” she said below her breath. Madam Time showed how to undulate the fingers as though they had no bones and ripple the abdominal muscles likewise, which was more difficult even though the belly has no bones. The combinations could be complicated but Daisy decided to relax and not worry about it, to get the feeling as best she could as this may cover up any number of faults. After the class the advanced students brought out pillows, hung something that reminded Daisy of a mosquito net from an unnoticed brass ring in the ceiling, brought out a low, carved well-oiled wooden table and served tea, the entire operation proceeding with the quiet smooth efficiency of a crack squad of soldiers. Madam Time poured honey-sweetened tea to everyone with a smile and gentle questions about their pasts, presents, and future, with an occasional endearing anecdote about embarrassingly foolish things Madam Time had done in her own youth. Madam Time praised Daisy’s dance with a warm smile. “You have done very well,” she said, and while Daisy knew that talk was cheap and sweet praise selling at a steep discount, during the lesson when looking into the mirror wall she could not help noticing that the other novices were not having such an easy go of it. At the end of precisely one half of an hour the other students broke down and stowed the equipment like a platoon preparing to move out into enemy territory, the studio emptied and the students broke up into groups that drifted down the stairs to the showers shared with the health club downstairs. Afterward Daisy found herself accosted by an imposing blond in a blood red sheath skirt with black piping and matching coat with two lines of black buttons and padded shoulders. From the tea Daisy knew that her name was Rita. “We’re going to Ricardo’s,” she said. “It’s just down the block. You’ll love it. Want to come along?” Daisy said thank you so much, next time for sure, but she had an appointment. It wasn’t exactly an appointment since no one at the political discussion group knew Daisy or that she planned to attend, but this was on Daisy’s schedule and was part of her plan, and Daisy believed that once schedules were drawn up and plans made they ought to be followed otherwise things never Got Done. Rita was unfazed. “Are you coming back next week?” and Daisy said most certainly. “You seem to have a knack for this, you know. We would all like you to join us, would you please?” Daisy said yes. “Just don’t buy your outfit at Gilda’s Cage. Madam Time will see that you have exactly what you need, she is awfully good at that you know. Gilda is a dear too, but, well…” she left unsaid, “and don’t tell anyone I said this, but Madam,” and Rita lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, “Madam could use the money. She depends on us, you know,” and there was the warm smile again, this time from up close. Daisy nodded vigorously. After this, for Daisy to enter Gilda’s Cage would have required a clap of thunder and a floating hand of fire pointing towards the entrance.

Daisy left for the political discussion round table but it proved not to be her style. The table may have been round but was decided tilted in a certain direction, Daisy had difficulty in getting a word in edgewise, and was not at all certain that she wished to as there seemed a surfeit of talk at this table already. Too much talk, not enough action. Chalk one up for Madam Time.

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*Mornicks: Popular term for residents of More, though Morons has almost as much currency. Many citizens of More use the terms interchangeably as fancy strikes them and no one thinks anything of it. Once while caucusing in the capital Mayor Hinkley’s interlocutor referred to His Honor as a Moron. “Smile when you say that,” the Mayor replied through clenched teeth. Both the News and the Knows featured the exchange on their respective front pages with photographs and writings of strong approval. Mayor Hinkley gained re-election with ease and was said to be under consideration for a provincial post though nothing ever came of it.

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