Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 47

After they leave, the next man in line orders a gigantic bouquet. The cashier, who by now has chattily told me that her name is Dorothy and that she’s actually the owner of the shop, is trying to get his bouquet just right. He’s kind of grim faced and unhappy looking, with such a muddy aura. Then the woman in line behind him laughs and says to him, “Wow, dude! Tell me this: Are you in trouble at home, or are you just a fantastic person?”
I see Dorothy flinch a little, and the man looks down at his shoes and mumbles in a low, dreadful voice: “Not in trouble. My wife died of breast cancer two months ago, and every Friday I put a bouquet on her grave.”
There’s a horrible silence as he reaches over and takes the bouquet. Dorothy thanks him and squeezes his hand. Nobody knows where to look, and I don’t know who I feel sorrier for—the woman customer or him. She’s turned the color of wax paper, and she tries to say something to him, tries to apologize, but he roughly turns away, and walks out, head down, ignoring all of us.
“Whew,” somebody says. Dorothy mops her forehead.
“You didn’t know,” I say to the woman.
She puts her head in her hands. “Why am I always, always doing this kind of thing? I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house! What is wrong with me?”
“You didn’t mean any harm,” I say. “He knows that. He would have been nicer about the whole thing except that he’s a wreck just now.”
“That’s it. I am taking a vow of silence,” she tells me. Dorothy says, “Aw, you don’t have to do that. It’s all going to be okay. People gotta get through as best they can, you know?”
“Come over here and smell these gardenias,” I say. “They’ll change your brain chemistry.”
“They will?” the woman says, and I shrug. I really have no idea. I tell her they might. She laughs. As soon as she’s gone, along with all the other customers and their problems, Dorothy turns to me and says, “So when can you start?”
“Start what?”
“Working here. Can I get you to take a job here?”
“Well . . .” I look around. Really? Should I go to work? And then I know that I definitely should. I’ll get to come here every day and smell flowers and talk to people. “I’m afraid I really don’t know much about arranging flowers,” I say.
Dorothy shrugs. “Flowers, schmowers. I can teach you that. What I’m needing is a listen-to-the-story person. When can you start?”
“Well. Okay,” I tell her. “I could start tomorrow, I guess.”
She comes around the counter and hugs me. She has a slight limp, and straight gray hair pushed back off her face, and a sweet, sweet smile that transforms her tired eyes. “Come tomorrow at ten, okay? We can go over some things. I can’t pay a lot, but we’ll figure out something. Part-time okay?”
“Yes. Yes, part-time is great!”
I’m halfway down the block before I remember I need to tell her something critical—so I hurry back to the shop and call out to her.
“Dorothy! One thing: I’m moving away at the end of the year! So this is temporary. Is that okay?”
She comes out, holding on to a rose stem. “What? Oh! No, that doesn’t matter a bit,” she says. “Whatever.”
And that appears to be that. I’m employed.
I write to Patrick:
Studying Brooklyn today with Jessica as my teacher. Pizzas are pies! Metro is subway. Convenience store is a bodega. #whoknew
Youse are doing awesome. Watch out, or soon you’ll be saying fuggedaboutit.
Also I accidentally may have gotten a job in a flower shop.
I didn’t know people could accidentally turn into florists. Are you happy about this?
I think so. I also think I need to go do a bunch of New York things. Carnegie Hall, jazz clubs, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Broadway show, Times Square.
(Patrick shuddering involuntarily, can barely type) Report back. I’ll be cheering you on from the curmudgeon seats inside my dungeon.
You wouldn’t come?
Marnie? Hello? I thought I explained to you that I’m an introvert. #ugly #recluse #irredeemablymisanthropic
And what is there to say to that, except what I do say, which is:
Open your door when you get a chance. I’ve left you a present. A pitiful attempt to make up for your beautiful sculpture that I smashed. Though nothing ever can, I know.
Marnie, Marnie, Marnie. You didn’t have to do this. That sculpture was from another time. Another Patrick who doesn’t exist anymore. Not worth thinking about. You did me a favor. #outwithold
TWENTY-NINE
MARNIE
One evening, as I’m putting away the supper dishes and Noah is sitting at the table scrolling through his phone, he says, “I just want you to know that losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
I look out the window at the lights of Brooklyn. I can see right into other people’s apartments—see them gesturing; a man and woman are talking in one window; in another, a man is lifting a barbell high into the air. My stomach has dropped to my knees.
With difficulty, I manage to say, “Noah. Come off it. You don’t believe that even while you’re saying it.”
“I do believe it,” he says. “It’s true. And now some other guy has you. I lost out, and it was my own fault.” He shakes his head and smiles at me. “I’m just not husband material. Waaaay too fucked up.”
“Way,” I agree.
He says a whole bunch of things after that.
He says, forgive me for saying this, but I don’t think you are even remotely in love with the guy you’re seeing now.
He says, remember the time we woke up in the middle of the night and we were already having sex, but both of us had been sound asleep and we don’t know how it happened?
He says, this is kind of like a secret time in our lives. Time out of time. Together but apart.
“Not together,” I say with difficulty.
“Have you told your family I’m here?”
“Of course not.”
He smiles and comes over and takes the platter out of my hands and places it up on the shelf I was straining to reach. He’s Noah, so he doesn’t simply come over and take the platter—he kind of saunters over. And when he reaches for it, his hand brushes against me very, very slightly. And then after he puts the platter up where it belongs, he stays there, standing so close I can see the little dots of stubble of his beard, can feel his breathing as though it’s my own breath he’s taking. His eyes are on mine and I know from the expression on his face what’s going to happen next. He’s going to lean down and kiss me.
I brace myself against it. I think as hard as I can: no no no no.
Then to my surprise, he turns away and goes back to the table, where he picks up his phone, and giving me a short wave, he leaves the house. The front door bangs behind him.
I am shaking. I get a glass of water from the sink. A man in a window across the way is dancing. A man is dancing, and I am standing here drinking water, and somehow now I know that it is only a matter of time until Noah and I get to the kissing part.
I have never wanted anybody more in my life.
Jeremy calls me the next day on his way to work. I can tell I’m on speakerphone in his car, because I get to hear all the Jacksonville traffic—the whooshes of trucks going by and the snippets of other people’s radios as he passes them. I’m on my way to work, too, walking along Bedford Avenue to Best Buds, studying the people who are rushing past.
“Hey! How are you?” I say when I pick up.
As he always does, he plunges right into the list of things he’s done since the last time we talked. Went for a swim last night. Played checkers with his mom. Had pork chops for dinner. Went to bed early.
“How are the patients? Any good stories?”
“Well, Mrs. Brandon came in yesterday, and you know how it is. Poor thing, her sciatica is still bothering her, and she’s blaming the treatment, so I asked her if she’s taking the anti-inflammatory drugs, and she said she’s not because they hurt her stomach, and I said she should take probiotics at the same time, and she said she’d heard of those but never knew if they were safe.”