302 Days
Rhea woke up with a stomachache. She stared at the ceiling, replayed the events of the previous day, and shuddered.
She thought the way Danny had asked her to dinner was incredibly romantic, but after she accepted his proposal, she said, “But you can’t actually give me a free garden bed, I wanna pay for it. ”
“But we’re running a special, I can’t go against the special.”
“Seriously, I can’t accept that—”
“Can you try?”
“I just don’t want you to think you have to do that—”
“Rhea, I’m trying to do a thing here, will you just let me?” he said with a grin.
“Okay, okay, fine.”
After he left, she worried she had ruined the moment by not just taking the damn gift. Was it awkward after that? She couldn’t tell. He had not said any specific details about when he would take her to dinner.
After she escorted him to the front door, she said, “Thanks for making the drive,” like a total loser.
And he said, “It was my pleasure, I’ll text you.”
She shut the door before she could say anything else to ruin the best date proposal she had ever received.
She rolled over in bed and reached for her cellphone; the lack of notifications made her audibly groan.
She would just have to force herself to stop thinking about it, push herself out of bed, get in the shower, and rinse off her shame.
But that plan seemed impossible, so instead she rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face into her mattress.
She wished she could swap brains with someone less neurotic. A normal woman would have just said, “Of course you can take me to dinner,” and effortlessly accepted the romantic gesture of a free garden bed. But Rhea Darby had never once been a normal woman.
Due to her turbulent childhood, even in the most benign situations, she automatically tried to protect herself against imminent disaster by overthinking everything and trying to stay two steps ahead.
Instead of assuming, How nice, he wants to give me a lovely gift, she thought, What if he thinks I lured him here for a free garden bed?
What if he thinks I’m some kind of sex worker who accepts fresh vegetables instead of cash?
Not that there’s anything wrong with sex workers…
Then she went on a long mental tangent about how she would never want to offend sex workers, knowing the stigmatization of sex work is rooted in a sex-shaming culture, and it should be legal and protected, not stigmatized.
And all of this happened in less than three seconds, standing in front of Danny, in her backyard.
I’ll text you reverberated around her brain; she pulled a pillow over her head to muffle it. Did he even have her number? She gave it to that woman when she made the Patricia appointment, so at least she had that fact to cling to.
She finally got out of bed and took a shower, reaching her hand out of the curtain every thirty seconds to tap her phone screen with a wet finger. Each time, she was punished with no notifications.
She decided to keep her cellphone in her car for the rest of the day, storing it far from her reach so she did not give herself carpal tunnel checking it over and over again.
But the fifty-two steps between her house and her vertical driveway were not enough of a deterrent; she ended up climbing up and down them all day.
On her eleventh trip down the steps, she admitted her plan was not working.
She decided to abandon it and just keep her phone affixed to her hand.
Once she was reunited with the device, she felt a rush of excitement; there was a red number three hovering over the corner of the iMessage icon.
Then a crushing blow; Ada, Tiny, and Louisca’s names were listed at the top.
Nothing from Danny. She wanted to text all her friends and say, Hey, can you not contact me for the next few days? It’s making me want to die.
But before she could alienate all of her friends, a message appeared while she was staring at her phone.
Sent from an unknown number: Saturday at 7?
Rhea’s face broke into a smile, and she forgot all about her torturous morning and afternoon. Then, a fearful thought broke through: This is Danny, right?
Suddenly, like magic: It’s Danny btw
Her first move was to save his number under “Danny Edible Gardener.” But an immediate reply might have made her seem desperate or crazy, and Rhea Darby was determined he should never find out she was both of those things.
So, she ignored the text, locked her phone in her car, and walked back up fifty-two steps, only to return twenty minutes later, decide it was still too soon, and head back inside.