The Matchmaker (10 page)
Clen had both anticipated and dreaded a response. If he and Agnes started a secret correspondence, Dabney would be devastated as well. There was no good way for a relationship between them to proceed, and yet he wanted it to. He wanted it to.
But it was a moot point. Agnes never wrote back.
He couldn’t reel in a fish, or dig a grave, or change a tire. He couldn’t shuffle a deck of cards or deal a hand of poker. He would never be able to help Dabney fasten her pearls. This last thing bothered Clen more than he thought it might.
But he wasn’t disheartened, yet. He had the kiss, which redoubled his determination. He was going to keep trying. He was going to make Dabney take those words back, and admit that she had never meant them in the first place.
Tammy:
I am the match Dabney doesn’t like to talk about.
We’d all like our lives to be nice and neat. High school, college, marriage, kids, job, church, community, two-week vacations in Aruba or Tuscany—and then watch your kids, and then their kids, follow suit. Some people have lives like that, and some don’t.
I dropped out of Fairleigh Dickinson University (we all called it “Fairly Ridiculous”)—or, rather, I failed out—after three semesters. I just couldn’t handle the reading, it put me to sleep, plus I was drinking every night and smoking a lot of dope. I married a guy I met at a biker bar, a guy I barely knew. We drove to Atlantic City and got hitched, then we moved up to Rhode Island because my new husband was going to work as a fry cook for a buddy opening a fish restaurant. I got pregnant, had a son, then a year later, another son. My new husband left me for one of the waitresses at the fish restaurant and then those two ran off and I never saw a single support check.
I needed a way to make a living while being a full-time mom—at that point, I was qualified to be either a prostitute or work the register at the CITGO—and seeing that these were piss-poor options, I went for my real estate license.
I had a talent for selling houses, and my secret weapon was that which had served me well my whole life—apathy. You want the house? Great. You don’t want the house? Someone else will.
I landed on Nantucket ten years ago the way many people land here, I suppose—I came for a vacation and decided I never wanted to leave. I sold my Victorian on Prospect Street in Providence for three times what I paid for it, banked the profit, and rented a cute three-quarter house on School Street. (Three-quarter house meant two windows to the right of the front door and one window to the left. I was crazy for architectural terminology.)
Dabney Kimball Beech lived one block over, on Charter. I used to see her out walking every morning, and I have to tell you, she didn’t seem like anyone I would want to be friends with. It was the headband that put me off, I think, and the pearls. Who wore pearls at seven o’clock in the morning to go power walking? I quickly learned that Dabney was the director of the Chamber of Commerce and that she was quite beloved around the island. When I interviewed for an associate-broker position at Congdon & Coleman Real Estate and I mentioned I lived on School Street, the man interviewing me said, “Oh, you’re neighbors with Dabney Kimball.”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “If Nantucket elected a president, she would win by a landslide.”
I decided it would be wise, as a Realtor brand-new to town, to meet Dabney Kimball, so I strategized to be out watering my front flower bed at seven in the morning when she walked past.
I thought she might ignore me, but she stopped and literally beamed at me. And that was my introduction to the magic of Dabney Kimball Beech.
She said, “Hey there! You just moved in a few weeks ago! I’ve been dying to meet you. I’m Dabney.”
I said, “I’m Tammy Block.” We shook hands.
She said, “You’re the newest Realtor at Congdon & Coleman.”
I had only had the job for twelve hours. How could she have known?
I said, “Yes, that’s right.”
She said, “And I’ve seen your boys waiting at the bus stop. They’re so handsome.”
I smiled proudly because who can resist compliments about one’s children? But then I grew wary. This was probably just lip service.
Dabney said, “Today is Tuesday. I’m alone tonight. Come over for some wine, will you?”
