The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (25 page)

“What can I say?” replies Jenny. “She's my oldest, dearest friend. I can't seem to leave her alone.”

I think of the way I pester Renee. Ask her nosy questions all the time. Refuse to go away though she shows absolutely no signs of wanting me around. I nod in understanding. “She thinks you don't get it.”

“I don't get it. But you didn't answer, good news or bad?”

“Bad.”

Jenny swears for about two straight minutes.

“It doesn't seem fair,” I say, when she's wrapped up her tirade with a final drawn-out F-word.

“It's not fair,” she says. “She's already shelled out a fortune on this nonsense. Do you know how much good sperm costs these days?”

I cough politely. “No idea.”

“A lot.”

I think once more of the closet full of baby stuff in Colleen's apartment. I didn't know what it was when I first saw it but now I know: it is an accumulation of hope. “How long has she been at this?”

“Two years. She told me about it in the beginning, but then said she changed her mind. Big fat liar. I didn't believe her for a second. And even if I did, I see her almost every day. And once a month I see her brokenhearted.”

“Huh. Once a month for two straight years,” I say, thinking of the disappointments stacking up. Does she test every month on one of those pee sticks? Wait to get her period? Take her temperature daily, three times a day, to find out when she's ovulating? Rush into a clinic when she's ready? How does this process work? How does she find out when it doesn't?

I remember my one and only pregnancy scare, back in college, back with Nic. Of course, I was so into him then, it wasn't really a scare. It was more like a global shift in thinking, a three-minute wait time, and then a resumption of my original way of thinking. First comes love, then comes marriage.

Except not for Colleen. She already had her global shift in thinking, two years ago, and stuck with it.

And what now? Does she stay in her apartment all day crying once a month? Put in a tampon, pull up her pants, and give herself a pep talk? Scream in anger and throw the test across the room?

“It doesn't seem fair,” I say again.

“Right?” says Jenny. “It's utter bullshit. And for what? She should have gotten a dog.”

I smile sadly. “I can't imagine why she stopped filling you in,” I say lightly.

“Shit, you're right,” she says, contrite. “I've got to do better. Pity party tonight? My place?”

I want to do that more than anything, but I'm supposed to be heading to Chicago in an hour. To talk to Mitchell about his sudden grand apartment plans. But do I really want to know what they are? Maybe it would be better for us to live apart, like he said before. Maybe he needs some time to think this through.

Besides, he doesn't really want to see me on a Tuesday night. He wants to finish reading
TIME
magazine with a glass of high-end brandy and delivery sushi. Ugh, do I even still like this person? I have nothing kind to say about him lately.

But. The museum exhibition. The misunderstandings. The offer to live together. The ugly fact that after two years of dating this man with little to no emotional reward, this is the absolutely one hundred percent wrong time to decide to kick him to the curb. In fact, this is the first time in a long time he's shown much of an interest.

Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.

In which case, no reason to discontinue the absence prematurely.

“I'm in,” I say. “If she's up for it. One more night in Minnow Bay before I blow this pop stand.”

Jenny laughs. Honestly. “We'll see,” she says. “I like what you're working on in the studio. Why don't you finish that up before you head out.”

I shake my head though she can't see it. “No offense, Jenny, but I know you're full of it. There's nothing to like. It's just a blue canvas.” If only that were true. If only it weren't the manifestation of the first creative spark I've had in months.

“Maybe,” she says cryptically. “Maybe it represents something much bigger.”

She can't know, I think. I haven't breathed a word to anyone about my block. Ah. Anyone but Simone. Asked and answered.

“It's just a blue canvas,” I say again, knowing now that she knows I'm lying. “But I would like to keep pursuing it. Do you mind if I borrow some more studio hours later today?”

“Not at all. I'll have a key made for you and put it under your door at the inn.”

“Thank you,” I say. I am starting to understand what that blue sky is all about, and itching to get it on paper.

“Of course. Let her sleep as long as you can, okay?” says Jenny.

