MAKE ME A MATCH (Running Wild) (2 page)

“The robes, yeah. I don’t know about the airport.”

“She’s a good-looking lady. Smart, too. Go figure.”

“Yeah. The celibate thing sorta smarts. I thought that part was going okay, unless she was faking.”

“They all do that sometimes. Nobody else on the horizon?” Apart from being tall and well muscled, Rocky wasn’t what anybody would call handsome, but his broad face and chocolate brown eyes shone with goodness. Eric had known him since high school and would have trusted him with his life, and several times, he’d come pretty close. He’d certainly trust him with his sister Sophie, if Rocky would only wake up and smell the antiseptic, which on Sophie took the place of perfume. For years now, they’d been out of step. When Sophie wasn’t in a relationship, Rocky was, and vice versa.

“Not at the moment.”

“Give it time.” Which maybe wasn’t the best advice in this case. Rocky married his high school sweetheart, Melanie, right after graduation. Mel died in a car wreck two years later, and a month to the day after that, Rocky’s mother dropped dead of a heart attack. So Rocky moved in with his dad, Fletcher. The two of them had grieved together and stayed together. Fifteen years later, they were still the odd couple.

“Your sisters feel bad about giving you such a hard time when they were growing up.” As usual, Rocky didn’t want to talk about his foibles when Eric’s were available for dissection. And with no brothers or sisters of his own, Rocky loved hearing about Eric’s.

“Yeah, well, they have good reason to feel guilty. I learned too much about the worst of the female gender from them. It’s a wonder I’m not alcoholic and bald after what they put me through.”

Hell, it was a wonder he wasn’t gay; raising them was enough to put anybody off women. He shuddered even now, remembering that with three of them, somebody always had PMS, which meant that three weeks out of every month were unbearable, and the one left over was no picnic either. It was no wonder a lot of his relationships hadn’t lasted twenty-eight days.

“I really wish they’d stay the hell out of my love life. I wouldn’t exactly say any of them are experts on relationships. I don’t see Sophie galloping to the altar.”
Although she might if you asked her, Dumbo.
But then again, maybe Rocky just didn’t find Sophie appealing.

“She still with that surgeon?”

He did keep up with the men in Sophie’s life, though.

“Nope. That ended a couple weeks ago. She said he had no sense of humor.”

Rocky nodded enthusiastic agreement. “What about Anna and Bruno? They’ve been married what, a year now?”

“Fourteen months. They’re doing okay. ”

“She getting any clients yet?”

“Not that I know of.” Anna had just given up a pensionable job teaching high school to do private consultations in astrology. Eric figured she could benefit from private consultations with a shrink, but at least that was now Bruno’s problem and not his. He’d spent enough time watching Anna take classes in everything from tarot card reading to past life regression. He’d thought marrying a steady guy like Bruno might straighten her out, but obviously it hadn’t happened.

“How’s Karen doing?”

“Pretty good.” His baby sister was a single mom with two rambunctious little boys. She was the one Eric worried over the most. “You coming over there for dinner tonight?”

“Nope. Karen called and invited Dad and me, but we figured it’s best if we meet you guys afterward at the pub. Birthday dinners oughta be just family.”

“Too bad. With the three of my sisters in one room, there’s way too much estrogen for Bruno and me to handle.”

“You’ll manage, you’ve got a Ph.D. in estrogen.” Rocky finished his beer and got to his feet. “Gotta go, I’m putting in a hot water tank this afternoon. See you later.”

After he left, Eric swilled the rest of the beer, tossed the bottle in the trash, and reached for his welding mask. With Nema gone and a fresh supply of plumbing parts, thanks to Rocky, he had the whole afternoon to finish the dog. The party wasn’t until six.

His spirits rose. He put on his protective glasses and sparks flew from the welding torch, and after a few minutes he started to whistle.

What was Anna’s latest litany?
Whatever is happening now is right for you
, that was it. Maybe she was onto something there.

By seven that evening, Eric knew for certain Anna was, as usual, dead wrong.

Family tradition dictated that gifts were opened when the birthday cake was served, and along with the double-chocolate layer cake Sophie handed Eric a plain white envelope. He looked down at it, and then up at his sisters.

Three sets of nearly identical wide blue eyes were fixed on him. The girls—all over thirty, but always the girls to him—were all back to their natural blonde at the moment, and there was no denying the fact that they were pretty, even though Karen was way too skinny and Anna had gained a few pounds.