I did go for “some wine.” We finished two bottles, along with a dish of smoked almonds and some really good French cheese and savory crackers and quince paste, which I had never tasted or even heard of before, but which was delicious. Things were like that at Dabney’s house—refined and lovely and eclectic, but not fussy. She made me feel completely at ease, even after I learned that her husband was some kind of famous economist who taught at Harvard, and Dabney herself had gone to Harvard. Usually when I was in the presence of educated people, I felt embarrassed about my pathetic three semesters at Fairly Ridiculous, but I did not feel that way around Dabney.
She asked me if I was married. I said,
Long divorced
.
She got a twinkle in her eye and told me she was something of a matchmaker. Forty-two couples to her credit, all of them still together.
I laughed and said, “Oh dear God, don’t even try. I don’t need a husband, or even a boyfriend. What I need is a plumber to fix the toilet in the boys’ bathroom. It runs incessantly.”
The very next day, Flynn Sheehan was standing at the top of my friendship stairs. I caught my breath. He had the most arresting blue eyes I had ever seen.
He said, “Dabney Kimball sent me?”
I thought,
She has sent me a husband.
And boy, was she spot-on. Just looking at Flynn Sheehan gave me butterflies.
He said, “Something about needing a toilet fixed?”
I laughed, then introduced myself and welcomed Flynn Sheehan inside. I was glad I had just come from work and was still wearing a dress, heels, and makeup. I led Flynn Sheehan up the stairs.
He said, “How long have you been renting the Reillys’ house?”
I said, “Three weeks.”
He said, “I basically grew up in this house. Kevin Reilly was my best friend. He was killed in Iraq in ninety-one.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s why I came on such short notice. Kevin’s parents aren’t exactly known for their upkeep of this place…”
“Oh,” I said. “The place is fine. It’s charming. I love everything about it, except the running toilet.”
Flynn stopped at the top of the stairs. He was looking at marks made on the doorjamb, pencil marks and initials I hadn’t even noticed.
He pointed to a mark near his waist. “This is Kevin, age five, and me age five. Kev at ten, at twelve, me at thirteen, Kev at fifteen.”
I studied the marks: FS 2/10/77. KR 8/29/83.
Flynn pointed to the highest mark, at about his present height. “This was the last time we did it, right before he left. He had me by half an inch.”
I looked where Flynn pointed. FS 3/30/91. KR 3/30/91.
Flynn blinked. “He was like a brother to me.”
I didn’t know what to say but I felt my heart doing funny things, things it hadn’t done in a long time.
Then I noticed his wedding ring, and I thought:
Story of my life.
Flynn fixed the toilet in thirty seconds, and when I tried to pay him, he waved me away. He was the most attractive man I’d seen in years and he had shown me the softest part of his heart within three minutes of meeting me. But he was married.
At the door, he handed me his card.
FLYNN SHEEHAN PLUMBING
. The address was a P.O. box. I found myself wanting to know where he lived. I would drive by his house and try to catch a glimpse of his pretty wife.
He said, “If you need anything, and I mean anything, even if it’s not plumbing, I want you to call me.”
I felt myself redden. I wondered what he meant by that.
Then he said, “The Reillys are my people. If anything goes wrong with the house, they would want me to take care of it.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Flynn descended the friendship stairs and strode out to his truck, whistling.
“Goodbye!” I called after him. “Thank you!”
A day later, when I saw Dabney, she said, “So, you met Flynn?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you for sending him.”
Dabney gazed at me. She had dark brown eyes, but they seemed to send out gold sparks at times. “So what did you think?”
“He fixed the toilet in half a minute. I probably could have done it myself if I’d bothered to give it a try.”
“No,” she said. “I mean, what did you think about Flynn?”
“Nice guy,” I said.
“You’re rosy,” she said. She jumped up and down like a little kid, then she snapped her fingers. “I knew it! I knew it! You’re rosy!”
“Rosy?” I said.
“You liked him.”
“Dabney,” I said. “He’s married.”
Dabney’s face fell and I felt like I had just toppled her ice-cream cone.
