The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (8 page)

I go to bed early, for me, and wake up late, and go to the big bay window with the set-in seat, and kneel on it facing the street and yet more falling snow, and let myself feel purified by Minnow Bay. Maybe Renee was right. Maybe Chicago isn't the right place for me anymore. I could move here, fall in love with my already-existing husband like in a romance novel, become the wife of a high school teacher, learn to ski.

Except I don't want to do any of those things. I want to go back to my apartment in the city. I want to go over to Mitchell's apartment and watch fantastic foreign films and drink good wine and be inspired by his other artist friends who are always dropping by and saying brilliant, sophisticated things. I want to wander through the shops in Lincoln Park with Renee, and linger at Red or Dead for an hour with Annie and Jo, and go to the gallery's beautifully catered events, and keep painting that view out my apartment window until I finally get it right. In other words, I want things the way they were a week ago.

Out the window, something catches my eye. It's a yellow Lab, bounding off-leash down the street. The color of his fur is beautiful against the snow. Like he is made of snow himself, part dog, part polar bear, carrying a bloodred leash in his mouth with no one holding the other end. I reach for my camera without taking my eyes off of him.

The windows are soundproof but I know the dog is called when I see him halt suddenly. His body turns toward the east and his rump immediately finds the ground. His head is high, and one ear is cocked. I snap a photo. Maybe this is what my recent series is missing. I've tried people and snow, together and separately, but never dogs and weather. Never anything quite that color of creamy custard.

The dog bounds up again. Runs in a circle, then drops down on his belly and rolls in the snow. When he comes right side up again, his fur is whiter, coated with snow, those hard sticky iceballs that will stay frozen in his coat until he is inside again. His tongue lolls out, and his tail wags maniacally. I snap more photos. Then he trots back the way he came, until his leash is picked up by his master and the spell is broken. As it should be, I remind myself. I'm not here to make art.

My plan today is to go hang around the high school, find out when Ben's prep time is, and talk to him then. It's a safe public place for both of us, but, assuming he has a classroom of some kind with a door, it still has elements of privacy that will allow him to keep this private business private. And privacy is key. I've seen
Northern Exposure
. It doesn't take meeting a teenager in a muumuu for me to understand the power of gossip in a tiny town like this one. Gossip is probably the official town sport. In fact, though I try not to be overly cynical, a loud voice in my head does suspect the cuteness of this town is a mirage. How could a little place like this stay afloat if it were made only of aw-shucks northerners doing good for others and shaking hands in church? It's probably all fueled by frack-sand money, or racist, or populated only by urban expats running away from the real world, chasing a fantasy that doesn't really exist. Not that I would know anything about that.

Still, Colleen, the innkeeper, seems like the real deal, friendly, mellow, genuine, and straightforward. In some ways she reminds me of Renee before Renee became a downtown divorce lawyer and got fed up with my antics. Colleen hasn't asked once what I'm doing here or why I came alone. My car jammed full of belongings has been parked in her lot for almost a day and she's asked me nothing about it. She seems comfortable taking me only on what I'm happy to share myself. Face value. It's nice.

Cupping a travel thermos of coffee from Colleen and dusting off lemon poppyseed muffin crumbs from a hurried breakfast, I walk out into the snow and wind and down the street to the high school and around in circles and up and down stairs and past oodles of curious students until I find the computer lab. And, like it is all meant to be, my husband is sitting in there completely alone, door closed, in sight of the window. The whiteboard on his door says, “Office Hours, Please Knock,” and I knock.

Ben looks up. Today he is in another flannel shirt, a blue and yellow one. Over the flannel is a tie, and all of this is worn with faded denim jeans. He looks so North Woods it hurts. What became of that slick Silicon Valley millionnaire I met in Vegas? Through the inset window I see him mouth, “Come in” and give me a friendly, curious wave.

When I step into the room I feel it right away. An aura of calm, of stability, of infinite patience. It seems to be radiating out of his eyes. This. This is why I married him that night. This is why the teen coffee shop girl is in love with him. This, and his green-gold eyes and thick eyelashes and broad, broad flannel-clad shoulders. “Hi,” I start. It comes out on a little sigh. Oh lord. I have more in common with Junior Miss Muumuu than I thought.