More than a few, and although she claimed it was a side effect of rapid spiritual growth, Eric knew it had more to do with her passion for pecan caramel ice cream.

“Open it, big brother,” Karen said.

They were all smiling at him with the straight, white teeth that had cost a fortune, and his heart sank, because he saw through those smiles right away. They’d used them way too often when they were trying to put something over on him.

Even Bruno had a nasty smirk on his face.

“What’d you get, Uncle Eric?” Five-year-old Simon bounced up and down in his chair. “Mommy wouldn’t tell us. She said it was a surprise.”

“A ’prise," mumbled three-year-old Ian around a mouthful of cake, sending chocolate crumbs spraying in all directions.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, idiot,” Simon admonished, punching his brother on the arm.

“Simon hit me,” wailed Ian, spraying even more and letting half-chewed brown lumps slide out of his mouth and down his chin to plop onto the white tablecloth. “He called me idiot. Idiot your own self.” He doubled up a fist and returned the punch.

“Don’t fight. Simon, don’t call your brother names.” As usual, the boys paid no attention to Karen, and punches flew. They’d figured out long ago who ran the household, and it wasn’t their mother.

Over their screams, Karen hollered, “Eric, speak to them, okay?”

“You guys want to leave the table now and go to your rooms?” Eric gave his nephews each a withering look, and in turn they shook their curly red heads and pretended to look scared. Eric didn’t appreciate being cast as the boogeyman, but Karen was out of her depth with these two.

“Sorry, Ian,” Simon offered without prompting.

“Sorry your own self,” Ian responded, sticking his tongue out.

Peace finally reigned, and Eric turned his attention to the envelope, ripping it open and extracting the single sheet of paper inside.

He had to read it twice before it sank in. The typed message was on heavy bond with a stylish letterhead that read
Synchronicity,
and it said that Eric Stewart was the recipient of a gift membership. He was asked to come in for a personal assessment, after which he would be matched with suitable companions.

The letter was signed,

Clara Beckford.

Underneath, in capital letters, was printed,

PROFESSIONAL MATCHMAKER

The sound of one hand clapping
.

“A matchmaker?

"Eric knew he sounded horrified, but he couldn’t help it. “You guys enrolled me in a dating service?” He could feel his blood pressure rising. He looked at his sisters. “This is a joke, right?” He could tell by their expressions that it wasn’t.

“Don’t hyperventilate,” Sophie advised in her take charge ER voice. “Take some deep breaths and we’ll explain exactly what’s involved here. It’s actually very current, more and more people these days are using matchmakers. Everyone’s busy and it beats picking up strangers in bars or coming on to someone at the supermarket.”

“That works for me.” Eric couldn’t see what was wrong with that.

Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Need I say more? You could definitely benefit from some professional advice.”

“I agree,” Anna chimed in, “but I think the matchmaker ought to use astrology. For instance, if I took a look at someone’s chart, I’d know whether the person he was dating was compatible. It would cut out a lot of guesswork. It’s a more scientific approach. Astrology is the roadmap for our lives, after all.” She shoved her long straight curtain of hair back and got that know-it-all look on her heart shaped face. “As soon as you get lined up with someone suitable, Eric, I’ll do your combined charts and then we’ll know for sure if you’re meant for each other.”

Eric swallowed his outrage and tried for a rational tone because anyone sane knew Anna was heading toward certifiable nutsville. “Nobody seems to have noticed, but I don’t exactly have a problem meeting women.”

“Yeah, but you have a problem keeping them. You go through them like tissue paper,” Bruno commented with a grin.

Eric had known Bruno since high school, and he was a lot less fun since he’d married Anna. The bastard was enjoying this.

Eric scowled at his brother-in-law, resplendent tonight in a navy satin shirt with silver snaps. Bruno wanted to be a cowboy in his next incarnation. He was the only accountant Eric knew who wore cowboy boots to the office.

“He’s right, Eric,” Sophie declared. Sophie, the only one of his sisters he could usually rely on for common sense. Total betrayal, go figure.

“We’re all getting to the point where we don’t even bother remembering their names,” she went on. “It’s not quantity, bro, it’s quality you’re lacking. You’re not meeting the type of women you could get serious about and settle down with, and you’re not getting any younger either, which is where this matchmaking thing comes in.”

Eric started to say something about the serious and settling down part, but Sophie was on a roll.

