The Matchmaker (4 page)

Dabney wondered if Clendenin Hughes knew she had married a celebrated and esteemed economist. She presumed he did. One could find out anything on the Internet now. Was Clen jealous? Of course, Clen had won a Pulitzer; Dabney had discovered this by reading the alumni notes in her high school newsletter. She had felt a surge of pride for him, followed by annoyance. She had thought
, For what he gave up, he’d
better
have won a Pulitzer!

She wanted to stop thinking about Clendenin Hughes.

“How was
your
week?” Box asked. “I take it you’re all aflutter for the weekend? Can you give me the rundown again?”

“Dinner tonight at the Club Car,” Dabney said. “I made the reservation for two, but we’ll have to bump it to four, since Agnes and CJ are here.” She paused, thinking about how Box and CJ would fight for the check. That was another thing about CJ: he always had to pay for everything, otherwise he became downright sullen
.
“Parade at noon tomorrow, and picnic at one.”

“Collapse in exhausted heap by five,” Box said.

Dabney said, “I have an appointment with Ted Field at nine o’clock Monday morning.”

“Really?” Box said. “Are you not well?”

Dabney stared at the perfect squares of white bread on the cutting board. Those squares were her life—or like her life had been until the e-mail arrived that morning. “Not well,” she confirmed. “I’m thinking maybe Lyme.”

Box said, “Have you been bitten by a tick?”

“Not that I know of,” Dabney said. The last time Dabney had walked in the moors was the preceding fall, with their dog, Henry. Just thinking of Henry made Dabney weepy.

“It’s not like you to get sick,” Box said. “I can’t even remember the last time you had a cold.”

“I know,” Dabney said. Her voice was filled with impending tears. It was also not like Dabney to get dramatic or emotional. She knew that doing so now was making Box uncomfortable.

“I would offer to stay on Monday,” Box said. “But…”

“You can’t,” Dabney said. Mondays at one, Box taught a seminar on Tobin to twelve handpicked seniors; it was his favorite class.

“I suppose I could ask Miranda to cover it,” Box said.

Ah, yes, Miranda. Thirty-five-year-old Australian economics prodigy Miranda Gilbert, with the naughty-librarian glasses and the enchanting accent. She had been Box’s teaching and research assistant for the past four years. Dabney had always been a little jealous of Miranda. But Box would never keep a secret from Dabney as she was now doing. She should just tell him: Clendenin Hughes would be arriving on Nantucket tomorrow. So what? To
not
tell him turned it into a bigger deal than it was. To not tell him made it seem like Dabney was affected by it.

Dabney was affected by it.

“How
is
Miranda?” Dabney asked.

“Miranda?” Box plucked a maraschino cherry from the jar and ate it, then grimaced. “She’s fine. Dr. Bartelby is getting ready to propose, I guess.”

Dr. Bartelby, Miranda’s boyfriend, was an internist at Mass General. Dr. Bartelby (whose Christian name was Christian) and Miranda had come to visit the Beeches on Nantucket the past three summers. “He
told
her he’s getting ready to propose? That takes all the fun out of it.”

“I’m not sure how it works these days,” Box said. “But I do believe Miranda is about to join the married ranks.”

A wave of dizziness overcame Dabney and she steadied herself against the counter.

“Are you all right?” Box asked. He put a hand on her lower back, but even that light touch hurt.

She had to make the ribbon sandwiches before the bread dried out. And the asparagus needed to be trimmed and roasted. Agnes and CJ would be home soon with the daffodils for the car. Decorating the Impala on Friday evening was one of Dabney’s favorite parts of the weekend. But all Dabney could do was stagger through the kitchen and into the library, where she collapsed on the sofa. Box covered her with an afghan crocheted by her beloved grammie, the first Agnes Bernadette. Dabney felt like she was going to die.

Forbearance: her ancestors had endured much worse, Dabney knew. Her great-great-great-grandmother, Dabney Margaret Wright, had come to Nantucket from Beacon Hill, leaving behind home, furnishings, and society. She and their three sons had moved into a house on Lily Street while Warren sailed off to hunt whales. He had been gone for eighteen months on his first trip, then home for six months—and he never returned from his second trip. Dabney Wright had made the best of a tragic situation: she joined the congregation of the Summer Street Church, and befriended other women who had been widowed by the sea. She had not complained, at least not in Dabney’s imagination. She had kept a stiff upper lip.

