Fiancé at Her Fingertips (20 page)

“Uh, okay. Right. You’ll take a call from a Logan Alexander. Gotcha.”

Debra put her hands together as if to pray. “Not
a
Logan Alexander, Tanya. Just plain—not-so-plain—
the
Logan Alexander. You know, tall, great-looking, crazy about me. That Logan.”

Tanya blinked twice. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say.”

Debra resisted the impulse to put her fingers around the twenty-two-year-old’s throat. Was this a manic Monday or what?

After work, Debra stopped by home to let McGruff out, and she checked her machine for messages. Zip. Bummed, she wanted to go where countless young women went for advice and solace regarding matters of the heart. However, since her best friend was working late, Debra went to her folks’ house instead.

“Debra, dear, I’m so glad you stopped by.” Her mother poured her a cup of decaf. “How was the conference, dear?”

Debra sipped the wicked brew and made a mental note to check for hair growth on her chest when she got home. “It wasn’t a conference, Mother. It was an awards banquet.”

“Oh, really?” Her mother cut her a sliver of her special pineapple upside-down cake. “They gave awards? Did you get one?”

“Of course not, Mother. Logan did.”

Her mother stopped serving. “Logan?”

“I see. So Suzi has already filled you in. It’s okay. You can say his name. I assure you, I won’t fall apart.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I don’t understand.”

“I know. I know, Mother. It isn’t like me to act that way. I know you’re disappointed.”

“I am?”

“Come on, Mom, confess. You were wondering if I might be making an important announcement after this weekend.”

“I was?”

“An announcement about a very special addition to the family, maybe?”

Debra’s mother’s eyes rolled back in her head, and her face turned a doughy, pasty white—and she hadn’t even taken a bite of the pineapple cake yet.

“Special addition…to…the …family?” Her mother’s voice was breathless, as if she’d been running. Or as if she had taken a huge bite of her very own Texas chili bake. She put a hand to her heart, and Debra upgraded the look to post–Texas chili bake with jalapeños. “My Lord, Debra,” her mother rasped. “You’re not…pregnant!”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mom, but I am not— Pregnant? Did you say pregnant?”

Alva Daniels stood, her movements spastic and jerky. She went to the sink. “Of course not,” she said. “You misunderstood, dear.”

Debra joined her. She took her mother’s elbow and looked into her face. “You did too! You thought I was pregnant?”

Her mother had the good grace to blush. “You did say a special addition to the family. What else was I to think?”

“Not that! Last time I checked, it required intimate knowledge of a man in order to have a child, and since the last intimate knowledge I’ve had with a man was playing Operation with Stephen and Shawn, I guess that rules out a pregnancy. How could you think such a thing, Mother?”

Her mother dried her hands on a dish towel. “It’s just that you’ve been acting so strange these last several months. Not at all like you. We’d hoped…wondered…if perhaps it was due to a man in your life.”

Debra put her hands on the counter and stared out the kitchen window. “I know. I’ve been acting like a half-wit, scrambling to make sense out of something that may very well never make sense at all. I keep looking for answers,
struggling with my feelings, telling myself that I can’t be in love with him because of the way he came into my life, that he’s better off with Tinkerbell, but the fact of the matter is, I
am
in love with him! I tried every trick in the book to rid myself of him. I was rude. Obnoxious. Overbearing. I lied. I lied to you and Dad. I lied to him and I’ve lied to myself. I’ve broken laws. Broken hearts. And now, just when I’ve succeeded in putting him out of my life once and for all, only now do I realize that…that…Oh, Mom, I can’t live without him!” Debra threw her arms around her mother’s shoulders and sobbed. “I’m in love, Mom! God help me! I’m in love with Lawyer Logan!”

The reassuring pats on the back and accompanying whispered words of comfort Debra expected never happened. The halfhearted hug her mother gave her was more reflex than substance. In fact, her soft, cuddly mother felt as if she were wearing a full body cast.

“Mom? Is something the matter?” Debra asked, and took a step back.

Her mother pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.

“Debra Josephine Daniels,” she said, “who on earth is Lawyer Logan?”