“Synchronicity guarantees that you’ll meet women of a better caliber. What the heck, you date anyway, why not try this?” Her cobalt blue eyes, the exact shade of his, challenged him.

“I sort of like the caliber of women I meet now,” he said, but nobody listened.

Simon and Ian were chanting “Ice cream, ice cream, ” and Bruno was getting it from the freezer. Anna was telling Sophie something about Pluto going retrograde.

“We thought it would be a different birthday gift, Eric.” Karen was sitting beside him, and she was blinking in that nervous way she had lately. Her hands, stained with purple hair dye from the salon, restlessly rearranged cutlery. “I guess we should have asked you first, huh?”

For sure they should have asked him, but one look at Karen’s face told him this was no time to say so. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world, so he tried to summon up a facsimile of a smile.

Besides, the damned certificate was a gift, and his nephews were human sponges. They parroted whatever he and Bruno said and did, so he needed to be careful here.
Polite, remember polite.
Simon and Ian had heard enough lectures from him about manners, he had to walk the walk.

“Hey, I’m just—well, I’m sort of stunned, sweet pea. I know you girls put a lot of thought into this, and I appreciate it, really I do. Thanks, thanks very much,” he managed, even though it nearly choked him.

“Lotsa moola too,” Bruno was finished spooning out ice cream for the boys. He winked at Eric and rubbed thumb and finger together. “Ouch. ” He grimaced and rubbed his leg when Anna kicked him under the table.

Jesus. Eric hadn’t gotten around to thinking yet about what the gift had cost. This was getting worse and worse. Sophie earned good money as a doctor, but Soph had a mortgage the size of Canada on the fancy waterfront town house she’d bought last fall. Eric knew because he’d cosigned for her.

Karen had barely enough money to pay rent and food and babysitting; he knew because he regularly slipped her extra. Jimmy Nicols, the no-good deadbeat asshole she’d married, sent her money when it suited him.

And then there was Anna, using Bruno’s income to try and set up her goofy astrology business, so it was technically Bruno who’d paid her share of this fiasco, and he and Anna had just bought a house. Eric knew because he’d commandeered one of his trucks and two of his huskiest drivers to help move them.

The thought of his family spending more than they could afford on an idiotic, unnecessary, dumb-ass stupid thing like this matchmaking really got to him. The only consolation was that there had to be a simple way to get their money back. He’d just go in and tell this Beckford woman he didn’t need or want the membership. Tuesday, he’d go, he had the financial thing Monday.

After dinner, Karen’s sitter arrived and with help from Bruno herded Simon and Ian into the bathtub, and then Eric and his family headed for their neighborhood pub for the second half of the celebration.

They walked into Riley’s and Eric cringed when he thought of the ribbing he was going to endure when Rocky and Fletcher got wind of the matchmaker thing. The place was in the midst of Saturday night rush hour. The crowd looked a little rowdier than usual, there were lots of tattoos and leather around. Rock and his father had secured a large round table, and they hollered and waved when the others arrived.

“Sit here, Sophie.” Rocky held a chair, and Sophie slid into it.

Eric watched Sophie turn up the voltage. “How’s business, Rocky?”

Rocky’s ears turned vermilion. “Ahhh, you know, same old, same old, blocked pipes, leaky pumps, flooded basements.”

“Not so different from my job,” Sophie purred close to his ear. “Blocked arteries, hemorrhaging wounds, people with psych problems. Glorified plumbing, we should compare notes some night.”

“Yeah,” Rocky said, hitting his foot with the ball as usual.

“Happy Birthday, Eric.” Rocky’s father, Fletcher Hutton, extended a hand and Eric shook it. “Forty’s a milestone,” Fletcher commented, smoothing his fingers across his handlebar moustache. He added with a wink, “Now sixty-five, there’s a roadblock. It’s taken me a whole year to get over turning sixty- five.” With rusty hair curling past his thin shoulders and hazel eyes reflecting his gentle smile, Fletcher looked more like an aging hippie than a semiretired, cutthroat divorce lawyer.

‘Yeah, but you don’t look a day over sixty-four, Pop,” Rocky jibed his father, and everyone laughed.

Eric wasn’t paying a lot of attention to their good-natured bantering. He was still stuck on the damned gift, and he downed a glass of beer in one long swallow. He wasn’t a booze hound; he’d learned when he was half the age he was now that hangovers were too hefty a price to pay for the buzz liquor provided. But tonight he needed a little buzz.

