Arranged (9 page)

We walk toward the
CONGRATULATIONS!
sign, and I talk and drink and get congratulated. Janey, Nan, and Susan arrive with their husbands, full of happiness for me and funny stories about motherhood. My agent comes in with a whirl of talk about royalty rates and finalizing my book deal. I direct her toward Gilbert. Time slows and contracts. I’m happy, I’m nervous. I drink several martinis, filling up on olives. I drift away from the group again when I hear my mother say, “Well, you know she gets the writing gene from me. I have drawers full of little scribbles that I always meant to put together someday.”

I try in vain to catch the bartender’s eye, but he’s flirting with a girl who looks barely legal. An Alicia Keys song is belting from the radio, and I don’t feel like yelling.

“Can I help?” says the man standing next to me. His voice is medium-low and sexy.

I look at him and my stomach flips. He’s tall, slim, and has short black hair feathered in the “hot guy from
Sixteen Candles
” way. In fact, he looks very much like that boy fast-forwarded to his early thirties, with blue eyes and a slight ski jump to his nose. He’s even wearing a red and blue plaid shirt over a crisp white T-shirt.

The martinis make me feel bold. “Do you think you can get the bartender to ignore that girl for a few minutes?”

“For you, anything,” he says, looking directly into my eyes.

Oh, boy.

He puts his thumb and index finger in his mouth and makes a quick, piercing whistle that gets the bartender to look up. It’s a move I’d normally find boorish, but tonight, from this man, it seems appropriate, sexy, even. As the bartender ambles reluctantly toward us, the handsome stranger smiles mischievously at me and asks what I want to drink.

“A vodka martini.”

“Coming right up.”

We watch him mix our drinks. My new companion pays and hands me mine.

“Thanks.”

“Welcome. Cheers.”

I take a sip. The drink doesn’t bite the way it should. I should definitely stop drinking after this one.

“I’ve always wanted to know how to do that,” I say.

“You mean this?” He raises his thumb and finger to his lips. “It’s easy. You just put your lips together and blow.”

I laugh. “Bogart fan?”

“I try.”

“I never caught your name.”

“Aaron. You?”

“Anne.”

He ponders this for a second. “Anne. I like it.”

“Kind of boring, huh?”

“Are you boring, Anne?”

The edges of our arms are touching. I can feel the rough fabric of his shirt and the warmth of his skin beneath it. “I hope not. You here alone?”

“I’m supposed to be meeting a friend, but he’s late. You?”

“I’m with them.” I wave my drink toward the balloons and the people gathered underneath them.

“What are they celebrating?”

“Me, I guess.”

“You getting married?”

“No, that’s my friend Sarah.”

“What’s there to celebrate about you?”

“You can’t see what there’d be to celebrate about me?”

He looks me up and down. “I can see all kinds of things to celebrate about you, but they don’t involve streamers and balloons.”

My face feels hot. Definitely the last martini. “My book’s getting published.”

“That’s great. What’s it called?”

“
Home.
”

“What’s it about?”

“This group of friends going to their—”

“Anne?”

Shit.

“Hi, Richard.”

He eyes Aaron warily and asks me, “What’re you doing all the way over here?”

“I was getting a drink.”

Aaron steps away. My arm feels cold, exposed.

“Your mother was asking where you were.”

Even better.

“You were talking to my mom?”

“Sure. She introduced herself.”

“Of course she did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounds more puzzled than angry.

I look away, scanning the room for Aaron. He’s at the other end of the bar talking to a man wearing a peacoat—the friend he was waiting for, presumably.

“Nothing. Let’s go back to the party.”

I glance over my shoulder and catch Aaron’s eye. He toasts me with his half-empty glass.

As the evening waxes on, I keep stealing glances at him, tracking his progress around the bar. Sarah catches me at it. “Is that Tadd?”

“What? No!”

“Looks just like him. Do you know each other?”

“I was talking to him earlier. Do you really think he looks like Tadd?”

She squints. “Half Tadd, half Stuart.”

I look at Aaron again. Sarah’s kind of right. Damn.

“Do you know any women our age?” I say to her.

“Why?”

“Because I need a new best friend.”

“Pht. Who’d point out the obvious if I weren’t around?”

“True.”

Her eyes are shining with love and contentment. “Thanks for organizing this.”

“No, thank you.” I reach out and hug her. She even smells happy. “I’m really glad for you, you know.”

“I know. Me too.”

We break apart. My eyes settle on Aaron. Part of me would like to give him my phone number. Part of me is terrified that I only want to do this because he looks the way he looks. But didn’t we have a few minutes of good conversation? Good flirting, anyway?