“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
I learned something quickly about Nantucket. Although it was a small island, you could go months without seeing someone. I went six months without seeing Flynn Sheehan. Indeed, I went for days and weeks without thinking about him. And then he would pop into my mind—most often when I walked up the stairs and saw the hash marks on the doorjamb—and I would hope and pray that the kitchen faucet would leak, or the light would go out in the refrigerator.
Then one night I happened into American Seasons for a celebratory drink. I had just sold my first house, a fixer-upper on Pilgrim Road, listed at $1.2 million. The listing broker had to get home to his family, but my boys were at football practice until seven, so I had a couple of free hours. I didn’t think anyone would be at the bar at American Seasons at five o’clock—but I was wrong. When I walked in, Flynn Sheehan was sitting there alone, with a tall beer in front of him.
I said, “Flynn, hi! Tammy Block, I’m the one who rents the…”
“Reilly house,” he said. He gave me a sort of half smile, and I thought my heart would stop. “Like I could ever forget you.”
I have gone on long enough, and the story from here takes a bad turn. Some people had neat and orderly lives, and some people’s lives were messy and morally ambiguous. I have lived the latter. Did Flynn and I have an affair? Yes. It pains and embarrasses me to confess that. Did Amy Sheehan—who was, in anyone’s objective opinion, a miserable woman—discover the affair by looking at Flynn’s cell phone records and spread the news of my slutty debauchery all over the island? Yes. Was I ready to pack up my belongings, uproot the kids, and move off the island? Yes.
There were only two reasons I didn’t do this. One was: I loved Flynn Sheehan with every fiber of my being. After Amy smeared our names like blood all over every street in town, he had a difficult choice to make. He could try to repair his marriage and salvage his family, or he could leave. He called me up at eleven o’clock on the night the news broke and said, “I left her, Tammy. I love you.”
The other reason I didn’t leave Nantucket was because of Dabney Kimball Beech. As soon as she heard the news, she knocked on my front door. I ignored her. I didn’t want to hear her lecture. Surely anyone with a life as perfect as Dabney’s would never understand adultery—even though, technically, she was the one who had set me up with Flynn.
When I didn’t answer the front door, she knocked on the back door. When I didn’t answer the back door, she started tapping on my windows. I had to hide in my powder room, where she couldn’t see me. But she was relentless, and finally I gave up. I let her in the back door and waited for the beatings to begin.
She hugged me. Then she sat down at my kitchen table. She said, “I am going to hold your hand until you stop crying.”
I cried for quite a while. I cried and cried. When I finally stopped to blow my nose, I said, “Why did you send him to me when you knew he was married?”
“Because,” Dabney said, “you two are a perfect match. You’re meant to be together.”
Dabney was right. Flynn divorced Amy and married me on the beach in Madaket with only our children and Dabney and John Boxmiller Beech in attendance. There are still people on this island who won’t speak to me, who won’t meet my eye in the supermarket, who wouldn’t give me a referral for a sale if I were the last Realtor left on Nantucket. But I have Dabney—and she is not the person she appears to be.
She is so much more.
S
he was beside herself with excitement. Agnes’s Prius was due to arrive on the five o’clock ferry. It wasn’t just a weekend visit; it wasn’t a few days at Christmas. She was really staying the
entire
summer!
Unfortunately, Box was going to miss Agnes by a matter of hours. He had come to Nantucket for the weekend, but that morning Dabney had delivered him to the airport. He would go back to Boston tonight, and fly to London in the morning. He would be gone two weeks.
“I feel like we never see each other anymore,” Dabney said.
“The lives we lead,” Box said.
Dabney clung to Box tightly, which he seemed to resist, and when she raised her face, he kissed the tip of her nose like she was a child.
“Please, no more histrionics,” he said. “It doesn’t become you.”
“Histrionics,” Dabney said. “That sounds like a newfangled major at Harvard.”
“I was referring to the middle-of-the-night phone call last week,” he said.
“I know what you were referring to,” she said. “I was trying to amuse you.”
