by Jenny Jacobs
The Matchmaker Meets Her Match
Jenny Jacobs,
author of Enlisted by Love and The Winter Promise
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2013 by Jenny Jacobs.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-6417-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6417-8
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6418-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-44056418-5
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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Also Available
Chapter 1
Rilka Árpád — who had always been convinced her grandmother had stolen her last name from a Hungarian ruling dynasty rather than coming by it in any of the traditional ways — looked at the fidgeting woman seated across the table from her and restrained herself from saying, “Relax!”
All of her years of experience had taught her that no one relaxed upon being commanded to do so. Still, the fidgeting would make it hard for the interview to run smoothly. Not that the interviews ever ran smoothly. Rilka used to blame it on the clients but by now she was pretty sure it was her fault, or, to be charitable, it was the fault of the conditions that brought people here in the first place.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked, rising from her chair and walking to the stove in the corner where a teakettle simmered. She always met clients in the kitchen, because it was a cheerful, homey place, and she wanted to put them at ease. We’re just having a chat, the kitchen said, or was supposed to say. Today the gray skies outside had overwhelmed the cheerful red-checked curtains and even the vase of perky yellow daffodils on the table. A Midwestern thunderstorm was in the offing and not even the power of daffodils could stop it. The gray day matched Rilka’s mood. The rain would come. The rain would stay. The end.
Stop that, she told herself.
“No, thank you,” the client said. She had crossed her legs and was jiggling her foot but at least she wasn’t tapping the tabletop impatiently.
Rilka had to concentrate a moment to remember what she’d asked that had been declined. Oh, right. Tea. “Soda?” she persisted, putting a tea bag in a mug for herself and adding the hot water. “Milk? Juice?” Valium? Vodka? She wasn’t sure if that was for her or for the client.
“Water is fine, please.”
That had not been one of the offers but it was simple enough to provide so Rilka did not demur. A moment later, she was back at the lace-covered table, handing a tumbler of water to her guest and setting the mug of tea at her own place.
“Now,” she said, glancing casually at the planner open on the table. Today’s nine o’clock was Julia Fulks. Right. Now she could quit thinking of her as the client and start thinking of her as Julia. The notecard clipped to the planner page gave Julia’s age and occupation and a few terse descriptions in neat bullets under the heading “requirements.” Rilka was organized, you could say that about her.
“Julia. Tell me what’s going on.” Rilka had tried many different ways to approach the question, from “Why do you have trouble getting dates?” to “What seems to be the problem?” and had settled on “Tell me what’s going on” as being innocuous and nonthreatening while at the same time issuing a clear invitation to talk. She had found that, more than anything, her clients just needed someone to talk to, someone who would listen. Well, and who would tell them flat-out lies, like there’s someone for everyone and nothing ventured, nothing gained. Lately Rilka hadn’t been able to get the lies past her throat.
She glanced up from the note card and raised an inquiring brow at Julia.
“I’m fat,” Julia said bluntly.
It was true. Rilka had noted that from the moment she’d clapped eyes on Julia at the front door. That had been — she took a discreet look at the daisy clock on the wall — seven minutes ago. Seemed longer.
Julia was beautiful, no doubt. But big. No way to disguise or camouflage her bigness. Not statuesque, not diva-esque. Big. She wore beautifully tailored clothes, and had her light brown hair expensively highlighted and cut in an attractive blunt style. Her well-cared-for hands had been done in a French manicure. She wore a gentle but distinctive scent that probably cost five hundred bucks an ounce. The overall impact was of a woman who took good care of herself and had the money to do it. But she was fat. No getting around that.
“And?” Rilka asked with an encouraging smile.
Julie made an impatient sound, as if Rilka should have been able to figure this out on her own. “No one wants to date a fat girl,” Julia said, crossing her arms over her chest. Her very large chest. “And yes, I know I need to lose weight. But I’ve tried. And it’s not like I’m trying to pick up Brad Pitt. I’m okay with someone, you know, like me. It’s just — I’m discouraged.”
“Well,” said Rilka, sipping her tea. If we were all supermodels, we’d still manage to screw it up. That did not seem a helpful path for a matchmaker to travel down, so she said, “Let’s dispose of one belief you have that isn’t true.” Immediately she felt Julia should probably sue her for practicing psychiatry without a license.
“Which is?” Julia sounded scornful, but willing to believe.
I need to charge these people more and retire to Tahiti. Before they find out I’m just selling something, too.
“Your false belief is that men don’t date fat women.” Rilka winced at her own sentence. Maybe she could have found a gentler way to put it. Men date women of all types might have worked. Some men only require that the woman have a pulse. No. Stick with men date women of all types. She cleared her throat. “Men date women of all types.”
Julia didn’t look convinced, so Rilka got up from her chair again and walked over to the bookshelf-lined breakfast nook. She ran her fingers along the series of leather-bound albums housed on the middle shelf until she found the one she wanted.
