Sugar and Spice: 3 Contemporary Romances

by Jenny Jacobs

  Rilka herself agreed that presumption was not charming, but she had no idea who —

  And then the image of Marcus van Buren popped into her mind. Marcus was a perfect gentleman, in the classic sense, no matter what you meant by it, so Hilda would at least think Rilka was competent. His main failing — the thing that kept him from finding the love of his life — meant he and Hilda would not enjoy a long-term camaraderie, but putting them together for a date would buy Rilka some time to think about what to do next.

  Gran would have expected a serendipitous stranger to cross the threshold, but Rilka thought serendipity was a ridiculous way to run a business. Gran seemed to have relied on it for all those years and it had worked, but the operative word was seemed. There had to have been a method to Gran’s madness. If only Rilka knew what it was. Rilka was not the kind of person who believed in serendipity.

  Anyway, a relationship between Marcus and Hilda had no hope of going anywhere, but it would give Hilda at least one pleasant date. Marcus could be counted on to be suave and charming. He would also steal your valuables the minute your back was turned, an extremely bad habit Rilka had tried to encourage him to kick. Once Rilka had figured out what Marcus was — it hadn’t been that hard, what with Gran’s silver mysteriously disappearing whenever he came to visit — she had been tempted to cut him loose.

  But Gran had always said you couldn’t turn anyone away, not as long as they were of legal age and wanted a relationship with another consenting adult of legal age. That was what had set Gran apart. She could fix up anyone and make it stick — eventually. So Rilka had enjoined Marcus to return the silver (which he had done with a charming smile and the explanation that he’d done it just for the practice) and extracted a solemn vow (and a security deposit) that he would not thieve from any of his dates. Even felons had dreams of romance.

  Gran had been something of an adventuress herself and she never worried about getting a knock on the door, a cop on the other side saying, “You knew he was a jewel thief and you set him up on dates with women who own jewels?” Somehow Gran would have been able to talk her way out of that. But Rilka wasn’t sure she could do the same. Probably the difference between her and Gran was that Rilka had a conscience.

  She studied Hilda. Hilda had no jewels. Rilka would just warn her not to carry too much cash. And she would make Marcus increase his security deposit. Oh, what the hell.

  “I have an idea,” Rilka said. “I just thought of someone you might enjoy meeting. His name is Marcus. He’s a bit younger, but I think you’ll find him perfectly polite and charming. You could get together for a drink.” It was just a drink. What was the harm?

  Chapter 3

  “Rilka, my love, I need your help.”

  Rilka tried to concentrate. She knew the voice but couldn’t place it. It was three o’clock in the morning and the phone had awakened her from a deep sleep. She couldn’t remember her own name at the moment. Whoever it was seemed to understand, for he waited patiently. She heard his slightly stressed breathing and wondered if it was an obscene phone caller.

  “Rilka?” the voice said again after a while.

  “What is it, Marcus?” she asked, finally recognizing the voice. She shoved herself to a sitting position and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Marcus, three A.M. This couldn’t be good.

  “We have a tiny problem.”

  “We? What did you do?” she demanded. Oh, she’d known better than to send Hilda out with Marcus. But she had ignored herself. She hated it when that happened. I told you so, she told herself. “Marcus?” she said sharply. “What?”

  “She’s going to insist that the D.A. press charges. Rilka, I really, really need you to intercede.”

  “She” could only refer to Hilda.

  “What did you steal?” Rilka asked, falling back against the pillows and closing her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you would ask that question,” Marcus said, outraged. “You know they tape these phone calls.”

  Depressingly, she did know it. Depressingly, she had been Marcus’s one phone call before. I told you so, she told herself again, and felt a headache start. Seriously, what criminal called his matchmaker when he got into trouble?

  “What’d you do? I thought I emphasized romantic and charming.”

  “I was romantic and charming. I’m always romantic and charming. It’s my nature.”

  This was true. It was his best characteristic. Also his worst.

  Rilka pressed the heel of her free hand against the corner of her eye, which had started twitching. She was pretty sure she would have preferred an obscene phone call.

  “What happened, Marcus?” she asked, the weariness as deep as bone. Something must have happened. Probably not what Hilda thought had happened, but men could be dogs, even Marcus.

  “She was receptive to my charm. I kissed her. She giggled. I call the giggle exculpatory evidence.”

  Exculpatory evidence. Christ. “I’m not the D.A.,” Rilka reminded him. “Then what happened?”

  “She said she wasn’t that kind of girl. I said everyone is that kind of girl with the right man.”

  The idea that Hilda could refer to herself as a girl frankly staggered Rilka’s already barely functioning brain. “That may be true but I’m guessing you’re not the right man.”

  “Apparently not. Next thing I know, 911 is being called and statements are being taken.”

  Wonderful. That’d show up in the morning paper. She hoped no one had been indiscreet enough to mention that their date had been set up by Rilka Árpád, Matchmaker. Of course Hilda would, as evidence of her own innocent involvement. “I trusted my matchmaker when she set us up,” she would be saying to the D.A. “Rilka is supposed to screen her clients,” Hilda would tell the reporters, crossing her skinny arms over her meager chest.

