In the first row, a little girl with bright red curls was seated on her father’s lap. She was watching the stage, and at the sight of Daisy standing up front, her eyes widened. She tugged her father’s sleeve, whispering urgently.
Her father shook his head, but the little girl waved her hands in excitement and gave Daisy a gap-toothed smile.
There, at the very back, Daisy’s mother sat, bundled in scarves, smiling as best as she could. Crash stood against one of the back walls, watching her intently.
To the right, in the third row, a young woman gave Daisy a tremulous smile. Two rows down from her sat Mrs. Wilde, wearing a tulip in her buttonhole and leaning forward.
Daisy wasn’t entirely alone.
She could win. She would win.
She wasn’t going to apologize for her existence. She didn’t need to be forgiven for her ambition. She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t matter to assuage their fears.
Let them throw their rotten produce. Let them tell her she was nothing. Let them call her selfish for wanting the same chance as any man. Daisy didn’t care; she was going to win.
She squared her shoulders, reached down, and picked up the potato. It was a slimy, shattered mess.
“Women.” She said the word loudly, projecting her words to the entire crowd. She held the potato up. “We all know it’s an ugly world out there.”
That disapproving murmur faltered just a little bit, and Daisy bulled her way into the temporary silence.
“You have been told all your lives that you are a part of the ugliness,” Daisy said. “That your only value is to others. That you must labor on piecework, or bend over a desk copying words, or work a loom in a factory. You’ve been told your only value is what you make for others. You’ve been told that you’ll lose your beauty and once you do, there’s nothing more to you.”
“For shame!” someone in the crowd yelled.
Daisy ignored him and went on. “Daisy’s Emporium of Handpicked Goods is more than a general store. It’s more than a bookseller, or a flower shop, or a tea shop. We’ll sell fresh-cut flowers, chosen for their lifespan, so that for a mere halfpenny a week, you’ll have something pretty in your life. We will have scarves and gloves that are designed to be splendid as well as serviceable. All these years, you’ve believed that society has given up on you. And all these years, you’ve refused to give up on yourself. Daisy’s Emporium is for you.”
The murmurs had not stopped, but Daisy continued.
“We will have not just goods, but gatherings. For no cost at all, you’ll be able to attend a course that will show you how to use a few ribbons to beautify a space, how to make curtains that will make your rooms both warmer and brighter. For those who can’t attend, we will sell halfpenny booklets on those same subjects.”
Daisy wasn’t going to stop now. She was going to win.
“Men.” She addressed the crowd. “You are no doubt thinking you have no place at Daisy’s Emporium, and I’ll grant you the goods I have will be chosen with women in mind. But many of you may wonder about curtains as well, and you’ll not be shamed for attending. Daisy’s Emporium is for you, too.” She took a deep breath. “Now let me lay out the financials of Daisy’s Emporium.”
“For shame!” someone called again, but repetition had eroded those words of their hurt. This time the call seemed muted.
She went into detail: The cost of goods. The estimates she’d received. The work she would need to do. Where she’d print the booklets. What sort of courses she had planned, and how they’d pay for themselves with sales of tea and goods while still providing additional income for the local women who might teach.
She talked about the number of unmarried women on the parish rolls, and how few of the main businesses on the commercial street were intended to meet their needs.
“I believe,” Daisy said in conclusion, “that this is an opportunity to not only establish a business, but to better the surrounding environment. I hope that Daisy’s Emporium is chosen for us all.”
There was a moment of silence as Daisy gave her final curtsey.
She looked over the crowd—at the little girl in the front, still beaming up at her. At Mrs. Wilde, who gave her a tremulous smile. At the woman in the second row who had stopped frowning and was now looking thoughtfully into the distance.
“Thank you.” She turned and swept back to her seat.
“For shame!” someone yelled halfheartedly, but there was a good amount of applause, too. Loud, and more than would come from one or two people being polite.
She’d done well. She knew she had.
Daisy was going to win. She had to believe that to keep the smile on her face. To walk calmly back to her seat with her head held high. She was going to win. Nobody else had gone through parish records to talk about the demand for their business, nobody but her. Nobody else had official estimates from suppliers. Nobody else had a plan anything like hers, and damn it all, if they weren’t going to award her the win, she wanted them to at least be embarrassed by their stupidity.