Debra surveyed her mother at arm’s length. A vague, niggling sense of unease crept into her psyche. Fragments of conversations, a collection of strange looks and curious reactions, double takes and changed subjects flitted through her head like a slow-motion slide show with sound effects. She dropped her arms from her mother and stepped back.

“What did you say?” Debra searched her mother’s face for signs that this was a joke, but Alva did not appear amused. “Mother? What is this all about?”

Her mother sniffled. “You tell me. Out of the blue, my daughter drops by and blurts out she is in love, and this is the first I’ve heard about it. Her own mother!”

Debra ran a hand through her hair. “I only just made that appalling discovery now.”

“Appalling discovery? Well, that’s a strange way to describe falling in love. And to give us no clue, no warning at all. Why, we know nothing about this man. Nothing!”

“You know as much as I do,” Debra mumbled.

“At least you know his name.”

“Well, so do you. It’s Logan, of course.”

“What’s his first name?”

Debra was ready to do a Springer guest shot and throw a chair or two. “That is his first name, Mother.” Debra ground her teeth in frustration. What on earth was wrong with the
woman? She put a hand to her mom’s forehead. “Have you been taking your gingko-biloba?”

Her mother slapped her hand away. “I am fine.
I’m
not in love with a stranger with one name.”

The kitchen sink was beginning to look mighty tempting. If Debra could fill it with enough water…

“Mother, what has gotten into you? I’m talking about Logan. Logan Alexander. Logan Tyler Alexander. The same Logan who pretends to like your date cookies, the same Logan who helped Dad place first in the Oaks’ charity best-ball tournament, the same Logan who Grandma Gertie is convinced has the nicest buns in the greater Springfield area.
That
Logan.”

“This man has had my date cookies and only pretends to like them?” Her mother pounced on the topic of least concern. “How devious. How conniving.”

“Oh, Mother. Please. We all pretend to like them.”

Her mother’s bottom lip quivered. “Debra, can this be true?”

“Mother, forget about the stupid cookies, would you? I’m in love here!”

“With a perfect stranger,” her mother added.

“Well, he’s not perfect. He is a lawyer, after all.”

Her mother gasped. “A lawyer? Debra, where on earth did you meet this date-cookie-hating counselor?”

A powerful notion of “been there, done that” hit Debra full in the face. What on earth was happening here? Suddenly very concerned, she pulled out a chair and shoved her mother down on it, then grabbed another one and sat, nose-to-nose, knee-to-knee with her. She experienced another moment of déjà vu.

“Okay, Mother. How long have you been suffering these memory lapses?” she asked with a knot in her throat.

“What memory lapses, dear?”

Debra put her head in her hands. It was worse than she thought. “Mother, when was your last physical?”

“Physical? Why, I saw that nice young Dr. Tanner four
months ago. You remember him, of course. You went on a date with him. I still can’t for the life of me figure out why the two of you didn’t hit it off. Think of it—a doctor in the family.”

“You remember I had one measly date with your doctor months ago?”

Alva sighed. “I had such high hopes.”

“But you can’t remember a guy who has been as hard to get rid of as tenured college professors? You can’t remember Logan?”

“Debra, you’re scaring me.” Her mother looked shaken.

Debra took her mother’s hand. “Don’t worry, Mother. We’ll get you all checked out. I’m sure it’s some kind of deficiency or chemical imbalance that is wreaking havoc with your short-term memory.”

Her mother swatted Debra’s hand away. “There is
nothing
wrong with my memory! Why, I can tell you what we had for supper every night for the last two weeks. I can tell you what has happened on my soaps during that same period of time better than any soap opera magazine. I can tell you the name and birthdays of everyone in the extended family and how old they will be. I can give you the plot of the latest murder mystery I am reading and even tell you who the murderer is, though I’m just a quarter of the way through. Some of those books are so predictable.”

“Mother, please.”

“Do you need proof? I can even recite the entire recipe for my porcupine meatballs, although I suppose you’ve only pretended to like those all these years. As if I wanted to waste all that time sticking that stupid rice into those ugly little meatballs.”

“Mother—”

“So don’t sit there and tell me there is something wrong with my memory. My memory is fine!”

Denial
, Debra thought.
She’s in denial
.

