The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (16 page)

“I thought you were taking care of it!”

“I'm not your mommy,” I say. Boy, he does not like that.

“If you were so sorry about what we did that night,” I go on, “you should have made sure it was undone. But you didn't. Probably because you were already on to the next wild Vegas fling. So perhaps you should get down off your high horse.”

“You don't know the first thing about me—” he starts, but I don't want to hear it.

“And you don't know me either, obviously, or you wouldn't have accused me of such nasty things. I am a nice person, and a decent human being, and I was just trying to do the right thing,” I announce. “And I demand to be treated with basic courtesy!”

And then to punctuate this, I throw the shreds of paperwork into the snow.

“Here's your same-day delivery, jerkface,” I tell him. I can regret the use of the term “jerkface” later. “You want a divorce? New policy: you'll have to be nice to me first.”

“The hell I will,” he says. “This isn't a team decision. I am not going to stay married to you, no matter what you think.”

“Aren't you?” I say. “Because I asked Siri in my car, and she says there's a ninety-day waiting period for a divorce in the great state of Wisconsin. So unless you want to enjoy my wifely company from now until the spring thaw, you better change your tune really quickly. I'm not going anywhere until you do.”

“Jesus Christ.” Ben Hutchinson turns away from me for a moment, lets out a few choice words, and then turns back. “Of
course
I married a total lunatic,” he says. “Of course. A city full of desperate women, and I get stuck with the one who is batshit crazy.”

This stings on so many levels. First, I'm not crazy. I'm being a little crazy right now, but it's a justified kind of crazy. A long overdue kind of crazy. And second, he didn't get stuck with me that night. He picked me up. He wooed me. He is the one who suggested we get married “just to see what it would be like.” And thirdly, I was not desperate. Outwardly.

“Okay, then, if that's how you want it,” I say, and I summon my inner bitch—that voice that has always been there, shouting at me, saying, “Lily, it is not okay that your best friend stole your boyfriend! Lily, you should not have to be the maid of honor in their wedding! Lily, you must make Mitchell explain your sales statement to you! Lily, don't let some strange man from Nowhere, Wisconsin, push you around!” I summon her, and let her take over, at last, after choking her down for so very, very long. She is more than ready.

“I wonder how these extra months we stay married will affect my alimony payments?” I muse. “Of course, I had no intention of asking you for a penny when I first arrived, but I feel myself growing less and less reasonable by the second. I suppose you can talk to your five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer about that. Take your time. As you so rudely pointed out the other night, I have nowhere to be.”

“OH MY GOD,” he says. It is only now that I realize he's not holding a hammer, but a hatchet. He must have been out here splitting wood for his stove. It makes me like him even less. If he's so rich, why can't he afford a stupid furnace like everybody else? “What do you want from me?” he demands.

“Just like I said. Some courtesy. A kind word. A polite gesture.”

“I—I can't.” He shakes his head violently. “I can't pretend to be nice to you,” he says. “Right now I can barely look at you, I'm so mad.” He clenches one fist, starts toward me, stops himself. “You're extorting me!”

“No, I am
threatening
to extort you. The extorting hasn't started yet. First I'm giving you a chance to get off with a smile and a friendly apology.”

“I'd rather kiss a cobra.” A tiny piece of Real Me pops up, speaks into my inner bitch's ear. It says:
This isn't right, Lily. Time to back down.

I ignore it. “Suit yourself,” I say, but I am backing away from him just a bit, telling myself it's about the axe he's wielding and not the guilt creeping in. “I'll be staying at the inn if you change your mind.”

“Go right ahead. I'm calling your bluff. I'd rather stay married to you for the rest of my life than have to pretend you deserve a shred of my respect.”

“Okedoke. Do you mind if I call you Hubby? You strike me as a ‘Hubby' type.”

“Get off my property,” he replies.

“Oh, you mean
our
property? Surely you know that Wisconsin is a marital property state.”

He takes a menacing step closer. “If you so much as—”

“I'm leaving,” I say. “What would I want with this falling-down dump? Just know this: I have been walked all over for my entire life, and treated the way you have treated me by way too many people. And it stops today. Someone has to pay the price. Guess who that somebody is?”