He also needed a little enlightening. Karen was sitting beside him, and while the others were laughing and talking, he said under cover of their voices, “How did this Serendipity thing happen to come up, Karo?”

“Synchronicity. Well, we were talking, and I mentioned that I had a friend who worked for a matchmaker, and we were trying to figure out what to get you, and Sophie said it was a great idea.”

“Sophie said that? I’d have guessed Anna, but not Soph.”

“I thought it was a good idea, too.” Karen gave him a lopsided grin.

He grunted and took Karen’s fingers in his, running a thumb down the stains on her hand. “Purple isn’t your color, sweet pea. You forget to wear gloves again? This stuff can’t be good for you.” Sometimes he thought plain old living wasn’t good for his baby sister. She’d lost weight again; she was so skinny now it scared him, but he didn’t want to nag her about it. “You get around to telling that witch you work for you want a raise?”

“Not yet.” Karen didn’t look at him as she picked up her beer. “Junella’s been in a bad mood lately. I’ll do it, I just need to choose the right moment.”

“You’re great at doing hair, Karo. You could get a job tomorrow at any of the big salons, you know that. You don’t have to stick with that joint, take abuse from dried-up old Junella. You won all those awards when you were in beauty school, that has to mean something.”

Karen’s shoulder-length silver blond mane swirled as she shook her head.

“There’s a lot of new stylists out there, Eric. Scissor Happy is close so I can ride my bike to work and get home in decent time to see the kids. Junella’s not that bad. Besides, it’s a competitive business; things changed a lot while I was away having babies and being a housewife.”

And getting your nose broken by your asshole husband.

He should have realized her marriage was heading downhill. Nicols hadn’t been working regularly, and he was a sullen, bad tempered son of a bitch at the best of times. But Eric had been preoccupied with Junk Busters, one of the drivers was ripping him off and it had taken him time and detective work to figure out just how the nerd was doing it, which was how come Karen called Sophie instead of him the night Nicols punched her.

By the time Eric got there, Nicols had taken off. He’d stayed away from her, but that was two and a half years ago, and Karen still wasn’t divorced. Eric and Sophie and even Anna had tried to make her see reason, insisting that she needed to go for child support and custody, that she needed to be free of Nicols once and for all. Finally, two weeks ago, she’d had Fletcher draw up the necessary documents.

“Did you get a birthday card from Mom and Dad, Eric?”

“Nope.” Their parents, hippie musicians, spent most of their time in Mexico. They’d long ago bought a house in some village called Malachi.

Eric’s attitude was out of sight, out of mind, back at ya. “You know they never get the dates right on any of us, if they remember at all,” he reminded Karen.

She nodded and wound a hank of her hair around one finger, a sad and wistful look on her angular face. Eric knew that look. It made his heart feel like a fist was squeezing on it, and he wanted to wrap his arms around his sister and pull her onto his knee, the way he had thirty years ago when she was four.

“I sent them those pictures of Simon and Ian, the ones you took at the Christmas party at Simon’s kindergarten?” Karen was the only one of them who wrote to Sonny and Georgia regularly, hoping in spite of everything that they might still grow up and become if not caring parents—it was way too late for that, even Karen should see it—then at least grandparents who remembered they had two little grandsons.

“I haven’t heard back from them yet.”

Eric sighed and thought, as he had so many times before
, It just ain’t gonna happen, kid
. They’d all told Karen that, he and Anna and Sophie, numerous times over the years. But against all reason, she went on hoping.

There was a desperate little girl inside Karen who’d never grown up, never gotten used to having one idiot parent who still believed he was about to become the next Bruce Springsteen, and another who devoted herself to some Mexican orphanage instead of remembering she’d popped out four kids of her own.

He looped an arm around his sister’s shoulders and gave her a hug, remembering the scathing letters he’d written, the pictures of the girls he’d mailed off that would have torn the hearts out of Bonnie and Clyde, the bills he’d paid over the years that Sonny ought to have been responsible for. “The parental units live in some fantasy world of their own, Karo. I have nightmares about the day I’ll have to bring them back to Vancouver and find a care facility that’ll put up with Sonny’s guitar and Georgia’s singing.”

He’d hoped that might bring a smile, but instead, he felt her suddenly jerk as if she’d been stuck with a needle. She made a sound in her throat and her whole body stiffened.

Eric turned to see what she was looking at.

Karen’s husband, Jimmy Nicols, had just walked in the door.