I could see why Danny might feel like hiding out...

He probably realized what a stupid freaking mistake he made all those years ago. I decided to see if Juanita was familar with Susan Jablonski.
"No, the name doesn't ring a bell." She said. "Danny went through a lot of caregivers. Some people found him a little challenging to get along with."
"Not Danny." I said sarcastically.
The next morning I tried to get the agency that supplied his nursing assitants to tell me something about Sue Jablonski, but apparently everything like that is so confidential that to even speak of it invites a federal prison sentence.
Crap.

I related the sad story of Danny and Jen to Maricel...

She's heard bits and pieces of it all, but she hadn't heard me talk so much for so long about Danny before.
"I tried so hard to talk him out of dumping her like that." I said.
"How awful she must have felt." Marciel said. "You know what you'd think?"
"What?" I asked.
"That you were just some chick he was screwing and if he didn't think could use you for sex anymore, he just didn't want you around."
"Hadn't thought of it like that." I said. "That wasn't the case, he loved her. He just didn't want to stick her taking care of him for the rest of her life. I told him that if she didn't like it, she could leave. That it wasn't his decision to make for someone else. But he said he could just as easily have me barred from his room if I didn't shut up about it. I didn't want him to be alone."
"Dumb." She said. "But I've been dumb a time or two myself."
"The worst part was that Jen was really up on the medical stuff. I didn't have a handle on it at all and there was some stuff, I didn't think he was right about. The wanted to do some surgery on his arms because they thought they could really increase the mobility. The arm problems aren't from the spinal cord injury, the arms were badly broken and didn't heal so good. But he was scared of losing the mobility he had. But I thought the doctors were making good sense..."
I shook my head wearily. "That was a freaky time. Seems like I always have somebody to worry about."
"Now you have me." She said.
"You aren't particularly worrisome." I said. "And you bake."
"If you got hurt, I'd take care of you." She said.
"I know you would. I'd let you. You know, I'd take care of you."
"I know." She said. "That's kind of why I'm here with you."

I pretended to be Danny on-line last night...

and lo and behold Mystique turned up.
"Where have you been?" She typed. "I was starting to get worried. That last message was so vague. I know you're mad and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I just wanted to talk to you and I knew you wouldn't. Don't you understand that?"
"I guess." I typed for and non-combative and non-communicative answer.
"I was worried about you." Mystique wrote. "And don't get mad, anyone can get sick or have an accident. I looked up your phone number and I left you a couple of messages. I gues syou got those. I'd rather have you yell at me than not talk to me at all."
"I'm not Danny." I typed. "I'm looking for Danny. He hasn't been around in a few weeks. And I'm just getting worried."
"Who are you?" She wrote.
"I'm a friend of his, we go way back. We've done the comic thing together for years."
"Simon?" She typed rather unexpectedly.
"Yes." I replied.
"What's your number?" She asked. "I'll call you."
A minute after I replied my phone rang.
"It's me, Jennifer Wells." She said.
"Oh my God." I said. "Jen."
"Yeah. I think that's what Danny thought when he figured out it was me he was talking to."

Jen had been Danny's girlfriend for a couple of years before his accident. They were crazy close and she did her best to stand by him after the accident. She talked to doctors and took notes and made the funeral arrangements for his parents. And one day he just cut her off and had her barred from his room. He wouldn't read her letters or take her calls and nothing anyone said could change his mind. She had been in despair for a long time, then finally moved away to Florida to get on with her life. She'd gotten married and opened a business. Both had gone south about the same time. She was just trolling around looking for some comic sites and she came across Danny's board and figured out it was him. He hadn't figured out that Mystique was her at first and they had hit it off famously, just like the first time. Jen, like Ellen and Maricel, was a girl who really dug comics.