“I'm going to lose my temper,” he tells me.

“Oh, so this up till now, this has been you staying calm?” I say. He growls a little. I remember the hatchet. “Fine. I'm going. If you reconsider and decide to talk to me like someone worthy of your notice, you know where to find me. At the only hotel in town. The Minnow Bay Inn.” I get back in the car, start it up, buckle in. As I do, I watch Ben Hutchinson throw down his hatchet in the snow with fury, and hear him let out a string of words that would make a lumberjack blush. He is mad. Mad, mad, mad. I have never, in my entire life, purposefully, intentionally, made someone mad before.

I've gone too far,
I think as I pull out. And then,
I'm so incredibly proud of myself.

*   *   *

Jenny and Colleen listen to the retelling of this story with the same expression on their faces as I must have had as I drove away. Agog. That's the only word. We are all three of us agog.

“Holy gumballs,” says Colleen.

“You called him a jerkface?” says Jenny. And then, “Who wants more wine?”

We are sitting in Jenny's gallery, lounging around on the collection of low midcentury sling chairs that are scattered around the middle of the room. Around us on white partitions and walls, I see my works, but also several beautiful other collections. Some artists I recognize. Some are brand-new to me. All of them I would hang in my home, if the price tags didn't make my hair curl.

“A jerkface,” I say, nodding. “I don't know. I was in the moment.”

“Obviously,” Jenny says. “I don't know what to say. I'm so…”

“Horrified,” supplies Colleen. “You can't force someone to stay married to you.”

“Obviously not,” I say. “I know that. I just, after I heard about the paintings, and Mitchell, I snapped. I felt like I had to take a stand somewhere. And Ben Hutchinson is the person I stood on.”

“Well,” says Jenny. “That's crazy.”

I nod, a little regretful, a little ashamed. To my left there are three severe portraits of stern-faced Scandinavian women painted with raw strokes and ashen colors. They look down at me reproachfully.

“But,” Jenny continues, “I will say that Ben was incredibly rude to you, and you're right, you deserve better. And he can do better. I know you don't know him that well, but I think he's a great guy. Just incredibly, um…”

“Isolated,” says Colleen.

“Like a hermit,” finishes Jenny. “He came here under some really mysterious circumstances, about five years ago, and he just … stayed. Bought that rundown cabin on Lemon Lake, the abandoned clubhouse from an old dilapidated lake resort, and has been living in it like a squatter this whole time. I don't think it even has central heating.”

“He's been in that house for five years?” I exclaim. I had figured he'd just bought it. How, I wonder, has he not frozen alive in there over four previous winters?

“Give or take. The whole thing was weird. I mean, town gossip has it he could afford a mansion on its own lake, but instead he buys a shack that everyone in the zip code was praying would be knocked down. Can you blame them? It's not even up to code for winter dwelling. I think he has been blowing insulation in retroactively, one wall at a time.”

“I think you're right about the heating,” I say. “He was out splitting wood when I showed up.”

“Ooh. I think if I were in your shoes I would have just tried to make out with him,” says Colleen.

“He's really hot,” I say in agreement. “It is what it is. But he was really mean.”

“You should give him a chance,” Colleen says. “He's a very nice guy, deep down.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing,” I say. Jenny raises her eyebrows in silent dispute. “Well, after a fashion, I am.”

“I think he'd be more apt to come around if he had the annulment papers in his hands,” Jenny says.

“He'll have them soon enough,” I say. “I can only sustain this hard-ass thing for like, ten minutes at a time. If he shows up and says he's sorry I will sign whatever in a flash.”

“But what about giving him a chance, chance?” Colleen asks. “Obviously he's attracted to you, right? Because he married you once upon a time. Maybe he's been alone too long. Just needs a reminder of how to treat a woman.”

I laugh. “Oh, absolutely not. First of all, I still have the satisfaction of dumping Mitchell ahead of me,” I say. Because I want it to be true. Want to be the kind of person who will enjoy putting Mitchell in his place. But I think of how I feel right now, after doing the same with Ben. Lousy. It's just not my style. “Secondly, I am not going out with a guy who accused me of trying to rob him. Even if he didn't want to hack me to bits with his hatchet, which he does.”