  There’s no such thing as bad publicity, Rilka reminded herself. One of her competitors called herself “Matchmaker to the Stars.” Rilka could be “Matchmaker to Nonviolent Offenders.”

  Marcus was breathing heavily again, his only sign of deep distress. At least he didn’t yell at her. “Are you downtown?” she finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I make no promises. I usually side with the women in cases like this because men can be such pigs.”

  A pause. “You know, that seems like an inappropriate sentiment for a matchmaker.”

  “I didn’t choose this field of endeavor,” Rilka said. “It chose me.”

  “I always say the exact same thing,” Marcus said genially.

  • • •

  By noon on Monday, Rilka had not heard from Hilda’s lawyer, and she seemed to have gotten Hilda to calm down, so she relaxed a little — as much as she was able, considering how tightly wound she was by nature. Marcus had been sprung and no bail money had been required, which was a good thing. Marcus had kissed her on the cheek and hissed, “Set me up with another insane woman and I will steal all your silver,” but he would calm down, too. He always did.

  The phone rang and she glanced at the caller I.D. Jeremy Ford. Did she want to take a call from Mr. I-Just-Want-to-Get-Laid?

  She supposed she had to. She sighed and picked up. “Yo.”

  “Is that Rilka?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, my brother always makes me answer the phone with the name of the business and a pleasant little, ‘How can I help you?’”

  “Uh huh,” Rilka said. “Have you ever met anyone interested in unsolicited advice?”

  “That wasn’t advice, it was merely a observation.”

  “Uh huh. What do you want?” Damn, she was forgetting the polite part of her matchmaking mantra: Be direct but polite.

  “Have you got anyone lined up yet?” Jeremy asked, apparently undaunted.

  �
��I told you — ”

  “Yeah, but I’m not paying you to tell me to hang out at bars.”

  Rilka considered the possibility that she hated Jeremy. Or possibly it was just the job she hated. “You know, this isn’t Amazon.com.”

  “I have all the reading material I need,” he said. “What I’m looking for is companionship.”

  There was something in the way he said it that made Rilka pause. He cleared his throat. “Because the solo action is getting a little old.”

  That made her feel better. “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to know what you do in the privacy of your bedroom?” Rilka asked.

  “You’re kind of a prude for a matchmaker,” Jeremy said. “Again, not advice, just an observation.”

  “I’m sure it’s a great disappointment to you,” she said in the freezing tones that had abashed better men, but he just laughed and said, “Maybe it’ll encourage you to hook me up faster if you have to listen to me describe my sexual deprivation in great detail.”

  “Describing masturbation over to the phone to someone not your wife is probably illegal in this state.”

  “And if it isn’t, it should be?” he said. “Get to work, Rilka. Bye.”

  • • •

  Jeremy was grinning like a damned fool when he hung up the phone. He’d waited until his lunch break to make the call so his brother wouldn’t overhear. He’d probably get the wrong idea and think Jeremy was really anxious to get into a relationship, which just seemed pathetic.

  He wouldn’t mind getting to know Rilka more personally but he guessed she would have a rule about getting involved with clients. She probably had a lot of rules, and that thought was hotter than it should have been, imagining how he might get Rilka to break her own rules.

  “What have you been up to?” his brother asked as he went into the garage.

  “Me?” All innocence.

  “I haven’t seen that shit-eating grin since — ” Nate stopped.

  Since Iraq. Jeremy didn’t have to hear the words to know how the sentence was supposed to end.

  Nate immediately turned toward the car he was working on and popped the hood. Jeremy didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. I haven’t had a reason for the shit-eating grin. Till now.

  • • •

  “Ma’am,” the burly man said, tipping his hat and smiling at her. He was sallow-faced, with thinning red hair. Not a beautiful combination. He was approximately the size of a water buffalo.

  “Yes?” Rilka could spot a cop from a mile off. Gran had taught her how to recognize authority from a distance and then to avoid it. She did not invite the redheaded man in.

  “I’m here because of Marcus van Buren.”

  “What’s he done now?” she sighed. Hilda had agreed to drop her complaint as long as Marcus didn’t contact her again, a restriction Marcus had happily assured everyone within earshot that he was delighted to agree to. That did not mean he hadn’t gotten in trouble in the interceding — she glanced at her watch — twelve hours.

  “Nothing we have evidence of.” The man grinned. “When I booked him a couple of months ago on a larceny beef, we got to talking about various things and he suggested I see you about my — situation.”

  She considered claiming she was fully scheduled for the rest of her working life and shutting the door before remembering about Gran and the not turning away of consenting adults. Though even Gran might have drawn the line at a cop. Well, not if the cop paid his bills. Anyway, Gran had believed in what she was doing and couldn’t bear to turn people away. But who said Rilka had to do exactly what her grandmother had done?

  Rilka sighed. She couldn’t let Gran down. Well, she could, but she was a matchmaker, wasn’t she? And she could hardly stay in business if she didn’t make matches.

  “Why don’t you come in, Deputy — ”

  “Deputy Deane. But you can call me Don.”

  “Good to meet you, Don,” she lied. “I’m Rilka. Please join me in the kitchen. It’s the best room in the house.”

