My dear friend Daisy Fairweather had a way with words like no other. She was striking, sharp as a tack, and quick as a fox—yet sometimes she’d play the sweet innocent so well, you couldn’t help but want to scoop her up and coddle her. That was her gift.
I remember that long coach tour we took once, the vehicle packed to the brim. The driver was a stern old chap named Mr. Higgins. It was going to be a dreadfully long night journey, and poor Higgins had no relief driver. He glanced back at our rowdy lot and called out,
“It’s a fair stretch ahead, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about dozing off at the wheel. Any ladies fancy keeping me company up front? A bit of chatter to pass the time, eh? I’ll owe you one.”
Faces soured all around—pity for the man, but not a single soul volunteered to stay awake with him. Everyone was set on snoozing in their seats and waking up at their destination.
Then, like a bolt from the blue, Daisy piped up. She’d keep poor old Higgins entertained while the rest snored away. She swept up to the front, smoothed her skirt, batted her lashes—picture perfect modesty.
“I’m not much of a talker, mind you, terribly shy really, but I’ll do my best.”
Passengers settled in, Higgins put his foot down, and the miles rolled away. Daisy leaned in, all sweetness.
“What’ll it be then, Captain? Fancy a tale of my first love? Happened when I was but nineteen, oh, so long ago…”
“Now we’re talking!” Higgins chuckled. “Feels like my own youth was back in the Stone Age. Go on then, lass!”
“Well, once upon a time,” Daisy began, voice like honey, “I was struck by love—or maybe my second or third, truth be told. Somewhere in the top ten, at least. Let’s just call the fellow Teddy—names don’t matter, do they?”
Higgins gripped the wheel, nodding along. Daisy spun her yarn, soft and dreamy—how she and Teddy had met, how passion had seized them right there on the high street at dusk!
“We knew then and there—it was fate! So we followed that pull, straight after supper, we did. Met at the crossroads where three lanes meet, under the first stars, just as the pubs were pouring their first pints…”
“That’s the spirit!” Higgins crowed. “And what then? Scorched the earth, did you?”
“Ah, but here’s the rub—nowhere to lay our heads!” Daisy sighed. “Not my place, not his, friends’ doors locked tight, and not a shilling to rent a room!”
“Aye, I’ve been there,” Higgins grunted. “Young blood boiling, lass willing, but the world won’t give you a patch of grass to call your own!”
“We searched high and low,” Daisy went on mournfully. “Even tried a park bench—load of nonsense, all taken! Some blasted amorous plague, I tell you! And then Teddy, sweet as you like, says, ‘Darling, perhaps another night?’”
Higgins near swerved off the road.
“What? ‘Another night?’ The nerve of that blighter! Had I been in his shoes—oh, I would’ve—where’d you dig up such a dud?”
Daisy laughed, soft and wicked as a siren.
“Only teasing, Higgins! Clever Teddy had a plan—led me to a tall building he knew, where the roof hatch never locked…”
“Ah, now that’s more like it!” Higgins relaxed. “A rooftop’ll do just fine, long as there’s a pretty girl and a dark sky. Stars, clouds, all that poetry. Why, I once… ah, never mind. Go on, love.”
And when Daisy got going, she could out-talk any bard. She spun her tale with whispers of the midnight sky above them, how small they felt up on that roof with nothing but the universe stretching on forever!
“…breathless with longing, we began to undress up there,” she murmured. “I was wearing this dreadful patterned top, hooks down the back like a corset! Broke two nails tearing it free. My skirt, light as dandelion fluff, just slipped away, baring my skin to the warm breeze… oh, and my hair—proper royal curls back then!”
Higgins groaned, gripping the wheel. Sleep was the last thing on his mind now. Daisy was a vision now—but imagine her at nineteen? The coach might’ve flooded with drool.
“I stripped down to nothing, burning with desire!” she sighed. “There, in the half-light, just a sliver of lace left… the air thick with spice and sweat and aching need… and then Teddy said—”
“Aye? Aye?” Higgins rasped. “What’d the fool say?”
Daisy grinned. “He said, ‘You look smashing, Daisy! Fancy doing that again?’”
Higgins near drove them into a ditch.
“You what? ‘Do it again?’ Spineless twit! Had it been me—oh, I’d have—what kind of half-baked lout leaves a woman hanging like that? But you spin a fine yarn, I’ll give you that. Should work one of them saucy phone lines.”
On and on the coach sped, while Daisy wove her tale of passion—how they’d tangled together, hearts hammering like church bells, skin set ablaze, lost in the storm of their own making, two souls melted into one…
“And? And?” Higgins urged, nearly shaking. “Don’t leave me hanging, girl!”
Daisy giggled. “And then Teddy said, ‘Missed!’”
Higgins howled, pounding the wheel. Needless to say, not a soul slept that night—the whole coach was riveted. Later, the cunning minx told me,
“Serves them right! Thought they’d get their rest while I stayed up? Not on your life. If I’m awake, everyone’s awake.”
—By Daniel Whitmore.