“Waking me up in the middle of the night to ask me questions you already know the answer to isn’t amusing.”
“I’m sorry,” Dabney said, although she had already apologized three separate times over the weekend.
He patted her shoulder. “I’m off,” he said.
He grabbed the handle of his carry-on and strode toward his gate.
“I love you, darling!” she called out after him, but this must have qualified as histrionics because he didn’t respond. He didn’t even turn around.
Dabney planned to leave the office at four thirty so she could get home before Agnes arrived, but just as she was packing up, her computer chirped. She checked the screen. E-mail from Clendenin Hughes. Subject line:
Fried rice
.
Delete it,
she thought. Agnes was on her way.
Delete it!
The lives we lead.
She opened the e-mail. It said: Come to my cottage for dinner tonight. A crate arrived today with my wok in it. Please? 8:00.
She was tempted to respond: I can’t. I’m having dinner with Agnes.
His daughter.
She was tempted to respond: No. No way. But she feared that any response, even a negative one, would only encourage him.
She deleted the e-mail, then deleted it from her deleted file.
Dabney was standing in the driveway when the Prius pulled in. She was aghast to see CJ behind the wheel.
Agnes climbed out of the passenger side and ran to hug her mother. “I’m here!” she said. “I can’t believe all of my stuff fit in that tiny car!”
CJ greeted Dabney with his usual enthusiasm, like she was the only person in the world he wanted to see. He smelled wonderful. He said, “I didn’t want your daughter to have to do the drive alone.”
“Of course not,” Dabney said. She swallowed. “How long can you stay?”
“I’m flying back at nine o’clock tonight with my client,
whisper whisper
.” CJ winked at Dabney. “Private plane.”
Dabney hadn’t heard the client’s name—either she was losing her hearing on top of all her other maladies, or CJ hadn’t meant for Dabney to hear. She didn’t care; she was relieved that CJ wasn’t staying over.
“I have chicken marinating,” Dabney said.
“I took the liberty of making dinner reservations at Cru,” CJ said. “You’ll join us, I hope?”
Dabney faltered. Were they
really
hoping she would join them, or did they want to be alone? She felt a wave of exhaustion and weakness; the pain in her abdomen had returned with a vengeance. The antibiotics had done absolutely no good. She supposed her next step was to stop eating wheat. Goodbye to her morning cereal. Goodbye to her beloved BLTs. She might as well stop breathing.
“Please come, Mommy!” Agnes said. “You love oysters!”
Dabney adored Cru—it was chic, polished, and fun. That evening, the restaurant was offering nine kinds of oysters, and Dabney decided to order three of each.
“Great idea,” CJ said. “I’ll do that, too.”
Dabney and CJ’s oysters were presented on an iced platter roughly the circumference of a Goodyear tire. Dabney doctored her oysters the way she liked them—fresh lemon first, then horseradish, then half with a dab of cocktail and half with mignonette.
“Ah, now see,” CJ said. “I’m a purist. I eat them naked.”
The server had brought them a list of the oysters, which ran clockwise around her platter so that they could identify each one.
Dabney beamed. “It’s like a party game!”
CJ had ordered a drink called a Dirty Goose, which came in a martini glass, and he threw it back in one gulp, then spun his finger at the waiter, indicating he wanted another. There were hot rolls on the table. Dabney’s first challenge in not eating any wheat was to skip the rolls. She nudged the basket toward Agnes.
“Have a roll, darling. You’re far too thin.”
“I’m fine, Mom, thanks,” Agnes said.
“CJ, would you like a roll?” Dabney asked.
“No, thank you,” CJ said. “Agnes and I don’t eat carbs.”
“You don’t?” Dabney said. This was news to her. Agnes looked like she could use a big plate of fettuccine Alfredo every day for the next month, but she knew not to press the matter.
Dabney ate the Belon from Maine, then the Hama Hama from Washington State, then the Kumomoto from British Columbia, which was an all-time favorite of hers.
“Would you like one, Agnes?” she asked.
