Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 17

And then there’s my sister, who lives only a half mile from my parents, in a new subdivision that features the kind of dream house that two full-time professional incomes can provide. She is just about to begin her maternity leave when I arrive, and she is the perfect example of how a perfect person can make a perfect life. I know, I know: I am using the word perfect too many times, and no life is perfect, but when I am with Brian and Natalie in their cozy house, with her cozy big belly, and the furniture all overstuffed and comfortable, and the walls painted muted shades of gray and beige with white trim, and the windows all clean and everything looking peaceful and restful, I think that this—this!—is what everybody had been hoping would magically fall into my lap, too. I, myself, did not see it, frankly; given a house like this, I’d be painting the walls real colors, colors from the red family or the turquoise family, and hanging modern art on the walls.
One morning I’m having breakfast with my father out on the patio, just us, when he asks me what I see myself doing in my life, so I tell him the truth.
“Well, I have a lot of plans actually. I’m really into that idea of baking cupcakes with little sayings in them—like fortune cookies, you know, but with cupcakes. And also I’d like to write love letters for people who can’t think of the right words. Oh! And I also would love to make costumes. Maybe do a stop-action film with figurines in costumes. I could write the scripts. Or, say, I could be happy, um, working in a bookstore because I could help people find the novels they need to read for whatever is bothering them.”
He folds his newspaper and smiles at me. “We should try to narrow this down and see how any of it could be monetized,” he says. “When you’re thinking of what to do with your life, whatever your occupation is, it would help to think money.”
“Also, you’re going to think this sounds crazy,” I tell him, “but it’s possible that I could turn out to be a matchmaker. I mean, I’ve had a few successes at it, so it’s something maybe I could pursue.”
He gets up and ruffles my hair on his way to leave for work. “Ducky, I’m gonna say it again. You’re a fascinating human, but that’s not what life’s about. You gotta make some money.”
It is not lost on me that this—Natalie and Brian’s dream house—this is the reward for going to school and really applying yourself to a skill that people want and will pay for. You get to meet a nice person, and so what that he is maybe not the most zany, creative, handsome person you ever met, a guy who wants to play guitar all night long and write you love songs, and then cook omelets at three in the morning, like the guy I married by mistake—but he is instead that other kind of man: a provider, an ethical, strong, good man with an eye to the future. Your future.
Ah, you see how it is with me. You see how Noah creeps in. He has set up shop in my head with his goofy love songs and his Ray-Ban sunglasses and a storehouse of memories, like the way he’d claim he had a special delivery for me of one thousand smooches and then he’d kiss my whole body, up and down, every inch of me. Both of us laughing until—well, until we couldn’t anymore.
There is no point in thinking about this, however. I’m in my real life now. Back where I started from, and where I will pick up the pieces.
My room, still painted pink, smells like being a kid again. The light still slants in through the pink cotton curtains just the same as it always did, a slant that is so familiar it may actually be installed in my DNA—along with the sound of the hinges of my bedroom door, chiming like a musical note, and the flat-yellow hall light shining up into the attic.
Late at night, after my parents have gone to bed, I find my way to the family room, the lived-in, comfortable space, where you don’t have to pretend about anything. There’s the same worn-out rag rug, the chipped bookshelves, and an old brown corduroy couch that hugs you when you sit down, like it’s so very glad to see you.
Welcome home, Marnie, the couch says to me, and I sink farther into its soft cushions and let myself fall under its spell of safety and familiarity.
“It’s so good that you finally came to your senses and came back home,” says my friend Ellen one night when she and Sophronia and I meet for drinks and dinner. I’ve been home only three days, but my mom says I need to get out, and she’s probably right.
Ellen and Sophronia are both working for an insurance company in downtown Jacksonville and are dating multiple men from the corporate world. They tell me they have a social life that keeps them on the go: Margarita Mondays and Wacky Wild Wednesdays and Thirsty Thursdays. And then there are the weekends—parties at the beach, with plenty of beer and dancing. Dating intrigue, that sort of thing.
I can hardly remember that world. Maybe I wasn’t ever really part of it, come to think of it.
“Oh, you should totally come with us,” Ellen says. “It’ll be good to get back out there, get that guy out of your system.”
Sophronia gives her a meaningful look, and then they both look sad for me.
“So. Are you really over him, do you think?” Ellen asks.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Totally. Over him, over him, over him,” I say. I’m glad they can’t see the lump that has formed in my throat.
They both reach across the table and hug me at the same time, and I remember how I used to like them in middle school, before we went to separate high schools and I lost my way and they became the part of the popular crowd at their school. The Cool Kids.
They’re still the cool kids, and maybe hanging out with them would be a good idea, now that I’m back here.
We drink a bunch of beers, flirt with some guys, and then I get tired and sad and tell them I’ve got someplace I need to be.
The corduroy couch is calling my name.
Natalie and Brian come over for dinner my first weekend at home.
I discover that they are now best friends with my parents. I am shocked—shocked!—to realize that the four of them have rituals together. There is Sunday dinner, and then most Saturday afternoons my father and Brian play golf while my mother and sister go shopping or go to a matinee. Also, my sister cooks extra for my parents on Mondays and Wednesdays, and my mother sends over some Thursday meatloaf each week.
Even more startling to me is the fact that they get together at least every other week and play quadruple solitaire. There’s a complicated scoring system that no one can quite explain to me, not without laughing so hard they give up. I stand there, amazed, while my mother and sister try to tell me all about it, with my father and Brian tucking in little helpful remarks here and there.
“. . . and if you have more than a certain number of cards . . .”
“Red cards!”
“No, not just red cards, any cards . . . just more points for red cards.”
“Well, yes, unless your opponents have an odd number of black cards.”
“Solitaire?” I say. “But isn’t that . . . played . . . alone?”
They fall over laughing at that quaint idea. I feel a flash of irritation mixed with envy knowing that I can never catch up to them, will never truly be a part of their cozy little group.
Natalie takes my arm and says, “Never mind. It’s a silly game.”
My sister looks like an advertisement for pregnancy and happy marriage, like it’s the least tiring thing ever. Her formerly long blonde hair is now chin length and cut at a sharp angle that makes her blue eyes jump right out at you. And although she’s definitely wearing a huge round thing on her front, the rest of her looks perfectly slim and regular, like somebody came along and randomly glued a basketball underneath her shirt.
And Brian—tall, handsome, dark-haired Brian, the personification of husbandhood and fatherhood, carrying the banner for good men everywhere—tells me about Natalie’s brave march through pregnancy. “She’s been such a trooper!” he says, smiling at her winningly. “All that morning sickness stuff that some women complain about? Not Nattie. She hiked and swam and worked full-time. I tell you, birth is going to be a breeze.”
“Well,” says my mother. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?”
My eyes meet Natalie’s, and we smile. If people had themes, this would be my mother’s: don’t anticipate anything good, or it won’t happen.