Dating, Dining, and Desperation (A Dear Daphne Novel)

by Carlson, Melody

  “And believe it or not, we met at a speed-dating thing over in Fairview,” Harrison told Jake.

  Jake’s brows arched with curiosity and Daphne just gave him a stiff smile.

  “Is that where you meet a whole bunch of guys all at once?” Jenna asked with interest.

  “Something like that,” Daphne told her. “My neighbor Sabrina sort of tricked me into going.”

  “We both got tricked into it,” Harrison explained.

  “But at least it seems to have worked out okay,” Jenna said with a curious smile.

  “We won’t keep you,” Jake said abruptly. “Pleasure to meet you, Harrison. Good luck with the city hall job.”

  “Nice folks,” Harrison said as they walked away.

  “Yes.” Daphne nodded. “They are.”

  As Harrison drove Daphne home, they made small talk about the town and city hall, and Daphne shared some of her earlier memories of growing up in the charming little town. “Of course, it’s changed some since then. But only for the better. I think Appleton is steadily becoming the sort of place where people like me—ones who were sick of the big city life—were happy to return to. It’s been really nice getting reacquainted with folks, meeting my neighbors.” She told him about meeting Mabel and her garden and the free-produce box.

  “You make small town life sound very appealing.” He pulled up to the house.

  She nodded. “It really is.”

  He pointed to the produce box in her yard. “And I’ve always wanted to try my hand at gardening too.”

  She glanced out at the dusky sky. “I’d invite you to see the garden, but I’m afraid it’s getting too dark to see much.”

  “And I need to get going. I left Heidi home alone.”

  “Heidi?” She studied his face.

  “My German shepherd.” He chuckled. “Although she’s certain she’s human. I usually take her with me wherever I go, but sometimes she barks when I leave her in the car. Didn’t want to make a bad impression if any of the city folks were out and about today.”

  “Oh yes.” She pointed to her house. “And my two cats—actually they belonged to my aunt, but they’re in my custody now—anyway, they’re probably wondering where I’ve been all day. I’m usually a real homebody.”

  He looked up at the house. “That’s a pretty nice house to be a homebody in. Queen Anne Victorian?”

  She nodded. “Would you like to see it?”

  “I’d love to. But not this time.” He looked at his watch. “If I don’t get there soon, Heidi will probably start chewing up the furniture. She is very persnickety about her dinner hour, which I’ve already missed.”

  “Oh dear.” Daphne opened the door. “Hopefully she hasn’t done much damage yet.” She smiled and thanked him for dinner. “And now you really do have my phone number.” Unsure that he’d actually gotten it right, she made sure to give it to him before they left the restaurant—as well as her last name. And she’d gotten his name as well. Harrison Henshaw. However, she hadn’t asked for his number. A girl could only be so pushy.

  For the next few days, Daphne waited for Harrison to call. But once again, her phone did not ring. However, she distracted herself on Wednesday afternoon with finishing her novel, which other than needing a thorough editing, appeared to be finished. To celebrate, she invited Sabrina over for tacos on Thursday night.

  “What is wrong with that man?” Sabrina demanded as they were cleaning up the dishes. “You have a perfectly wonderful date with him on Saturday and now, four days later, he can’t even pick up the phone?”

  “He’s probably just busy.” Daphne closed the dishwasher. “If he wants to reach me, he knows where to find me.”

  “You are way too patient. I would’ve called him by now.”

  “I don’t have his number.”

  “You have his name, silly. You could look it up and call him if you wanted to.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.”

  “I know, I know,” Sabrina said in a slightly mocking tone, “you’re an old-fashioned girl.”

  “And what is wrong with that?”

  “As long as you don’t mind being an old-fashioned old maid, it’s just fine.”

  To change the subject, Daphne started talking about the situation with Mabel. “I spent the morning with Vera. I wanted to help her figure some things out for Mabel . . . and I found out more about her condition.”

  “Oh, what exactly is going on with her anyway?”

  Daphne hung up the dish towel and turned to Sabrina. “She has lymphoma.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “She was treated for it before, about three or four years ago. Apparently they didn’t expect her to fully recover then. But she seemed to go into remission . . . or so she had hoped. Then last summer, about a month before her daughter passed away, Vera started experiencing symptoms again.”

  Sabrina shook her head. “What is she doing about it?”

  “She just finished chemo before Mabel came to live with her. She said she tried to appear strong to the social worker, but between the chemo and the cancer, she feels pretty helpless. She also feels guilty for having Mabel with her. She knows that Mabel deserves better.”

  “Poor Vera. To lose her daughter and get the cancer back all around the same time. That’s so sad. Did she tell you how Mabel’s mother died?”

  “Drug overdose.”

  Sabrina sighed. “I was afraid it was something like that. Poor little Mabel.”

  “I know.”

  “So what is Vera doing about the cancer now? Radiation? More chemo?”

  “The chemo made her so sick that she feels it nearly killed her. She says she’s done with treatments. She’s certain that nothing will help her now. She just hopes to get a little stronger so she can do a better job caring for Mabel.”

  “But what then? I mean, if the cancer isn’t gone? Will it kill her?”

