"Her clothes don't come off," Pepper said, frowning at the comic book.

"Like your Aunt Lucy," Daisy said, picking up a cheese stick.

"Hey." Lucy stared at the endpapers in the hardcover book where Wonder Woman was fighting with some guy in a black suit while a large fish watched. Sort of like my day. "I've been dating. Don't rush me." She smiled across the book at Daisy, trying to think of the most tactful, supportive way to say, What are you on?

"I'm just saying," Daisy said. "It's been twelve years. Connor never married again. You haven't been with anybody you've been serious about. What are you holding out for?"

The next page in the book had Wonder Woman laying down the law to some guy in uniform. I like her, Lucy thought.

"I know Connor can be domineering," Daisy said. "But you can trust him. I trust him."

Lucy stared at the book and thought, Uh oh. Gloom would say it was a sure bet that trusting Connor had gotten Daisy into whatever mess she was in. Not an affair-if she'd been with him, she wouldn't be trying to get them back together-but something… she looked up. "You remember how he used to get us into all those harebrained schemes?"

Daisy picked up the action figure. "At least her body is sort of probable. Those Barbies are awful."

"What?" Pepper said, looking up from her book.

"Barbies are too skinny to be real," Lucy told her.

"I know," Pepper said and went back to her book.

So now Daisy didn't want to talk about Connor. Which meant that he was definitely behind whatever was bothering her. Not good. Lucy turned another page and saw Wonder Woman tied to an electrified iron post-Hello, phallic symbol-while a woman with a foreign accent threatened to turn on the juice. "So a guy wrote Wonder Woman, right?"

"Probably." Daisy held up the action figure. "Look at this outfit."

"She has an invisible plane," Lucy said, looking at the next page.

"And she's wearing a skirt," Daisy said. "Definitely a guy wrote it."

Lucy kept an eye on Pepper as she turned the next page. "So what's wrong?"

"With the skirt?"

"No," Lucy said, giving up on subtlety. "With you."

"I'm fine," Daisy said, staring at the action figure.

"Pepper, why don't you take your book and your stash back to the bed?" Lucy nodded toward the end of the camper that was filled with the sideways double bed. "Curl up, get cozy." She smiled at Daisy, her jaw set. "And your mama and I can talk about… things."

Daisy looked at the door and started to get up.

"Nope," Lucy said. "Don't even think about it. We're going to talk."

Chapter 5

Pepper looked from Lucy to her mother and back again. "Okay," she said and picked up the comic, her root beer, four cheese sticks, and two Hershey bars, which she neatly slid into the comic before Daisy noticed. Then she staggered down the three-foot passage to the bed, balancing everything, and climbed up onto the mattress.

"Good picture," Daisy said, nodding at the book, and Lucy looked down to see Wonder Woman gazing soulfully into the eyes of the guy in uniform.

Betrayed by an icon, Lucy thought and shut the book. "So I have some questions."

Daisy leaned back in her chair and drank from her root beer bottle, the combination of the bottle and her hat blocking her face. "Me too. Like what about this Green Beret who's bringing you presents?"

"So I get to the set today," Lucy said, pushing the book away, "and I don't have the full script, I'm missing three-quarters of my personnel, the people I do have are moving at half speed, and everybody seems surprised when I ask them to do more than one take. Plus they all keep saying this is my big break."

"It is." Daisy leaned forward clumsily, almost knocking over her root beer bottle. "This will get people's attention. No more dog food commercials. Maybe you and Connor-"

Lucy moved the bottle out of her way. "Okay, first, shooting four days of stunts is not going to get anybody's attention. This is just cleanup work, which I am doing for the money. Second, I do a lot of different kinds of commercials, not just dog food." Lucy picked up her root beer, trying not to sound annoyed. "Third, I'm good at working with animals, I'm famous for it, and I make a damn good living at it. Fourth, I like what I do. Feature work is insane, you're always away from home, the shoots are long, and they're a logistical nightmare." She stopped, realizing her voice had risen. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Pepper watching her from the bed. "It's not a real life, Daisy. You can't have a home and do that."

"It's real," Daisy said, her face flushed. "It's-"

"And it's particularly not real for a five-year-old," Lucy said, dropping her voice so Pepper couldn't hear. "I know you're doing a great job of homeschooling her, she's smart as a whip, but she needs to be with other kids. She's lonely. Come back to New York with me, get a steady job, put her in kindergarten there, and we'll both take care of her. Dragging her with you was fine when she was a baby, but she's five now-"

Daisy's chin went up. "She's fine. The shoot is fine. Everything's fine. I can take care of myself and her."

"No," Lucy said, in too far to stop. "Pepper's unhappy and you're dull and miserable and you're making mistakes-you who never missed a detail." She waited for Daisy to say, Oh, that's the allergy meds I'm taking, but Daisy just slid her eyes away. "And it's not just you, this set is a mess. There's something bad going on here, and I'm betting you know what it is. And I'm betting it's the same thing that's making you miserable."

Daisy chugged the rest of her root beer, still not meeting Lucy's eyes.

"You think I'm not going to find out what's going on?" Lucy said, holding on to her temper. "I know we haven't seen each other much in the past couple of years, but you can't have forgotten me that much."

"I haven't forgotten you at all," Daisy said, and Lucy couldn't read her voice.

"I'm going to be here another three days, I've got Gloom with me, how long do you think it's going to be before we know everything? Do you want me to find out from somebody else?"

Daisy shifted in her chair. "It's not a big deal. They were running out of money and Connor brought in a backer named Finnegan who wanted all this stunt stuff added to the end of the movie. So we're a little disorganized because it was all put in at the last minute." Daisy pulled the Wonder Woman book over to her side of the table. "So does Wonder Woman have a boyfriend?"

"That wouldn't make you sick and miserable." Lucy leaned forward. "That wouldn't put you on drugs." Daisy jerked her eyes up.

"I'm not… I don't do that stuff, Lucy."

"What stuff? You're on something, I can see it in your eyes, in the way you move."

"It's not coke or anything," Daisy said, her voice tired.

"Prescription meds count," Lucy said, exasperated. "Who are you kidding? Come on, Daisy, let me help you. You know I can. I always have. I can get you out of whatever trouble you're in, off whatever stuff you're on. Tell me."

Daisy shook her head. "I'm fi-"

"Stop saying that,"Lucy snapped. "This isn't just about you; you've got Pepper so worried she's crying to me on the phone."

Daisy shook her head, her eyes blurring with tears.

"Wonder Woman is in love with Captain Steve Trevor," Pepper said from behind Lucy's shoulder, and Lucy jumped.

"Hey, baby," she said, and Daisy straightened, too, pasting on a smile. "Did you finish the comic book?"

"I looked through it." Pepper put the comic on the table. "There was some good stuff. But she always gets tied up. She gets tied up a lot."

"She does?" Daisy reached for the book.