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 photographers ever to be published in the New York Times.”
“Your work was in the New York Times?“ Julian’s mom perked up. Anything having to do with fame and image generally intrigued her.
“It was one assignment,” she said. “I had a lucky break involving a local baseball player.”
“Everybody starts somewhere,” his mom said. “I’d love to see the pictures.”
“You’re going to love this even more.” Daisy positioned Julian and his mom side by side, with Cornell’s clock tower behind them. “The light’s really pretty here.”
Starr glanced back at the tower. “Looks like the set of a sniper movie I was in a few years ago. The shooter was up on the ledge surrounding the clock, and we had to figure out a way to escape.”
“And did you?” Julian asked.
“Yep. As I recall, I set something on fire and created a smoke screen. Who knows, now that you’re going to be a hotshot in the air force, you’ll be doing things like that for real.” She turned her gaze up to Julian, and he recognized a rare flash of pride in her regard. His mom knew so little about his life. In a way, that saddened him, but in another way, it was very liberating. She never had any expectations for him to live up to, so he had no trouble exceeding them.
“Has anyone ever mentioned you look like Heidi Klum?” Daisy asked.
Julian could feel his mom’s gratification in her posture. “You think?”
“Sure.” Daisy took several shots.
“I like this girl,” said Julian’s mom. “Where’d you find her?”
His eyes met Daisy’s, and he read the question there. No, he’d never explained Daisy to his mother. In the first place, Starr was too self-absorbed to actually care. And in the second place, his relationship with Daisy often seemed to defy explanation.
Since Starr had asked him a direct question, he went with the digest version. “We met the summer before our senior year of high school. Remember, the summer I spent at Willow Lake.”
Looking back, Julian now realized he’d been saved in more ways than one that summer. Camp Kioga and the Bellamys had been a revelation to Julian. He met not just Daisy, but a whole group of people who were nothing like the cholos he hung out with in his industrial town east of L.A. The people he’d met that summer saw life as filled with promise, not a dead end, even for a kid like him. He simply had to pick his path and do what he needed to do in order to get where he wanted to be. Despite its simplicity, this was a concept that had not occurred to him before.
“You’ve been together since high school and you never told me? “ his mother chided him.
“Um …” Daisy looked uncomfortable and lifted up her camera again.
“Mom, check it out.” With perfect timing, Connor interrupted, pushing the baby stroller into her path. “Zoe just woke up, and she’s ready to see her grandma.”
The little two-year-old eyed her glamorous grandmother with cautious interest. Absorbed with her life in L.A., Starr had only seen the tot one other time, soon after Zoe was born.
“Of course she wants to.” Starr clasped