And Dabney, too, would persevere. After Dabney recovered from her spell, she assembled the ribbon sandwiches and wrapped them in wax paper. She roasted the asparagus. Agnes and CJ took charge of bedecking the Impala: a daffodil wreath on the grille and a blanket of daffodils laid across the wide trunk. Dabney showered and put on her navy and yellow Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. It was one of the dresses Patty Benson had left hanging in her closet when she abandoned her husband and daughter. Dabney didn’t attach sentimental value to things, or at least she didn’t in this case. She wore her mother’s dresses all the time because she liked them, and they fit.

Dabney tried to make a reasonable effort at dinner at the Club Car, despite the fact that she wished she were in bed with a bowl of soup and a Jane Austen novel. Instead, she ordered the lamb chops, as she always did, and Box selected an excellent Australian Shiraz to go with them. One sip of the wine set Dabney’s head spinning.

She said, “You know, Box was teaching at Harvard when I was a student there, but I never took one of his classes.”

Agnes stared at her mother. She had ordered the crab cake, but she hadn’t taken a single bite. “Yes, Mommy, we know.”

CJ smiled at Dabney. He was wearing a navy blazer and a sumptuously patterned Robert Graham shirt. Before they left the house, Box had admired CJ’s chocolate suede Gucci loafers and then said to Dabney, “You should get me a pair like that!” Dabney had to admit, CJ presented well, he smelled good, and he had a nice head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair and straight white teeth. Too white, like maybe he treated them. But that wasn’t a reason to dislike the man. CJ had ordered the lamb chops, medium rare, just like Dabney had, and this reminded Dabney of a time the autumn before when he had ordered exactly the same thing as she had. It was as if he was copying her in an attempt to be found agreeable.

CJ said, “If I remember correctly, you were an art history major? You wrote your thesis on Matisse?”

“We named our dog, Henry, after him,” Agnes said softly.

CJ,  who did not care for dogs (“too dirty”), didn’t respond to this. He said to Dabney, “You should go see the Matisse chapel in Nice.”

It wasn’t likely that Dabney would ever make it to France, but she gave him credit for trying.

“My favorite painting is
La Danse,
” Dabney said. “It’s at MOMA, but I’ve never seen it.”

CJ said, “The director at MOMA is a friend of mine. So if you ever decide to come to New York, I’ll set something up.”

Dabney drank her wine. She didn’t touch her lamb chops. She had absolutely no appetite.

She imagined Clendenin Hughes walking into the dining room of the Club Car, throwing Dabney over his shoulder, and carrying her out. Then she indulged in a moment of deep self-pity. She had lived a calm and peaceful existence, a happy and productive existence—until this morning.

She drank her wine.

Between dinner and dessert, champagne arrived at the table, and not just champagne but a bottle of Cristal. Dabney blinked. Both she and Agnes were fond of champagne, but it gave Box a headache, and, as wealthy as he was, he would never have spent three hundred dollars on a bottle of Cristal.

They all sat silently as the server uncorked the bottle and filled four flutes. Dabney was confused. She gave their server—a severe-looking woman in a white dinner jacket—a beseeching look, but the woman’s face was as implacable as a guard at Buckingham Palace.

Suddenly, CJ cleared his throat and stood up, raising his glass. “Agnes and I have an announcement to make.”

Oh no,
Dabney thought.
Nononononononono.

Agnes smiled shyly and raised her left hand so that Dabney could see the diamond—Tiffany cut, platinum setting, bright and sparkling perfection. Dabney urged happy excitement onto her face.

“Agnes has agreed to be my wife,” CJ said.

Dabney uttered a cry of horror, which they all mistook for delight. She alone was able to see the green fog emanating from Agnes and CJ like toxic radiation.

“How wonderful!” Dabney said.

Box stood to embrace Agnes and then CJ, and Dabney, realizing that this was an appropriate response, followed suit. She held Agnes’s hand—the same hand Agnes had pressed into clay as a kindergartner, the same hand Dabney had high-fived when Agnes had scored a 1400 on her SATs—and admired the ring.

“What a
beautiful
ring!” Dabney said. This, at least, was true. CJ had nailed the ring—simple, classic, timeless. The stone was enormous. Dabney guessed three carats, or nearly.