In the end, I let it go. I’m feeling tired and decide to tell Richard I want to leave. I walk through the crowd, searching for him. So like the wrong man: never around when I need him.

“Anne?” Aaron puts his hand on my shoulder.

The right man, on the other hand . . .

He has his coat on. The dark blue fabric matches his eyes exactly.

“Can I give you my number?” he asks.

“Okay.”

“Great.” He hands me a business card. “It’s easiest to get me on my cell.”

“It was nice meeting you.”

“It was nice meeting you too, Anne.”

I watch him walk away as if we’re in some silly movie. He looks back at me once and gives me a devastating parting smile.

When I locate Richard, he’s talking to my parents. I can tell my father is only pretending to listen, emitting the occasional grunt of acknowledgment. He does this when he’s bored, and the grunts match up with Richard’s soliloquy only about one out of three times. Richard is oblivious.

“Anne!” Dad almost falls on me in relief.

“Richard, I think I’m ready to go home.”

“That’s my cue.” Richard takes my mother’s hand and kisses it, much to my father’s amusement. “Mrs. Blythe, it’s been lovely talking to you. I hope we have many more opportunities to do so.”

“Ah, oh, yes, right,” she says vaguely. “Congratulations again, dear.”

“Thanks, Mom. ’Night, Dad.”

My father’s eyes twinkle. “How many dates have you two been on, anyway?”

I smother a laugh. “Tonight’s our second.”

My mother perks up. “You know, Richard—”

“No one wants to hear that story, Diane. It’s time to go.”

Sometimes I really love my dad.

“Oh, all right, I’m coming. Say, Anne, was that Tadd you were talking to before?”

I
fend off a kiss from Richard in the cab (there will
not
be a third date) and escape into my apartment. I’m exhausted but too keyed up to sleep. I settle into my semi-comfortable couch and flip through the channels.

As I watch TMZ follow Amber Sheppard around, my mind wanders to Aaron, replaying how he looked at me, how the fabric of his shirt felt on my arm. I retrieve his card from my coat pocket, turning it over in my hands.

It wouldn’t hurt to look him up on the Internet, right?

I type his name into Google, and there he is, an investment banker with an MBA and a long list of accomplishments. The photo on his company website is a good one—although, disconcertingly, it makes him look even more like Tadd.

I scan through the other hits. Halfway down, there’s one that stops me cold. It’s a wedding announcement from under a year ago. Mr. and Mrs. Price are pleased to announce that their daughter,
Anne,
married Aaron Denis, blah, blah, blah. Aaron smiles happily into the camera with a beautiful blonde in his arms.

Shit, shit,
shit.
I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he liked my name. I guess that’s why he told me to call him on his cell. I
knew
it. Okay, I didn’t. But I should have.

Bastard!

I rip his card into tiny little pieces and toss them into the trash. Goddammit. It’s been months since I left Stuart, and my instincts are still for crap. I see a beautiful man and I throw myself at him without noticing anything else. He was probably wearing his wedding ring and I didn’t even notice it. Come to that, Richard’s probably an interesting guy. Okay, maybe not. But still.

I wander around my apartment looking for something to punch, to hold on to. Instead, I notice the blinking red light of my cell phone announcing a message. I pick up the clear glass paperweight sitting next to it as I dial in to my voice mail. I have one new message. It was left at 5:47
P.M
. from a number I don’t recognize.

“Hello, Ms. Blythe, this is Samantha Cooper. I’m happy to tell you we’ve found a match. Please call me on Monday to schedule an appointment. Have a nice weekend.”

Barely breathing, I grip the paperweight as tightly as I can. Its smooth glass is unyielding.

They found a match.

I don’t need my instincts anymore.

I have Blythe & Company.

Chapter 9

Don’t Drink the Water

M
y plane lands smoothly at the airport in Cancún, Mexico, a month to the day after I got the message from Ms. Cooper.

I collect my luggage, go through customs, and walk into the sweltering heat. The air feels thick in my throat and tastes like dust. The sun glares off the white adobe walls. I shade my eyes, searching for something familiar. Standing among a sea of cabdrivers is a man holding a Blythe & Company sign.

“For Blythe and Company?” he says with a Spanish accent. He looks overheated in his white short-sleeved shirt and long black pants.

“
Sí.
”

“Please go to
autobús
seventy. It is that way.” He points toward a long row of minibuses lined up alongside the building. Rivers of pinky-white tourists wearing bright shorts and T-shirts are in front of the buses, looking excited and in need of refreshments.

“
Gracias,
” I say.

