Matchmaking for Beginners
Page 56
“I’m getting that idea. But why not? Why did she not really like him? You know the whole story, don’t you?”
He hesitates, pours himself another glass. “Really? Are we going to do this?” Then he sees my face. “We are. Okay, she saw him as something of an opportunist, I think. Somebody who would take advantage. He wasn’t . . . so wonderful when she was at the end of her life and needed him to step up.”
“Please tell me what happened. I need to know everything. He told me he was the one who took care of her.”
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I think I need to know, don’t you?”
“All right.” He stretches out his legs and cracks his knuckles. “Well, he showed up one day when it was right near the end for her. We were all taking care of her—all her people, you know. Coming and keeping her company, fixing meals, straightening, that sort of thing. Mostly sitting and talking to her. And he comes along one day with no idea what’s going on, doesn’t even know that she’s sick, much less dying. And he was shocked, of course. We all tried to help him with that, because it can be upsetting to see a loved one dying, but we started getting uncomfortable because of the way he just kept badgering her to go to the hospital. He thought she should have had surgery for the tumor. Get some chemotherapy, whatever. We kept trying to talk to him, to explain to him that the time for all that had passed, and that we were there helping her make her transition, but he wasn’t having it. He kept insisting that professionals needed to be called, that only they know how to take care of people who are dying.”
“Oh, Patrick! How did she stand it? What did she do?”
“See, that’s just it. The essence of Blix is to try to solve things. To love what’s there. She was sad, but I think at the end she thought that she could use love to help him. She wanted to fill him up with love. The way she did. You know how she was.”
There’s a silence. Roy climbs up on my lap and I pet him. Patrick is looking at us with a serious look on his face.
“On the last day, he was panicking at the idea of having her die in front of him, and I get that. It’s scary, watching somebody die. But she had planned it all out, and she wanted to die at home in a peaceful state, and he was determined to have medical authorities. So Lola took him next door and fed him something, just to keep him away. And . . . well, I sat with Blix while her breaths just kept getting farther and farther apart, and I held her hand. I told her I’d stay with her for as long as she needed, and for her to take her time, to go only when she was ready. And—well, that’s it.”
“Oh, Patrick.”
I want so badly to get up and go over to him and hug him—the air is practically demanding that we hug—but I know better. The air may want us to hug, but he’s not inviting that kind of attention. Instead, he gets up and walks to the sink with our plates.
I lean down and give Roy my last little piece of chicken, and he takes it and jumps down from my lap and eats it next to my foot.
“Hey, congratulations. You’re now Roy’s best friend,” Patrick says. He picks up the cat, and Roy rubs his head along Patrick’s chin, along the place where the skin is pulled tight.
Maybe it’s because I’m possibly drunk, or maybe it’s because Blix is right now in the room with us, but I suddenly get an amazing idea. It feels like the very best idea anybody in the history of the world ever had, and I stand up to deliver the news of it, so it will have the fullest possible impact.
“What if—what if I threw a big dinner party? Or—I know—Thanksgiving! I’ll put on a Thanksgiving dinner upstairs and invite everybody who loved her, and we’ll all celebrate her life. It can be my good-bye to her. And my thank-you. Both at the same time.”
Patrick is smiling. “Look at you,” he says. “Glowing like this. This is a big plan.”
“Will you come?”
“Well—no. But I think it’s a good idea for you.”
“Patrick!”
He leans across the table and speaks in a husky voice. “Look at me, Marnie. Look at my face. You and Blix . . . you are the only people I’ve let into my life. Don’t you know that by now? The only people who see me on purpose. I’ll send up some cookies, some pumpkin pies, and I’ll cheer for you from down here. But I can’t go up there. The hideous factor kicks in.”
“But you are the furthest thing there is from hideous,” I say. “You’re luminous.”
“My tolerance for absorbing sympathetic remarks has reached the breaking point,” he says. “So I think it’s time to call this evening quits.”
I say, “Patrick,” and then I look at him and set my mouth a certain way, and then I give him my most exasperated expression and roll my eyes, and then I say, “Patrick, you and I both know—”
And then I just leave because there’s no point. Patrick’s heart is closed for business. He’s told me every way he knows how.
THIRTY-THREE
MARNIE
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like late November up here,” Sammy tells me. He’s waiting in my kitchen for his dad to come pick him up for their weekend together. “I don’t know if you realize it, but November is when everybody’s teeth start to hurt.”
