Miss Match

by Leslie Carroll

  Walker wanted to approach Kathryn and put his arm around her but knew that it was the wrong time to do so; after her recent tirade she would not be a receptive audience. He wished she could see that he wasn’t deliberately messing up her life; in fact, he felt truly dreadful about everything she had been through since she enrolled with Six in the City. Most importantly, he wished there had been something in his emotional “bag of tricks” as Kitty had referred to it, that would enable him to tell her outright that he loved her. He wasn’t ever afraid to show his love, but the three little words were so hard for him to say aloud. He’d also been unable to get his mouth around them that night in Kitty’s bathroom when she was so doubly devastated: first by discovering him with Valerie, then learning that Glen Pinsky was such a weirdo.

  “Do you want to go back to the room for a towel? You’ll catch cold,” Walker said, looking at Kathryn’s bare legs.

  “Nope. I’m okay, thanks. I just want to sit out here for a while.”

  Walker watched her head for slightly higher ground, and seat herself on a bluff, staring at the hematite blackness of the water. “Want company?”

  Kathryn shrugged.

  “When you’re ready, why don’t you freshen up and I’ll take you to the bar for whatever you want. You can get totally snookered if you desire and I promise not to make fun of you if you start dancing on the table or reproach you in the future with anything you may say while under the influence.”

  “I’m already totally snookered.” Walker was trying so hard to be engaging, it was hard not to give in. Besides, what else did she have to do that evening—sit in the Carriage House all alone, stewing over the mess that was her life and watching America’s Most Wanted? She stood up and walked down the bluff to Walker, who was waiting for her with his hand outstretched. “Nevertheless, you’re right about one thing,” she said to him. “I could use a good stiff one right about now.”

  A pleasant-faced young woman escorted Walker and Kathryn to a quiet corner table in Hadley’s, the Tugman House bar, and took their drink order. Except for the large shuttered windows that opened out onto the Atlantic, the rest of the lounge had the air of an upscale old-English pub. Something about the red net covering over the glass candleholders was distinctly New England seacoast, though. The service was both expert and efficient. The waitress rolled a cart over to their table and warmed Walker’s glass of Martell X.O. over an open flame before serving it to him, then she took her cart back to the bar.

  “To better times,” Walker said, clinking his snifter with Kathryn’s glass of tawny port.

  “Back at ya.” It was her first smile in hours. “I have to be honest about this . . . I’m glad you got me out of the clutches of the diabolical Colin in the nick of time. But you didn’t really need to drive all the way up here to do it.”

  She expected a response from Walker and was surprised when she didn’t get one. “So I have to ask you,” she continued, taking a very large swig of port, “it’s a very heroic ‘Prince Charming’ thing to do—coming up here and all—but at the same time, I was wondering what your primary motives were in tracking me down. Which is it: are you falling in love with me even though you haven’t used the L word in my presence, or are you just trying to make sure your family business doesn’t go belly up?”

  Walker rolled the snifter in his hands and watched the legs dribble in capillary-shaped rivulets down the inside of the glass. He wasn’t ignoring her. He was thinking.

  Kathryn surveyed the room. “This is a very pretty place,” she remarked. “The whole premises. When I first got here and took a look around, I said that this inn would be a great place to have a nervous breakdown, but I hadn’t really meant it literally. Seems like it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. God has no sense of humor sometimes.”

  “On the contrary,” Walker said, as he sipped his cognac. “I think he’s got a rather wicked one.”

  Kathryn took a small sip of her fortified wine. It tasted delicious and she thought she’d wanted it, but the last thing she really needed was another drink. “In that case, here’s one of His ‘Jewish jokes.’ Don’t look now, but I think I see your-mother-the-Yenta sitting at the bar romancing a Ricardo Montalban clone.”

  Chapter 26

  Walker’s insides seized up. Hoping Kathryn was pulling his leg, he nevertheless turned to face the high stools arranged around the perimeter of the bar, and was appalled to see Rushie flirting her ass off with a smarmy-looking silver fox, a stereotypical aging lothario from lacquered gray pompadour to glinting pinky ring. They could ignore her, but that didn’t buy them much time, so Walker bit the bullet and he and Kathryn approached the bar.

