Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 44

“And they’d do just about anything,” she says. “That was the thing that struck me the most. Never thought of how old they were, or if they were sick. They had all the usual aches and pains, and Blix, as it turned out, had that tumor. And yet she’s out there in the ocean, skinny-dipping, even in her eighties! Traveling all over. Then there was the year she taught herself the harmonica and she’d go to bars and play it. To bars! Right there with the young people, the hipsters, like she was one of them. And it wasn’t like she was just pulling some cute old-lady routine. She fixed them up with their partners and gave them advice and dragged them home with her. Bought them presents. And Houndy—oh, that Houndy—he gave out lobsters like they were nothing more than old rocks he’d happened to find on the beach.”
“I’d love to be like that.”
She puts her hands in her lap and looks wistfully at me. “You know, when you watch people like that live, you start to realize that the rest of us are just counting off the days until we die. They were the experts at life.”
I slice a paisley shape into the center of my pumpkin. “She rescued me at Noah’s parents’ house at Christmas. I made kind of an idiot of myself, and she just swooped in and made everything all right for me. Got me laughing. Telling me outrageous stories, making me laugh.”
Lola’s face scrunches up while she works on the eyes for her pumpkin. She does standard-issue jack-o’-lantern triangle eyes. “Oh, yes! I heard all about that. She was so excited when she came back. She was just stunned to find you. She told me how you reminded her so much of herself at your age.” She tilts her head at me like she’s trying to see if I’m anything like Blix, which I know I’m not. “I think she came home full of ideas about you.”
“But look at me, Lola! You can see that I am nothing like her! Nothing! She got it all wrong about me. I’m the least . . . able person that I know. I’m not even brave. Not the tiniest bit brave.” I fling my arm out and knock over my cup of tea, and have to run to the sink for a sponge to wipe it all up.
Lola moves the newspapers aside and says, “None of that matters to Blix. I’m her best friend, but she’s miles ahead of me. For God’s sake, I was a secretary for the board of education for forty-two years, a place Blix wouldn’t have put up with for one red-hot minute. And”—she lowers her voice and leans toward me—“you know how many men I’ve slept with in my life? Exactly one! The man I was married to for forty-seven years—a trustee for the railroad. I didn’t dance in the streets. I didn’t go skinny-dipping, and if I had, believe me, the cops would have showed up and hauled me away. We just have to trust what Blix sees in us, maybe.” Then her expression changes. “Also, aren’t you a matchmaker? She told me you’re a matchmaker.”
“I don’t know. Am I? I mean, sometimes I do sort of see when people should be together. But it’s not—I don’t really know how to make it happen, you know. I just know that it should happen.”
Lola is smiling. “I think one of the things you might want to be prepared for is that you’re not going to get to stay ordinary. She said you have a big life ahead of you.”
I grimace. “Yeah, she told me that, too. But I’m afraid there are things she didn’t know about me. I mean, I’m appreciative and all about getting the house, but I can’t stay here,” I say to her. “I’ve gotten involved with my old high school boyfriend. I’m actually scheduled to get married when I go back home. He’s a physical therapist with a practice in Florida, and we’ve got this whole life that we’re planning on. Blix didn’t know that was happening, you see . . .”
Lola is still smiling her unwavering smile and nodding up and down like nothing I’m saying makes one bit of difference.
“By the way,” she says, as if she’s just been told to say this. “Have you met Patrick? You kind of need to go see Patrick.”
I would like to meet Patrick, but Patrick famously does not come outside. So the next day I bake some cookies and go downstairs and knock on his door.
Forever passes and there is only silence from inside. Finally I type to him:
Hey, Patrick! You around? I’m on your steps. With cookies.
Enticing. But I’m not my best self today, as Oprah would say.
Did I mention that they are CHOCOLATE CHIP cookies? And that I made them with my bare hands?
Marnie . . .
And they’re HOT and JUST OUT OF THE OVEN.
Marnie, has anyone explained to you that I am hideously ugly? Disfigured and curmudgeonly and introvertish and possibly malodorous. Hard to know since it’s just me and the cat down here, but one of us is definitely NOT FRESH.
Patrick, has anyone explained to YOU that chocolate chip cookies transcend all that and more?
All right. I am opening the door. But you have been warned. Also, spoiler alert: I am much better in texts than I am in person. So adjust your expectations accordingly.
And then there he is. He’s slightly built, with a black Mets hoodie on—with the hood up, even in the house—and sweatpants. His face is partially obscured by the hood, but I can see blue eyes. Some scars. Dark hair.
“Hi,” I say. “Cookies.” I hold out the platter.
“Hi, cookies,” he says. “Patrick.”
Then we stand there. Finally he says, “Oh, I’m guessing you want to come in, even though I am doing everything I can to make you feel unwelcome.”
“Well . . .” I laugh a little bit. “Um, I thought I would. I mean, if it’s okay. I don’t have to stay long.”
“Sure. Enter the palace. You do now own this place, I believe.” Before I can protest that I’m not there as the building owner, he steps aside with a flourish, and I go into a little tiled hallway that leads into his living room, which smells amazing—like cinnamon and sugar and apples.
The place looks more like a computer library than a home. Along one wall is a plywood desk that has three computer monitors blinking away, with various keyboards and a desk chair on wheels. The monitors all have lines and lines of writing on them. Across the room, over an expanse of tan carpeting, is a black leather couch with some books and magazines piled at right angles. And a coffee table. There are pole lamps and intriguing sculptures everywhere.
“You have such amazing artwork!” I say idiotically. “And so many computers!”
“Yep. I work at home so I don’t have to inflict myself on the American citizenry. It’s a public service I perform, and it seems to require electronics. The sculptures are from a previous life.”
I turn and look at him. Even with his hood up, I can see that he’s smiling—and yes, it’s a crooked, damaged smile in a face with a ruined nose. He looks craggy and roughed up. I feel myself take in a deep breath, which might have sounded to him like a gasp, but which wasn’t that at all.
“Oh! What kind of work do you do?” I say. My voice sounds fake even to myself, probably because I am worried that he thinks I was shocked by his appearance, when I was not. I was just taking a breath, but how do I explain that to him without sounding like it’s a lie? I look at him helplessly, hoping he’ll rescue me.
He looks right at me, and he lets the awkwardness be there in the room with us before he answers. “Actually, I scare people by telling them what disease they probably have, based on their symptoms. Like, if you go to the website and type in that your back hurts, I’m the guy who asks you to click on further symptoms until eventually I tell you that you might have back cancer or that your kidneys are exploding.”
“Actually, this is amazing because I may be one of your best customers,” I say. “I’m often up in the middle of the night reading about brain tumors and stuff.”
“Thanks,” he says. “It’s good that I’m here to help you with your light reading.” He lets out a sigh, and I worry that I am boring him. Really, this is so difficult, and I so want him to like me. “And you?” he says politely. “Blix told me that you’re something of a matchmaker.”
“Oh my God. Has she told everyone that I’m a matchmaker? I am so not a matchmaker.”