Agnes studied the platter. Of course she wanted one! Dabney and Box were oyster connoisseurs; it was one of their few extravagances. Box ordered twelve dozen Blue Points and twelve dozen Kumomotos for their annual Christmas party. Dabney made a homemade mignonette with crushed fresh raspberries. Agnes had grown up with oysters the way other children had grown up with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.
“No, thank you,” Agnes said.
“Please, honey, help yourself. We can always order more. How about the Island Creek?”
CJ polished off his Dirty Goose and set the empty glass down so hard on the table that Dabney was surprised it didn’t break.
“No, thanks, Mom,” Agnes said.
“If Agnes wants an oyster,” CJ said, “she can have one of mine.” He lifted one dripping out of its shell and fed it to Agnes like she was a baby bird.
Dabney felt a combination of helplessness and anger rise in her throat. She ate a Wellfleet.
CJ said, “So, Dabney, you’ve succeeded in stealing my fiancée away from me this summer.”
French Kiss from Nova Scotia. Dabney accidentally took a hit of horseradish up her nose, and she reached for her water. “Pardon me?”
“I hope you’re happy.”
“I…?” Dabney looked to Agnes for help. Agnes’s eyes were wide and imploring. Dabney realized that she had been set up as some kind of fall guy. “Well, really, I…when Agnes told me about the funding issue at the club…”
“Agnes doesn’t have to work again, ever,” CJ said. “At the club, or anywhere else. I’m more than able to take care of her in the manner to which she’s been accustomed, and then some.”
“Right,” Dabney said. “I realize this…”
“But you wanted her here at home. I get it, your only daughter back in her childhood bedroom for the summer. Before she gets married and leaves you forever.”
“It’s not like that,” Dabney said. Agnes had now bowed her head; her chin was tucked to her chest. She wasn’t going to say a word in her own defense, or Dabney’s. She was
afraid
of CJ. Agnes, who had been sailing and water-skiing since she was five, who had flown to Europe by herself at the age of fifteen, and who routinely took the subway home from 125th Street at night in the dark, was afraid of CJ Pippin. She clearly hadn’t told him that it had been
her
idea to come home to Nantucket. It was
she
who wanted the beach and the familiar house and the comforting presence of her parents and a chance to work one last summer at her old job as an adventure counselor.
Suddenly their table was engulfed in a ghost-green miasma that was only too familiar to Dabney.
A third drink arrived for CJ, another Dirty Goose. He said, “I’m not going to tell Agnes she can’t go. But I’d really like her to come back to New York every weekend. And if not every weekend, then every other weekend.”
Dabney felt for a second like she and CJ were divorcing and discussing a custody arrangement.
“You can come here anytime,” Dabney said. “We have plenty of room.”
CJ snorted and took a healthy pull off his drink.
“I’m forty-four years old,” he said. He glanced at Agnes, who now had her hands clasped at her chest like a praying mantis. “I’m past the point where I want to stay in someone’s
guest room
.
If I come back this summer, I’m going to want my own place with Agnes, so we have the necessary privacy. But it’s a little late to start looking, and I’m unsure of which weekends I would even be free enough to travel. My clients, Dabney, are really just kids—some of them only nineteen and twenty years old. I need to be available for them twenty-four/seven. Summer is a busy time, especially for my NFL players. I assume you’ve heard of Bantam Killjoy?”
Dabney had not heard of Bantam Killjoy. Was he talking about a person? Or a new video game?
Dabney shook her head.
“He was the number-one draft pick, wide receiver out of Oklahoma, nominated for the Heisman. Big media favorite because both his parents were killed in the Oklahoma City bombings when he was a baby.”
“It’s a really sad story,” Agnes said. “With a happy ending. But Bantam needs CJ’s guidance, almost like an older brother, or an uncle.”
“Yes, I’d imagine so,” Dabney said. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow college football except for the Harvard-Yale game.”
