Кэти Дэйли - The Case Of The Cupid Caper

I was thrilled to hear Lettie say that. I really did hope I brought a unique perspective to the newspaper staff. “I’ll need all the specifics, time, place, cost, ticket sales, etc., but I’m going to ask you to email all that to me to save time now. What I really want to talk about is the heart of the event. Why the town holds it each year and how this year might be the best one yet.”

“Let’s have a seat in the office in the back. I’ll hear the bell if someone comes in.”

I nodded and then followed Lettie down the short hallway to her office. I sat down across the desk from her. After a moment, she began to speak. “The Sweetheart Ball has been around since I was a girl. A man named Bryson Newberry decided he wanted to ask a woman named Martha Stanwell out on a date. Martha was a teacher who had moved to the area from the city and from what I remember, she was a beautiful woman who all the men were after. Bryson was a simple farm boy, but he was determined to make Martha his own, so he vowed to plan a date so special that the woman of his dreams would immediately fall in love with him. Back then, there was a single diner and a couple of bars, but nowhere really special to take her. Bryson knew that Martha was never going to be happy with dinner at the diner or an evening at one of the local bars, so he decided to hold a dance in his barn on Valentine’s Day. Now a barn might not seem like the most romantic place for a dance, but Bryson went all out. Not only did he clean the place up so that it was almost unrecognizable as a barn, but he also built a dance floor, hung lights from the rafters, and even hired a live band. Once he had the place ready, he invited the entire community to the event. His plan was to invite Martha as his date once he got everything in place, but his timing was off, and by the time he actually got around to asking Martha to be his date, she’d already accepted an invitation from someone else.”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “What did he do?”

“From what I’ve been told, he was pretty upset, but knew he needed to attend the dance he was hosting, so he asked the girl who lived on the next farm over to be his date. They’d been friends for a long time, and he figured that if she attended with him, then once everyone arrived, he’d simply ask Martha for a dance at which time he’d make his move.”

I was loving this story. It was going to be perfect for my column. “So, what happened? Did he make his move?”

“Actually, he tried, but Martha made it clear that she wasn’t interested in a simple farm boy, so Bryson spent the evening dancing with Susan, the neighbor I mentioned. At some point, they fell in love, married, and had eight children.”

“Eight?” Yikes, that was a lot.

“Yep and every one of those eight children grew up to be happy, successful adults. Both Bryson and Susan have passed on, and all eight of their offspring have moved away, but the dance lives on. At some point, someone had the idea to use the dance as a fundraiser for the town, so rather than being free, as it was in the beginning, tickets are sold now. And while the dance continued as a barn dance for quite a few years, it’s held at the community center now. I’m not sure there are many folks left in town who even remember Bryson and the over-the-top date he tried to plan to snare a woman he would never have been happy with. I think it will be fun to get the story out there again, especially with all the hoopla being created this year due to the whole Ms. Cupid thing.”

“So, about that.” I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the desk. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who Ms. Cupid is?”

She shook her head. “I really don’t. I’ve gone over it in my mind, but I’ve come up empty. I’m not sure how much you know about Ms. Cupid, but she seems to know a lot about the people who live in the community, so I’m thinking she lives here. She also knows a lot about folks who haven’t even signed up for her service, so I’m thinking she’s lived here for a long time. I’ve tried and tried to figure out who might be behind these matches, but no one jumps out to me as an obvious candidate. Going through all those applications must be time consuming. While Ms. Cupid has made less than a dozen matches, the matches she’s made have all taken, so while the service might not have been given much notice at first, it seems like single men and women of all ages have been applying like crazy.”

“I guess you make a good point about the amount of time that must be involved. And Ms. Cupid doesn’t charge anything, so her motivation is something other than monetary.”

“I suppose the woman might just be one of those people who loves love. I will admit the whole thing has struck a romantic chord in me. If I’d thought of it first, I might have been the one to try my hand at the whole matchmaker thing, but I didn’t think of it first, so if you were wondering, no, I’m not Ms. Cupid.”

“The thought had entered my mind,” I admitted.

Lettie and I spoke a while longer. She provided some tidbits and stories about past Sweetheart Dances that were going to provide entertaining filler for my series. When I’d entered into the conversation, I’d considered the dance to be nothing more than one of many town fundraisers, but now I could see that it was actually something so much more.

Chapter 6

The town council was made up of six council members, four men and two women, plus Mayor Frank White. Mayor White didn’t vote unless there was a tie, and then he provided the tie-breaking vote, which in my mind, gave him a lot more power than I would like to see. Of course, I was new to town, and he had been elected, so there seemed to be reason to believe he was a better person and better mayor that I’d observed so far.

As for the council as a whole, since I’d been back, I’d noticed a lot of infighting, which, as far as I could tell, was getting them nowhere fast. The current hot topic was a philosophical one having to do with growth. There were residents and members of the council who felt that it was important to maintain the small-town culture of Foxtail Lake, while other residents, as well as certain council members, wanted to see growth and prosperity and had been campaigning hard to court large resort chains to build in the area.

Personally, I thought Colorado already had plenty of upscale communities like Vail and Aspen, and while I did understand that it was getting harder and harder to make a living in tiny Foxtail Lake, I hated to see the mom and pop shops and family feel of the place replaced by five-star restaurants and high-end shopping. I also hated the idea that our local inns and B&B’s might go by the wayside should large hotel chains get their feet in the door.

But my job today wasn’t to offer an opinion. My job today was to report the events of the meeting as they unfolded. Being an impartial observer wasn’t easy for me, but I knew if I wanted to make it as a journalist, impartial was what I was going to learn to be.

The entire two-hour meeting seemed to consist of one hotly debated topic followed by another. By the time the meeting was over, I felt like I’d been through the ringer and I’d only been observing the exchange. I didn’t see how these folks did this on a regular basis. It was obvious that the council members were a passionate group who cared deeply one way or the other about the issues they came together to discuss. I really wasn’t sure how this particular debate was going to play out, but I suspected a resolution wasn’t going to be evident anytime soon.

After the meeting adjourned, I approached a couple of the council members I knew better than some of the others, hoping for a quote or two to add to my story. While I was speaking with our mayor, Frank White, he said something shocking.