Matchmaking for Beginners

“Wait a minute,” I say. “I know what’s going on here.”

“And what is that?” He closes his eyes. “Not enough magic?”

“No. You are feeling again. You’re seeing there’s a bridge to healing, and you’re not sure you want to cross it. You might get hurt again. You can stay on the planet of My Lover Died in the Fire as long as you want, but eventually I think you’re going to want some company there. Because you survived the fire. And you can heal from this. I think—and I could be wrong about this, so don’t get mad—but I think you really can do art again.”

He’s staring at me. Now I have done it. I’ve gone too far. “Did you really say that? That I’m on the planet of My Lover Died in the Fire?”

“I believe I did.”

“Well, thank you very much for that image, but I’m not going to do art again. I’m going to planet Leave Me the Fuck Alone, Wyoming, and I’m going to walk along the plains by myself and watch television with my sister.”

“Um, giving up.”

“Call it whatever you like.”

“I do call it giving up, because, Patrick, I have this unshakable idea about you, which is based on knowing that when the worst thing that ever happened to you happened, you didn’t run away from it. You ran toward that fire. And that man isn’t going to get away with walking alone on the plains and watching television with his sister. You’re healing right now. Don’t you see that? This is probably like when those horrible burn wounds were healing, and they hurt like hell. This is what your spirit is doing right now, too. But then maybe things will get better, one angstrom unit at a time. You can get your life back.”

He turns off the water. “Shut the fuck up,” he says. But he is smiling in a weird way.

“I honestly think you do not want to give up.”

He closes his eyes then, like everything just hurts too much. I go over and take Blix’s journal and books and my letter out of the boxes, and then I seal them back up with the packing tape. And then I do the bravest/stupidest thing I’ve ever done, which is tell Patrick that I love him, and that no matter what he thinks, it’s not pity and it’s not any of those other lesser values. It’s love, love, love.

I even say it loudly: “Love, love, love.”

And he does not respond, because he is lost beyond my reach. He has traveled as far as he can go, and he didn’t get to where I’m standing.

I’ve watched enough dramatic movies to know that there’s nothing to be done. Taking off my clothes wouldn’t help, begging won’t help, even throwing plates or singing or starting to make out with him. Nothing I can think of will help. Not magic, not making him laugh, not feeding him a popover one morsel at a time.

So, while I still have one shred of pride left, I go home.

Because the wisdom that William Sullivan doesn’t know is the thing I remember best: When all is lost, the Law of Giving Up will save you every time. But it only works if you’re really, really giving up.

And I am.

Anne Tyrone calls me later that night and says she has somebody who wants to come look at the building tomorrow, and I say bring it on.

I have officially given up, and now Blix’s place will sell, and I will leave.



FORTY-SIX



MARNIE



Brooklyn, in a show-offy mood, has its first snowfall on the fifteenth. It starts snowing before the sun comes up, and by the time I get up, the world has turned white outside. Five inches have already fallen, and the schools are closed, much to Sammy’s delight. The mayor thinks that people should stay home if they possibly can, because this isn’t going to stop anytime soon.

“The mayor never says that!” Sammy tells me. “Well, maybe two times in my lifetime is all. Or three times. Maybe five. Or one. But it is a big deal. Trust me on that.” He is following me around the kitchen while his parents sleep. “I mean, we have snow days. Sometimes. Not often, but we have them. But a snow day when my mom and dad don’t have to work—that never happens. Hardly ever.”

“Sammy, do you think you’d like some oatmeal, or would you like pancakes?”

“Oooh, pancakes,” he says. “Can we really have pancakes? I never get pancakes on a weekday. That’s because there’s never enough time. I should call my mom to come over. She loves pancakes. I wonder why my parents are sleeping so late.”

“It’s not late. It’s only eight o’clock,” I say.

“Maybe I’ll go tell them we’re having a great breakfast over here.”

“No, let’s let them sleep,” I say.

“But why are they so tired?”

“I don’t know. But I have a firm belief in letting tired parents sleep. My own parents used to take naps sometimes. In the middle of the day. My sister and I had to leave them alone.”

“Well, you know what that probably was, don’t you?” he says.

“Do you like butter and syrup or butter and powdered sugar?” I say.

“They were doing their taxes, I bet,” he says. “My parents told me that they need a lot of peace and quiet to do their taxes. So when they would take naps in the middle of the day, that’s what they were doing.” Then his face breaks out in a big grin. “Can I tell you something? Promise you won’t tell anybody?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Two things, really. The first is that I know about sex,” he whispers. “My mom told me all about it.”

“Oh,” I say. I love Sammy’s non sequiturs, and I have decided to assume that this is simply one of those. “Well, then. What’s the second thing?”

“I heard my mom ask my dad if they should have a whole wedding when they get back together officially, or just go down to the courthouse and sign the papers.”

“Really! And what did he say?”

“He said he wants a wedding, and he wants me to walk with them down the aisle and have everybody there cheering for all of us. He wants me to hold both their hands.”

“That’s so nice,” I say. “Are you up for that? I bet you are.”

“I’m up for it,” he says.

I don’t tell him the secret that I know—that Jessica is already pregnant. There’s a baby coming in about eight and a half months. Yeah, she knew early. She’s one of those women who knows she’s conceived the moment she gets up from the bed, she told me. She’s keeping it from Sammy, she says, until she’s absolutely sure everything’s okay.

And I have another secret, too. Andrew’s already gone out and bought her a new ring. He says the old wedding ring might have to be put down, like a sick animal. It didn’t do its job so great.

The new ring is going to be one you can count on for life.

Will that work? What do I know? All I know is that sometimes miracles simply show up, and you have to take them at face value. What really happened is probably something that Jessica can’t put into words: she just made up her mind to love him again.

Maybe it was timing, or, in some weird way, it could have even been the waitress showing up at Thanksgiving. But I can’t rule out that it was the spell I did.

I wonder if Blix had these doubts. Or if she just cast the spells and asked for the miracles, and then sat back and welcomed anything that came. Maybe this is how the whole system works. You put the wish out there, and then it takes the entire universe operating on your behalf to get it to come true.

If Blix’s idea was to put Patrick and me together, though, she’s not done so well. I’m awaiting an offer on the house, and right now there’s a U-Haul truck parked out in front of the building that’s saying that sometimes things simply don’t work out.

Patrick is getting ready to leave.

Around one o’clock, Sammy and I are bored with playing checkers, doing puzzles, and baking cookies, and I can no longer stand to see that truck sitting there, so we take Bedford out to the park. It’s still snowing, but we bundle up. Jessica lends me her snow pants and a parka and a scarf. She’s decided she’ll stay home and do the lie-about-the-house-napping-and-gestating routine. Sammy gets his gear all together, his snow saucer and his mittens and hat and scarf. Winter requires so much stuff. I don’t know how these Northerners keep track of it all.

We walk over to Prospect Park with Bedford on his leash. He’s fascinated by snow. He wants to run around in circles and bark at the snowflakes. He’s really lost his little doggie mind, such as it is, and he’s dragging me along, trying to make me go into the street so he can chase more flakes. As for me, I may be just as bad. I can’t get over the way the snow feels landing on my nose and face. These are big, fat flakes, drifting down to earth looking like jagged pieces of lace, all clumped together. Soft and delicate, melting on impact.

“The world looks so different,” I keep exclaiming. “It’s like it got all cleaned up.”