“Really!” I say. “I’d heard about all the leaves falling off the trees and possible early snowfalls. But I didn’t know that about the teeth.”
“Well, my mom works for a dentist, and she says it’s because of the cold weather. That when you’re outside and you breathe in the cold air, your teeth get sensitive. And then everybody goes to the dentist. That’s what she said.” He starts beating on the table like it’s a drum, and then gets up and does an effortless cartwheel across the kitchen floor. Then he stops and looks at me. “Also, can I tell you something else? Did you know everybody has a superpower? You know what my superpower is? I have the magic power to notice when the clock says 11:11 or 1:11. I always, always look up then. It’s kind of amazing.”
“Wow. Well, that’s a good one to have.”
“Sometimes I see 2:22 or 4:44, also. Not so many of the other ones, though.”
I concentrate very hard on trying not to laugh. “You are clearly on your way to superhero status.”
He nods seriously, then sits cross-legged on the floor for a moment, looking at me so directly that my heart stops. He swallows hard before he speaks. “So, I have a plan for getting my mom and dad together.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, so there’s a concert at school, and I’m performing at it—and I think they should both come, and then I’ll get up and play my flute or sing or read a poem or something, and after we’ll all go out for ice cream and you can do a little spell or something on them, and I think they’ll decide to get back together.”
“Really.”
“But you have to do the spell. All we need is a little bit of magic to get them to both come to the concert and be nice to each other. So far all they do is fight about it.”
“They do?”
He sits down at the table next to me and rests his head on his elbow. “My mom yells at my dad that he won’t remember to come on time. And that he won’t be wearing the right clothes. And then she said that I had to tell him no girlfriends allowed because she will walk out if she sees him there with some woman.”
“But you said he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”
“He doesn’t. But my mom is worried anyway. Maybe she thinks he’ll get one.” He starts drawing on the table again with his finger, outlining the same star that I love to outline with my finger. Then he gives me a little smile. “So we need to look at the book of spells and find a good spell you could use on them.”
I think about it. “I think we should let the concert do the magic. Play your flute and that will be magic enough. All that beautiful music curling out over the audience . . .”
“No,” he says very firmly. “We need more than that.”
“And if it doesn’t work,” I continue, “then it’s just not the right time. Because if it’s meant to happen, it will. But things have to develop. We can’t force it to happen.”
He hesitates, pours himself another glass. “Really? Are we going to do this?” Then he sees my face. “We are. Okay, she saw him as something of an opportunist, I think. Somebody who would take advantage. He wasn’t . . . so wonderful when she was at the end of her life and needed him to step up.”
“Please tell me what happened. I need to know everything. He told me he was the one who took care of her.”
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I think I need to know, don’t you?”
“All right.” He stretches out his legs and cracks his knuckles. “Well, he showed up one day when it was right near the end for her. We were all taking care of her—all her people, you know. Coming and keeping her company, fixing meals, straightening, that sort of thing. Mostly sitting and talking to her. And he comes along one day with no idea what’s going on, doesn’t even know that she’s sick, much less dying. And he was shocked, of course. We all tried to help him with that, because it can be upsetting to see a loved one dying, but we started getting uncomfortable because of the way he just kept badgering her to go to the hospital. He thought she should have had surgery for the tumor. Get some chemotherapy, whatever. We kept trying to talk to him, to explain to him that the time for all that had passed, and that we were there helping her make her transition, but he wasn’t having it. He kept insisting that professionals needed to be called, that only they know how to take care of people who are dying.”
“Oh, Patrick! How did she stand it? What did she do?”
“See, that’s just it. The essence of Blix is to try to solve things. To love what’s there. She was sad, but I think at the end she thought that she could use love to help him. She wanted to fill him up with love. The way she did. You know how she was.”
There’s a silence. Roy climbs up on my lap and I pet him. Patrick is looking at us with a serious look on his face.
“On the last day, he was panicking at the idea of having her die in front of him, and I get that. It’s scary, watching somebody die. But she had planned it all out, and she wanted to die at home in a peaceful state, and he was determined to have medical authorities. So Lola took him next door and fed him something, just to keep him away. And . . . well, I sat with Blix while her breaths just kept getting farther and farther apart, and I held her hand. I told her I’d stay with her for as long as she needed, and for her to take her time, to go only when she was ready. And—well, that’s it.”
“Oh, Patrick.”
I want so badly to get up and go over to him and hug him—the air is practically demanding that we hug—but I know better. The air may want us to hug, but he’s not inviting that kind of attention. Instead, he gets up and walks to the sink with our plates.
