Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 36

“Well. I do feel bad for you.”
He laughs. “No, you don’t. This is all fucking unbelievable, you know that? I was the one here when my great-aunt dies, and yet somehow she manages to say nothing to me at all about the house or what’s going to happen, so I of course just assume I can stay here because it’ll belong to my family—and then you show up.”
There’s a loud noise from downstairs. “What’s that?” I say.
He runs his hands through his hair. “I told you. There’s a guy living down there. He has a life. Sometimes he drops things.”
“What’s his name?”
“Patrick Delaney. He’s disabled in some big way. Burn victim. Doesn’t come out much.”
“I think I’m going to take a walk. I’ll see if he’s okay.” I can’t stand looking at Noah for one more minute.
Now he’s pacing again. “Wait. I just thought of something. Do you think it’s possible that she left the house to both of us before we got divorced, and that my letter didn’t come to me yet because I was in Africa, and that what my mom wants is to tell me there’s this letter for me from the law firm? Is there any way that could be what’s happening?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Actually, I have an appointment to meet with the attorney on Monday at ten. Why don’t you come with me, and maybe we can get some answers?”
“Okay,” he says after a moment. “At least I can tell my mom that.”
I get up off the floor and go outside, closing the big heavy door behind me. Even though it’s night, it’s still bright from the streetlights, and there are plenty of people outside, walking their dogs, talking into their phones. There’s a coffee place four doors up the street, filled with people wearing scarves and jackets. I go down the little stairs to the basement apartment. It’s narrow and dark, and probably infested with New York cockroaches and rats, but I bravely knock on the door anyway. I keep my eyes on my feet, just in case something should try to run across them.
No answer, so I knock again. And then again. And again. There are bars on the windows. I shudder.
Finally there’s a muffled voice from inside: “Yes?”
I put my mouth near the door. “Um, Patrick? Listen, my name is Marnie. I’m Blix’s . . . friend, I guess you’d say. Or maybe grandniece-in-law. Friend sounds better, though. Anyway, I was upstairs and I heard a crash. Just wanted to check you’re okay.”
There’s a pause and then the voice says, more muffled than before: “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” I say. “Well . . . good night then.”
Another pause. Then, when I’ve given up on him having anything else to say, I hear, closer to the door this time: “Welcome to Brooklyn, Marnie. Is Noah with you?”
I lean against the door, close my eyes, almost brought to my knees by the question. And the kindness of his voice.
“He is,” I say finally. “Well, not now, but he’s upstairs. I think I’m going to go over to the coffee place and get something to eat. You want to come?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Well, that’s okay. Can I bring you back something then?”
“No. Thanks. Listen, Blix has my number upstairs. Call anytime you need something.”
“Thanks. Can I give you my number? If you need anything?”
“Sure. Slide it in the mail slot, will you?”
When I get back upstairs, Noah has gone into the back bedroom and closed the door. I can hear him talking, though, no doubt on the phone with his mom. His voice is rising and falling, and when I pass by, I hear, “I’m trying to explain to you—she’s here now!”
The larger bedroom at the front of the house, with its sienna-colored walls, is open, so I go in there and close the door. The room is kind of surreal, with posters everywhere, and a big lumpy double bed, a kantha quilt, and all kinds of crazy little knickknacks on every surface, and crystals and banners hanging on the walls, little pieces of art, pieces that Blix no doubt loved and that still seem to hold on to some part of her.
I lie there looking up at the ceiling, which is illuminated by the streetlights. You could shoot a movie in this room it’s so bright.
The ceiling has a crack that looks like a sweet little chipmunk eating a burrito. Don’t give up. Everything is going to be fine, the chipmunk says.
It’s all unfolding just the way it’s supposed to.
It’s a long time before I can close my eyes and go to sleep.
And that’s the end of the first day.
TWENTY-THREE
MARNIE
Noah already seems to be gone when I wake up in the morning, which is nothing short of a divine blessing.
I take a shower in Blix’s fabulous claw-footed tub and then go up to the kitchen, where I have to search for a coffeemaker (she has some press device that seems to be missing some key parts). There’s hardly any food in the refrigerator, just bags of dark chocolate and green mushy things, possibly lentils, and some bottles that look like dietary supplements. And of course beer. Lots and lots of beer.
Luckily, as I’m about to plan a journey into the outside world in search of food, there’s a knock at the back door.
“Helloooo!” calls Jessica. I open it to find her standing there wearing a pink flowered kimono and blue jeans, her wet hair tied up in one of those divinely messy knots.
“Oh, hi,” she says. “I just wondered if you might want to get some breakfast with me.” She makes a sad face. “The truth is that my ex, Sammy’s dad, came and picked him up this morning, and that’s always tough for me, so I could use a little distraction. And I’m guessing you might possibly want to get out of here, too.”
“I’d love to.”
“Well, great. I can show you the neighborhood! Park Slope rocks, you know.”
I go grab my thin, little, good-enough-for-Florida sweater, and she dashes into her apartment to get her real sweater, then she tells me about all the great places around here. As we’re leaving, Lola waves to us from the stairs next door and calls out, “You doing okay, Marnie? Settling in?”
“I’m doing fine, Lola!” I holler, and she says, “Come over sometime! I have stories to tell you!”
Jessica murmurs, “She and Blix—such a pair! Always out on the stoop talking to everybody who came by. Playing with the babies, inviting the old people to come sit with them. Blix knew everybody.”
It’s a beautiful day outside—warm for October first, Jessica says, and the sidewalk is filled with people: kids in soccer uniforms heading off to games, families with strollers, groups of young guys all wearing black clothing decorated in zippers, a man on the corner who seems to be lecturing a brick building, a guy setting out buckets of flowers in front of a little grocery store. Cars lurch along the streets, then come to screeching halts as people double-park and jump out to run into various shops, setting off spates of annoyed honking and swearing—and although everything that happens makes me jump, Jessica pays no attention to what’s going on.
I keep wanting to slow down and soak it all in, pause somewhere and just watch for a while, but Jessica is walking along, at a brisk thirty-miles-per-hour pace, cheerfully ranting about Sammy’s father, who cheated on her while they were married, and who is now living with that woman. And now the judge has said that Jessica is supposed to be sharing custody with him! Can I even imagine? She has to share weekend time every other week? The precious time she has to be alone with her own son, the time when they’re free from work and school responsibilities—and now she has to share that with her ex the scumbag, the guy she calls Creepasaurus?
“I know what you’re probably thinking, and you’re absolutely right: I should get over it already. He’s Sammy’s father, and Sammy needs to see him, but—and this is a big but—he lost some of his privileges when he betrayed me, and how can I get over that? Anyway!” She looks over at me, and I see that she is puffed up with anger, puffed up and beautiful in her outrage. “You’ve had some complicated stuff, too, I gather. All of Blix’s people have. I mean, you were with Noah, for starters.”