Page 36 of Winter of the World (The Century 2)

Greg looked irritated. "Maybe that's because I admire him instead of complaining about him all the time."

"I don't--" Daisy was about to deny complaining all the time when she realized it was true. "Well, maybe I do complain, but he should keep his promises, shouldn't he?"

"He has so much on his mind."

"Maybe he shouldn't have two mistresses as well as a wife."

Greg shrugged. "It's a lot to handle."

They both noticed the unintentional double entendre, and after a moment they giggled.

Daisy said: "Well, I guess I shouldn't blame you. You didn't ask to be born."

"And I should probably forgive you for taking my father away from me three nights a week--no matter how I cried and begged him to stay."

Daisy had never thought of it that way. In her mind Greg was the usurper, the illegitimate child who kept stealing her father. But now she realized he felt as hurt as she did.

She stared at him. Some girls might find him attractive, she guessed. He was too young for Eva, though. And he would probably turn out as selfish and unreliable as their father.

"Anyway," she said, "do you play tennis?"

He shook his head. "They don't let people like me into the Racquet Club." He forced an insouciant grin, and Daisy realized that, like her, Greg felt rejected by Buffalo society. "Ice hockey's my sport," he said.

"Too bad." She moved on.

When she had enough names, she returned to Charlie, who had finally got the net up. She sent Eva to round up the first foursome. Then she said to Charlie: "Help me make a competition tree."

They knelt side by side and drew a diagram in the sand with heats, semifinals, and a final. While they were entering the names, Charlie said: "Do you like the movies?"

Daisy wondered if he was about to ask her for a date. "Sure," she said.

"Have you seen Passion, by any chance?"

"No, Charlie, I haven't seen it," she said in a tone of exasperation. "It stars my father's mistress."

He was shocked. "The papers say they're just good friends."

"And why do you think Miss Angelus, who is barely twenty, is so friendly with my forty-year-old father?" Daisy asked sarcastically. "Do you think she likes his receding hairline? Or his little paunch? Or his fifty million dollars?"

"Oh, I see," said Charlie, looking abashed. "Sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry. I'm being kind of bitchy. You're not like everyone else--you don't automatically think the worst of people."

"I guess I'm just dumb."

"No. You're just nice."

Charlie looked embarrassed, but pleased.

"Let's get on with this," Daisy said. "We have to rig it so the best players get through to the final."

Nora Farquharson reappeared. She looked at Charlie and Daisy kneeling side by side in the sand, then studied their drawing.

Charlie said: "Pretty good, Mom, don't you think?" He longed for approval from her; that was obvious.

"Very good." She gave Daisy an appraising look, like a mother dog seeing a stranger approach her puppies.

"Charlie did most of it," Daisy said.

---