“Here we go,” she said, bringing the book back to the table. She pulled her chair around so she could sit next to Julia. She flipped open the photo album and tapped a picture. “There. That’s Sarah. Look how happy she is. That’s a pretty wedding gown, isn’t it?”
Julie nodded reluctantly, her lips flattening in a tight line. Rilka knew what she was thinking. She was thinking Sarah had snagged the only man in the country who would date a fat woman. But that wasn’t true.
Rilka scraped her chair back for the third time in ten minutes. Now she hunted in the desk under the window. She withdrew an envelope containing a card and a snapshot and brought them over to the table. She showed the photo to Julia.
“That’s Becky — and her twin toddlers. Aren’t they gorgeous?” She did not point out that Becky was also an ample woman.
“Sure,” Julia said. She was not relaxing any. Clearly she was thinking, There are two men in the universe willing to overlook a woman’s fatness and both of them have been snapped up. Unfor
tunately, it was entirely possible that this was true. In Rilka’s experience, men were dogs. They could be fat and balding and never notice this about themselves. But try to pair them with a woman who had saggy upper arms and watch ’em run.
Of course the women weren’t any better, but they weren’t as focused on appearance. They wanted money and status. Not all of them, Rilka reminded herself. At least not all of the time.
Rilka sighed and tucked the card and snapshot back inside the envelope. She put it and the photo album away, then sat back down and took another sip of her tea, wishing it was something stronger. Would anyone notice if she started adding Jack Daniels to her morning cuppa?
“The next thing you need to do,” Rilka said, as she had said so many times before, “is release the belief that you’ll be happy if you lose weight. That you’ll find your Prince Charming if only you’d drop twenty pounds.” Or fifty, Rilka didn’t say.
“I was discouraged before I got here,” Julia said with some asperity. “You’re not helping any.”
“Look,” Rilka said. “You need to be happy with who you are first. What Sarah and Becky have in common is that they like themselves just as they are. They’re fun, interesting people with good friends and hobbies they enjoy.”
Julia grunted and took another swallow of water. No one ever believed Rilka when she said that, and why should they? The world was depressingly obsessed with appearance. Yet appearance-challenged people regularly hooked up. So the question was, how did they do it?
If only I knew, Rilka thought. I’d bottle it and sell it.
She fell back on the line Gran had told countless women who had sat at this self-same table over the years. “My first assignment for you is to put some fun and pleasure back in your life.” That way, even if you die alone and a virgin at eighty-two, you’ll have had a good time. “Is there anything you ever wanted to do or be but you decided you were too sensible to pursue?” Julia looked puzzled, so Rilka tried to think up an example. “Like — you wanted to be an artist or a zookeeper.”
A zookeeper. Where had that come from? Did people, small children, actually decide to be zookeepers? She supposed they did. But there would be animals involved, doing animal-related things. Shedding. Pooping. Rilka repressed a shudder and lifted her cup.
“I always wanted to be a ballerina,” Julia said, a reluctant smile tugging at her lips.
Through an act of sheer will, Rilka did not choke on her tea. “There you go,” she said cheerfully, eyeing the hefty woman. “Ballet lessons.”
“Oh, no,” Julia said. “I could never — ”
“Yes, you can,” Rilka said. “I know a lovely woman who conducts classes for beginners and I know she’ll be happy to have you even though — ” Whoops.
“Even though I’m fat,” Julia said.
“Exactly,” said Rilka and went to find that bottle of Jack Daniels.
• • •
Oh, Gran, Rilka thought as she didn’t add a slug of whiskey to the mug of tea in her hand. However did you do this and not get jaded or discouraged or give up on these people — or yourself? Day after day, week after week, month after month without end, amen. The world was so full of unhappy, lonely people, you’d think some of them were bound to run into each other and hook up, thereby reducing the number of unhappy, lonely people in the world. You would be wrong. Though logical, this did not actually appear to be the way the world operated. The unhappy, lonely people furthered their unhappiness by fixating on happy, unavailable people. Or they never left their houses, as if true love would blossom with the mail carrier or the pizza delivery boy. Which it could, Rilka granted, but was it likely? It was not. Like so much in life, finding one’s match was a numbers game.
Gran, please. How did you do it? How did you believe, all evidence to the contrary aside?
No answer. The old crone couldn’t shut up while she was alive; you’d expect her to be able to carry on a conversation from beyond.
Rilka watched from the front window as Julia got in her Mercedes and drove away. Ballet lessons. Julia wasn’t going to meet too many straight men while taking ballet lessons. But it would keep her busy for a few weeks while Rilka tried to figure out what to do next. She would think of something. Not necessarily a solution. Not necessarily a match. But something. She always did. But it was starting to feel less like an inspiring motto and more like a death sentence.