A few weeks ago, Danny had decided to come clean and let his on-line honey know that he was confined to a wheelchair. Then it was her turn to come clean and confess that she already knew that.
"God he was mad at me." She said. "Cause he hardly said anything or typed anything. You know what I mean. When he's really mad, he won't talk he just says two or three words."
"I think he's pretty mad at me." I said. "I was meeting a new girlfriend out at Comic Con in Vegas and I didn't even offer to take him this time."
"He wasn't mad about that. He thought it was cool that you had a girlfriend." She said. "He told all to Mystique."
"I'm just worried." I said. "And I talked to my friend who's a cop and he's not technically missing, though he supposed to have gone to Florida."
"Why would he come here?" She asked. "You don't think that he's here, do you? Or that something happened to him on the way here?"
"I don't know." I said. "I really don't know."

I had just about the best Sunday ever...

It consisted of church, a walk in the park and some delicious hot soup that we ate sitting on a park bench overlooking the river. The we found a really nice rug. Well, there was some other stuff, too. But nothing that's any of your damn business. Years ago when Danny was still in college, I remember giving him some crap because he went to some antique show with his girlfriend Jen. He said that if I could learn to do a certain something as well as she did, he'd go anywhere I wanted him to.

About the rug. Even if you don't like it. I do.

See you in the funny papers...
Simon

I did manage to catch up with Heather...

She stopped to get gas and was finishing up as I was pulling in.
"Did you get hold of him?" She asked me.
"No." I said.
"I get the feeling something weird is going on." Heather said. "I mean, that he's mad or he's doing something he don't think other people will like. Other people have left messages and stuff and I don't think he gets back to them. I mean, I don't know him or anything and I shouldn't be in his business. Cause everything for the house is all paid up and I've been paid. But I guess I'm kind of curious about who pissed him off. Was it like a girl or his family or what? And I think he's totally mad. The nurse chick said somebody blew him off for some big thing he wanted to go to and you know, he can't go by himself really."
Those were not happy words for me to hear. Since I was the one who blew him off for the big event.
"Who's his nurse now?" I asked.
"Her name is Susan." She said. "Susan something all Polish like Jablonski maybe. I never said much to her. She's kind of stuck up."
"You don't need diet anything." I said to her.
"What?"
"I saw you at the store, you don't need diet anything." I said.
"Thanks, but you've never seen me in my fat pants." She laughed.
Men don't have fat pants. We just keep lowering our waists.

I was in line at the grocery store...

A ten for ten dollars sale on shredded cheese had sent me on a mad buying binge. There are 20 lanes at the Kroger's. Two of them were open. I could have used the self-checkout, but that thing is my enemy. I spotted Danny's housesitter Heather stocking up on Slim-Fast shakes and Diet Pepsi. There were ten packages of cheese and five boxes of brownie mix in my cart. I think we're living very different kinds of lives. I wanted to catch up with her and ask after Danny, but the person in front of me would not accept the fact that her check would not clear because she had insufficient funds in the bank. Those stupid new electronic devices make it damn hard to kite checks like the good old days. She was wearing low-rider jeans and a belly shirt that bared way too much belly and showed off a tattoo. Some little kid with her was calling her Grandma. And she wasn't a hot grandma, she looked like a regular grandma. Just in lowrider jeans and a bell shirt...with a tattoo. And she couldn't get her cigarettes. Bummer...

A bunch of Maricel's stuff came...

She was so happy. She's got so many freaking dolls. Well, compared to me, she doesn't have that much stuff. They're pretty nice. I have some display cases in the basement that I knew would come in handy someday. I suggested putting some of the nicest stuff down in the store with a prominent not for sale sign displayed. The rest can go in the bedroom she has carefully crafted into a functional and attractive office for both my business and her teaching work. Did I mention the part when I went out and bought actual office furniture? When you buy stuff from a furniture store it costs more money, but there are actually dudes that move it upstairs for you. We got this stuff pictured up top. That's from the company's website, our office isn't out on the patio like that one seems to be. I would think that wouldn't be so good for the electronics. I could be wrong. But her clothes are in the closets and some of her stuff is hanging on the walls. And that really doesn't bug me at all. I'm thinking that's a good sign. Weezer's out of the ICU, too. Another good sign.
See you in the funny papers...