I look at the GPS mounted on Colleen's truck dash. I'm five miles from Minnow Bay now. To the north, if I turn now, I can sightsee around the local chain of lakes. Moose Lake, Lake Orion, Lake Norma, Apple Pie Lake. The names alone are irresistible.

I have my Canon in the backseat just in case. Maybe I'll see something. Something I want to paint.

“Okay,” I tell her.

“Take care of my best friend, will ya?”

“I promise. But Jenny?”

“Hm?”

“I have to leave in the morning.”

“I know. First thing tomorrow. Without a doubt.”

 

Fifteen

 

The next morning starts with a mild hangover and a honking horn.

The first is all Jenny's fault. The second, Colleen's.

I hear banging on my door about sixty seconds after the honking starts, and when I open up, wrapped in my quilt, feet going to ice in the cold morning air, Colleen is standing there in flannel plaid jammies looking just as disheveled as I feel. “I'm so sorry! I totally forgot to tell you that Ben is taking you to the mechanic this morning.”

I raise my chin at her, ready to complain, but before I lay in, I notice her eyes, as muddy as mine must be from too much wine, plus reddened by tears. “Okay,” I say. “Tell him I'll be right down.”

“Hurry, okay? He needs to get to school on time.”

I rush to get dressed, picking yesterday's pants up off the floor. I wish I could just stay in this quilt. Instead I pull on a men's sweater that appeared in my room yesterday after I mentioned the permanent chill setting into my bones. It is well-worn wool, at once soft and scratchy, in the prettiest shade of navy blue. I jam my feet into boots and race down the stairs.

Ben's SUV, a big boxy thing that is meant for getting up snowy driveways and out of muddy ditches, has been scraped of snow only in the most perfunctory of ways. There are portholes in the front dash and side windows, but the back is still almost impenetrable. He could probably strangle me in the backseat on Lake Street and no one would see a thing. If they did, they'd probably take his side anyway.

“Hi,” I say as I slide into the passenger seat. “Hi.”

He looks at me, his lips set in a deep frown. “What happened to your hair?”

I reach up and find it is sticking up in stalks. The reality of bed-head. “Oy. They didn't tell me you were coming. I just woke up.” I look in the mirror of the sun visor, and then avert my eyes in horror. “I'm surprised Colleen let me see you like this.”

“Me too. They're trying to set us up,” he says matter-of-factly.

I nod. “I know. They're not coy about it. I think they worry about you. They say you're a hermit.”

He sighs wearily. “Buckle up.”

I do. He pulls out of the inn's Lake Street parking, then drives forward in silence. Across River Street, he turns onto First Street, then crosses Aspen Avenue. Then he pulls to the left and puts the truck in park.

“What is it? What's wrong?” I ask, confused about why he stopped the truck.

“We're here.”

I crane my head around. “You've got to be kidding me. Colleen made you pick me up and drive me three blocks?”

“Like I said,” he starts. “They're trying to set us up.”

I shake my head in befuddlement. “I'm sorry,” I say in defeat. “This is a strange town.”

“S'okay,” he tells me. “It's on my way to work.” He raises his eyes from his lap, holding my gaze for a moment. His lips part. He's telling me something in this look, this silence. Trouble is, I have no idea what.

“You know. The girls. They're not wrong,” he begins.

I frown. About what? About setting us up? About him being a hermit? I shake my head.

“But they know I'm leaving,” I say. “They know about my boyfriend.”

He exhales deeply. “I don't understand it,” he says. “I don't understand you.”

I force a laugh to lighten the mood. “What's to understand? I'm a stereotypical scatterbrained artist with money problems, who accidentally stayed married to a stranger for ten years, and came up here to get unmarried.”

Ben shakes his head. “If that's all true, then why are you still here?”

Uncomfortable, I drop my eyes to the spot where his upturned hand wraps around the gearshift on the steering column. His bare wrists strike me as strangely beautiful, maybe because it's so cold in this town, and bare hands are such a rarity. Or maybe because they're obviously so strong. With the truck in park, his arm is raised enough to drop the sleeve of his coat down, showing a stripe of tanned skin between where his gloves must normally end and his sleeves start. I can just see the underside of his wrist. Three veins show through the sinew, then disappear under the callus of his palm.