She sat facing the crowd and smiled. Let them call for her shame; they could call forever. She had no shame in besting everyone else.
She had to stay like that, frozen in place, smiling, for long minutes while the judges conferred. The murmur of the crowd grew to a dull roar as people argued over their favorites.
She’d done well. She would smile. She had already won; the only question was whether they would award her the victory or steal it from her hands. She wouldn’t let any of them see the slightest crack in her composure.
She sat in place, her hands clenching because her teeth should not.
Finally, the grocer came to the front. “Ladies and gentleman,” he said, “after much deliberation, we have reached a near-unanimous decision.”
Daisy would not lean forward. She would not scoot to the edge of her seat. She would not hold her breath.
The man turned to gesture at the stage. “Our winner is…”
He let his sentence trail off suggestively, and oh, that was cruel.
Because her imagination slid her name into that gap. Miss Daisy Whitlaw. Every fiber of her being yearned to hear that. Miss Daisy Whitlaw. Say it. Miss Daisy Whitlaw.
She felt as if she were watching him in a dream. He gestured expansively and spoke. “It’s Miss Daisy Whitlaw!”
Her world seemed to fade. It was a dream. It had to be. He’d said her name. He had actually said her name.
But it couldn’t be a dream. In a dream, his pronouncement would have been met with thunderous applause. Now, the crowd simply murmured in confusion. Someone started clapping madly; Daisy wasn’t sure who. But it was just one person.
She didn’t care who applauded her or how few. That had been her name. Her name. She’d won. She had really won. It had worked; she had actually won.
Her hopes jumped high, so high. Her heart hammered in her chest.
It wasn’t just the money. It wasn’t just that she’d won against impossible odds. It was that she’d been brilliant, and they’d been forced to recognize it. She’d fought for her wish, and she had prevailed. The impossible had come to pass.
Daisy felt light-headed. She was not going to faint; she wasn’t. She was going to accept the award graciously, sweetly, fairly. She’d make sure they never regretted it.
She started to stand. She’d scarcely stood up from her chair when the grocer let out a loud, wheezing laugh.
“Just a little joke, ladies and gentlemen! I do so love my jokes; I hope you’ll forgive me that one. We all know that this esteemed panel could never err in so grotesque a fashion.”
Daisy’s behind hit her seat. For a moment, she could scarcely breathe. Little spots swam
in front of her. The edges of her vision darkened. She swayed in place.
She had to force herself to take one breath, then another. She wasn’t going to faint on stage. The cruelty of the man. Raising her hopes up, only to smash them into the ground. Calling her dreams grotesque in front of everyone.
She was not going to cry in front of them all. She should have won. She could have won.
She hadn’t.
She steeled her chin, planted a smile on her face, and looked ahead, unseeing.
She scarcely heard the words that followed.
“Mr. A. Flisk,” the grocer said, “your plan for a dry-goods store has been selected as the winner of the contest.”
Daisy couldn’t process the sounds that assailed her. Not the applause, tinged with a derisive note. Not the congratulatory speech the grocer gave, nor the grateful acceptance that Mr. Flisk delivered. She fixed a vacant smile on her face and stared into nothing.
She hadn’t won. They hadn’t let her.
She waited as hands were shaken, as ribbons were bestowed. She waited until the crowd was dismissed and people began leaving the arena in a great mass.
She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not anyone at all.
She slid behind the stage and slipped through an alley. The street on the other side was bare still; she’d avoided them all. Thank God.
When she was sure nobody could see her, she started running. She didn’t stop for a long time.
Chapter Ten
Daisy ended up in a park a mile away, her feet hurting, her lungs complaining, and her hands trembling.
She hadn’t won.
She’d let herself believe it was possible. She’d put everything she had into the proposal and the presentation. She’d done well—better than anyone else. She knew she had.
She just hadn’t done well enough. There could be no well enough for the likes of her.
She hadn’t won.
She couldn’t have won. She felt as if she’d lost not only her chance at a future, but at that short-lived confidence Crash had showed her. How could she go to him now? She’d gone as fast as she could and smashed headlong into their laughter and their jokes. She felt splintered into pieces.