“Hi,” he says. His eyes are searching mine, then my face. There's no attempt to mask the confusion. But it's confusion, not displeasure, not disdain, just confusion I see. “Ben Hutchinson,” he says at last, rising from his chair and extending a hand to shake. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” I take his hand and give it a little jostle. “I hope I'm not interrupting?”

“Of course not. But … we've met, right? I … I'm embarrassed to tell you I've forgotten your name.”

“It's Lily. Lily Stewart. But there's no way on earth you could have remembered me. I couldn't remember you, frankly, until I looked you up.”

“Lily…” he mumbles. Then his eyes widen. “Las Vegas Lily?”

“The very same,” I say, forcing a meek smile. To my alarm, I feel all the calm and patience wash out of the room. The man looks positively panicked.

“Oh. Whoa.”

“So you remember me, then,” I say, hoping to lighten the mood. But I am getting pretty panicked myself now. Why is he looking at me like that?

“Well,” he says and there's an interminable pause, and he takes an enormous breath, and lets it out very slowly. “Yes. Of course. A bachelorette party. You were the maid of honor.” He runs a hand over the stubble of his chin.

I nod. “That's right,” and wait for the penny to drop.

“That was quite a wild night,” he says, slowly shaking his head. “And it was a long time ago … And we…” Ah, here we go.

“Yeah. We did. Ten years ago, to be exact.”

“Are you…? Did you…? Am I a father?” he squeaks out.

“What? Oh god, no. Oh my god. You … we … we were careful. Jeez.” I can't help but laugh at his terror.

“Oh, thank God,” he says on a monster exhale. His head tips back and he looks at the ceiling and I swear he actually mouths a prayer. “I know we were smart, but my brain just went there because, well, why else would you be here?”

“You really have no idea?” I ask.

“None. Nostalgia? Soul-searching? AA?”

“Guess again.”

There's a pause and then he says apologetically, “I'm sorry, but can you just tell me? My next class starts in two minutes.” He looks to his classroom clock, then to me, then to his phone. “I'm sorry to be so rude, but how did you even find me? No, wait, first tell me why you're here. Then explain how you tracked me down. No, wait.” he looks at the wall clock again. “There's no time.”

“I'll be quick,” I tell him, because I don't think I can get the guts up to do this again. “First, I googled you. And secondly, we're married.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out. Instead he stares at me blankly for so long I start to sweat. Profusely. Eventually, after what feels like five minutes of solid silence, I dig in my handbag and foist over the notice from Las Vegas County. He takes it, reads it, and looks up at me.

“Well,” he says at last. “So we are. Wow.”

“We're coming up on our ten-year anniversary,” I say jokingly, though I can't imagine why I am joking right now. He grimaces and I do too. “I'm sorry. It's not funny. I screwed up badly a long time ago, and I'm here to fix it.”

Another long silence. “I … am … a little … flummoxed,” he says slowly. He is choosing his words so carefully, so kindly.

“Of course you're surprised. And your students—” I gesture to the door, where it looks like about thirty acne-marked faces are pressing up against the door.

“They're here. Okay. So, I've got to teach this class.”

“Yes, I understand. I'll go. I just wanted to let you know that I'm on it, and I'll get it taken care of. I have a friend who's a lawyer—”

This seems to make him snap out of it. He shakes his head quickly. “No. No, that's—I mean, yes, but—” he takes a deep breath. “Listen, this is a private matter. Come to my house for dinner tonight.” He quickly jots something on a scrap of paper. “Come over around eight. We'll figure it out between the two of us, right? No big deal. No lawyers.”

I take it gratefully, feeling like it is more than I could possibly have hoped for given the circumstances. “That's so … yes, of course. Yes, I'll be there.”

“Good. Perfect. Uh … looking forward to it.” He seems to have largely regained his composure. “Let the hordes in on your way out, would you? They'll be dying to grill me the second you leave.”

“Of course. Good luck. I'll see you … tonight?”

“Tonight. Turn left at the giant carving of the bear.”

