Page 78 of Hello Stranger

That was the sentence that ticker-taped through my head all the next day.

I got stood up. By my future husband. On our very first date.

How would we spinthatto the grandkids?

I mean, fine. He’d had a work emergency. I got it. I wouldn’t have wanted him to have left some Saint Bernard dying alone in the clinic.

He’d been busy doing something noble. It was a fair excuse.

But here was the problem. It was now the next day, and the admirable, flawless, and perfect Dr. Oliver Addison, DVM,had not called to apologize.

I mean, if you leave a lady sitting in a coffee shop, even for a good reason, you should call the next day and grovel a little bit. Right? Make some voice contact? Stress in real time how sorry you are? Maybe demonstrate enthusiasm by setting a new date to try again?

Nothing from this guy. Crickets.

Which forced me to wonder something horrible: Maybe this perfect man wasn’t so perfect after all.

Not fair. Hadn’t I already decided he was supposed to solve all my problems?

He was supposed to make things better, not worse. He was supposed to ease my worries, not create more of them. He was supposed to make me feel good—notfrigging terrible.

Maybe he hadn’t gotten the memo?

I knew of course that people weren’t perfect. Life was messy. He didn’t even know how much I was counting on him to be the fantasy-man mirage that kept me moving through my personal emotional desert.

I couldn’t legitimately resent him.

But I resented him, anyway. Illegitimately.

He was just so disappointing.

All day long, as he continued to disappoint me, I made excuses for him—maybe he’d been up all night and fallen asleep exhausted?—while resenting the fact that I had to make excuses for him.

And while I waited, my mind drifted more and more to Joe.

Because if Dr. Oliver Addison had been disappointing… Joe, if I’m honest, had been the opposite.

Joe had been surprising. Surprisingly nice. Surprisingly attentive. Surprisingly not at all like what I would have expected a person I’d nicknamed the Weasel to be.

Sixteen

ON THE AFTERNOONbefore Sue was coming over for our second—and final—make-or-break attempt at her portrait, I took Peanut out for his first long walk since he got sick.

We’d been cleared for little walks almost from the beginning. But before Peanut could do his signature long, rambling, sniff-everything-in-sight stroll, we had to make sure his strength was back.

I didn’t mind. It gave me some time to think.

I’d been hoping—so hoping—that the edema would magically resolve before I really got down to the wire and had to paint this portrait for the show. Every morning I woke up and shuffled to the bathroom mirror, squeezing my eyes closed for a silent prayer before finally peeking to see what I could see.

And every morning, of course, my own face was just a jumbled pile of disconnected features.

I missed it. I missed seeing my face.

But I’d been instructed not to give up hope, and I was nothing if not obedient.

It would come back, I kept telling myself. There was a very good chance, at least.

But now I was at the point, with just over two weeks before the portrait deadline, when I had to trudge forward—fusiform face gyrus or no. I mean, even if I magically resolved my face blindness tomorrow, I’d still need time to paint the painting.

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