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hug or something.”
    Ben laughed. “Yeah. A hug.” She already had the something . It came in a pill bottle.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Daisy startled every time the N-by-N barn’s main door swung
open, but when she turned around to assess the new arrival, the newcomer was
usually just Juan with his hand truck fetching another load of boxes to ship or
some other staff member cycling in and out to smoke. The one person she needed
to talk to hadn’t shown up yet.
    She’d tossed and turned all damn night, stomach roiling
and head spinning, driving herself very near the precipice of a full-blown
anxiety attack.
    It was just like high school debate team all over again.
She’d lasted only a week in that. When it had been her turn to take the podium,
arguing on the “pro” side of Sunday mail delivery, she’d tamped her stack of
index cards on the stand, took one look at the audience, and promptly lost her
lunch.
    Nikki wasn’t that scary. What was the worst she could say? “No”?
    “Girl, you’re wound so tight I could probably sharpen a
pencil in your ass.”
    Had it been anyone else, Daisy would have blushed and hid
her face, but for Momma? That was par for the course. She groaned and bent her
head low over the oatmeal soap bars she’d been wrapping all morning. “I’m just
tired.”
    “Why? Ellis and Elizabeth keeping you up again?”
    Ellis and Liz: AKA Daisy’s housemates. Ellis was deaf in
one ear from working at the shipyard and lived life twice as loud as necessary.
Liz worked from home doing third shift customer service by phone for a certain
moving van rental company. Sometimes irate movers yelled at her. Sometimes Liz
yelled back.
    Daisy scooped up the ten soaps she’d just packaged and
carried them to the waiting box on the nearby table. “No, Momma. I have
earplugs for them now.”
    “Why don’t you just move home, huh? Quieter.”
    Daisy returned to her stool and pulled the next tray of
cut soaps closer. “Because I’m twenty-seven years old. I’ve been married and
divorced and have reliable income. I shouldn’t be living with my mother.”
    “Says who?”
    Daisy didn’t answer. A dark bolt at the front of the room
caught her attention and she turned her gaze toward Nikki’s office. The boss
lady had arrived through the non-public entrance via the storeroom and made a
grab for her ringing desk phone. Daisy watched Nikki mouth “Nikki
Stacy-Mitchell” and stood.
    “Momma, I’ll be right back.”
    “Oh, you telling me your comings and goings now? I thought
twenty-seven-year-olds didn’t do that. Silly me.”
    God. Daisy
adjusted the hair beneath her baseball cap so the brim sat straighter and
activated her tunnel vision. She kept her eyes on Nikki’s office door as she
strode through the expansive facility, passing the sofas where the staff
lounged during breaks, the large pine conference table, Jerry’s
cubicle—where he sat, fortunately, with his back turned to the aisle,
Trinity’s workbench, and the kitchenette.
    Daisy stopped in the doorway and wrung her hands as Nikki
cut her gaze up from the pad she scribbled notes on.
    She beckoned Daisy in.
    Daisy stepped just inside the threshold and shifted her
weight.
    “That’s really last-minute. I don’t know if I have anyone
to send,” Nikki said into the phone. She finally sat down and tossed her pencil
onto the desktop.
    The fine hairs on the back of Daisy’s neck stood on end,
and without turning around she knew they had company in the small office.
    “Look, I’ll try to scrape something together but at this
late date I don’t know what it’s going to be. That’s a lot of free shit to give
out, and lot of employee man-hours. My staff is very lean. I can’t afford to
send my principals out to trade shows and have them standing behind tables
for…” She stopped and crooked one black eyebrow up at the new arrival in the
doorway. “Let me call you back.”
    Daisy turned her head to the right to find Ben leaning
against the