Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 33

“Oh dear,” says Lola in a low voice. “So he is here. Now we’ve probably disturbed him.”
“Him?”
“You don’t know, do you?” She leans closer to me and cups her hand. “Noah is here.”
“Noah?”
Just then the door flies open, and damned if Noah isn’t standing right in front of me, looking from me to Lola with shock on his face, although it would be hard to guess who’s more shocked, me or him. I feel my knees wobbling just the slightest bit.
“Marnie? What the hell are you doing here, girl?” He’s smiling, his eyes crinkled up into little slits.
I cannot seem to find words, so I simply stare at him like he’s a mirage. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt and holding a bottle of beer and a guitar, of course.
This is going to ruin everything, everything. All of my recovery, all of it.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I manage to say. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Africa?”
Just then Lola, who turns out not to be the bravest human on the planet, touches my arm and says softly that she might have something boiling over on the stove and she’ll be available later, in case I need her. I hear her saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” as she heads to her own house.
And then I look back at Noah, who is smiling at me like the proverbial cat who is about to swallow the canary.
“It’s so good to see you!” he says. “I’m afraid, though, that if you’ve come to see my Aunt Blix, you’re too late. But maybe you know that already.”
“I do,” I say softly, putting down my suitcase. “I was so sorry to hear.”
He is rambling on and on. Blah blah blah. He wants to know why I’m there and not in Burlingame, and I tell him that I’ve actually been living back in Jacksonville for a while now. (Which he could have known if he’d so much as even looked at my Facebook feed. I mean, who doesn’t do that with an ex? I would know everything about him if he ever bothered to post anything. The last time he posted it was to say that the African sun is hot. And that was right after he left.)
So he goes on and on, and I’m frankly having an out-of-body experience. How is it that just the day before, I was safe and in love and getting engaged again, and now I am standing on some steps in Brooklyn, looking into the face of Noah? Noah, whom I now realize I have missed—and still miss—with a desperation beyond all reason. Which is a horrifying thing to realize.
Meanwhile, he’s kept talking and now, from the way he’s staring at me, it’s apparent that he’s asked me a question that he’s waiting for the answer to. I review the last few seconds of the tape in my head and realize he wants to know why I am living in Jacksonville.
“Complicated reasons involving certain financial obligations of an overpriced apartment, I believe,” I say.
“But you had three months! I paid my portion of the rent for three months.”
“Yes, but as you may be aware, those months ran out.” I am smiling.
“Yes, and then you were supposed to find a roommate.”
“Well, I didn’t. Do you really want to stand here in the doorway and discuss the problematic roommate situation in Northern California, or may I come in?”
“Of course, of course!” he says, stepping aside and flattening himself against the wall so I can get past him. When I brush against him, several of my more alert cells notice that he’s something we all once liked. They have conveniently and traitorously forgotten that we are not Team Noah anymore. We are Team Jeremy.
“You brought a suitcase, so I guess that means what—that you’re planning to stay? I get to enjoy your company for more than just an afternoon?”
“For a few days, I thought.”
“That’s wonderful,” he says. “If I’d known you were coming . . .”
“Well, I couldn’t very well let you know when I didn’t even know you were here!”
“No, no. I’m not saying you should have. It’s just a surprise, is all. A very nice, wonderful, amazing surprise. Here, go through that door,” he says, motioning with his head. “Blix has the first and second floors.”
I feel like I have jet lag, even though technically I’m still in the same time zone. Maybe I’ve somehow gone into a kind of weird time warp. As we go into Blix’s living room, I’m struck by the parquet oak floors, the exposed brick walls, the light from the bay windows, the art everywhere. It’s beautiful, in a rundown, funky, Blixish way. I exclaim over it, and he says, “You want the tour? You’ve never been in a Brooklyn brownstone before, have you?”
“I’d love a tour.”
He keeps stealing little looks at me as he shows me around her apartment—the living room and two bedrooms are on the first floor, and the large eat-in kitchen is upstairs along with a study and a hallway and staircase leading to the roof. Also off that hallway, he tells me, is another two-bedroom apartment. A woman lives there with her son, he says. She’s quite attractive. Amazing curly hair, nice body. (He always has to comment on women’s bodies, because, he says, that’s what life is about: noticing the beauty around you.)
“There’s also a guy in the basement,” he says. “Sort of a recluse. Something wrong with his hands and face. Blix collected characters, you know.” He tilts his head charmingly. “Perhaps, now that I think of it, you were even one of them.”
Was I? “There’s so much light in here,” I say. The kitchen is astonishing, with two huge windows looking out onto all of Brooklyn—buildings, rooftop gardens, condominiums under construction blocks away. Outside I hear sirens, crashing sounds, voices, car horns.
“So, wanna go up on the roof?” he says. “We could grab a beer or something, and then maybe you can finally manage to explain why you’re here to see my old auntie who happens to be dead.”
“And you can tell me why you’re not still on your year-long stint in Africa.”
“Oh, well, Africa—that’s a very long, weird story of great bizarreness,” he says, opening the refrigerator, an old model, oval-shaped at the top and painted turquoise. Everything in this kitchen looks old and worn out and possibly hand-painted—a scarred wooden table in the center, and a countertop that runs along the wall—something that looks like it came from a French country kitchen around the turn of the century. The last century. There’s a soapstone sink in the corner and a gas range, little vases with dried weeds and flowers and half-burned candles sitting in saucers on every surface—and the walls are painted a wonderful off-red color, with white trim around the windows and cabinets. The floor is worn and scuffed in spots. There are dishes piled in the sink, and half-emptied cups of coffee on the table.
“I have plenty of time to hear it, and the more bizarre the better,” I tell him. He hands me a beer with some unfamiliar Brooklyn label, and points the way to the hallway and a steep stairway going up. He pushes the door open at the top, and suddenly we’re on an unlikely terrace, with planters filled with grasses at one end, surrounding a fire pit and a low table. There’s a gas grill pushed over toward the corner, and several padded wicker couches, a couple of chaise lounges, and a portable basketball hoop. I have to catch my breath. The view of Brooklyn’s skyline is kind of amazing. I can see rooftops all around me with gardens and water tanks. Big windows blankly looking back at me, catching the sun.
“How long have you been here?” I say.
“I’ve been here, ah . . . three weeks maybe?”
“Were you here when she . . . when she died?”
“Yeah. Although she would prefer we said when she made her transition.”
“I didn’t even know she was sick. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. Yeah. Me neither. Not until I flew in. And then I found out she was dying. She’d been sick for months, maybe even years without telling. But then once I was here, she wanted me to stay, to see her across, you know.” He opens my beer and then his own and puts the opener down on the table. “She was a funny one. Kept things like that a secret, I guess. Didn’t want sympathy. Of course she and I weren’t all that close as you know.” He looks around the rooftop and shakes his head. “She was always just my crazy Aunt Blix, saying such weird woo-woo stuff it was hard to pay attention to. But you never know, do you? What’s going to happen to the people you somehow belong to.”