Arranged (7 page)

“Everyone likes to think they’re unique, I guess.”

“Everyone’s path
to
here is unique, Anne. It’s what you do
from
here that counts.”

“Does that mean I have to conform from now on?”

“No, no. What I meant was, we have to find your own personal barriers to happiness and work together to take them down. Once we do that, you’ll be able to open yourself up to the person Blythe and Company matches you with.”

“Does that mean they could match me with anyone? The match doesn’t matter?”

“It’s the two elements together that make it work. A personality match
and
a new perspective.” He brings his hands together, palm to palm.

“And my perspective is fairy tales?”

“Isn’t it?”

I think about it. About all the times I dreamed I was Anne of Green Gables, about all the other books and television shows and movies I’ve obsessed over because they were about two people who were meant for each other.

“That kind of makes sense. I mean, I would’ve said more romances, not fairy tales, but I get it.”

“Are you ready to let go of it?”

“You mean to stop expecting a happy ending?”

“To stop expecting that you don’t have to work to get one.”

“Isn’t that why I’m here? So I don’t have to work at this anymore?”

He flashes me another smile. His teeth are large and square. “You think I’m not making any sense, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you’re feeling discombobulated and unsure of yourself?”

“Ever since you made me sit like this.” I wiggle my feet for emphasis.

“Good. Now we can start getting somewhere.”

“Where?”

“We can start getting you to here, Anne. To this very moment.”

“I thought I was already here.”

“You will be, Anne, you will be.”

Chapter 7

Waiting and Waiting

I
t’s after work, and I’m taking a commuter train to Gil and Cathy’s. They live in the same suburb we grew up in, twenty-four minutes away by train and three decades away in perspective. Every time I go there, it feels like nothing’s changed since my braids were caught up in yellow barrettes. I’ve often wondered what brought Gilbert back here, so close to our parents and the past.

I disembark at the quiet train station a few blocks from their house and walk to their street. The white clapboard houses are all decorated with twinkling Christmas lights. Cathy and Gil’s neighbors have taken it to the next level, adding a string of nodding reindeer to their front porch. The faint echo of “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” pollutes the otherwise still night.

I stop in front of the long concrete walkway. The house is the mirror image of the neighbors’, sans reindeer. Through the front window, I see a large Christmas tree covered in colored lights and tinsel.

I ring the bell. Jane, age six, bright red hair, gap in her front teeth, opens the door. She’s wearing a pair of flared jeans with pink flowers embroidered around the bottom and a matching pink sweater. “Aunty Anne, Aunty Anne!”

I stoop down to give her a hug. She smells like Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo. “Hey, Jane-girl.”

She wiggles away from me. “Did you know I’m getting an American Girl doll for Christmas?”

“Oh, you are, are you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you know that?”

She gives me a sly look. “Mommy and Daddy said so in the living room last night.”

“They were talking about your Christmas present with you in the room?”

“Nah. It was sleep time, but I was thirsty.” She pronounces it “tirtsy.”

“You shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations, Jane-girl.”

She clasps her hands behind her back, swinging them back and forth. “I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

“I know, cutie. It’s okay.”

“You won’t tell Mommy, right?”

“Don’t worry.”

I ruffle her hair, and Jane takes my hand, pulling me toward the kitchen at the back of the house. The smell of baking chicken makes me instantly hungry.

Cathy is standing at the stove, stirring a pot of gravy. Elizabeth, four, blond, big blue eyes, a little tubby, is clinging to her knees. Mary, also blond, and two, is in a playpen in the corner.

“Hey, Cath.”

She turns toward me, and I notice that pregnancy glow she always seems to get. Her dark blond hair is in a thick braid that hangs halfway down her back, and her clear skin shines like those girls’ in the Neutrogena commercials. If she weren’t one of the warmest people I’ve ever met, I’d hate her.

“I’m glad you could make it, Anne. It’s been a while.”

I pick a cookie off a plate sitting on the counter and pop it into my mouth. It tastes sweet and buttery. “Would you accept ‘I’ve been really busy at work’ as an excuse?”

She smiles. The slight gap between her front teeth matches Jane’s. “Not a chance.”