  “Have a Manhattan, honey,” Rushie said to Walker without missing a beat. She noticed that her son was holding Kathryn’s hand. “He’d better be doing right by you, sweetheart.” She reached out and pinched Kathryn’s cheek. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I leave a mark?” she asked, having inadvertently dug her nail into Kathryn’s flesh. “This one’s a silk wrap, and I’m not used to the length.”

  “Mother, did you follow me?” Walker asked. “After I expressly told you to let me handle things on my own?”

  “As the young people say, ‘you got a problem with that?’ ” She lowered her voice and leaned toward Walker. “Actually, I did follow you—to make sure that you handled the Colin Fleetwood debacle—and to preserve my business. I couldn’t let word of a mishap like this get out in the matchmaking business or I’d be back in retail, selling schmatas on Seventh Avenue. Oh, and by the way,” Rushie added, batting her heavily mascara-ed lashes, “meet Gillian.” She gestured toward the Montalban clone. “Gil, this is my son the big shot.”

  Gillian flashed a smile full of perfectly capped teeth that competed with the flash from the diamond stud in his pinky ring. “We’re engaged,” he said, beaming.

  Walker looked at the pair of them, stunned. “I’ve heard that line already tonight, and now it’s twice too many,” he said tartly. “It was . . . lovely . . . to meet you,” he said to Gillian.

  Kathryn, meanwhile, was checking out the other patrons. Walker followed her gaze. “Who does that guy think he is, David Cassidy?” he quipped, looking at the mane of chestnut hair on a gentleman sitting alone with his drink.

  “That isn’t—no, it couldn’t be—” Kathryn said. “Bear, I’ll bet you twenty-five dollars that I know that guy. Too well. I’d know that ’70s look anywhere. Hey, Lance!” she called out. The man turned around. He gave Kathryn an uncomfortable look and a sheepish wave.

  “You know him?” Rushie asked Kathryn.

  “Yup, that is—well, that was my fiancé, once upon a time.”

  “What a coincidence. He’s on his honeymoon,” Rushie said.

  They watched as a willowy woman returned to Lance’s table from the direction of the restroom. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the bar, and admired the image reflecting back. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight dancer’s bun and she must have weighed about ninety-eight pounds.

  “Rushie, is that Talia?” Walker asked his mother.

  “Your old Talia? Sure. What’s the matter, you don’t recognize her? Maybe she’s put on a pound or two since you two used to go out, but other than that, she looks just the same. Dances with the Martha Graham Company these days. I fixed the happy couple up. Lance came in as a client after his old fiancée broke off their engagement. I guess that would be you, Kathryn. November will be a year since he came in.”

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Kathryn said under her breath. “The man’s got a shorter turnaround time than a commuter jet.”

  Rushie leaned over and spoke in a confidential whisper to Kathryn. “If it makes you feel any better . . . about his hair . . . they’re plugs .” She winked knowingly.

  Walker waved his hand to fan away the clouds of smoke that trailed from Rushie’s powder blue cigarillo. He blinked several times, then scrunched his eyes shut for a few seconds. “Would you mind terribly if Kitty and I returned
to our drinks,” he asked Rushie. “We have a lot to talk about this evening.” He draped his arm over Kathryn’s shoulder and escorted her back to their table. “I wonder if they serve Alka Seltzer here,” he muttered. “Oh, well, it all happened long after we broke up and I wasn’t even working with Six in the City when Talia enrolled. Obviously she and Lance were removed from the files once they found each other. But I can’t say they don’t deserve each other,” he said to Kathryn. “From what you’ve said about Lance and from what I know about Talia, they’re two of the vainest people in the world.”

  Kathryn decided to see the humor in the situation. “I think they should honeymoon at Versailles,” she giggled. “They’ll go nuts in The Hall of Mirrors.”

  They raised their glasses and clinked a toast. “Here’s to narrow escapes,” Kathryn proposed. “We’re much better off without them.”

