Page 10 of Dear Debbie

I bid Bev goodbye and walk back across the street to my own house. It’s now several minutes after ten, and there’s still no sign of the people from the magazine. They must be running late. Nobody is on time for anything in the real world. The only thing you must be on time for is the school bus, because that waits for nobody.

As I walk into the kitchen, the coffee machine lets out a loud hiss, and a slow and steady stream of brown liquid starts to drip into the pot. Perfect. Now I have coffee. I’m all set for when they show up.

I check my watch again. I do have a phone number for the magazine, but I hate to be that person. Your photographer is fifteen minutes late. Where are you? I’m sure they’ll be here eventually. Home Gardening wouldn’t just ghost me.

Would they?

I sit at the kitchen table, tapping my foot as I listen to the coffee slowly dripping into the coffeepot. Every few minutes, I check my watch, and every few minutes, it’s a few minutes later, but the photographer still isn’t here. I even check my email to confirm that this was the day and time we had agreed on.

At ten twenty-five, I crack. I check the phone number, which is in an email from Nita Geisler, the journalist who contacted me about the photos. She came to my house and gushed about the beautiful garden, and we set up this photo shoot for today. September 26 at ten in the morning.

I punch the number into my phone with slightly trembling fingers. I have spent the last week anticipating this photo shoot, and somehow I must have screwed something up. After all, this has to be my fault. Maybe I didn’t confirm the day and time like I was supposed to? A legit magazine wouldn’t just not show up this way.

“Home Gardening,” a peppy female voice chirps on the other end of the line.

Great. I was hoping the number was a private line for Nita, but apparently I have to deal with a gatekeeper. “Um, hi,” I say. “This is Debra Mullen. I’m trying to reach Nita Geisler.”

“Sure! And what is this regarding?”

“Well…” I toy with a lock of my hair, but then I end up tugging it so hard that my scalp hurts. “She was supposed to come here this morning with the photographer at ten, but she’s not here.”

“Hmm.” Keys tap on the other end of the line. “I don’t see any appointments in Nita’s schedule for today.”

“Well, she emailed me that we were meeting this morning.” I pause. “I have the email…”

“That is so strange!” the receptionist says again, like she’s been tasked to solve a particularly difficult mystery. “Let me investigate! Hold please!”

The hold music is a Taylor Swift song. I generally like Taylor Swift music, but I am not in the mood right now. Also, the longer I sit here, twiddling my thumbs, the more I’m starting to get the implicit message that I’m the problem, it’s me.

Just when I am about to hang up, the girl’s voice pipes up, “Mrs. Miller?”

“Mullen,” I correct her.

“Mrs. Muller,” she repeats, making an admirable attempt to get it correct on her second try. “I have Nita Geisler on the other line. Can you please hold?”

I suppress an eye roll worthy of Lexi, not understanding why she couldn’t just transfer me directly to Nita, given that I was already on hold. I feel like I’m trying to reach the president or something. Nita is just a journalist at a dinky gardening magazine. “Sure.”

I have to listen to another fifteen seconds of hold music before Nita’s throaty voice comes on the other end of the line. “Hello?” she says.

“Hi!” I exclaim, pathetically grateful that I’m talking to a human instead of listening to music. “This is Debbie… Debra Mullen? We… I mean, I thought the camera crew was coming here this morning. To photograph my garden, you know? That’s what it said in the email. Did I… Did I get the date wrong?”

“Oh, Debbie,” Nita sighs. “I am so sorry. I thought my assistant called you to cancel, but apparently not.”

Fantastic. I have been waiting here all morning in my bloodstained dress for nothing. Well, at least I can decide on something less gory to wear before the actual photo shoot. Now that I know this isn’t going to happen, I’m a tiny bit relieved. “So should we reschedule?”

“Actually,” Nita says, “we decided to go in another direction.”

The relief I felt a second ago vanishes, replaced with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Another direction?”

“Well,” she says, “when we were leaving your house, we ran into your neighbor, Josephine Dolan. We saw her rose garden, and roses are just so classic. I thought it would be a nice throwback look for the photo spread.”

My jaw drops. I am absolutely stunned. Jo stole my photo shoot?

“I really thought my assistant told you,” Nita says. “I’m so sorry. I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble.”

“No,” I say numbly. “Not at all. But… I mean, you can’t photograph both of our gardens? It’s just one or the other?”

She laughs. “We can’t very well do two gardens on the same block. That would be ridiculous.”