The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (33 page)

Colleen nods. “It hurts me to look at it,” she says, and her eyes are a little wet. “It's my last three years, on rice paper.”

I look down, a little sadly, a little ashamed. “I'm sorry,” I say to Colleen, for surely she has now seen what I added in only yesterday, in a window of the outbuilding, no bigger than my pinkie nail, on a gessoed canvas more than four feet tall. A young genderless child, the very image of Colleen, looking out impatiently. Waiting, desperately, for that hot sticky blue sky to make rain. “I hope it's okay.”

She shakes her head. “No. No, it's exactly right. You got it exactly, perfectly right.”

“I don't exactly choose what I paint,” I say feebly.

“And we don't exactly choose what we want,” says Jenny. “Don't you want to tell Renee that you can't be there for her now?”

I swallow hard. “I don't know,” I say. “Yes,” I add. “But I'm not going to.”

Jenny sighs. Colleen goes back to packing my bags. “You're a better friend than I am,” says Colleen. “From where I sit, it seems like you're driving through the black winter night to support a person who left you to twist in the wind through your loneliest moment.”

I smile sadly, but internally, my heart plummets, knowing that I am actually doing the very same thing to Colleen right now. “This is something I have to do,” I try. “It's a promise we made long ago.”

“But if you go back there, you're never coming back to Minnow Bay,” says Jenny.

“What?” I ask. “Of course I am! I may even want to move here, find a place, see where things go with Ben—”

“Ben is leaving,” says Jenny. “Moving back to California.”

“What?” I ask again, shocked. “No. No, that can't be true.” I think of him on the snow plow. Of the lights on the river. Of the class of fourteen-year-old hackers. “He doesn't belong in California.”

Colleen nods sadly. “And the end of the school year,” she says. “He's going to fix up that terrible dump just enough to sell it and leave again. He gave notice at the high school the week before you arrived.”

“But … how can that be? What about his family? He loves it here!”

Jenny nods. “He does. He truly does. But Minnow Bay is falling apart. I think it breaks his heart to watch it happen.”

“Falling apart? Are you nuts? This is the most amazing little town I've ever been to. It has a thriving art gallery. Three incredible restaurants. An amazing school. The most beautiful little inn with the most amazing owner…”

Colleen looks down, unable to meet my eye.

“Right?” I say.

Colleen sighs deeply. “This winter is probably going to be the end for the Minnow Bay Inn. Usually summer gets me through, but last year was rough. Bad combination of road construction and flooding downstate during the art fest. Forced us to cancel the event that usually fills the town to the gills. Combined, it nearly killed us all.”

I look to Jenny, expecting her to set the record straight, but she only nods. “Same story with the gallery. We just can't keep going year round anymore. Don't you see how empty the stores are all month long? The city council is recommending local businesses move to a summer-only model. But that leaves the town unemployed more than half of the year.”

I stare at them, speechless.

Colleen shrugs. “Up until today, I have been trying to save every penny I have for the baby, to conceive, to adopt—I didn't know how futile it would be,” she tells me. She is so matter-of-fact. While my heart breaks all over again to think of it. “Now I can use that to start over in Duluth or Green Bay—wherever I can get a hospitality job—while I wait for a buyer for the inn.”

“You can't do that,” I nearly shout. “You can't sell the inn! Ben can't leave. You can't close the gallery. What are you guys even talking about?”

“Well, there's a bit of good news there,” Jenny smiles sadly. “I won't have to now, thanks to you. Your paintings are going to cover my winter expenses and then some when they all sell.”

If
any of them sell. I stop packing and try not to make eye contact.

Colleen nods. “And you've done so much beyond that, don't you see? You've been such an amazing friend while I was finding out about … about all the
disappointments
I have had in the last few weeks. You've given Simone a beautiful future by encouraging her passions and showing her a life outside of her imagination. You brought much-needed business to Erick's garage. Dragged Ben out of his shell. You've even gotten him to invest in the town again…”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Invest in the town? What do you mean?”

