Willfully Blind

CHAPTER 17 Grow Up

Daryn stood at the kitchen counter crushing garlic cloves. Michael Franks played quietly in the background on the small Bluetooth speaker. Singing along to one of her favorites, a collaboration he'd done with Joe Sample, triggered fond memories of her dad carting her around on Saturday mornings to extracurricular activities. She had to smile. Their love for jazz had created a special bond between them. Her mother was not a fan. Courtney, though a lover of jazz, claimed to be a purist and listened only to who he regarded as the greats: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson. Nothing contemporary for him.

Daryn set the garlic press aside and gathered a handful of garlic and sliced mushrooms from the chopping board. She carefully lowered them into a skillet preheated with olive oil, then secured her favorite tattered wooden spoon from the drawer and went to work. She noticed right away that the garlic was cooking too fast.

"Shoot! I meant to hold off on the garlic."

Daryn moved the pan to the other side of the stove, having to adjust the heat, yet again. She and her new glass cooktop stove were not gelling. It was the latest and greatest model on the market — and she, of course, loved the double oven option. But the so-called faster heat for frying amenity had her handling the thing with kid gloves.

Sliding her pie into the oven, she closed the door and felt her headset vibrating. She glanced over her shoulder at her phone laying on the kitchen island and saw it was Tangie calling her back. Setting the timer for thirty minutes, she wiped her hands on the dish towel and hit the talk button on her earbud.

"Hey, what did she say?" Daryn asked.

"Hey, so umm..." Tangie hesitated and seemed selectively vague in her response.

"It's really just what we were talking about before. I used some of the things I went through with Sean as an example of a toxic relationship and the importance of knowing when to say enough."

"Okay, so did she seem to buy into it?" Daryn was irritated with Tangie's brief nonsensical response until she came to the realization that she was purposely elusive to protect Lisa. Daryn had to respect her efforts in using discretion to guard Lisa's business and hoped she would do the same for her if the situation were to arise.

"I don't know, girl. She seemed to buy into what I was saying, but you know it's hard when you're in love. I thank God He gave me the strength to let Sean go."

"Um-hum. Well, I just hope she will have the sense to see that Dirk doesn't really give a damn about her because if he did, he would stop playing these childish games."

"But you know what, Daryn...I don't doubt he cares about her. He just has some self-centered, immature issues to work through."

"Oh, okay well you would know better than me. I hope she'll take your advice and make some decisions. I'm just glad Courtney grew up a long time ago. God knows I would not put up with this kind of foolishness for a minute."