 

Four

 

When Ben told me to turn at the giant carving of the bear, I probably should have understood that when directions like that are necessary, you will be in the deepest, darkest woods imaginable. At 8:00
P.M.
in mid-January in the frozen north, the sky is darker than dark, full of stars, just five minutes outside town. There is only a waning moon for light. If there are street lights, they aren't on. My car's headlights are the only illumination in any direction, and they light up only a small cylinder of snow falling on pavement. I can still see the yellow lines on the edges of the road, and I stay just to the left of them, and drive as slowly as I can safely drive until I find the bear. It is indeed giant, and lit up by a spotlight.

In Minnow Bay proper, I'd seen a store dedicated to selling just these types of log carvings, made, I have to imagine, with chainsaws. Eagles, fish, bears, the occasional Super Bowl trophy. But nothing on the scale of this. I imagine the lumberjack who'd endeavored to make this fearsome, violent statue. The bear is more than life-size, ten feet tall probably, with his forearms up high and claws bared but his elbows tucked in close to his body, as the medium of log carving requires. His mouth is open in a silent roar.

I start to wonder if Ben Hutchinson has lured me here to kill me. I imagine my mangled corpse dangling from the bear's mouth, and a sign below painted in blood: “This is what happens when you don't do your annulment paperwork!”

With this likelihood in mind, I pull over—or I think I do: there aren't even yellow lines painted on this new road, and the newfallen snow makes the shoulders indistinguishable from the ditch—and text Renee the address Ben gave me. She writes back, “???” and I reply, “Where to send the police if I mysteriously vanish after tonight.” And quickly she texts back, “Good to know!” And then about sixty seconds later, “Srsly, txt when safe, k?”

“OK,” I punch back and then put the car into drive. In three minutes I'm on a winding road that services a lake and the homes set deep in between the woods and the lake.

These are not fishing cabins. Each estate is grander than the one before. No wonder he's broke now, I think, taking in one million-dollar estate after another. I hope he has a good mortgage rate. Or maybe he paid cash. Either way, it's the sort of neighborhood that doesn't come cheaply.

The houses I'm passing are largely dark. It's a seasonal community, I suppose. Wealthy Chicagoans who come up for summer weekends, and snowbirds currently scooting about Arizona until the thaw. Though desolate, what I can see is appealing. None of the vaulted front alcoves and gabled four-car garages that speak of a housing development popping up overnight like in the area where I grew up. This lake, its homes, they're mixed in age and they're all different, starkly different. Each, I imagine, was built
for
a family, a particular set of people, who fell in love with this particular body of water. And because the trees are leafless right now, and the thick forest is nothing more than a black bar code stamped over my view, I can see the large, open, bean-shaped hole in the growth past the houses that must be the lake. I see the skinny moonlight bouncing off the white white white of the snow that stretches in every direction, that lays itself down silently on the thick ice day after day.

I take a gentle curve slowly, circling the lake counterclockwise. The snow is growing more treacherous, or I am growing more intimidated. I am only going twenty-five miles an hour, though the last speed limit I saw posted was forty-five, but it is so hard to see anything here even that feels too fast. Soon, I fear, I will have made it all the way around the lake and be back at the bear. But, to my great relief, around the bend I can just make out three houses in a row, and they are all lit up. One, a rambling brick ranch, has twinkling, icicle-style Christmas lights still blinking a week into January. I can't imagine going to all the trouble of hanging lights for the two or three cars that might pass by on any given night. Immediately, I like the people who live there. There is a dimly lit wooden sign, nailed to a tree right by the mouth of the driveway, that reads “Grandpa's Hide-A-Way.” And a snow-covered Santa hat festoons the curve of the G. I make a mental note to run to Grandpa's if Ben comes after me with a knife.

The next house is a rustic-looking A-frame, a true lodge rather than a house, with big logs stacked upon each other forming the siding. It's rich-looking and speaks to me of woodstoves and heavy woolen blankets and the scent of leather. I imagine a graying anesthesiologist, his slick, slender wife, and four blond children, each in various stages of affluent ennui, sitting around a big-screen TV with iPhones at the ready. This is the sort of place I can picture for Ben Hutchinson, but their wooden sign reads only “Van Holden” in dignified script.