Heart Song Anthology Carolyn Faulkner (rooftoppers txt) 📖

a love interest. And since most of my friends are either happily married or living happily in sin, all I usually have to work with are Neil’s friends.

And what better time to get lonely people together than around Valentine’s Day, right?

Which is what my best friend, Sandy, and I were trying to do that cold February morning. The unattached male subject we had chosen as the beneficiary of our matchmaking efforts was a guy named Charlie Hanson – a really nice fifty-four year old retired cop, who’d been divorced as long as any of us had known him. The lucky unattached female we had selected for him was Janet Kellerman, a local attorney, in her early fifties. They were both divorced, both in law-related professions, and both of them were avid skiers. Charlie and Janet were perfect for one another, even if neither of them knew it, yet.

Sandy and I were putting the finishing touches on a plan when I happened to glance over at Neil. He was sitting at the breakfast table, shaking his head. I should have regarded the dour expression on his face as a sign of trouble, but sometimes, I can be a little slow on the uptake. When I hung up and explained the details of the plan, though, Neil gave an audible groan.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I asked irritably. “That oh-so-theatrical groan?”

“Please don’t do it,” he said glumly. “I’m begging you.”

“Don’t do what?”

“What you’re about to do. Get involved up to your neck in somebody else’s love life – again.”

“And why not? Janet’s lonely, and so is Charlie. Why shouldn’t I try to help?”

Neil sighed. “I don’t suppose you’d take ‘because I asked you nicely’ as a reason, right?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said firmly. “Anyway, it’s already in the works. Sandy and Joe are going to invite some people up to their new cabin for the Valentine’s Day weekend. You and me, of course, and Charlie and Janet. Maybe even another couple, since it sleeps eight or ten.”

Neil arched an eyebrow, the way he does when he doesn’t want to outright accuse me of something. “Oh, I see. And you’re going to call both Charlie and Janet and explain your ‘plan,’ right? The way you just did to me? Explain that they’re going to be a couple of guinea pigs?”

“We can’t do that, and you know it,” I snapped. “Neither one of them would come. They’re both too proud.”

“Perfect! A double-blind setup. That way, we can make lifelong enemies of two former friends, all in one shot. Tell me, does Joe know about this pajama party he’s throwing?”

I hesitated for a long moment. Now was probably not the time to tell a complete lie. A partial lie would have to do. “Not exactly. He’s sort of out of town, now – on a business trip.” Since Sandy’s husband, Joe, was usually even less enthusiastic about matchmaking than my husband, he was in for a surprise as well. Sandy had suggested to him that the planned weekend was going to be a romantic getaway. Also not exactly a lie. Sandy had just left out the precise number of romantic participants.

Neil nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. You know, it’s a funny thing, but now that you mention it, I may just have to go out of town that weekend – on business.”

“I never heard of a cop going on a business trip,” I said smugly. “What kind of business, if I may ask?

“I’m not sure,” he growled. “But I’ll think of something.”

I began clearing away the breakfast dishes. “All right, then, don’t come. You can stay home with the kids, and I’ll invite Harrison to come along. I’m sure he’d love to get away for a couple of days’ skiing.”

Neil chuckled. “I’m sure he would. Harrison Walters has been trying to win you back from me for years. The only thing that keeps him from trying harder is our kids. He’s scared stiff you’ll insist on keeping them after you dump me.”

“Very funny.”

“Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to set someone up?” he asked.

I remembered – but I wasn’t about to admit it. It wasn’t one of the high-water marks of my matchmaking career. The woman was a friend of mine from college that I’d run into at the market – after years apart. Naomi was a truly gorgeous girl, a fellow art student and my roommate for a while in our junior year. At that time, we were both agitators against what we called “the corrupt political system,” a sort of all-purpose categorization that included every organized group from the United States Congress to the Campfire Girls. The only things we approved of back then were whales, dolphins, and endangered highland gorillas. On any given week, Naomi and I spent considerably less time in a studio or with a paintbrush in hand than we did picketing the administration building and hurling epithets at the overworked cops that arrived to keep order. All of which could account for why I am still plugging away at getting a B.A. at my advanced age. There is also probably a degree of poetic justice in the fact that I ended up married to a cop, who still tries to keep order, in some very specific ways.

Anyway, Naomi hadn’t changed a lot over the years. She was still a knockout who still wore her hair below her waist and dressed like a high-end fortuneteller in a traveling carnival. What I didn’t know was that Naomi had never abandoned her deep and abiding reverence for various controlled substances. In our years apart, while I was morphing into an unemployed ex-artist / middle class housewife, she had apparently discovered that certain of those same substances could provide not only an agreeable ambience, but a very nice living, as well. The shy, charming guy I set her up with was this devoted single father I’d met at a PTA meeting. The shy guy’s name was