Matchmaking for Beginners

“That can’t be what it’s like!” I say. “And don’t you really think that if it is, both Walter and William Sullivan will be evolved enough to want to know that you can sit with both of them at the same table in the afterlife—you and everybody else they ever loved? I think that’s what the afterlife is going to be all about—that’s when we’re finally going to understand all the love stuff that confuses us now. It’s going to be magnificent, all the Walters and Williams and Lolas and Blixes and Houndys all together!”

I look over at her: all the color has left her face, and in a low, panicky voice, she says, “Marnie. Oh, no! I can’t breathe so well, and my heart is . . .”

And then, almost in slow motion, she falls right over.

Patrick takes one look at her and says she has to go to the hospital.

By the time he gets upstairs, of course, she’s come to, and is even arguing about things. She wants to go home and get in bed.

But he’s not having it.

She needs to go to the hospital, he says. Find out what’s going on.

“What could it be?” she says in a wavery voice. She looks so nervous, it’s like she’s a little child dressed in a grandma costume, perhaps to be in a play.

“Well,” he says, “it could be nothing, or it could be you drank too much coffee, or it could be . . . something they’ll want to help you with.” He’s already calling 911.

Our eyes meet, and he smiles at me. She makes little murmuring sounds of distress.

“Marnie, are you going with her to the hospital, do you think?”

“Of course,” I say. I know that Patrick can’t go. He’d have a meltdown in a medical place, among strangers. He mouths the words “Thank you” and then he’s talking to the dispatcher.

While he’s on the phone, she gives me specific directions for what items she needs, and I go next door and get her pocketbook and her warm jacket, both of which just happen to be in her bedroom. No clothing because she won’t be staying—she’s positive of that.

I love how her house is dark and cool and filled with large pieces of old-people upholstered furniture, grandparent furniture. It’s like a cave in here, with the shades all pulled down. There are tons of pictures of her and Walter and their two boys set out on every surface and hanging on the walls—Lola with red, fluffy hair cut in layers like petals, and Walter a slim, handsome man with laughing eyes. The boys look just like boys of any era: crew-cutted and freckled, wearing striped Tshirts, grinning at the camera, and then turning into handsome teenagers and finally bridegrooms—and then there are snapshots of them with their families. Far away.

There’s a framed portrait of Walter next to her bed, and I pick it up and look at his aquiline nose, his blue eyes. “Walter,” I tell him. “You old rascal, you know as well as I do that you’ve got to give her a sign you release her, don’t you? You and I both know she needs the love and care of your old friend now.”

When I turn, I notice the little gold sparkles are back, showing up tentatively around the curtains, like little fireflies at dusk.

I’m no maga, but it does seem to be kind of a coincidence that all those sparkles showed up right when we were getting to the heart of love in the afterlife.

I come home from the hospital that evening to find a dog on the stairs—or rather, the stoop. He’s lying there at the top, and when I reach him, he stands up and wags his tail and licks my hand, like I’m his owner and he’s been told to stay there until I return, and now his whole body is vibrating and saying, AT LAST YOU ARE HERE! HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY TO FIND YOU AT LAST, YOU WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, KIND, ELEGANT CREATURE OF LOVE AND BY THE WAY DO YOU KNOW HOW TO OPERATE A CAN OPENER?

“No,” I tell him. “I am not looking for a dog. I am moving back to Florida in another two months, and I can’t take you with me.”

He looks away and then looks back at me. I search through my purse for my keys, glancing over at Lola’s dark house. The hospital is keeping her for a few days, so tomorrow morning I’m to take her a change of clothes, a decent nightgown, and some toiletries. She’ll be fine for tonight, she told me in a quavery voice that had a distinct “not fine” undertone. Still, she is being brave. She has a room overlooking the river, and a roommate who likes the same television programs as she does. I sat in a chair next to her and didn’t leave until they made me.

The dog makes a little sound and licks my hand with his soft, pink tongue.

I stare at him helplessly. I know exactly nothing about dogs except that they are dirty and they like to eat things, particularly human shoes. This one is a medium-sized brown-and-white one with floppy ears and big brown eyes, and when I open the front door, he bounds inside like he knows where the bones are hidden.

