Daisy was so engrossed in Trudy’s diary that she jumped when the buzzer rang from the vestibule downstairs. Mark John had arrived.
“Darn it,” Daisy said. She closed the book, took off the gloves, and pushed the button to admit Mark John to her apartment. A minute later there was a knock at her front door. She opened it and Mark John stood outside. Jude was standing behind him.
“Mind if we come in?” Mark John asked, indicating Jude with a wave of his hand. “Jude and I were both at the office, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal if we both came for the diary.”
“Not at all,” Daisy assured him, stepping back and motioning them to come in. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks.” Mark John looked around the apartment, not bothering to hide his nosiness.
“So Brian wants to talk about the diary?” Daisy asked, at a loss for anything else to talk about.
“Yeah, he asked if we can meet to talk about it this week. Probably for dinner. I’d love to know what is so special about that diary that he can’t just let me read it at my leisure--or not at all—and he has to discuss it with me.” Mark John’s voice was rising.
Jude laid a hand on his arm. “Mark John, why don’t you tell Brian you can’t meet with him this week? It seems to be stressing you out.”
Mark John rolled his eyes so only Daisy could see, then smiled thinly at Jude. “I’ll think about it.”
“I have enjoyed reading it,” Daisy offered. “It’s just one young woman’s story from the mid-eighteen hundreds. I’ve gleaned a lot of information about women’s roles in society from her diary and I’m going to be using it as a source for my women’s history articles.”
“That’s great,” Mark John said, looking out Daisy’s living room window. “My God, is that Brian down there?” Daisy and Jude went to stand beside Mark John and looked at the sidewalk below. Sure enough, Brian was standing on the corner, looking lost. He looked up and down each street from the intersection and glanced at a piece of paper he was holding. Then he looked up and down the streets again.
“I’m not going out there while he’s standing there,” Mark John said through clenched teeth. “He’s driving me nuts.”
“Mark John, I think you should call the police,” Jude said.
“And tell them what? That my brother-in-law is standing on the corner?” he asked with a snarl.
Jude pouted. “I only mean that he’s harassing you. You could tell them that.”
“I’m not calling the police.” The tone of his voice brooked no disagreement.
Jude shrugged and turned away from the window. “So what do we do now? Just sit here until he leaves? I have things to do today.” Daisy hoped they wouldn’t stay, but she had a sinking feeling that they would do just that while they waited for Brian to leave his post on the corner. What was he doing out there?
“What I want to know is, why is he out there? Did he follow me here? Dammit!” Mark John seethed. He seemed not to have heard Jude’s question.
“Who knows?” Jude answered with an exaggerated shrug. “He’s a kook.” To Daisy’s dismay she sat down on Daisy’s sofa and asked, “Daisy, could I have a glass of water?”
“Sure,” Daisy replied, walking to the kitchen. She called over her shoulder, “Mark John, do you want a glass?”
“Yes, please,” came the reply. Daisy sighed. This was not how she wanted to spend her Sunday afternoon. Then again, she thought, I don’t have anything better to do.
She put three glasses of ice water on a tray and took them into the living room, where Mark John had made himself comfortable on the couch next to Jude. As she rounded the corner from the kitchen to the living room, Daisy saw Mark John take his hand off Jude’s knee.
So Jude wasn’t the only one with romantic feelings.
Daisy set the tray on the coffee table in front of them, trying to avoid looking at either one of them.
“You saw that, didn’t you?” Mark John asked.
She nodded.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay? We’re not ready for our relationship to be public knowledge,” Mark John said. Daisy nodded again. She searched her mind frantically for something to say.
“So,” she began. “Is Brian still there?” Jude stood up and walked over to the window and nodded. Mark John made a scoffing noise with his throat. Daisy didn’t know what to say to these two. She was still reeling from the knowledge that they were dating so soon after Fiona’s death.
“Any plans tonight, Daisy?” Mark John finally asked.
“Nope. Just the usual Sunday night stuff,” she answered. The silence grew long. Finally Jude started talking about the weather, then talk turned to politics, then sports. Daisy hated talking about sports and she suspected Jude was only joining in to get Mark John to talk.
Finally Daisy looked at Mark John and said pointedly, “I wonder if Brian is still there. If he is, should you just ask him to come up?” She knew what Mark John’s answer would be, but she hoped her remark would compel one of them to check the window to see if Brian was still down on the corner. Besides, Brian was probably the last person she wanted in her apartment just then.
Jude took the hint and walked over to the window. “I don’t see him,” she said, and making a point of looking up and down the streets visible from the window, she turned to Mark John. “He must have given up. He’s not out there.” Mark John joined Jude at the window and scanned the streets.
“Good. We should get out of here before he comes back,” he said. He held the diary in one hand and Jude’s elbow with the other. Daisy wanted to remind him to be careful with the diary, but she figured he knew how to handle an antique artifact without damaging it. She followed them to the door and watched them hurry down the stairs to the ground floor. She went back into her apartment and heaved a sigh of relief.
Mark John and Jude were romantically involved. It was almost too unbelievable to contemplate. But she should have seen it coming--there was all the time Jude had been spending in Mark John’s office, the time they were spending together after hours.
Her thoughts switched back to Trudy. She wished she had read the entire diary. The last couple entries had sounded like Trudy was a bit disenchanted with her new life as Thomas Sheridan’s wife and Daisy wanted to know what happened next. She wondered if Trudy ever had children of her own and if she and Thomas reached an agreement about letting her visit her family more often. She hoped Mark John would finish reading the diary quickly and let her borrow it again so she could find the answers to all her questions.
And what of Brian’s odd visit to her neighborhood? He had to be there because he had followed Mark John. He must not have seen Mark John come into the building, or he wouldn’t have looked so confused down on the sidewalk. Daisy hoped Brian’s presence in her neighborhood had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Mark John.
But, then again, Brian knew she was friends with Grover...and that Grover was a person of interest in Walt’s murder. How was all this connected? Was it possible Brian had been in the neighborhood looking for Daisy? Was it was merely a coincidence that he had been nearby at the same time as Mark John?
The next morning Daisy was surprised when she walked into her office and found the diary on her desk. She smiled and went down the hall to Mark John’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Mark John said.
She stepped inside. “Mark John, I can’t believe how quickly you read that diary. Thanks for lending it to me again. Wasn’t it interesting?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I couldn’t get into it and I’ve decided to tell Brian the truth. I don’t understand the appeal it obviously holds for him. You can finish reading it and tell me about the rest of it if you want to, but for once I’m going to be straight with Brian and tell him to quit bothering me about the damned thing.”
“If you wait until I finish it, I can tell you all about it and you can discuss it with him and keep the peace,” Daisy said pointedly. Mark John ran his hands through his hair.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him off. How soon can you get through it, do you think?”
“Give me a couple days and I can have it done for you,” she promised.
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “I guess I can put him off a little longer. God, he drives me crazy.” Daisy thanked Mark John and went back to her office.
She decided to take Monday afternoon for herself to read more of the diary at home. She turned off her cell phone and settled comfortably on the couch to read. She wanted to get through as much of the diary as possible before anyone could think of another assignment to give her.
And once she started reading what came next, she couldn’t put the diary down.