There are four women in front of bus 70, sweating in a ragged line. I take my place at the end and wait anxiously. The woman standing in front of me—late thirties, faded pretty, straw-colored hair—gives me a nervous smile. She might be as freaked out as I am. As we wait, I silently recite the schedule we’ll be following for the next two days: orientation, free period, meeting, dinner, bachelor/bachelorette parties, sleep, breakfast, therapy, wedding. It sounds like a mix of camp, high school, and a dream where everything seems real but nothing makes any sense. And the upshot of it all, the thing that’s banging around in my mind and pushing my heart against my chest, is that by the end of tomorrow I’ll be married.

I
went to see Ms. Cooper the Monday after the party. When I was shown into her office, there was a white folder sitting squarely in the middle of her desk. Somehow I knew that whatever information she was about to give me about my potential future husband was in that folder, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. I eyed it with nervous anticipation, with hunger, maybe even with lust. The corners looked sharp enough to cause a paper cut if not handled properly. And I wanted to handle it properly.

Most of all, I wanted to see what—
who
—was inside.

“I imagine you’d like to read this?” she said, holding the folder casually.

Hey, lady, be careful with that! My husband’s in there.

“Yes, please.”

She handed it to me with an inscrutable look. I put it in my lap and ran my hands along the edges. They were as sharp as I’d imagined. My stomach was a pit of nervousness. I took a deep breath and opened it. Inside, there was a single white page containing a typed paragraph that read:

Profile Match for Anne Blythe

Jack H., 34, writer/journalist. 5’10”, brown hair, green eyes, parents deceased, no siblings, never married, wants kids, university-educated. First match. Match quotient 8.

I sat staring at the paper. I read it again and again until I’d memorized each word. No matter how long I stared, the information on the page didn’t change.

Jack H.—are you the man for me?

“What does ‘match quotient eight’ mean?”

“It’s a metric made up of your personality type and the matching characteristics we use.”

“What’s it out of?”

“It’s not ‘out of’ anything.”

“Then how do I know if it’s a good score?”

A flash of frustration crossed her face. “A match can be one through eight. One is least compatible, eight is most compatible.”

“So it’s a good match?” I persisted.

“Yes, Ms. Blythe. We don’t put people together who have less than a seven. That’s the reason we’re so successful.”

“Will he get the same information about me?”

She hesitated. “It’s the same information he’s received about you, yes.”

“
Has
received? He already knows about me?”

“Yes, Ms. Blythe.”

My heart started beating wildly. Somewhere in the world, probably in this very office, Jack H. had read a little paragraph about me and thought . . . what?

“Why did he get to go first?” I asked, feeling childish.

“We’ve found it’s better to ensure the man’s agreement before we present the candidate to the woman.”

I thought it over. “Because men deal better with rejection?”

“I wouldn’t say
better.
Just differently.”

“So the fact that you’re showing this to me means he’s agreed to . . . marry me?”

“Yes.”

Thump, thump, thump.
“Did he accept the first match offered, or did he look at several matches?”

“No, you’re the first. That’s what ‘first match’ means.”

He picked me. He picked me! He doesn’t know anything about me, but Jack H. agreed to marry
me.
How is that even possible?

“What happens now?”

“You decide if you want to continue the process.”

“So it’s up to me?”

“It always has been.”

“How long do I have to decide?”

“You can take as long as you like, but . . .”

“I shouldn’t expect him to wait.”

She gave me one of her thin smiles. “We find it’s best not to wait too long. The other party can get impatient.”

“And if I agree? Then what?”

“Our next retreat is scheduled for the fifteenth.”

She was referring to the resort in Mexico where the weddings take place. Seven sun-drenched days and moonlit nights in a five-star resort. Speaking of which . . .

“Um, you never said. What are the sleeping arrangements?”

“You will have your own room for the week.”

“We’re not expected to . . .” I stopped, feeling like I did when I was stupid enough to ask a question in health class.

“What you do with your husband once you’re married is up to you, Ms. Blythe. I’m sure Dr. Szwick can discuss this in more detail, if you like.”

I nodded like a blushing idiot and got the hell out of there as soon as I could.

I spent the next several days barely able to sleep. When I showed up for my next appointment with Dr. Szwick, I was in mid-panic.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked him, perching tensely on the corduroy chair.

“That’s not for me to say, Anne.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“But if someone else can pick a husband for me, why can’t you tell me whether to marry him?”

“All Blythe and Company is telling you is that this is the type of person you
should
marry. But the decision to marry or not, the decision to marry under these circumstances, that’s a life choice you have to make.” He rested his hands on his knees. “I know you’re too intelligent not to see the distinction, so what’s really bothering you?”