The screened patio door slammed, and Debra’s mother hopped out of her chair and ran across the room. “Stuart!
Stuart! Come quick! Tell her there is nothing wrong with me!”

Debra’s father entered the kitchen and tossed his keys on the counter. “Nothing wrong? Well, now, let’s see, you do have those funny little twin toes—weirdest little things I ever saw. Webbed toes!”

Alva grabbed her husband and gave him a little shake. “Stuart, this is serious! Your daughter is alleging that I’m losing my mind. Talk to her!”

Stuart put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “
My
daughter? Why is she always
my
daughter when she’s causing mischief or between boyfriends? Well, daughter o’ mine, what have you got to say for yourself? Any truth to your mother’s allegations?”

Debra stood. “I did not say Mother was losing her mind. I said I thought there might be a problem with her short-term memory and she should be checked out by her physician.”

Her father looked incredulous. “Trouble with her memory? Your mother? When she can rattle off my golf scores for the last three times out and not have even the vaguest idea what she’s talking about?”

“Uh, thank you, dear,” Debra’s mother said.

“When she can go to the grocery store checkout with a cart full of goodies and can remember the price of each and every item so she can jump the checkout lady when the scanner price is wrong?”

“Thank you, dear.”

“When she can prattle on and on and on about the half sister of so-and-so’s brother-in-law who is second cousin to Dingle Dorfer’s first wife, who is expecting her third child and on and on—”

“That will be enough, dear.” Alva Daniels gave her husband a little poke in the ribs. “I think she gets the idea.”

Debra took her father’s arm and led him a few yards away. “Dad, perhaps this is a recent condition and you haven’t noticed. Maybe it came on all of a sudden. You see, Dad, the
thing is…” She cupped a hand to his ear and whispered, “She doesn’t remember Logan.”

Debra waited for her father’s reaction, but he simply stared at her, his face an unreadable canvas.

“Did you hear what I said?” Debra asked. “She doesn’t remember anything about Logan. Anything at all!”

Her father looked at his wife, who shook her head and sniffed. Father looked at daughter. An unsettling premonition, accompanied by a sinister sense of foreboding, caused Debra to begin to perspire.

“Snickers,” her father said, “you don’t look good. What the devil is wrong?”

“She’s in love,” her mother inserted.

Her father grinned. “Ah, that explains it.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. “Is this true? Have you found Mr. Right?”

Debra managed a nod.

“It’s this Logan fellow she keeps going on about.” Her mother made the name sound like a naughty word.

Her father tilted her chin up. “Well, young lady, it’s about time. Tell me, when do we get to meet the man who has captured our daughter’s heart? When do we get to meet this Mr. Logan?”

“Are you feeling any better, dear?”

As her mother removed the wet rag from Debra’s neck, Debra sat up. “Are you still denying you know Logan Alexander?” she asked.

Her folks looked at each other.

“Then I’m not okay,” she said, and fell back to the floor. Her father helped her up.

“Debra, be reasonable. If we had met this man, why would we lie about it? God knows we’ve been waiting for the fellow to come along for some time.”

Debra took the wet rag from her mother and threw it in the sink. She began to pace back and forth, while her parents
watched her with that “if she goes for the knife drawer I’m on her” look in their eyes.

“What about the cookout?” she pressed. “Logan’s folks, Warren and Ione, were right here. Ione was the one who had her nose in the air and the Tinkerbell obsession, but Warren was very nice. Dad, you and he talked politics and the stock market. Remember?”

Her father scratched his head.

“And, Mother, you served teriyaki chicken breasts, pork and beans, and potato salad without mustard. Logan tried to pick the onions out without your knowing.”

Her mother put a hand to her mouth, and for a moment Debra was hopeful—until her mother spoke. “The very idea. Picking out the onions. Who ever heard of potato salad without onions?”

“Mother!”

“It never happened, Debra,” she said. “I would never serve pork and beans to guests!”

“Golf! We played golf, Dad! You, Logan, and I. Why, the day you had your heart attack Logan was with us. He called nine-one-one on his cell phone and probably saved your stubborn life. Remember, Mother? Logan and I fell in the water hazard and were covered with mud when we got to the hospital.”

Her parents exchanged yet another “where did we go wrong” look.

