Free To See The Daises ... First by Billie Green

pleading eyes swam before her and she grew tense, her mood swinging in a way she didn't like.
    In frustration, she turned her back on the view. Who was he, this man who accused her? Why did he have to intrude on her new life, invade her new joy? And, dear Lord, what had she done to him to make him haunt her so unmercifully?
    She couldn't dwell on the face. She had made her decision last night after Ben left her, and nothing, not even impatient gray eyes staring at her across the breakfast table, would sway her. The past was dead as far as she was concerned. If it wanted to pursue her, then by God, she would give it a run for its money.
    She had to admit, though, to a twinge of guilt at going against Ben's wishes. He had been so kind to her. She hadn't realized how kind until she had awakened that morning to find the clothes he had bought for her tying on a chair beside the bed.
    She chuckled in remembered amusement at the way he had tucked the dainty underthings out of t sight beneath the jeans. The staid bank-president image had evidently been having a tussle with the man who knew exactly the right size to choose. Perhaps she should reassess her impression of him. A man as attractive as Ben would naturally have a colorful past as far as women were concerned.
    Past, Sunny? Why did she relegate women to Ben's past? As far as she knew, he could be keeping a dozen women happy in the present. Turning back to the window, she refused to think about why that possibility brought a scowl to her face and a sick feeling to the pit of her stomach.
    Boredom, she decided suddenly. That's what's wrong with me. A brand new day was happening outside and she was fidgeting around the apartment, rudely keeping it waiting.
    She felt her spirits rise and her heartbeat quicken in excitement as she searched for the extra key Ben said he kept on his desk. After locating it hi a scarlet vase, she scribbled a note and left It propped against his typewriter before leaving the apartment
    Making a point of waving to the eyes that once again appeared across the hall, she bounced down the first flight of stairs. Gradually, however, her steps slowed as the concealed and steadily dying flavor of the house began to beckon her imagination.
    "You're very much like me, aren't you?" she whispered, stopping to caress the banister railing. "Under all those coats of paint and hideously cute wallpaper, you've lost your identity." Only, unlike Sunny, the house was saddened by the loss. It almost seemed to plead to be rediscovered.
    "No, that's wrong," she murmured as she considered the analogy. "We're really opposites." The wallpaper that the years had laid on Sunny had been stripped away by her amnesia, leaving her with a simplicity and lack of artifice that she reveled in.
    As she walked out the front door of the sad, old house, she made a wish over her shoulder that it might someday find an echo of her own good luck; then with renewed eagerness she turned to face the world before her.
    After three blocks of converted mansions, she encountered the beginnings of a business district. The buildings were square and old, melting into each other in a blur of brown and beige, but the people captured her imagination immediately.
    She stood staring for a while at her petite figure in the dusty window of a variety store, taking in the slim, new jeans and the scoop-necked yellow T-shirt unconsciously as she consciously watched pedestrians moving behind her.
    The variety of nationalities mingling on one small Texas street amazed her. In the space of twenty short minutes she felt she had traveled around the world. And, to her delight, the people were open and friendly, seeming more than happy to pause for a while to answer the questions she posed merely to hear them speak.
    The English they spoke was a curious mixture of their country of origin and a lazy Texas drawl. She had to smother a giggle of delight when an elderly Russian man told her he had only come out in the heat of