Matchmaking for Beginners
I wake up in the middle of the night, startled into sitting upright in bed, noticing my heart hurts.
The air feels sharp in the room, as though it has an unfamiliar smell. Like a candle has burned down somewhere. I want to awaken Jeremy, just for company. It’s so nice turning over at night to find somebody next to me in the bed again.
Yet I don’t wake him up. I lie there, longing for something I can’t quite name.
What woke me up?
Happiness. Happiness woke me up, but there’s something else. Something about life feeling so fragile. Something about love being the only thing that matters.
I go to the window and look out at the blackness of the night. There’s a shooting star and I watch it, unsure whether it’s really the trail of an airplane. But no, it’s a star. Blazing out, probably from millions of years ago. Isn’t that what they say? That when we look at the stars, we are seeing the past.
NINETEEN
MARNIE
The envelope is from the law firm of Brockman, Wyatt, and Sanford, and by the time it arrives at my parents’ house, it looks like it has been through the worst that the postal system has to offer.
I pick it up by its halfway torn and blackened corner and take it inside with the rest of the mail. It’s about a million degrees outside, and I’m excited because tonight Jeremy and I are going to talk about taking a vacation together, just the two of us. He says we should rent a red convertible and drive up the coast through Georgia, go to Savannah and up to Charleston.
And—well, there is some indication that Jeremy might propose. That’s what Natalie thinks, and just talking about it makes her so happy that I go along with it, even though I told her that it seems crazy somehow, even trashy, to have two marriage proposals in one year from two different men.
She said, “It’s not trashy if it means you’re getting your life on the right track. And anyway, it’s a great story you can tell the grandchildren when you and Jeremy are celebrating your golden wedding anniversary. The year you married two men. I think that’ll be a wonderful story.”
I walk into the kitchen, ripping open the envelope as I go, and then I hold the letter in one hand while I open the refrigerator to get the pitcher of iced tea and then get a glass out of the cupboard. The birds are chirping madly at the feeder—probably complaining about the heat—and I stop to watch them while I’m sipping my tea.
When I look down, Blix’s name jumps out at me.
“Dear Ms. MacGraw . . . I am writing to you because our law firm is representing the estate of Blix Marlene Holliday . . .”
Estate?
Blix is dead?
Oh my God. Blix is dead.
I sink down onto one of my mother’s kitchen chairs. I put the letter on the table and close my eyes for a moment, remembering the night of the wedding when she said that she was at the end of life, and I didn’t make her tell me what she meant. So long ago.
I have meant to keep in touch with her—honestly I have meant to—to tell her about Jeremy and that I’m living in Jacksonville now and that I’m going to be okay and to thank her for all the good wishes about the big life and all that . . . but, well, I’ve been terrible. So much has happened to me in such a short time, and I didn’t keep her filled in about any of it. But, really, why would I? She was Noah’s great-aunt, and yes, she was kind to me, but she belonged to him. And even as I’m saying this to myself, I know it’s just an excuse I’m making up because I feel so guilty. All this new life in Florida: Had she somehow known this would be where I would end up? And damn it, I never even knew that she was sick.
And now she is dead.
Shit.
I pick up the letter again and scan it quickly.
“Our client, Blix Holliday, recently deceased, has named you in her last will and testament as the owner of a property belonging to her, a house on Berkeley Place in Brooklyn, New York . . .”
I drop the letter.
Of course this is a mistake. It has to be. Surely Blix left it to Noah, and the post office forwarded it on to me because he’s in some forsaken place in Africa with no forwarding address . . . or maybe she left it to the two of us during the twenty minutes or so that we were husband and wife, and she never got around to changing her will and taking my name off.
But nope. I pick up the letter and read further. I am the sole owner of the house, according to Mr. Sanford.
Me, Ms. Marnie MacGraw.
Mr. Sanford urges me to come to Brooklyn as soon as I can. Right away would be nice since there are decisions I need to make.
Decisions.
He ends the letter with, “I know this may come as a surprise to you, Ms. MacGraw, which was exactly what my client wished. She spoke to me many times of her great hope that you would live in Brooklyn and take care of the house. Most recently, right before she died, she urged me to impress upon you the urgency of coming to Brooklyn immediately to review the terms of the will and to participate in the pending decisions that must be made. And she asked that I assure you that your expenses would be paid in full. She wishes for you to stay in the house while you are here making arrangements. Also, I am to tell you that there are tenants living in the house who are anxious to meet you. And if you knew Blix, who was a dear personal friend, you also know that she liked to do things a certain way, and have her wishes respected. Sincerely yours, Charles F. Sanford, Esq.”
Holy cow. I put the letter down and rub my head. Blix is summoning me. That time she invited me and I turned her down—now she’s insisting that I come, now that it’s too late. Too late to see her, that is.
But why? What does she want with me?
I can almost hear her voice: This is your adventure. Take it.
Is that it? An adventure right when I’m in no need of one? I look out the window. A dragonfly is dancing past the glass.
That evening, I hand the letter to Jeremy, who reads it once and then starts over and reads it again. He’s about to embark on a third reading when I take it out of his hands. He has such a disapproving expression on his face that I feel I should tuck Blix back into the safety of my purse, nestled up between my sunglasses and the little bag that holds my art supplies.
“So I take it you’re planning to go to Brooklyn for this,” he says in the flattest voice anybody ever used. Of course. He’s a practical person, and this makes no sense to anybody who didn’t know Blix.
“Well, yes. I’ve made a reservation for Friday.”
“Friday!”
He sighs. I know what he’s thinking: here we are, in our favorite diner, on an evening when we’re supposed to be talking convertibles and beaches and islands—and now we have to deal with this. Decisions that have nothing to do with us. A house that we also never thought about. And a trip. Tenants. Brooklyn. Freaking New York. Who cares about any of it? And . . . worst of all for him, I imagine, is the fact that the great-aunt of my ex-husband, a man whose name I am apparently not even allowed to say in front of Jeremy, has somehow stepped back into my life, even indirectly. It must feel to him as if Noah himself has just tossed a hand grenade into our relationship.
“But how do we know this isn’t a scam?” he says. “Maybe there are going to be legal problems. Complications. I mean, what are you really walking into? You didn’t know her.”
I stir my glass of iced tea. “It’s not a scam. And I did know her.”
“She didn’t even have your new address,” he points out. “How close could you have been?”
“That’s more my fault than hers. I haven’t kept in touch. I didn’t know she was actively dying or I would’ve. She left me this building as a good thing. A nice gesture. It’s not a punishment.”
He’s smiling. “Okay. Maybe I’m missing something, but I still don’t see why she wouldn’t leave her property to her family. Isn’t that what people do? No offense, but why give it to her grandnephew’s ex-wife?”
“Well, I think—well, I think she liked me.” I shrug.
He eats more of his hamburger and then pushes his plate away. “Also, we were planning such a fun trip. I thought you wanted to drive up the coast with me.”
“I do,” I say. “And we will when I get back. But first I have to go to Brooklyn and see about the building.” I finish off two of his French fries.
At the booth across from us, a man and woman are on a first date, and without even paying attention to what they’re saying, I almost feel the need to go over and tell them that they are perfect together. The air around their booth shimmers a little. I’m startled to realize that this is the first time in so long that I’ve noticed anybody falling in love, that I’ve seen sparkles.