  “Unless she recovers.” Daphne tried to forget Vera’s tear-filled eyes when she shared her gloomy prognosis this morning. “And I promised to be around to help out—with her and Mabel.”

  “I’ll help too.”

  “I even offered to have Mabel over here if necessary. I mean, if Vera’s condition really worsens. And Vera seemed relieved. She’s worried that Mabel has already seen too much of the dark underside of life.”

  “Poor little Mabel.” Sabrina shook her head. “But what about Vera? Is she just giving up then? She doesn’t want to seek out any more medical treatment?”

  “She plans to just tough it out.”

  “Tough it out?” Sabrina frowned.

  “I know.” Daphne pursed her lips. “I’ve been asking myself all day if there was something I could do.”

  “You’ve already done a lot.”

  “I know.” Daphne flashed back to that moment in Vera’s overgrown front yard. “You know the words that Jesus said: You have not because you ask not? Well, that was what gave me the idea to ask Tom and Mick to help with Vera’s house. And that turned out pretty good. I even asked Wally to help Mabel with some of her schoolwork—because she’d gotten a little behind. And that’s been working out quite nicely too. But now I wonder about asking a few others. For starters, I was thinking about Pastor Andrew.”

  “What would you ask him to do?”

  “To come and talk to Vera.”

  “Oh . . .” Sabrina nodded. “That’s a good idea. He could talk to her about life and death and heaven.”

  “Yes. And then I thought about some other friends who might be able to offer help or encouragement. Like Olivia. Maybe she could bring Vera some flowers. Truman might donate some healthy foods. He’s such an expert on what’s good for what ails us. And then Ricardo makes such good soups and—”

  “See, it’s like I always say, you know everyone in this town, Daphne.” Sabrina laughed. �
��For a hermit, you sure manage to get around.”

  “Maybe I’m not such a hermit after all.”

  “You’re the perfect one to coordinate these people to help Vera. Just let me know how I can help.”

  So they put together a quick plan and made some phone calls and in less than an hour, they had a nice little task force. For their reward, Daphne got out a carton of mocha-fudge-nut ice cream and made a pot of decaf. As they were finishing off their treat in the living room, Sabrina looked at Daphne with a somber expression. “What happens to Mabel? I mean if Vera dies?”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering myself.” Daphne set her empty dish onto the side table and leaned back into her favorite chair. “Vera told me she has a son who’s trying to get out of the Marines. She thinks he’ll be able to take Mabel . . . in the event of her death.”

  “Take Mabel?” Sabrina looked distressed. “Where will he take her?”

  “I don’t know. But Vera seems to think he will assume guardianship.”

  “Is this guy ready to be a dad? How old is he? Is he married? Does Mabel even know him?”

  “Good questions.” Daphne sighed. “I don’t know the answers.”

  “I suppose Vera doesn’t have any idea about how long she has. Do you think it’s like a year?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t sure how to ask that, Sabrina. Just getting her to open up to me like she did was no small thing. I can tell Vera has been a very private person.”

  “I know we shouldn’t make her feel worse. But it seems cruel to put Mabel through losing another family member like that.”

  “Poor Vera has had a pretty rough go of it in recent years. I guess her husband left her shortly before she was diagnosed with lymphoma.”

  “Hey, maybe he could come back and help with Mabel.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s not even Mabel’s real grandfather. And Vera is very antagonistic toward him.”

  “Isn’t it sad how some marriages turn out?” Sabrina shook her head. “I certainly hope to do much better my next time around.”

  “So anyway, I’m hoping that Mabel’s uncle will get here soon. Apparently he wasn’t supposed to get discharged until next summer, but due to the circumstances—his sister’s death and his mother’s illness. Well, Vera hopes they’ll make an exception and discharge him sooner since his niece is in need of a guardian.”

  “Do you know anything about him? Is he a nice person?”

  Daphne shrugged. “Vera is his mother. What do you expect her to say?”

  “Good point.”

  “I just feel so responsible for Mabel now.” Daphne reached down to pick up Ethel, swooshing her into her lap. “I’ve known her less than two weeks and yet she’s become a regular part of my life. Do you know that she’s made a best friend at school now? A little girl named Lola. Mabel wants to invite Lola over to play on Saturday. I told her they could come here if she wanted.”

  “A friend. That’s wonderful.”

  “Yes. She was so happy. I’ll really miss her if the uncle takes her away.”

  “So will I.” Sabrina let out a sad sigh.

  They both just sat there in a silence for a while.

  “Do you think you’ll ever have children, Daphne?”

  Daphne frowned. “I’d like to have a husband first.”

  “Yes, of course. But, say, if you got married in May like Aunt Dee has planned. Do you think you’d want to have children soon? I mean your biological clock is ticking. You can’t put it off forever. They say the odds of having kids after your midthirties goes down significantly.”

  “Well, that’s just one more thing I’ll have to trust God for. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”

  “I sometimes wonder about adoption.” Sabrina reached over to where Lucy was curled up on the couch next to her and slid the big orange cat closer. “I could imagine adopting a child, making it my own. Kind of like Mabel. I would gladly adopt her.”

  “Me too.”

