Keeping Time: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

shoulders? Those dark eyes? That chin? He had to be a movie star. That was her first thought. He had to be there filming a picture. She could feel her face burning red, part of her wanting to look away, to hide, to run, but unable to turn from him. His pull, too strong.
    He wasn’t there filming a picture. He was there with a friend, another American soldier, Gilbert Gilmore. They had been granted a few days’ leave to make the trip involving a train, a bus, and a ferry—all the way from the American Burtonwood, Warrington Air Base, twenty-five miles outside Liverpool, on the other side of the River Mersey—to visit Gilbert’s mother, who lived in Lancashire, where Daisy’s parents’ bakery was.
    Gilbert had gone on to his mother’s. Michael, into the shop.
    Daisy couldn’t help but stare. In all her eighteen years, she had never seen such a perfect individual, and he was right there! Her father was serving him! This man, this soldier, this artwork was sitting right there where other, more ordinary people usually sat. She pretended to be busy, was barely breathing, sneaking peeks as he ate.
    Her father struck up a conversation with him. Daisy listened intently, not missing a word. The two had a lot of trouble understanding each other+e close. It was all English, but their accents were so different that it might as well have been two distinct languages. They both had to slow their words to a crawl, pronounce each word carefully, and sometimes even spell them out. When he told her father his name, Daisy rolled the name, Michael Baker, slowly over her tongue as if it were candy, a sweet special treat reserved for Sundays.
    Michael asked her father what there was to do in the town. He said he would be there for four days and that while he’d be lodging at Gilbert’s mother’s, he wanted to give his friend time alone with his family. He wondered if there was any good fishing around. He said he would like to stay outside, the weather was so nice.
    Daisy’s father told him he could set him up with all the gear he would need to fish, and that Daisy could walk him over to the best fishing around. Daisy felt her face, already red, get impossibly redder when Michael turned to look at her. She felt heat pricking around her neck and ears. Felt her insides melting like butter. Michael smiled and said thank you, said that that would be great.
    Daisy cleared his plate and teacup while her father took him out back to the shed. She stared at the crumbs he had left behind, wanting to eat them, to inhale them. She did neither, only scraped them into the trash can and washed the plate clean. Daisy, remembering the difficult, awkward, stumbling conversation as they walked along to the lake. Remembering how he had asked her if she thought it would be all right to sit with him for a while while he fished. How she had nodded without speaking, and sat primly on the rocky bank under a tree.
    How she was totally hooked long before that first fish was.
    And Daisy, propped up on the hospital bed, was certain of this: He had loved her, too. He called her Little Nugget. He spent hours playing the piano for her, sitting side by side on the piano bench. He showed her card tricks, stowed cherry lollipops in the pockets of his uniform. Bought Maltesers to share with her. He divided the last malted milk ball in the bag in half, then divided his half again and slipped it into her mouth.
    The war ended. Michael was going home. He came to her, knowing he shouldn’t. He sneaked off base that last night and traveled the distance in the dark by a train, a bus, and a ferry, and got to her in the middle of the night. He tapped lightly on her bedroom window, careful to wake only her. Daisy opened it quietly, and in he climbed. He got down on one knee on the braided blue rug on her floor, took her hands in his, studied her fingers, and ran all his strong, gorgeous musical fingers over hers. Then he cleared his throat and said that there was no other like her