“Now, Debra, you know your father had his heart attack here at home in the backyard pushing that stupid hand mower in a heat index of a hundred and ten degrees. The ambulance took him in and you and Tom met us at the hospital. And you were not muddy. I would have sent you straight home to wash and change.”

Debra’s head was pounding. “That can’t be. And Cousin Barry’s wedding—what about the wedding?”

Her mother nodded. “It was very nice, although why the bride chose lavender and peach is beyond me! Hideous!”

“I was there!”

“Of course you were. I’d never have heard the end of it if you hadn’t gone.”

“I was there with Logan!”

Her parents’ anxiety level was reflected in their eyes.

“I drank too many fuzzy navels and did the bunny hop,” Debra tried again. “Logan drove me home and took my clothes off, but he didn’t even try a thing. At least, I don’t think he did. I was kind of out of it.”

“Debra…” Her father put an arm out.

“No! Logan Tyler Alexander is real. He drives a blue Suburban—which, by the way, he takes excellent care of. He is funny and kind, but tends to be a bit bossy. He is a great kisser, and Gee Gee is right: He has the best buns in the tristate area. He’s very athletic. He played college football until he boogered up his knee. He’s an outstanding golfer. Golf! That’s it!” Debra raced into her father’s den and snatched the golf trophy he had received for first place in the Oaks’ best-ball tournament. She thrust it at him.

“There!” she said. “There is your proof.”

Her father released her hold on the trophy and took it from her. “What do you mean, proof, Snickers?” he asked.

“Read it. Who does it say your partner was? Go ahead. Read it.”

“Debra—”

She snatched it from him. “It says, ‘First Place, Oaks Best-ball Classic. Stu Daniels and Charlie Scott.’” Debra looked at the gold plate again. “Charlie Scott? Dad, they made a mistake on the engraving. It should read, ‘Stu Daniels and Logan Alexander.’ Did you notice this?”

Her father took the trophy and handed it to her mother. “The engraving is correct, Debra. I partnered with Charlie.”

“Impossible! Logan was your partner. In fact, you’ve already finagled him into the fall tournament.” Silence met her outburst. This didn’t make sense. What in heaven’s name was going on here? She stared at her folks. A new possibility occurred to her, one that she hadn’t considered before. She smiled. “Oh. Okay. I get it. This is a big joke, isn’t it? Lawyer
Logan is behind this, isn’t he? He was so angry with me after Chicago, he enlisted you all in his little payback. Isn’t that right?”

Debra grinned. Of course, that was the only possible explanation: the old “don’t get mad, get even” scenario. She nodded. “I’m on the same page now. He convinced you all to play your little parts to get back at me, didn’t he? Okay, fine. I have to admit it: You had me going. Big-time. You performed your roles like pros. I have to hand it to you both. And Suzi. Heck, he even got to Tanya. I suppose Tom, Candi, and the boys are in on it, too. All right. All right. I deserve it. Kudos to you on your performances, and to Logan for his brilliant plan. Bravo! But do tell—how long is Logan planning to make me squirm?” she asked.

“Squirm?” her father asked.

“I guess I can play along for a day or two until he gets his full pound of flesh. Is Gram in on this, too?”

“Debra, I don’t think—”

“I presume Logan will be contacting you for an update. Do me a favor and don’t tell him I’m onto him. I wouldn’t want to spoil his fun too soon.”

“Debra—”

She put a hand to his mouth. “Shhhhhhh! Mum’s the word.”

Debra laughed. Now that she had cracked their little con, she was ready to have a bit of fun herself. She hoped she was as convincing as her folks. She was amazed at their realistic portrayals, especially her mother’s. She wouldn’t have believed her mother had it in her to be capable of such familial deceit. Why, she’d been downright sneaky. Duplicitous, even. This from a woman who made the beds in the hotel before she checked out. The same woman who washed all her cans and bottles before taking them to the redemption center. The same woman who never sent a meal back because it might hurt someone’s feelings, and who never failed to leave a tip no matter how horrendous the service. This same woman had run a scam on her very own normally astute
daughter, and pulled it off without a hitch. Hooray for Hollywood. “I’ve got places to go, people to see,” Debra said, preparing to leave.