  Don followed her into the kitchen and sat heavily in the chair closest to the window. The weather was still gray and Rilka was having a tough time keeping her mood from matching it. Of course some would say she wasn’t succeeding. Jeremy, for example. He’d point out that she sucked at being cheerful. Not advice, just an observation, he’d say. But Jeremy could go to hell.

  Don declined her offer of refreshment so she perched on her chair, pulled a fresh index card toward her, inscribed his name at the top, and said, as she had said approximately ten thousand times before for all the good it had done, “So tell me what’s going on.”

  “Hmpf,” Don said. He hooked an elbow over the back of the chair and narrowed his eyes at her, as if she were the one undergoing questioning. I love my job, she told herself. Positive reinforcement. Creative visualization. Daily affirmations. I love my job. Don’t arrest me as one of Marcus’s accomplices.

  “We have to start somewhere,” Rilka said, folding her hands together so she didn’t start drumming her fingers impatiently on the tabletop. She should start charging by the hour. Then people could take as long as they wanted, and she wouldn’t mind. She would be calm and reassuring, like a lawyer racking up the billable hours. How much would she charge? One million dollars an hour. Then she’d only need one client.

  “My wife ran off on me,” he said.

  Rilka blinked. She gave him points for coming out with it so quickly and directly. “I’m sorry,” she said, because she was. She was always sorry when love didn’t work out because it meant more people showing up on her doorstep.

  Gran used to ask compassionate questions to get the details so she could make a better match. Rilka didn’t want to know the details. She really didn’t.

  “I’m not sorry,” Deputy Deane said, and he sounded like he believed it. “She said I didn’t take her seriously.”

  Rilka struggled with herself for a moment. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to care. Curiosity won the wrestling match. Curiosity almost always did, even though afterwards she inevitably told herself you just had to know, didn’t you?

  “And?” she asked.

  “What was there to take seriously?” he demanded.

  See? That was what came of asking questions. You got answers. She gave him a steady look and he sighed and said, “I bust my butt keeping the community safe and she sits around writing romance novels no one’s going to publish.”

  “Ah,” Rilka said. “She felt you were unsupportive.”

  “It’s the truth. I was unsupportive.”

  At least he was admitting it. Self delusion was the biggest problem she encountered among her clientele. I’m a natural blonde, they’d claim even as she saw the dark roots coming in. So, excellent, Deputy Deane wasn’t like that. She could make a note on her index card: refreshingly honest about himself and others. She tried to imagine a woman who would appreciate the “and others.” She failed.

  Deputy Deane shrugged his bulky shoulders and asked rhetorically, “But hell, who wouldn’t be?”

  Rilka bit back the desire to correct him: Plenty of men support the women in their lives. But did she actually have any evidence to back up this position? Honestly, why did people want to be together? She tried to remember. Assuage the loneliness? Have sex with someone other than Mr. Vibrator? She needed to make a cheat sheet to refer to in times like this.

  “So you’re looking for what, exactly?” she asked.

  “For someone who has a real job.”

  Huh. That was new. Not ordinarily high on the list of requirements men gave her. Hot was usually a Top Three item for men. Very discouraging. Has a real job. That was usually a Top Three for women.

  “What else? I mean, are you attracted to a certain kind of personality? Certain looks?”

  H
e shifted in his chair. People often had a hard time expressing what they were looking for, like she might judge them for their preferences, which God knew she did, but why should that stop anyone? Don’t worry, she always wanted to say. I’ve heard it all before.

  Finally, he came up with, “My wife is blonde.”

  “So you’re saying you like blondes?” Her pen hovered over the index card.

  “No. I’m saying I don’t want to duplicate the experience.”

  “No blondes. Do you like serious? Fun-loving? Family type?”

  “I like all kinds of women,” he said. “At least I did before I got married.”

  A person could take that several different ways. She went with the positive spin.

  “So you’re in exploratory mode? You just want to play the field a little, see what’s out there?” she guessed. If his wife running off was a recent phenomenon, then he wouldn’t be looking for wedding bells any time soon. Or maybe he would be. For all their grousing about getting tied down, men couldn’t seem to wait to get themselves married as quickly as they could. Give a man a divorce and he didn’t pause to learn from experience, he just bought himself a new car, hit the singles’ bars, and said, Better luck next time.

  “That’s it,” Don said, nodding emphatically. “Exactly. Exploratory mode.”

  Wonderful. She understood him. “You’d just like me to set you up with a variety of women for now.”

  “Exactly. I just don’t have time to hunt ’em down myself,” he explained.

  “Elegantly put,” Rilka said. She looked at his bulk as he shifted in his chair. She’d assured Julia that men dated fat women. Who more likely than a, well, fat man to date a fat woman? And he’d said he wanted a woman with a real job, which Julia certainly had. There — match made in heaven. Too bad she could practically hear Gran cackling at her. It’s not that easy, darling.

  “I have someone in mind,” she said.

  “To start with?”

  “Yes,” Rilka said. We have an a la carte menu here, pick an appetizer and then an entrée …

  “That’s fast.” He rubbed his hands together happily.