“Lily. Come on. Think about it. Here's this dot-com millionnaire living in a fishing shack miles out of town, working as a high school teacher, chopping his own wood for heat—did you think he blew all that money he made in tech on drugs and iPhones?”

“Well, vacations and women, actually. But yes.”

Jenny shakes her head at me like I'm the world's biggest moron. “It's him who was propping us up during the recession. He doesn't think any of us knew, but for three straight years he was paying the rent on the bistro so they could afford to expand to lunch. Rehabbing the yoga studio so they could add children's classes. Setting up online sales for the bookstore so they didn't get creamed by Amazon. Making capital investments in the café so they could hire help. Matter of fact, it was a grant he invented out of nowhere that turned my back-alley garage into a studio for resident artists. And his software company is the main underwriter for the entire summer art festival.”

My jaw drops. “Holy shit.”

“That's why he lives in that dump, Lily, out by the water. Because the money he thought he would spend making it beautiful has all gotten poured into his beloved Minnow Bay. He moved here to be a well for a town parched with thirst. But even the deepest wells run dry over time.”

I put my face in my hands and start to cry. “I had no idea,” I say. “You guys never said anything.”

“Surely you saw some things weren't right,” says Colleen.

“I saw a beautiful little town with the most amazing people, people who care deeply about each other, who support each other and treat newcomers like family. And, until earlier today, I thought Ben was a grouchy loner hoarding the last of his fortune for dear life.”

“He is. Except for the hoarding part. But it changed when you got here. Then suddenly he wasn't such a hermit anymore.”

“And that's why you wanted me to stay?” I say, feeling the other shoe descending fast. “To keep Ben here?”

Colleen shakes her head adamantly. “We wanted you to stay because we like you. We forced you to stay because we thought maybe you could keep Minnow Bay alive a little longer.”

I blink. “What do you mean forced me?”

“Surely you knew what we were up to,” says Colleen. “With the mysteriously flat tire, and the nonsense over driving to Duluth, and the car that wouldn't start because it needed an
oil change,
of all things, and the dropped texts, and the bogus birthday party…”

“Wait, what now?”

Jenny laughs a bitter little laugh. “I told you she wasn't playing along, Colly. She really had no idea.”

“What did you do to my car?” I ask.

“Nothing,” says Jenny. “Well, I punctured your tire with Colleen's ice pick.” She gestures a thumb at Colleen. “She's the one who came up with the bullshit story about there being no tires in Minnow Bay. And then the whole ‘Hutch is going to Duluth' scheme was all her, which was pure genius, really,” she says to Colleen.

I look to Colleen in horror.

“Jenny,” she says with caution in her voice.

“And then I strong-armed Erick to tell you the car wouldn't start, that day after Ben spoiled the tire ruse. He was all set on being honest. I practically threatened him at knifepoint.”

My jaw drops open. “
Jenny,
” says Colleen louder.

But Jenny ignores her. “And Colleen organized the fake birthday party for Ben's mom.”

“Fake birthday party?”

“Carla hates surprises. She was in on it from the start. We wanted an excuse for you to spend some real time with Ben, and meet the family, and see how wonderful this place can be.…”

“You did
what
?”

“It sounds sinister, but it's not,” says Colleen. “It was out of hope. For you and for Minnow Bay.”

I shake my head. “I can't believe you, Colleen.”

“In my defense, Jenny was the one who deleted those text messages on your phone. I told her that was a bridge too far.”

“You did what?” I say again, this time with added fury.

“If he really loved you, he'd pick up the phone,” said Jenny. “He doesn't care about you, you know that, right?”

“He—I—That is not okay!” I stammer. “You can't delete a person's text messages!”

“I didn't delete anything real. Just bullshit about the museum thing,” she says.

“What?” I shout again. I am starting to shake a little.