He hasn’t been here for five minutes when some switch in his doggie brain gets activated, and suddenly he’s dashing through the rooms, racing around in circles, leaping up on the couch and off again, zooming up the stairs, then down again, zigzagging through the bedrooms, and back into the living room. I can do nothing but stand by in amazement, leaping out of his way when necessary, and then finally laughing so hard I have to run to the bathroom.

Later, because he seems hungry, I go over to Paco’s and buy some dog food and ask if anybody might know who he belongs to.

“A brown-and-white dog with floppy ears? I think he’s your dog,” says Paco with a laugh. “At least now he is. No, seriously. He’s a stray. He hang around here sometimes and then go somewhere else for a while, but he always show up again.”

Great. So he’s a freelance dog. Available on the open market. Everybody in the store has advice for how much to feed him and how to check him for fleas and ticks, and then in the back, it turns out, Paco has shelves with dog collars and one leash, so I buy those, too. As well as a water dish and a food dish. A brush to brush him with. Just because.

“And I’d give that boy a bath before you let him up on the furniture,” says a woman who’s carrying a fat, smiling, drooling baby.

So when I get home, even though I’m exhausted, I fill up the bathtub with warm water and put towels down all across the bathroom floor. I get out my bottle of shampoo and go out in the hallway and say, “Here boy, here boy!” and Mr. Floppy Ears comes crashing around the corner and into the bathroom, where I scoop him up and try to lower him into the tub. He is having none of it. You would think I’d decided to drown him by the way he thrashes around and tries to use my body to help himself climb back out.

“It’s okay . . . it’s okay . . . ,” I keep saying, but he is all wild-eyed, panting, and scrambling now to get out of the tub, churning up the water until I’m hit with a tidal wave so huge that even as it’s soaking me, I’m laughing. This doggie, this bath—both are such antidotes to the earnest, businesslike, life-saving hospital with all its protocols and forms, all the danger lurking right around the next doorway.

“Okay! Okay! You gotta stop with this!” I say to him, and then clamber into the tub with him, still wearing my jeans and sweater, and he settles right down, as if even he is amazed at such craziness. He stands still then while I lather him up and scratch his ears, and he’s panting and I’m trying not to get soap in his eyes and scare him even further. Then he gives me his paw, almost like an offering. A handshake of thanks.

That’s how Noah finds us when he opens the bathroom door—both of us in the tub, covered in soapsuds, the dog with his head propped on the side of the tub, looking contented.

“What the hell?” Noah says. “What is this?”

“This is my new dog. I think I’m going to name him Bedford. It’s my favorite avenue, I’ve decided.”

“Wait. You bought a dog?”

“No and yes. I didn’t buy him. He picked me, as it turns out. He was on the stoop when I got home. Waiting for me. And I do have a favorite avenue. Bedford is everything Driggs Avenue wishes it could be.”

“Oh my God. Who are you, really? I don’t even know you anymore.”

“I’m me. And I’m giving him a bath so he can sleep on the bed. A lady at Paco’s said I had to.”

“I’m sorry, but that mutt is not sleeping with me in any bed.”

I smile at him. Because that’s just fine with me. I had already decided today that I am going to try not to sleep with Noah Spinnaker anymore. After he closes the bathroom door, I write my vow in soap on the tile. Not that it shows, but I know it’s there.

“Bedford,” I say, scratching him under the wet chin. “Already you are solving so many problems, boy!”

The next day is Halloween, and when I go to the hospital to visit Lola, I take her some candy corn as well as some clothes to wear. She looks dried out from the hospital air and exhausted from all the tests, but she says she’s feeling better. They keep poking her with needles, she says. She misses her houseplants and her pictures of Walter. I tell her that I’ve somehow acquired a dog, and she says, “See? Your attraction quotient is at work! You’ve now manifested a dog for yourself.”

“I need to figure out how to manifest you some good health so we can spring you from this joint,” I say, and she sinks back among the pillows and says, “Oh, would you, darling? Let’s forget about love for me and just get me some good health.”

“Maybe both,” I say.