I lean down and give Roy my last little piece of chicken, and he takes it and jumps down from my lap and eats it next to my foot.
“Hey, congratulations. You’re now Roy’s best friend,” Patrick says. He picks up the cat, and Roy rubs his head along Patrick’s chin, along the place where the skin is pulled tight.
Maybe it’s because I’m possibly drunk, or maybe it’s because Blix is right now in the room with us, but I suddenly get an amazing idea. It feels like the very best idea anybody in the history of the world ever had, and I stand up to deliver the news of it, so it will have the fullest possible impact.
“What if—what if I threw a big dinner party? Or—I know—Thanksgiving! I’ll put on a Thanksgiving dinner upstairs and invite everybody who loved her, and we’ll all celebrate her life. It can be my good-bye to her. And my thank-you. Both at the same time.”
Patrick is smiling. “Look at you,” he says. “Glowing like this. This is a big plan.”
“Will you come?”
“Well—no. But I think it’s a good idea for you.”
“Patrick!”
He leans across the table and speaks in a husky voice. “Look at me, Marnie. Look at my face. You and Blix . . . you are the only people I’ve let into my life. Don’t you know that by now? The only people who see me on purpose. I’ll send up some cookies, some pumpkin pies, and I’ll cheer for you from down here. But I can’t go up there. The hideous factor kicks in.”
“But you are the furthest thing there is from hideous,” I say. “You’re luminous.”
“My tolerance for absorbing sympathetic remarks has reached the breaking point,” he says. “So I think it’s time to call this evening quits.”
I say, “Patrick,” and then I look at him and set my mouth a certain way, and then I give him my most exasperated expression and roll my eyes, and then I say, “Patrick, you and I both know—”
And then I just leave because there’s no point. Patrick’s heart is closed for business. He’s told me every way he knows how.
THIRTY-THREE
MARNIE
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like late November up here,” Sammy tells me. He’s waiting in my kitchen for his dad to come pick him up for their weekend together. “I don’t know if you realize it, but November is when everybody’s teeth start to hurt.”
“Really!” I say. “I’d heard about all the leaves falling off the trees and possible early snowfalls. But I didn’t know that about the teeth.”
“Well, my mom works for a dentist, and she says it’s because of the cold weather. That when you’re outside and you breathe in the cold air, your teeth get sensitive. And then everybody goes to the dentist. That’s what she said.” He starts beating on the table like it’s a drum, and then gets up and does an effortless cartwheel across the kitchen floor. Then he stops and looks at me. “Also, can I tell you something else? Did you know everybody has a superpower? You know what my superpower is? I have the magic power to notice when the clock says 11:11 or 1:11. I always, always look up then. It’s kind of amazing.”
“Wow. Well, that’s a good one to have.”
“Sometimes I see 2:22 or 4:44, also. Not so many of the other ones, though.”
I concentrate very hard on trying not to laugh. “You are clearly on your way to superhero status.”
He nods seriously, then sits cross-legged on the floor for a moment, looking at me so directly that my heart stops. He swallows hard before he speaks. “So, I have a plan for getting my mom and dad together.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, so there’s a concert at school, and I’m performing at it—and I think they should both come, and then I’ll get up and play my flute or sing or read a poem or something, and after we’ll all go out for ice cream and you can do a little spell or something on them, and I think they’ll decide to get back together.”
“Really.”
“But you have to do the spell. All we need is a little bit of magic to get them to both come to the concert and be nice to each other. So far all they do is fight about it.”
“They do?”
He sits down at the table next to me and rests his head on his elbow. “My mom yells at my dad that he won’t remember to come on time. And that he won’t be wearing the right clothes. And then she said that I had to tell him no girlfriends allowed because she will walk out if she sees him there with some woman.”
“But you said he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”
“He doesn’t. But my mom is worried anyway. Maybe she thinks he’ll get one.” He starts drawing on the table again with his finger, outlining the same star that I love to outline with my finger. Then he gives me a little smile. “So we need to look at the book of spells and find a good spell you could use on them.”
I think about it. “I think we should let the concert do the magic. Play your flute and that will be magic enough. All that beautiful music curling out over the audience . . .”
“No,” he says very firmly. “We need more than that.”
“And if it doesn’t work,” I continue, “then it’s just not the right time. Because if it’s meant to happen, it will. But things have to develop. We can’t force it to happen.”