“It was all bullshit, Lily, I'm so sorry to tell you. It sounded so fishy that I checked with the exhibition company. They went with a different artist. Decided weeks ago. Mitchell was stringing you along, to keep you from firing him. He was defrauding you, Lily. Really, he still is.”

“But…”

“I should have told you right away, but I hardly knew you then,” says Jenny. “I wasn't sure how you would take it. And then when I got to know you more, I was worried about breaking your heart,” she said. “So I deleted the messages so you wouldn't get led on further.”

“But … how…”

“You leave your phone on the dresser every day when you go to paint,” says Colleen. “She came in when I did towel service. I'm sorry—but you try arguing with her. Especially when so much is at stake…”

“But,” I say, and now I am crying. The Smart. The Chazen. MAM and Weisman and St. Paul and Carleton … I had already pictured my paintings in each one of those halls, under all those hundreds of thousands of eyes, being written up by important publications, being truly
seen
for the first time in my life as an artist.… “It was all bullshit?”

Jenny nods. She looks chastened. She knows now how upset I am.

“And you guys knew the whole time?”

Colleen looks very very contrite, but she nods.

I say nothing for a long time because I am afraid I will betray myself with a storm of sobs and wails and childlike tears. Finally I say, “I need some time alone.”

“Just tell us what we can do,” says Colleen. “We know this is bad. We knew it was wrong the whole time. We just … we thought you were playing along. We didn't know you as well then.”

Apparently not. If they'd known me, maybe they would have known I wasn't worth keeping around anyway. I'm not a museum-caliber artist. I haven't painted anything good in months. I can't even keep Ben Hutchinson in town. He's been secretly planning his exit this whole time.

“I don't want you to do anything,” I say honestly. “I think we've all done quite enough. Don't you?”

*   *   *

As quickly as I can, I finish packing. Unbidden, Colleen calls Erick and he brings my car back to the inn despite the hour. By now it is nearly 9:00
P.M.
I know leaving so late is insanity, but staying would be just as insane. I have to get out of here. Loading the car, with the extra canvases gone, takes only a moment, and then Jenny takes me by the hand, as though everything she just told me does not make me want to wrench it away. “I have something for you. Something that probably ensures you will never be coming back. But it belongs to you nonetheless.” And then she hands me a check.

I look at it in shock. “What the hell?” I blurt, when I see the large number it's made out for.

“I sold your works,” she says, with a sad half-smile. “That's what I wanted to tell you today.”

“All of them?”

“Just two. Another of the stable and one from the urban duet.”

“This is for just two paintings?” I say in shock.

“Less my commission, yes. I'll get you a full statement soon, but I wanted the moment of handing you the check right away. Like the Publishers Clearing House, you know.”

“Yes,” I say, because this feels exactly like that, except if I were extremely mad at Ed McMahon. “Are you sure this is the right amount?”

“I'm positive. You deserve every penny, Lily. You're the real deal,” she says. “We may have … exaggerated some things and not been totally honest about some others. But about your talent, I have told you nothing but the truth.”

Tears spring up in my eyes. I want to cry in gratitude, in surprise, in joy. Instead I think of the big scam I've just been party to and the joy completely dries up. “Thank you,” I say as coldly as I can. “I appreciate it.”

“Congratulations,” says Jenny softly. “I'll mail a check when the other one sells.”

“I might be back,” I say, not meaning it in the slightest. “To finish the new one, I mean.”

“Okay,” says Jenny, though I can tell she doesn't believe me. “I'll see you, then.”

“Good-bye,” says Colleen, and gives me a weird forced-upon-me hug through the driver's-side window that shows that she too thinks I am gone forever.

I think of how, just an hour ago, I would have been eager to prove them wrong. How I was looking forward to making this trip in the other direction, as soon as humanly possible—maybe a week or two would be all it took to get Renee on her feet. Now I do not know where I will be living, I only know that I am not coming back here.

“I know you're angry at us,” says Colleen. “I get that. But be careful back home. Don't let them walk all over you.”