  “Did you ever feel like you were performing in a musical comedy?” Walker asked her. He tapped the top of Kathryn’s hand and indicated that she should look over at the entrance to Hadley’s.

  “What a coincidence!” Eleanor exclaimed as she and Dan made a beeline for Kathryn and Walker.

  “Gee, Eleanor, what brings you up to this neck of the woods?”

  “We thought we’d take a much needed weekend to ourselves,” Eleanor told her sister. “Can I grab her for a minute,” she asked Walker. Not waiting for an answer, Eleanor steered Kathryn into the ladies’ room.

  “Oh, tell me this is all a big ol’ co-inky-dink,” Kathryn said. “Puh-lease.”

  “Well, I didn’t expect to see you sitting with Walker, although I think I covered for it nicely, if I do say so myself. And Dan and I did need some quality time together. When I realized that the Ruth Goldfarb who kept calling you was Rushie-the-Yenta, and once I told her where you’d gone, it occurred to me that you really could have gone off for the weekend with some serial killer. So I thought it wouldn’t hurt for us to have our romantic getaway here so we could check up on you.”

  “C’mon, Ellie, don’t tell me Tugman House suddenly has all these empty rooms in peak foliage season.”

  “What planet are you on? When I called this place, a woman named Edie laughed at me and told me they had been booked up for this weekend since March. Colin got in on a cancellation and he’s apparently a ‘frequent flyer’ here. And a big tipper. Edie said they actually do keep a short list of preferred customers who want to be phoned in case there are cancellations on peak weeks. Dan and I are staying in Oak Bluffs. I don’t think Rushie has a room. I think she came up here on her own but based on what you’ve told me about her she’ll probably find a man to sponge off of. We know Walker didn’t have a reservation; so that just leaves your long-haired ex-fiancé ‘George of the Asphalt Jungle,’ and since Lance obviously knew he was getting married and going on a honeymoon, odds are that he booked his room well ahead of time.”

  “I’m glad to know that’s sorted out,” Kathryn said.

  “I just wanted you to know that I was really concerned, Kitty. I’m not going to bust up the rest of your weekend. Besides Dan and I need to get some serious talking done.”

  After Eleanor rejoined her husband, Kathryn returned to the table to find a second glass of port at her place.

  “I thought you might not mind if I ordered you another drink,” Walker said warmly.

  “No . . . not at all. It’s very sweet of you.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she didn’t even want to look at another glass of booze right now.

  “Is everything all right?” Walker asked her. “You look a little glazed.”

  “I’m fine. I’m very fine,” Kathryn said slowly. It was occurring to her that despite all of Walker’s maddening rationalizations and protestations regarding commitment, he had in fact made one to her, albeit in a roundabout way. It wasn’t a big thing, but it was a significant one. His counseling Eleanor was an indication that he cared about involving himself in Kathryn’s relative’s crises. Already, he’d come further than Lance ever had in that respect.

  She took a tiny sip of her drink. “There’s something else that you’ve done which is really sweet . . . which you certainly had no need or reason to do, and I want to thank you for it: Eleanor and Dan. I don’t know what you said to Ellie because she won’t share it with me, but whatever it was got her off my couch and into Dan’s Lexus.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing.”

  Kathryn looked up from her glass, straight into Walker’s eyes. “What?”

  “That I had no reason to speak with your sister. At first, I thought it was a joke—coming to me to ask some serious questions about her marriage. But I had two very good reasons to offer whatever advice I could, if it might be in any way useful to her. First of all, you are tremendously special to me, and upheaval in your family affects you as well as the relatives who are directly involved. And if you’re important to me, then by extension so are your sister and her husband.”

  He drained his glass. “And there’s another, smaller reason which is a bit less altruistic. The conversation I had with Eleanor was the first time I’ve really felt like I was being helpful to a couple in all the time I’ve been involved with the matchmaking service. It’s no secret that I’ve been very cynical about marriage and about relationships in general. I thought Six in the City was part of the problem, not the solution. So, in many ways, your sister’s visit was the kick in the ass I needed to accept the fact that matchmaking—when the ingredients are mixed right—can be a good recipe for happiness. I’m not the one who brought her together with Dan, but if there was anything I could do to help keep them together, I was willing to step up to the plate. You should get the credit for it Kitty, not me. You’re turning me into a hopeless romantic. Who knew what a gorgeous woman in velvet who bakes gingerbread cats could do to a cynical old financial analyst?”