  “I wish we could both adopt her together.”

  Daphne chuckled. “That would be interesting, but I doubt we could get children’s services to agree to that. Plus there’s the uncle . . .”

  “Yeah, probably not. Just the same, spending time with that child has opened my mind some,” Sabrina said.

  “Would you consider adopting a child while you’re still single? I know they allow foster kids to stay with single people. It’s possible you could adopt too . . . especially if it was an older child.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I asked Jake about Aunt Dee’s will. I thought maybe he could change things around, you know, tweak it a little so that instead of finding myself a husband I could adopt a child.”

  “Now there’s an idea.”

  Daphne wrinkled her nose. “Jake put the kibosh on that. He can’t change the will.”

  Sabrina laughed. “Well, it’s too soon for you to give up on marrying. And don’t forget, there’s Harrison still. Now if we could just think of a way to get him to call.”

  Daphne shrugged, unsure as to whether she really cared or not.

  “Or if we could get you to call him.” Sabrina rubbed her chin. “Hey, why don’t you invite him here for dinner? You said he wanted to see inside your house.”

  “That’s true.”

  “What if you were having a little get-together? Say, a buffet dinner for a few of your friends? You could just casually invite him. What do you think he’d say?”

  “I don’t know.” Daphne considered this. It really wasn’t such a bad idea. Except it might come across as a bit desperate.

  “How about for Halloween?” Sabrina suggested.

  “You mean have a Halloween party?” Daphne frowned.

  “Not exactly. But you could use that as an excuse to have friends over. Your house looks so cute with those pumpkins lined up on the stairs and around the porch.”

  “But I promised to take Mabel trick-or-treating. And you said you and Tootsie would go too. Remember?”

  “Yes, of course. And I’ve got Tootsie’s little outfit all ready. But what if you have a party on the Saturday before Halloween?”

  “That’s only two days away. Kind of short notice, don’t you think?”

  “How about the following Saturday?”

  “My dad’s wedding, remember?”

  Sabrina frowned. “That’s right. How about the Friday before?”

  “Rehearsal dinner.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Sabrina slapped her forehead. “That’s it. Who is your date for these social events? The dinner and the wedding? You can’t go alone.”

  “I can go stag if I want to.”

  “Yes, I suppose you could do that. Or you could invite Harrison.”

  Daphne forced a laugh. “Oh, Sabrina, you are such a cunning little conniver. Always scheming and planning.”

  Sabrina gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry. It’s just the way I’m wired.”

  “How about you give it a rest. If Harrison wants to call me, he will call me.”

  “Okay, fine. But that still leaves you dateless for the wedding activities. Do you really want to be there without a guy? You do realize how pathetic that will make you look. At your old man’s wedding, all by your sorry little lonesome? Poor Daphne.”

  “So who’s your date?”

  Sabrina smiled. “I’m working on it.”

  The next day, Daphne was putting together her column and came across a letter that seemed to hit uncomfortably close to home.

  Dear Daphne,

  I met the most perfect guy about a month ago. Friends introduced me to “Stephen” because they were certain we would hit it off. And we did! So we went out on a totally wonderful date. Really, it was fabulous. Everything was dreamy. And as he was kissing me good night, I was planning my wedding . . . and deciding ho
w many children to have. Honestly, this guy is that wonderful. So I waited for him to call back. I waited a week. Then I waited another week. And it is now the third week since our wonderful date. Stephen hasn’t called once. I asked our mutual friends if he was okay. I thought maybe he’d died or gotten sick or something. But they said, “Yeah, he’s fine.” So why hasn’t he called me? Why? And since he hasn’t called me, I think maybe I should call him. I don’t normally call guys because it’s against my “rules.” But for this guy I could make an exception. Please, Daphne, tell me what to do.

  Pining in Pensacola

  Dear Pining,

  As hard as this will be to hear, if Stephen wanted to call you, I’m certain he would. If Stephen is as into you as you are into him, he would not waste any time in reconnecting with you. Although you were hearing wedding bells that night, I suspect Stephen was probably just hearing the “final bell” and calling it a night. My heart goes out to you, but I suggest you try to move on and forget about Stephen. As I’m sure you’ve heard, there are lots more fish in the sea.

  Daphne

  As Daphne saved this letter and response, she put a check mark beside it—her reminder to give it one last look before turning it in to the syndicate. Just in case her response was too harsh. Because she probably wasn’t attempting to shoot down poor “Pining’s” hopes as much as she was trying to shoot down her own. Because if Harrison wanted to call her, he certainly would. End of story. Get over it.

  Chapter 23

  On Friday morning, Daphne felt the need to get out of the house and walked to town. She would’ve invited Sabrina except she’d taken Tootsie to get his teeth cleaned. The air was cool and crisp and Daphne’s breath came out in little puffs of fog. By the time she reached Red River Coffee, she was glad to get in out of the cold.

  “Good morning,” Jake said as she got into line behind him. “How are you doing?”

  “Trying to get the chill off.” She rubbed her hands together.

  “A cup of joe will fix you right up.” He grinned. “Are you alone or meeting someone?”

  “I’m by myself.”

  “Why don’t you join me?”