Jenny laughs. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I would have done the same thing in your shoes. I mean, look at that guy. He's great looking, smart as hell, and rich as an oil baron. If I had a chance to be married to someone like that, I'm not sure I would give it up too easily either.”

“That's not what this is about,” I say. “Not money or brains or looks. It's about respect.”

“Maybe he'll claim his marital rights,” says Jenny, ignoring me altogether.

“Ooooh,” says Colleen. “How fun would that be?”

“You two have been in northern Wisconsin too long,” I laugh.

Jenny nods emphatically. “She's right on that front,” she says to Colleen. “We need more single people up in this town.”

“Ones who live in heated homes, preferably,” Colleen replies. “Who aren't married to complete strangers.”

Jenny nods again. “Plus there's the Hutchinson factor.”

“The Hutchinson factor?” I say.

“Oh, yes,” says Jenny. “Ben Hutchinson is one of five Hutchinson boys, sons of Hutch Hutchinson, who is one of four boys himself, and then going through the branches of the family tree you get six more Hutchinson boy cousins, and a couple of second cousins too, and a few nephews even.”

“Whoa,” I say.

“Yep. Not one girl with the maiden name Hutchinson in this entire county. The word is that the Hutchinson X chromosomes don't swim. Only the Y sperm get through the gauntlet, and it perpetuates, down the line, fathers to sons to grandsons. For some reason, Ben's mom wouldn't believe it, kept trying for a girl, to the point that their fourth son is named, but not called under threat of instant death, Dana.”

“Don't ever call him Dana,” echoes Colleen, shaking her head.

“Let's see,” says Jenny. “It's big brother Drew, then Ben, who is from Coll's and my class at Minnow Bay High, Connor, three years younger, Dana, the baby of the family, and Erick, the oops. We all just call Dana Doc.”

“He's a doctor?”

“Yes, but probably only went to med school because we were all calling him Doc already.”

I laugh. “And they all still live in Minnow Bay?”

“All but Connor, and he's not far off,” says Colleen. “Which is surprising, because a couple of them seemed like goners for sure. In high school we knew Ben was stupid smart, and when he left a year early to get a leg up at MIT, we thought he was lost to us forever. But then he came back. Tall and strapping and fully grown with some kind of legendary Tech God status, and his serious hermit tendencies. Probably that was no small part of why he came back. Well, that and Erick.”

“Erick?” I ask.

“The littlest Hutchinson, Erick, has always been, well, wayward,” says Colleen.

“She's being tactful,” interrupts Jenny. “Erick's several years younger than the other guys, a surprise long after Hutch had pulled the plug on trying for a girl. As the story goes, Mrs. Hutchinson got a gender determination ultrasound with Erick, and from then on he gestated in her disappointment. I'm not sure that's the real issue. I think the real issue is he's kind of a dick. He dated a friend of mine and left her brokenhearted. That's neither here nor there.”

“So the entire population of single men in Minnow Bay are Hutchinson boys?” I ask.

“Exactly,” says Jenny. “And the thing is, if you date one Hutchinson, the rest of them are off-limits forever. They are draconian about it.”

“So you see, Lily,” says Colleen, “Ben's all yours if you want him.”

“Thanks, but I don't want him. I want to prove to myself that I can stand up for myself. If I can do this with a near stranger, then maybe I'll start trying it in my real life back home.”

“Makes sense. Sort of.” Jenny says charitably. “Anyway, it's fun to hear about. And we will be hearing about it quite a bit, I'm willing to bet. This town doesn't get a lot of good gossip-worthy marital stand-offs.”

“I'm not going to be the one to tell,” I say.

“You won't have to be,” Jenny replies. “Ben will tell Drew. He lives on the other side of Lemon Lake, just fifteen minutes away on snowshoes. Drew will tell Hutch ten seconds later. Hutch will tell the world. I estimate it will take about … thirty-two seconds before Simone Wajakowski bursts into hysterical tears over at the café.”