  Blindsided by his declaration, Kathryn struggled to contain her emotions in public. “You’re swell, you know that? You’re really swell. Thanks,” Kathryn said, placing her hand over Walker’s. “Let’s get our check and get out of here,” she whispered. “Before you make me cry in front of our uninvited audience.”

  Walker and Kathryn were getting up to leave when Eleanor approached them. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you properly for bothering to listen to me a couple of weeks ago. You deserve Brownie Points for what you did. So, that said . . .” Eleanor handed Walker a glossy shopping bag. “Dan will just have to suffer without these this weekend. You know what finally made him come around? He tasted them and said it would be wrong of me to deprive New York of such a treat. So, ‘wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,’ he’s willing to invest in my new venture.”

  Kathryn beamed and reached out to hug her sister. “Congratulations. I suppose in the long run, you shouldn’t be surprised. After all, you were the one who reminded me that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!”

  When Kathryn and Walker returned to the Carriage House, they both made a dash for the bathroom. “Hey, ladies first,” Kathryn teased, elbowing Walker out of the way and shutting the door.

  “You just went to the bathroom at Hadley’s with your sister.”

  “What you don’t know about women could fill a book. We didn’t go to the bathroom; we went to the ladies’ room. Big difference. Where else could we have a private conversation? If you’re that desperate, go use the bushes out by the deck. Just head far enough away from the room.”

  “That’s not why I need to get in there,” Walker called to her.

  Kathryn washed her hands and opened the door. “Here! It’s yours. Jeez, what happened to your eyes? Don’t rub them; whatever it is, it’ll only make it worse. You were doing that a little in Hadley’s, too, but now they’re really red. Can I do anything for you?”

  “Yeah. Both my right and my left eye offend me, so do me a favor and pluck them out. It’s Rushie’s cigarette smoke that compounded it, I think.” He took his dopp kit out of a nylon overnight bag and dumped a p
ile of contact lens paraphernalia on the marble shelf by the sink.

  “Bear!”

  “I finally started piecing together stuff you noticed a few times . . . my klutziness. I always thought I was just accident prone. But then you made that comment about my dancing. And when I broke your glass pitcher, you yelled at me and told me I needed glasses.”

  “I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t very nice of me.”

  “Apology accepted. I kept thinking about that incident. Even though I knew you were mad at me and lashed out, maybe there was some truth to it. So I actually went to an optometrist and got my eyes checked out. And, Ms. Smartypants, you were right. I told the guy I didn’t want to wear glasses, so he gave me a prescription for contact lenses; but they’re bothering the hell out of me and have been ever since I got them.”

  “You were making all these weird faces that day I met Colin in your office, but I thought you were just trying to semaphore me with your eyes, or something. It never in a million years would have occurred to me that you were wearing contacts at the time. Wow. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Walker was rummaging through his collection of solution bottles and little plastic contact carrying cases. “I was embarrassed that I never figured it out on my own. I still can’t get used to them; it feels like there’s something in my eyes.”

  “There is something in your eyes. And, if you don’t mind my asking, if the lenses are bothering you so much, how come you haven’t taken them out yet?”

  Walker squinted at Kathryn and then bent over the sink. “Go away, Kathryn. You don’t want to look.” He turned on the water and in a series of tentative maneuvers, attempted to take out one of the lenses, clearly squeamish at squeezing his eyeball to get the tiny disk to pop out. “Shit!! Goddamn son of a bitch!” Although Walker had finally conquered his fear, the lens dropped into the sink and started its journey south.

  They both reached into the basin to retrieve it; Kathryn thought she had the situation under control. “Hold on, I’ve got long nails; let me try to scoop it up before it goes down the . . .”