“I knew I was pushing my luck, you being a mother of almost four and all.”

She laughs a deep, happy laugh. Elizabeth looks up at her adoringly. I can see her storing this laugh in her brain for when she’s older.

“You think we’re certifiable, don’t you?” Cathy asks.

“Not the whole couple, just you. You’re the one who chose to spend your life with my brother, after all.”

I sit in the worn flowered chintz chair they keep in the corner of the kitchen, and Jane climbs into my lap. She puts her silky head against my chest and pops her thumb in her mouth. She looks so much like me at her age that it breaks my heart. Watching her these last six years has been like watching myself grow up all over again.

“He has his good points.”

“If you say so.”

“Nice article, by the way. How’d you come up with the idea?”

I hide my blush by burying my face in Jane’s hair. “I heard of a friend of a friend who was thinking of having an arranged marriage.”

“How odd.”

“Do you really find it that odd?”

“I’m not sure. I guess some of the things that Oxford girl said made sense, but I’m not sure I could get through all the hard times if love weren’t on the line.”

“She never said she wasn’t in love with him.”

“Did she say she was?”

“No, but . . .” I stop myself. Cathy’s right. Ashi never used the word “love.” I only thought I felt it. “You guys have had hard times?”

“You think we’ve survived being the parents of three kids without serious arguments?”

“No. I just meant you make it look easy, that’s all.”

“Love isn’t always easy.”

“I know.”

It’s her turn to blush. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I should’ve asked how things are going . . .”

“Since I left Stuart? Some days are better than others.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No.”

“Oh, good, because there’s this guy at Gil’s work—”

“Oh, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure I feel like dating right now.”

Jane pops her thumb out of her mouth with a wet plop. “What’s dating?”

“It’s a silly thing grown-ups do to make themselves unhappy.”

“Come on, Anne. He’s a great guy who’s ready to settle down.”

“Translation, he’s s-c-r-e-w-e-d every twenty-year-old he could, and now that he’s getting older and having less success getting l-a-i-d, he’s ready to date a woman near his own age and waste a few months of her time until she realizes he’s never going to commit.”

“He’s not like that, really. He was in a long-term relationship and they broke up.”

“Because he cheated on her?”

“No.”

“Because she wanted kids and he didn’t?”

“Nothing like that, Anne, I promise. It just didn’t work out. He’s a nice person, and she’s a nice person, and they fell out of love. No big drama.”

“Where are my girls?” Gilbert calls from the front hall.

Jane jumps off my lap, and Elizabeth untangles herself from Cathy. They both run toward the front door, squealing, “Daaddddyyyyy!” at the top of their voices. And there it is. The knot of jealousy I often feel when I come here, the thing that keeps me from coming as often as I should.

Gil comes into the kitchen holding a girl in each arm. My brother is six feet two, has hazel eyes and curly brown hair with a glint of red in it. He’s starting to go gray at the temples, and he has laugh lines around his eyes. In contrast to my too-white skin, his is golden and tans easily. If it wouldn’t tag me as a
Flowers in the Attic
type, I’d describe him as handsome. As it is, he’s just my sometimes annoying big brother.

“Heya, Cordelia, glad you could make it.”

My jaw tenses. I give him a curt nod. “Gilbert.”

He kisses Cathy on the nape of her neck. “Hey, beautiful.”

She pushes him away. “Hey, yourself.”

“Why so bashful? Anne’s seen us kiss hundreds of times.”

“I’ll close my eyes,” I tell her.

“Stop it, both of you,” Cathy says.

Gilbert dumps the girls in my lap. Elizabeth promptly goes back to her station at Cathy’s feet. Gil loosens his tie and drapes his jacket over the back of a chair tucked under the breakfast bar. “Did Cathy tell you about Richard?”

“Is Richard the dating?” Jane asks.

“That’s right, muffin,” Gilbert says as he gives me a wicked smile.

B
y the end of dinner, Gilbert somehow convinces me to go on a date with Richard, a lawyer in his firm, even though I’m not sure I should be dating, given the whole Blythe & Company thing. But in the end I figure, what do I have to lose?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question turns out to be several hours of my life.