“Well, signing Bantam Killjoy was a big coup for me, and my main goal this summer is to make sure he gets to training camp. That will take precedence over coming back here, unfortunately. If Agnes wants to see me, she’ll have to come to New York.”
Dabney sucked down an East Beach Blonde from Rhode Island. CJ had made a big deal about ordering the oysters—again, just as Dabney had—but he had yet to eat a single one. The only oyster missing from his platter was the one he’d fed to Agnes. Dabney suspected that CJ didn’t even
like
oysters. He had ordered them only because Dabney had. And this, perhaps, got closer to what Dabney didn’t like about CJ. He reeked of insincerity; he did things just for show.
Dabney said, “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?” CJ said. “Let’s talk about ridiculous. Your daughter has been asking you for four years to come to New York, and for four years, you’ve said no…”
Dabney speared a Yaquina from Oregon, which was a tiny oyster, about the size of a quarter, but she almost couldn’t get it down. “As I’m sure Agnes has shared with you, I suffer from a bit of a phobia…”
CJ smacked his palm on the table. “You’re her mother and you’ve never come to see her.”
Agnes put her hand on CJ’s arm, but he brusquely shook it off.
Did he
hit
her?
Dabney suddenly wondered.
“And another thing,” he said. “Agnes told me that your crystal ball says we don’t belong together.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Dabney said. “I wish I did.”
“Then I’m not sure what criteria you’re using to determine who’s a ‘perfect match.’”
“No criteria,” Dabney said.
“No crystal ball, no criteria,” CJ said. “I think your matchmaking is bullshit.”
“Well,” Dabney said, “you wouldn’t be alone in that opinion.” She sucked down a Wianno.
CJ pushed his platter of oysters at Agnes. “Here, honey,” he said. “You have them.”
Agnes gazed morosely at all the beautiful, fresh oysters, which were now swimming in slush.
“Or have a roll,” Dabney suggested again.
“We don’t eat carbs,” CJ said. “She’ll eat the oysters. Won’t you, baby?”
Their waiter came back to the table. “How are we doing?” he asked.
Dabney did not say,
I hope my future son-in-law is drunk and NOT simply cruel, although I fear that’s the case.
She did not say,
Please bring me a glass of champagne or good white Bordeaux because I can’t make it another second without a drink.
She did not say,
He’s trying to make me feel like a bad mother, but I know what a bad mother is because I had one, and I am NOT a bad mother.
No, instead Dabney smiled at their server and thought,
I have tried all nine oysters and they were delicious—sweet, creamy, briny, sublime. There is nothing more sublime than a cold, fresh oyster.
She was slipping away, she could feel it, the green smoke was getting into her eyes and lungs.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. But it took effort.
As soon as the server sailed away, Dabney set her napkin on the table and said, “Excuse me, please.” She wasn’t feeling well, it was the green smoke, or it was the wheat allergy, perhaps, threatening to turn her insides to dust.
The lives we lead,
she thought.
“Darling?” Dabney said to Agnes. “I’m not feeling well. I think I just need air. I’ll meet you at home, okay?”
“Okay,” Agnes said. “Do you want us to go with you?”
“No, no,” Dabney said. She waved at CJ by way of goodbye and thought,
Have a safe flight home with
whisper whisper.
She hurried from the restaurant. She was lovesick, pure and simple.
She called Box as she walked up Main Street. He could hardly object; it was only seven thirty.
“Hello?” he said.
Dabney heard Mozart playing in the background and figured he was drinking a glass of white Bordeaux before he had dinner. Would he go out or cook for himself? Would he go out alone or with colleagues, or possibly with Miranda Gilbert? Dabney had been to his faculty apartment only twice in all the time he’d lived there, and she’d never spent the night.
“Darling?” she said.
“Yes? Dabney? Everything okay? Agnes arrived safely?”
“Safely,” Dabney said. “CJ drove her up.”
“Good man,” Box said.
“He’s not staying,” Dabney said. “Private plane back tonight with whisper whisper.”