When Rilka’s real career as an analyst for a brokerage firm had fallen to pieces, this had been her fallback position. Just temporary. Until things turned around. Five years later she was still answering Gran’s phone and admitting that she was a matchmaker. Even the word sent a shiver of revulsion through her.
Because it was only temporary, she ran the business the way her grandmother always had: three-ring binders on a shelf, card file cross-reference. She hadn’t computerized anything because that implied permanence. As they had when Gran was in charge, people paid what they could. If Rilka developed a standard rate card, that implied a commitment to the business. So she didn’t.
Somehow there was always just enough money to keep the roof over her head from caving in. But there was no pension plan, no 401(k), and no paid vacation or sick days. She was part therapist, part cheerleader, part priest, and part dating coach, but she’d never been able to figure out how to transfer those skills to a new job, a real one. I was a well-regarded securities analyst until the SEC investigation, and since then I’ve been a matchmaker. No matter how she tried to spin it, it never resulted in a new career. Or even a better job. She hated to think of herself as a quitter but she hadn’t sent out a resume in a long time.
Gran had left her the house and the business, such as it was, with the blithe assumption that it was exactly what Rilka wanted. On that fateful day five years ago, when she’d gotten the pink slip from her job, the letter from Gran’s executor, and the message from Davis (“I’ve put your things in storage so my new girlfriend can move in”), it had seemed like a fair solution to her most pressing problems. But why me? she often wondered. The answer was obvious: Rilka, like her mother before her, was an only child. Rilka, unlike her mother, had not run off to Bangkok. In other words, who else was there?
In fact, she’d been surprisingly successful in the five years she’d been doing this. It was just that she knew her success was pure luck, and luck was not a business strategy.
The doorbell buzzed. Eleven o’clock already, and this would be — she glanced at the planner by her elbow — Jeremy Ford. She got to her feet and went to the front hall. She pulled open the door, fixing a welcoming smile on her face, and then her gaze dropped to the man in the wheelchair. Expressionless brown eyes met hers. Expressionless brown eyes in an expressionless square face. Short brown hair. Lips a little tight with pain or frustration. An unremarkable man. She wouldn’t have glanced at him a second time.
He hadn’t mentioned the wheelchair when he’d called. Or, rather, his brother hadn’t mentioned the wheelchair when he’d made the referral. Of course, they never did. But she wished they’d just spit it out: I’m OCD or I’ve been convicted of three felonies. Her job would be a lot easier if she just knew all that upfront.
“Jeremy Ford?” she queried.
“The same,” he said.
“I’m Rilka.” She opened the door wider, glad Gran had had the place made accessible after her first stroke had put her in a wheelchair for several months. Gran had assumed there would come a time when she couldn’t get out the wheelchair, and she had been right. A realist, Gran had been, despite her lunatic belief in happily-ever-after.
“This way,” Rilka said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Your brother didn’t mention you’re — ” She hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t too late to learn to be tactful.
“A double amputee?” Jeremy finished for her. He shrugged, rolling across the vinyl floor.
Rilka scooted one of the chairs away from the kitchen table to make room and asked, “Tea?” That seemed safe.
“Sure,” he said,
rolling up to the table and setting the brakes on his chair.
“Car accident?” Rilka asked, setting a cup in front of him.
“Iraq,” he said.
“Hope they’ve given you a decent pension,” Rilka said, but she knew the government.
“I get by.” He shrugged again, his broad shoulders tugging at the fabric of his plain blue sweatshirt. “I’m a mechanic and my brother’s got a shop. We outfitted it so I can do my job okay.”
“Good,” Rilka said firmly, taking a seat. “I’m glad you have people you can count on.”
“I take care of myself,” he said, not belligerent but just as firm as she was.
“Sure,” said Rilka. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I expect you get a lot of people who want to take care of you.”
“Either they want to baby me or they run screaming from me,” Jeremy said and by they, Rilka assumed he meant women. Rilka was pretty sure there was a third choice that involved neither babying nor screaming but if he’d found it on his own, he wouldn’t be here.
“And what do you want?” she asked. There. A refreshing change from “Tell me what’s going on.”
He tapped a finger on the mug she’d set at his place. “I want to get laid.”
Yeah, no wonder he wasn’t managing the third choice on his own. Still, she gave him credit for knowing what he wanted and for being direct about it. But — “This is not an escort service,” she said. “If you or your brother thought so, I’m afraid you misunderstood.”
“No, no,” Jeremy said. He stopped toying with the mug and looked directly at her. His brown eyes weren’t expressionless now. “I know you’re not an escort service. I’m not looking for a professional. I prefer amateur action. Most guys do.”
“I see,” Rilka said. Maybe it wasn’t too late to learn to be a fry cook. What would Gran have said to this man? She probably would have slept with him herself and solved the problem. If only Rilka were a free spirit. She frowned. “Or rather, I don’t see.”