With Love from London(59)

“I don’t know,” I say reluctantly.

“I’ll just pop in a few foils, and it’ll brighten you right up. You’ll love it, I promise.”

“Okay,” I agree, sliding my head back as she runs her brush through my long-neglected hair.

“Val, you have to tell Deb about Daniel!”

“Daniel?” she asks, intrigued.

I share the story of the book with the notes inside, which resulted in my rather hapless search and present dead end.

“Well, that stinks,” she says before clipping my hair into sections and getting to work on my highlights. “So, let me get this straight: The Daniel at the Snow Goose wasn’t the Daniel from the book?”

I nod. “No, his name was actually David Davenport not Daniel Davenport.”

“Stop it,” Debbie says, taking a step back. “You’re joking.”

I shake my head, confused.

“Daniel Davenport?” She turns to Liza. “I’ve known a fellow by that name since I was a wee thing. We used to run around in nappies together. Our mums were best friends, still are. They had an elaborate plan for us to grow up and get married, and I’ll admit, I used to wish that would happen. He’s quite a catch. Devilishly handsome and kind in the way that most good-looking men aren’t, you know? Oh, and he’s smart, too.”

I sit up in the swivel chair. “Hold on. What?”

She nods. “He’s a movie producer, or a screenwriter, or something.” She shakes her head. “In any case, he works in film—in some capacity. My mum mentioned something about documentaries.”

It’s a crazy coincidence, I admit, but there’s no way Debbie’s Daniel could be the Daniel. Liza and I had already googled the name—there were more than a hundred results in London alone.

“Wait,” I say. “What do you know about his education? Did he happen to attend Queen Mary University, by chance?”

Debbie’s eyes widen. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

“Val,” Liza says with a big smile. “I think we just found your guy.”

“Why don’t I call him?” Debbie says, reaching for her phone. “I talked to my mum the other day, and he’s definitely single. I could set you two up for a lunch date or coffee.”

I shake my head. “No, no, it’s okay. And besides, aren’t you sort of smitten with him yourself?”

“Please,” she says, holding out her left hand to display a diamond ring. “I’m engaged. Besides, our window of romantic possibility expired the year we both turned nine. Kissing him would be like…kissing my brother. Eww.”

I laugh.

“So,” she continues, taking another section of my hair, “will you please let me set you two up?”

“I can’t believe this,” I say, turning to Liza for validation. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t it happen…I don’t know, more organically?”

Liza nods. “Maybe you could go to his favorite café and accidentally bump into him, spilling coffee on his shirt or something?”

“Yeah, that,” I say, “but minus the bit about me spilling coffee on his shirt.”

Liza holds up her index finger. “Wait, you could steal his briefcase on the train, and then follow him and return it!”

I shake my head. “Definitely no.”

Debbie nods. “In grade five, I did something like that. I was completely besotted with this boy named Craig. I concocted an elaborate plan to get his attention by accidentally poking the edge of his arm with a plastic fork at lunch. I fantasized about how he’d think it was funny, and that we’d laugh about it for years to come. I imagined that after we got married, he’d tell people how hilarious it was that I’d stabbed him with a fork on the day we met. The thing is, somehow the fork missed him, but the ketchup on my tray didn’t. It splattered all over his polo shirt.” She shakes her head.

“Tragic,” Liza says.

Debbie nods. “It was.” She turns back to me, her gaze meeting my reflection in the mirror. “Let me call him later and work on setting you two up.”

“All right,” I finally say.

She smiles and hands me a pad of paper and a pen. “Here, leave me your phone number so I can pass it along to him.”

I scrawl my number onto the page and laugh to myself. “Will somebody please tell me why I feel like I’m fifteen years old all over again.”

Liza smiles. “And with that, Val, you may have just uncovered the best-kept secret about adulthood—that there’s no such thing.”



* * *



—

“Your hair looks nice,” Millie says later when I stop into the store at the end of the day.

“Thanks,” I say happily. Debbie had indeed brightened me up, and it felt like a nice change in the wake of…everything.

“It was quite a banner day,” she says, flipping off the lights. “The best sales we’ve had in weeks.”

“Really?”

She nods.

“Why don’t I walk you home? You can tell me all about it.”

“Sure,” she says, locking up the store. “Come along if you like, but not because you think I need protection. I’ve been walking far darker streets of London longer than you’ve been alive, my dear.”