Free Designs On Daphne by Lilly Christine Page B

Caroline. Only bigger. And it would be gardens. Not a yard, real gardens.
      Right there in Williams-Sonoma, surrounded by a wealth of the most perfect kitchen gadgets, Daphne suddenly didn’t feel very well, not very well at all. Her mind spun dizzily over furniture details and window treatments and party recipes and everything else.
      Her senses ran hot and cold.
      Very, very confused, she plunked herself down on the biggest box, the one that held the roasting pans.
      What will I do, once Rodric is happy in his new life?
      Her stomach twisted. There’d be no more cosy evenings on the carpet together talking things over, that was for sure. Would she be a friend to the couple? Would he ask her to help his fiancee and the mothers plan their wedding?
      Darn it!
      She’d always wanted to plan a big, no expense spared wedding -- she’d already proven to Miz Esther and Rodric how well they all worked together.
      Double Darn it!
       Of course, Daisy’s wedding was likely coming up. She’d have a hand in planning that. With Ella Jean and Daisy, who of course have their own ideas, Daisy’s being ‘let’s keep it simple and plain and fun’, not the ‘fancy and lets knock their socks off!” wedding I want. Daisy saves the sock-knocking for the barrel racin’ arena!
      Daisy’s wedding would be just fine, she’d see to that.    But if I suggest anything more than long tables with pretty arrangements of country flowers under a big white tent, she’s gonna laugh me out of the room! And Ella will go along with whatever Daisy wants, so it’ll just be some big half-a-steer barbecue brouhaha, or something like that.
       Daphne had always dreamed of a big, splashy, showcase kind of wedding, the kind Rodric’s fiancee would have.
      Triple Darn it!
      She glanced down at her left hand, then leaned her elbow on her knee, hiding her empty fingers up under her chin. Leaning on it, she felt very, very disillusioned, almost frantically so.
      Maybe I’ll make friends with this girlfriend of Rodric’s right away! Then she’ll have to ask for my help planning the wedding. She might ask me to be a bridesmaid, even, since I’m so good at planning things!
      But she wasn’t having much luck making friends lately, other than Rodric, she reminded herself. She hated the strained, uncomfortable feeling she had trying to interact with the women in her design class. This whole visit to Austin was really beginning to upset her. In Hobble Creek, she’d drawn new friends like flies to dog poop, locals and strangers alike.
      Maybe the girlfriend will like the decorating I do in Rodric’s apartment so much, she’ll ask for her help with the big house!
      That would be the house the girlfriend slash wife would help pick out, the they’d have all that sex-while-she was-ovulating-hoping-to- get pregnant three more times place.
       As big as it was going to be, Daphne positively knew that house would be happy and loud and overrun with children! Toddlers at first, with sticky faces and lumpy diapers all fussy and underfoot, needing to get cleaned up in time for playgroup and kinder music. Then they’d grow up, fighting with one another as they climbed into her big champagne EV SUV for rides to soccer practice and riding lessons and swim team and cello. Or flute. Or piano. She stood up. Rodric’s children would be nicely dressed, she was sure of it, as she and Daisy had never been, in fancy, preppy clothing like their father always wore. And they’d have clean faces and neat hair, which she and Daisy most certainly had had.
      But Daphne never had piano lessons, never got to perform in a recital, and she’d always wanted to. Sandra Ellsworth had piano lessons, and so had Janie Dupree.
      Rodric would positively need a piano in the next house.
      “Is this every-?” the saleslady started, then bit her words back, so as not to interrupt Daphne’s thoughts.   Because the next thought she had wasn’t a