was ready. He was so damn ready. He took the elevator because the stairwells tended to be dusty. He emerged into the small lobby of the residence hall and headed for the door, which opened onto a shady courtyard. In search of his visitors, he strode outside, his heart beating a mile a minute.
When he saw Daisy, he could feel himself smile out of every pore of his body, if such a thing were possible. She was wearing a yellow dress with white dots, white sandals with heels. Toenails painted pink. And a smile he saw every night in his dreams.
“Julian!” She ran over to him but brought herself up short. A shadow of something—uncertainty, bashfulness?—flickered in her face. “Is it okay to hug you?” she asked. “I don’t want to muss your uniform.”
He laughed and held his arms wide. He didn’t care if she smeared lipstick all over his formal blue shirt, truth be told. She looked like a fantasy to him; staring at her was like staring at the sun too long. So bright, she hurt his eyes.
“Girl, you can mess me up anytime you want,” he whispered into her silky blond hair.
“I might take you up on that,” she said, but then she stepped back, smoothing her hands down his jacket sleeves. “You look incredible. Just so you know.”
His heart hammered against the ring stashed in his pocket. He almost did the deed right then and there, but forced himself to wait, take a breath, try to think a coherent thought.
He greeted Connor and Olivia, and Zoe in her stroller. Julian’s half brother, Connor, was also his best friend. If Connor hadn’t stepped in when Julian was an exploding teenager en route to juvey, things would have turned out very differently for him.
Olivia and Daisy were cousins, though they looked enough alike to be mistaken for sisters. There was definitely a Bellamy family resemblance—blond, classy, but not too full of themselves. More than that, they both seemed to be the type of women who inspired thoughts of forever.
“We have a surprise for you,” Daisy said, leading the way to the paved footpath, crowded with families headed toward Statler Auditorium.
“What kind of surprise?” He wasn’t expecting anything “This kind!” She brought him around a corner of the walkway. In the shade of a budding chestnut tree stood a slender woman in a blue dress and high-heeled sandals.
“Mom!” Julian couldn’t believe his eyes. His mother? Here?
She had sent her regrets several weeks ago, saying she couldn’t get away from work this weekend. These days, she had a job on a cable series filmed in L.A., and was in the middle of taping a new season of episodes.
But here she was, beaming at him. “Well, look at you,” she said. “My lord, but you make me proud.”
“Me, too,” said a deep, sonorous voice Julian hadn’t heard in years. Three others arrived from the direction of the parking lot.
“Uncle Claude! And Tante Mimi. Remy!” Julian laughed aloud. “I feel like I’m seeing things.”
Uncle Claude was the brother of Julian’s late father. When he died, Claude and Mimi had offered to take Julian in, but there was no room and no money in their tiny, southern Louisiana house. Remy was their youngest of four and developmentally disabled.
He and Julian were the same age. As kids, they used to be fast friends. “Hey, Remy,” he said, completely elated. “Remember me?”
“‘Course,” said Remy, “I got me a book full of pictures of us.” He still sounded like the cousin Julian had known, speaking slowly and hesitantly, as always. The speech impediment was muted now, and his voice rang with a deep resonance, like his dad’s.
When the two of them were young, Julian had gotten into many a fight, defending his cousin from the teasing of other kids. Fully grown, Remy looked like an NFL linebacker, and it was doubtful he suffered from teasing anymore.
“I’m real glad you’re here,” Julian said. He turned to his brother. “Is this your doing?”
“You can thank my lovely wife. She made it happen. I think she might have been a genie in a past life.”
Julian gave Olivia a hug. “You’re the best.”
He glanced at Daisy and caught her eye. Other than Connor, she’d never met any of his family. She didn’t know the world he’d come from, how different his upbringing had been from hers. She seemed at ease with them, however, walking alongside Remy as they made their way to the auditorium for the ceremony.
“You’ll have to tell me stories about you and Julian, growing up,” she said to his cousin.
“I got stories.” Remy offered a bashful grin. “I can tell you stories ‘bout me and Julian, for sure.”
“We’re going to dinner after the ceremony,” said Connor. “He can fill you in then.”
Even with the extra family members, they were one of the smaller groups to attend the commissioning. He spotted Tanesha Sayers with her mother and a whole entourage of aunties and cousins, a colorful garden of black ladies wearing fancy hats. A beaming Sayers waved at him from across the yard. “Good luck, Jughead,” she called.
“Same to you.” Where she was going, she’d need it. To her disappointment, her plan to attend med school had been deferred because the air force needed her elsewhere. The good news was, she was headed to a posting in the Pentagon to work in protocol. With that sharp tongue of hers, it would be a challenge.
“Friend of yours?” Daisy asked.
“Sayers is in my detachment.” He was dying to figure out if Daisy was jealous. He kind of wanted her to be, because of what that would mean.
“She calls you Jughead.” She laughed. “I like it.”
“Hey, how about some family pictures before we go in,” Connor suggested.
“I’m on it,” Daisy said.
Julian’s family didn’t resemble anything people pictured when they thought of “family,” but they were all connected, and it meant the world to him that they had come. Daisy took photos of him and the others in every possible combination. They were definitely a picture of diversity. Connor, whose father was white, looked like Paul Bunyan in a new suit. Their mother, who these days called herself Starr, was as blond as Olivia and Daisy, while his aunt, uncle and cousin had the same fine ebony coloring as Julian’s late father. Julian himself was a mixture of dark and light, and was sometimes mistaken for Latino. Which, where he was headed, was not necessarily a bad thing.
He was dying to tell Daisy what he could of his news, to really have a chance to talk to her, but now was not the time. Likely the same thought had occurred to her; she was doing that thing she sometimes did, lifting her camera up, like a shield between her and the world.
“She’s a famous photographer,” Connor told Uncle Claude as she crouched down for a shot of a manicured campus garden with Remy and Mimi in the background.
“Get out,” said Daisy, her face flushed. “I’m not famous.”
“She’s a professional,” Julian explained, happy to contradict her. “She’s one of the youngest