“Ben,” I say. “I…” When we kissed, that night in the snow, that same hand I'm looking at now was in my hair. I can remember what that wrist felt like against the nape of my neck. Without thinking, I raise my own hand to the spot where my chin turns into jaw. His hands are so big. My lips feel very dry.

He moves his hand from the shifter, wipes it on his jeans. I realize how warm it is inside his truck. That's all it is. Too warm.

I reach for the door handle. Something oppressive is sitting on my chest. It's not attraction, exactly, unless we are using the physics definition. It is a force stopping me from getting out of this truck.

“Lily,” Ben says. I turn around, face him. What would I do if it weren't for my other life? If it weren't for the dreams and history waiting for me back home?

His hand slowly loosens on his leg. I think he is reaching for me. I find I am no longer breathing.

There is a knock on the glass beside me.

We both jump. I turn quickly and see nothing but a blind of white in the window. When I buzz it down, clumps of uncleared snow tumble in on me.

“You must be Lily,” says a younger, blonder version of Ben Hutchinson as he uses a free hand to scoop snow out of the window frame so I can lower the window the rest of the way. Then he leans around me, and says, “Hey, bro.” His eyebrows wiggle at Ben a little bit. It's not a warm greeting. I feel I've been assessed and come up lacking. Or maybe Ben has?

“And you're Erick, I presume?” I ask.

“Yep,” is all he says back. The word has three syllables at least.

“Thanks for your help on the tow and everything. I'm looking forward to getting on the road today.” I move to get out of the truck, but Erick holds a hand up.

“Don't thank me yet. I got the new tire on, but when I went to park it in the lot, it wouldn't turn over. Gave it a jump and the oil light came right on, bam. When's the last time you had the oil changed?”

I say nothing, because I have no idea. All I hear is ringing in my ears. I am never getting home.

“Don'tcha check the levels?”

I stare blankly.

Erick sighs. “There's a Jiffy Lube sticker on the windshield that says you were due for a change five thousand miles ago. Sound right?”

I bite my lip.

“Gunky oil, gunky engine. Probably no problem in balmy Illinois. But up here, so damn cold everything turns to sludge. You don't turn it over a couple a days, warm it up, thin it out, and here we are.”

Desperately, I turn to Ben. I know nothing about cars. The words Erick just strung together do not mean anything to me. Oil changes, yes. That is something I know about. But knowing and doing … these are very different things.

Ben saves me. “Come on, Erick. Bad oil, it should still turn over.”

“You stick to computers. I'll do cars.”

“But an overnight in the garage didn't warm it up?”

“We had to leave the bays open last night,” he tells Ben. I feel like I'm being talked over, but then, I can hardly complain about sexism when I don't know what the hell they're talking about. “Fume problem.”

“Yeah, I bet there's a fume problem.” Ben says dryly. “Christ, Erick. You work on the county sheriff's car. He could pull in at any moment. Did you ever think of that?”

“Lay off, Mr. Upstanding.”

Ben sighs deeply, like an old man. “What you do to your mother.”

“Me? At least I'm not a hermit living in squalor.”

“How much,” I interject, “to fix it?”

Erick rolls his eyes at his brother. “Can't throw money at this problem, much as I'd like to let you. Need a day where it gets over ten degrees. And an oil change; that you
can
pay me for. But I'm not doing anything until you promise never ever to keep driving when the oil light comes on again. Tell her, Ben.”

“That's bad,” Ben says. “He's right.”

“And no matter what the manual says, a car gets over ten years old, you gotta baby the oil situation in cold weather. And top it off between changes. Levels were really low. No one teach you to take care of your car?”

Damn it if I don't start to cry. I scrunch my face inward, try to hold in the tears.
I will not cry in front of any Hutchinson boys,
I silently vow.

But Erick sees my squinched-up face and knows what it means. “Lady, it could have been so much worse. Another day and you'd have burned out the engine. Coulda happened on the way home. Coulda froze to death.”