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THE MILLERS faced each other across the bedroom, anger coloring their complexions.
"You cannot fix up a widow who isn’t ready to be fixed up,” Will insisted. Topping his narrow face and long nose was a full complement of straight, sandy hair that flopped onto his designer glasses during heated moments. “Do you really want your best friend to hate you?"
“She won’t.”
“She might.”
A semi-retired psychologist, Will wrote essays about television and modern-day man with the hope of compiling his observations into a book. Two afternoons a week he still saw patients, but thanks to the foresight of his late friend, Rip Barnes, the rest of his time was devoted to his third—and final—wife. He didn't mind admitting it; Dolores “Didi” Martin Miller fascinated him no end. Even their verbal sparring was fun.
Yet this time the unspoken five-minute limit had come and gone. He was right, dammit. Surely Didi would get that if he said it one more time.
"She'll hate you."
“Will not."
“Alright,” he said, raking his hair back in place. “Let’s look at this from the man’s perspective. Why would a single guy, of a certain age—and you admit Gin needs somebody of a certain age—why would an available guy like that waste his time meeting a woman who still isn’t over her husband?”
Didi huffed and whirled. Her warm blonde hair flared like a long skirt and fell against her flushed face.
“Are you listening to yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying? Gin is adorable, I tell you. She’s cute.”
Will privately added for her age.
“She’s smart.”
Smart-mouthed, if you’re being honest.
“She’s handy with tools...”
“Now you’re talking,” he leaned toward his wife with puckered lips.
“William!” Didi scolded. “I’m making a point here.”
“What? What point? That Gin is a hot date?”
The deflation was instantaneous. “No. I guess not. But she could be if she wanted to.”
In honor of his wife’s loyalty to her dear friend, which was admirable of course, Will gentled himself down. “That’s just it, darling. Gin isn’t ready.”
“What if she’s never ready?” Didi seemed almost teary as she glanced up at her husband’s face.
“You look like a llama,” she remarked.
“Do llamas have horns?” he asked with a crooked grin.
***
AT FIVE-FIFTEEN Didi opened the door of their large brick colonial and leaned forward to give her oldest friend a peck on the cheek. “Hello, Sweetie,” she said, stepping back to let Gin enter, which was when she noticed what her guest was wearing.
“Whoa, there,” she exclaimed, raising her professionally manicured hand like a stop sign. “Been robbing the rag bag again?"
“I was laying tile at Chelsea’s, so I showered there.” Raiding the closet of a daughter eight inches taller and two sizes thinner had been a challenge, but she'd found a stretchy, peach-colored sweater and a long, brown skirt that didn’t quite cover her paint-stained sneakers.
“Please,” Didi said with a wrinkled nose. “Don’t move.” She whirled off toward the stairs, leaving behind a pleasant herbal scent.
She returned bearing a pair of brown ballet-style slippers and a braided leather belt. “Put these on,” she ordered.
The slippers fit. “Does this mean I have to point my toes?”
“The belt, too. We both know you have a waist.”
“Waist not, want not,” Gin quipped.
“You’re going to be annoying tonight, aren’t you?”
Gin’s brow furrowed. “That depends. Who is this George person?”
“George Donald Elliot.”
“No last name?”
Didi finally acknowledged the red flag waving in her face.
The woman she knew was far from shy. Whenever Rip’s school held an Open House, she was the first person to stick out her hand and say, “Hi, I’m Ginger Barnes. Welcome to Bryn Derwyn Academy.” That Gin presently exhibited signs of a sagging confidence worried Didi far more than any silly, nervous jokes.
She isn’t ready, Will had insisted, and Didi finally saw it his way. If she were to lose him in a car crash on that treacherous I-95, she couldn't imagine ever wanting to date again.
Yet the principals were already here. She had to do something.
A distant winter evening came to mind. Both Will and Rip had been out, so the two girlfriends settled in front of the walk-in fireplace with pizza and margaritas to celebrate a local magazine article about Gin solving a murder. Didi remarked that Gin should hang out a shingle. “Problems Solved,” the sign would read; “Problem Solver,” the title on her business card. Additional margaritas prolonged the discussion until Gin had been forced to stay overnight.
“Just come in and meet him,” Didi urged with no show of sympathy. After all, her dinner wasn’t getting any younger.
The Miller's great room possessed a wall of windows overlooking an elaborate rock garden. Inside, the couple had bracketed a fireplace—large enough to roast an ox—with leather furniture, which in early June looked irrelevant and cold. Probably a second reason why the men stood by a bar in the far corner.
Didi gracefully waved a hand. “George, I’d like you to meet Ginger Barnes. Gin, this is George Donald Elliot." She swiftly added, "Will, please pour Gin's wine. I need George in the kitchen for a quick little minute.”
George grasped Gin’s outstretched fingers instead. His face ignited with such pleasant surprise that Didi couldn’t help congratulating herself. Gin was cute, if you liked short, cinnamon hair styled slightly on the wild side and flashing dark eyes.
“Should I pick my favorite?” she addressed George, “or do you have one?”
His rapt expression dissolved. “Wha...? One what?”
“Name.”
“Oh? Oh! Yes. My friends call me George.”
“What do your enemies call you?”
“Ah, um, George.”
Didi crooked a finger to remind him he was wanted in the kitchen.
He dispensed with whatever he had planned to say and excused himself.
Before the kitchen door completely shut, Didi noticed Gin holding her thumb and forefinger three inches apart while Will began to pour.
Outside, the resident apricot standard poodles, Fluffy and Muffy, yapped like maniacs at Fideaux in hopes of getting him to play. Didi pressed her forehead with a cool palm before addressing George.
“Do you have a problem?” she thought she asked pleasantly.
The man gawked at her, and the expression caused him to look like a bird of prey. “Have I done something wrong?” already?
“No, no, no,” Didi answered as if she were perplexed. “Do you have some sort of problem you can ask Gin about? If you don’t, I might be able to supply you with one...”
Even as she said it she wondered exactly what that could be. Gin’s household repairs were best characterized as a hobby, and anyway there was some debate about how capable she was. No, George needed a life-shattering dilemma worthy of the Problems Solved business she and Gin had toyed around with that night.
She took a minute or two to explain.
“So. If by chance you have a nephew who shoplifts or a daughter with an unfaithful husband to be followed, something like that, Gin is the perfect person to handle either. The rest is up to you,” she added weakly.
“I do have a selfish bastard for a son-in-law,” George offered.
“Perfect,” Didi exclaimed. “Let’s get back in there.”