But the ghoul-green haze enveloping Agnes could only signify some future catastrophe—CJ would cheat on Agnes with one of the Giants cheerleaders, or an intern in his office. Or he would do something worse. Dabney wouldn’t wait to find out. She would, somehow, figure out a way to save her daughter.

On Saturday morning, Dabney felt even worse than usual, thanks to too much Shiraz, the cataclysmic news of “the engagement,” and Clen’s looming arrival. Despite this, she donned her usual Daffodil Parade clothes—yellow oxford shirt, jeans, navy blazer, penny loafers, and her beautiful straw Peter Beaton hat with the navy grosgrain ribbon. She had her clipboard, which listed the 120 entries for the Antique Car Parade. The sun was shining, the air was actually balmy; Dabney felt warm in her blazer and considered removing it, but she knew she would be chilly once she was riding out to Sconset in the Impala with the top down.

Main Street was a swarm of festive humanity. Everyone wore yellow and green to celebrate the three million daffodils blooming on Nantucket. There were children with daffodils painted on their faces and daffodils wound around the handlebars of their bikes. There were dogs with daffodil collars. Every single person seemed to want Dabney’s attention. In years past, she had handled this situation with grace and aplomb. She used to love knowing everyone and having everyone know her. She used to trade inside jokes with the town administrator and the garbage collector, the bookstore owner, the woman who owned the lingerie store, Andrea Kapenash, wife of the police chief, Mr. Berber, the fifth-grade teacher who had been Agnes’s favorite, a certain summer resident who sat on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, and a different summer resident who anchored the six o’clock news in Boston. This was a cross section of humanity who had one thing in common…they all loved Nantucket Island. But in this contest, Dabney was the undisputed frontrunner. She loved Nantucket more than anyone else had ever loved Nantucket. She knew her devotion was unusual, possibly even unhealthy, but on a day like today, it didn’t matter. Today she was among like-minded people.

Dabney chatted with everyone who crossed her path, but she felt like she was speaking in an automated voice, like the voice that played on the Chamber of Commerce voice mail when one called after business hours. Yes, it was magnificent about the weather, no, she couldn’t remember a nicer day, no, she couldn’t believe another year had passed, yes, she was ready for summer, she was always ready for summer. Good to see you, she said, but her words clinked like counterfeit coins. Could everyone tell? Dabney yearned to grab someone by the arm—even the channel 5 news anchor—and spill her guts.
I don’t feel well at all, there’s something wrong with me, Clendenin Hughes is coming back to Nantucket
today
, he might even be here as we speak, and my husband doesn’t know. My daughter announced last night that she is engaged to a man who seems like the Second Coming, but whom I alone know to be unsuitable. And there is nothing I can do or say. Here I am, Nantucket’s matchmaker, ostensibly a romance
expert,
and yet my life is unraveling. Nothing is as it should be.

Can you help? Can you help me?

Dabney bumped into Vaughan Oglethorpe, the Chamber board president, her
boss,
who stood out like a sore thumb in his black shirt, black tie, and black suit. Vaughan was the island’s only undertaker, and he could cast a pall over the sunniest of days. His hair was whiter than when Dabney had last seen him, and his nose more beaky; he was starting to resemble the national bird. He was as tall and lanky as ever, but more hunched in the shoulders; he looked like Lurch from
The Addams Family,
or like some other benevolent monster. Perfect for an undertaker.

“Dabney,” he said. The lugubrious voice, too, suited his profession. Vaughan had known Dabney her entire life—he had been an old beau of Dabney’s mother, Patty Benson—and he liked to take credit for all of Dabney’s successes on the job.

“Hello, Vaughan,” she said. “How do you like this weather?”

Vaughan stroked his bony chin, his expression dour. He smelled like embalming fluid; often when Dabney stood this close to him, she held her breath. She looked down at her loafers.

“What a turnout!” he boomed suddenly. “You’ve done it again, Dabney! Good work!”

“Thank you, sir,” Dabney said.

“No!” he shouted. “Great work!”

As usual, Box drove the Impala in the parade while Dabney rode shotgun. This smarted a little, as it did every year. The Impala was
Dabney’s
car; Box drove it exactly once a year, in this parade. Why didn’t Dabney drive and Box ride shotgun? This, after all, was Dabney’s festival. But Agnes and Nina Mobley and even Box himself thought it
looked
better if he drove. Dabney should be free to wave at the crowds like she was passing royalty.