The night starts out fine. Richard chooses a good restaurant. It has light wood floors, exposed brick walls, and square, intimate tables with an individual oblong chandelier hovering over each one. The room glows with the right kind of light, feeling cozy and alive at the same time, and I can smell a delicious blend of aromas coming from the kitchen.

I follow a waitress through the restaurant, feeling good in my flirty black skirt and a soft sweater that’s the one shade of pink I can wear. I’m even having a good-hair day.

Richard stands when I approach and kisses me hello on both cheeks. I’ve never liked this quasi-European practice, but I hear Gil’s voice in my head telling me to relax, to give this guy a chance, so I smile and take a seat in the chair Richard pulls out.

He’s wearing a dark charcoal suit and no tie. His sand-colored hair is cut close, and his dark brown eyes are deep and chocolaty. He’s a handsome man, just not my kind of handsome.

I order a gin and tonic.

“Tough day?” Richard says.

“Why do you ask?”

“I just thought because of the drink you ordered . . .”

“I like gin and tonics.” I try to keep my voice even, light. I don’t quite manage it.

“That wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?”

“Probably not.”

“What was the right thing to say?”

“That I look great,” I say jokingly, flirting a little.

“Sorry. It’s been a long time.”

“I heard.”

His face constricts in pain. Crap.

“Sorry. I guess that wasn’t the right thing to say either.”

“That’s all right,” he says, but his tone says otherwise.

He picks up his menu and starts looking through it, and after a moment I do the same. We spend way too much time picking our food. The waitress comes back with my drink. I take a large gulp, choking on the bitter tonic.

“I have an idea,” Richard says when the waitress leaves.

“What?”

“Let’s pretend I said the right thing and you said the right thing, and we’re five minutes into the night and everything’s going well.”

I smile. “Sounds like a plan.”

We clink glasses, and for a few minutes I think this might work out.

I’m not sure what pushes that feeling away, exactly, but the instinct to say the wrong thing to each other keeps coming back. It’s nothing big, only a continuous stream of small annoyances. I order fish and he’s allergic to fish, but instead of mentioning it as I order, he brings it up when I offer him some and he pushes my fork away. I ask him what Gil’s like at work, and he tells me stories about how Gil rode him into the ground when he was a first-year. These are supposed to be funny stories. They’re stories I’d tell to tease Gil, and yet hearing them from him makes me defensive about my brother.

But the worst part is that Richard doesn’t seem to notice how badly the date’s going. His moment of insight, when he could tell we’d started off on the wrong foot, was just that, a moment that passed.

We spend two awkward hours together, and now we’ve been waiting for the check for at least twenty minutes. Even clueless Richard is beginning to look restless.

“What are you doing next Friday?” he asks.

Uh-oh.

“Um, not sure yet. I have a lot of deadlines around then.”

The waitress finally brings the check. She’s about to leave again, but I grab her by the arm to keep her at the table. “Hold on a second, we’ll pay now.”

I reach into my purse, but Richard gives his card to the waitress before I can get mine out.

“You in a hurry or something?” he asks when she’s gone.

Is he really going to make me say it out loud?

“Oh, I had a long day. I’m kind of tired.”

“Sure, I understand,” he says in a disappointed tone.

Thankfully, the waitress comes back quickly, and we get up to leave. Outside on the street, I thank him for dinner.

“My pleasure. We should do this again sometime.”

“Um . . .”

“I’m pretty busy this week, but Friday’s free.”

“You mentioned that in the restaurant.”

“Right, right. And you said you might not be available . . .”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“That’s okay. I’ll call you during the week when you have a better idea of your schedule.”

I look over his shoulder for a cab and realize too late that he’s coming in for a kiss. I stand there, frozen, unable to turn away. His lips touch mine briefly. I’m too stunned, and the kiss is too brief, to tell what kissing him would be like. I see the flash of a cab light approaching, and I throw up my hand to get its attention. “Thanks again for dinner.” I jump into the cab before he can say anything else, and the driver pulls away. I look at my watch. Ten-fifteen. I’ll risk it.

“Hello,” Gil answers in his quiet, this-better-be-important-to-risk-waking-up-my-kids-just-after-I’ve-gotten-them-to-bed voice.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”