“I guess this all seemed so theoretical. Something I was trying out that wasn’t going to lead anywhere, or at least not so quickly.”

“I won’t lie to you, Anne. This is happening faster than I’d ideally like. I think we still have some work to do, and in a perfect world, it would’ve taken longer. But Jack’s such a great match for you that—”

I interrupted him. “What do you mean, Jack’s such a great match for me? Have you met him?”

He gave me a patient smile. “Of course I have. I thought you understood that. I’ve been working with him just as I have with you. I see all of Blythe and Company’s clients in the city.”

“He’s been coming here?” I put my hands on the arms of the chair as though I might find something of him left behind, something that would tell me more about him than the scant words on the piece of paper Ms. Cooper gave me.

“Yes.”

“What’s he like? Tell me everything.”

“I can’t tell you anything, Anne, you know that. You’ll know the answers to your questions soon enough if you decide to go through with the process. But I can tell you I’m happy your first question was ‘What is he like?’ rather than ‘What does he look like?’ That shows some progress, I think.”

Or not. I really, really wanted to know what he looked like.

“So . . . should I marry him?” I couldn’t help asking again.

He shook his head. “I want to try something.”

“Do you want me to feel discombobulated again? Because I already feel that way.”

“No, I want you to relax. Sit back, close your eyes, and count to ten slowly.”

I slid back. “What am I supposed to be doing while I count?”

“Nothing, Anne. Just close your eyes and count. Don’t think of anything but the counting. Imagine the numbers forming in your mind. Use the numbers to push back any other thoughts. Ready?”

I closed my eyes. I tried to block out all the other thoughts in my brain but the numbers. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . I visualized each number as I thought it, bright starry things that hurt my eyelids.

“Have you counted to ten?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I want you to think back to the moment you decided to go to Blythe and Company. Do you remember where you were?”

“Yes, I was at work.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was talking to my best friend, Sarah. She’d just told me she was engaged.”

“She told you she was getting married, and you decided to call Blythe and Company?”

“Yes.”

“Why? And don’t say ‘I don’t know.’ ”

I breathed in and out slowly. One . . . two . . . three . . . now the numbers were pastel tones, the crayon bleeding outside the lines as if my nieces had colored them.

“I suppose I wanted what she had.”

“Yes. But why call Blythe and Company to get it?”

“Because I didn’t know how to get it myself.”

“And isn’t that still true? Don’t you want what she has?”

Six . . . seven . . . eight . . .

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“No ambivalent answers, Anne. Do you know how to get what you want?”

“No.”

“Do you still want what Sarah has?”

“Yes.”

“Should you marry Jack?”

Nine . . . ten . . . one . . . two . . . the numbers sparked brightly and disappeared.

“You’re saying if I marry Jack, I get what I want even though I don’t know how to get it?”

“What do you think?”

“I want to get what I want.”

“And so?”

“I want to marry Jack.”

“Okay, Anne. Now open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes slowly. The light hurt, like it does when you turn on the bathroom light in the middle of the night. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, and when I could focus again, there was Dr. Szwick, smiling at me.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Kind of excited.”

“That’s good, Anne. That’s very good.”

I left Dr. Szwick’s office on a high, and I rode that high right through to Mexico. I cleared my schedule, requested the time off, and told everyone I was going on an impromptu vacation to celebrate my book deal. I stayed up late, night after night, going through the line edits and copyedits for my book. I purchased some beach clothes and got a haircut. And I changed my mind a dozen times, but something always pushed me forward.

On the day before I was scheduled to leave, I bought a dress to wear to my wedding.

I was all set.

I
get on the bus and take a seat next to a round woman in her mid-forties who has wild chestnut hair streaked with gray. She’s wearing a cream peasant skirt that falls to her ankles and a sleeveless purple linen shirt. She smells like baby oil and lavender.

“Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m Margaret.”

“I’m Anne.”

“Ever been to Mexico before?”

“No, you?”

“Nope. Say, I wonder where all the men are?”

I’ve been trying desperately not to think that very thing myself. Not to look into the face of every man on the airplane who had brown hair, wondering if he was Jack. Am I really, truly not even going to see this man until tonight?

“Good question,” I tell her.

“Maybe they bring them in on a different bus?”

“That must be it.”

“What’s yours named?”

I feel shy about saying his name to another person. It makes it more real somehow. Though how much realer can it get than this, sitting on a bus on the way to meet him?

“Jack.”

“Mine’s named Brian. Funny, I’ve never liked that name. Oh well. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Do you like the name Jack?”

“I do, actually.”