The Matchmaker Meets Her Match by Jenny Jacobs Page B

be. Sofa, armoire, kitchen pantry.
    “I’m a virtual assistant,” Daphne confided finally. “Do you know what that is?”
    “You do administrative work for clients? Using the phone and internet to get and deliver assignments?”
    “That’s right. I don’t — since the incident — ” She made a gesture toward her face. “I stay mostly at home. I have a cat.”
    “Cats are nice,” Rilka ventured. She could see Daphne with a seal-point Siamese or a fluffy white Angora —
    “I hate cats,” Daphne said vehemently. “I love dogs. I love big dumb dogs but they need exercise. And I don’t like — you know, going for walks. Meeting people on the streets.”
    You need a psychiatrist to help you with this
, Rilka thought,
not a matchmaker
. But if she suggested something like that Daphne would be offended and probably wouldn’t listen anyway. And it wasn’t like Rilka could pay the bills by turning away potential clients. Although wouldn’t that be the life.
I can’t help you. That will be three hundred dollars, please.
    “So Dr. Pennyman suggested that — ”
    “I’m sorry,” Rilka said. “I missed that. Dr. Pennyman is?”
    “My psychiatrist.”
    Okay, so Daphne had already sought help, which was good, but she needed a little more progress before she started the daunting process of dating people. Okay, a
lot
more progress. Dating people was not for the faint of heart. If she couldn’t even take a dog for a walk, how did she expect to go somewhere, meet someone for coffee or a drink, take in a movie? To be so fearful of rejection would make the process infinitely harder, practically impossible. Most relationships, after all, ended in failure. And the ones that didn’t fail ended in death.
There’s a cheery little thought for a matchmaker. Maybe I should print it on my business cards.
    “And Dr. Pennyman said sometimes if you can’t manage it any other way, you should just plunge in.”
    Rilka choked on her tea. She grabbed her napkin to cover her mouth as she suffered a fit of choking, her eyes watering.
Just plunge in?
Did that sound like responsible psychiatry? Rilka had always been under the impression that psychiatry was about holding your hand while you dipped your big toe in, and eventually, after a long time, you could wade up to your waist without any help. But what did Rilka know? She was a former securities analyst. And a failure as a matchmaker.
    Daphne had gotten to her feet and was filling a glass with water, which she handed to Rilka. Rilka took a sip to soothe her now-sore throat.
    “Tell me about Dr. Pennyman,” she croaked.
    Daphne sat back down. “I see him a couple times a month. He’s encouraging me to get out more,” she said, fiddling with her mug of tea but not really drinking from it. “Of course, I’m in love with him so he may be trying to redirect — you know, get me to turn my attention elsewhere.”
    Through sheer will, Rilka did not choke again. There was so much information in that statement that she couldn’t even begin to process it all.
    “You’re in love with your psychiatrist?” It wasn’t really Rilka’s business but she was fascinated by the very idea. Maybe she needed a psychiatrist to fall in love with. She could say
I’m stuck. I’m a matchmaker who doesn’t believe in love
. Then she would fall in love, and that would almost certainly make her unstuck. But it probably wouldn’t end happily. Look at Daphne, whose Dr. Pennyman was trying to foist her off onto someone else. Rilka would rather be stuck and annoyed about it than stuck and heartbroken. Maybe.
    “Oh, yes,” Daphne was saying. She was animated now. Unrequited love had an amazing effect on people. “It happens a lot, you know. Transference. We spend so much time together, he listens so carefully, and responds so sympathetically, and I can delude myself into believing he’s my best friend. At least until I get his bill.”
    “Uh-huh.” It sounded a lot like Rilka’s work. But