“Oh, Jeremy! Really? Are you serious?”
He blanches, as if I’ve just turned him down. “Well, I don’t know, it just seemed like everything is going in the right direction, and I just thought maybe . . .”
But then he has to stop talking because I am coming over to his side of the booth, and when I get there, I put my mouth on his, hard. He tastes like salt and fries and hamburger. When I finally let go of him, my heart is hammering away, and his face is shining and he’s smiling so big, and I see my life figured out just as I’d hoped, gloriously unfolding like a movie in front of me. We’ll work together every day in his office, and we’ll come home together weeknights to our own place, kick off our shoes, put music on, smile while we cook dinner together, and on weekends we’ll go biking and eat brunch with my family, and I’ll tend to his mother, and he’ll drink beers with my father and Brian, and wow, it’s a whole built-in, secure life and all I have to say is yes.
So I say it. “Yes.” He’s laughing as I keep my arms around his neck, kissing him on both cheeks.
“Holy shit,” he says. He kisses my nose and my eyelashes. And finally I settle down and go back over to my side of the booth, and he mops his forehead, grinning at me, and he says, “I did not expect that kind of reaction. Whew!” Then after we sit and smile at each other for a while, basking in this new decision, he says, “So you’ll go to Brooklyn and then when you come back, what do you say we tell our families we’re getting married and then we’ll find a place? Move in together? Give it the old trial run?”
“Okay! Yes! The old trial run!” I can’t seem to stop myself.
“So . . . are we engaged? We’re engaged. Is that what this means?”
“I think it means we’re engaged,” I say. “This is how it happens.”
“Wow,” he says. “Who knew it was that easy?”
It is so very, very easy when it’s right. I sit there smiling and holding his hand, and the one thing I know for sure is that everything is going to be all right.
TWENTY
MARNIE
My family is not at all pleased to hear about my newfound building in Brooklyn, or my trip there. They’re so upset that I don’t even tell them the part that would make them happy—that Jeremy and I are now engaged.
Instead, I just listen as they point out that I don’t know anything about real estate, that I haven’t ever even seen Brooklyn, that this bequeathment is from a woman who at best had shown herself to be a possible crackpot (this was from Natalie, who saw Blix’s mind meld while we were waiting for Noah to arrive for the wedding) and at worst, was a psychopathic meddler who is trying to involve innocent people in her shadowy real estate deals (this from my father, who said he knows the ways of the world).
But I stand my ground with them, and here I am three days later, landing at JFK International Airport, waiting for a shuttle to take me to the subway, then trying to use an app on my phone to figure out which subway would get me to Park Slope, Brooklyn. Apparently I am supposed to find Grand Army Plaza. Which I totally will do. I can do this city thing when I have to. I have been to San Francisco many times, thank you very much, so I can certainly find my way around a city that has a grid. And no crazy hills.
My mother keeps texting me:
Did u land yet?
R u keeping safe?
Do NOT ride the subway!!!!!!!! My friend Helen Brown says it’s VERY dangerous.
Alas, the shuttle never comes, and a woman in a brown coat, juggling a toddler and a baby, tells me that I don’t want to take the subway from the airport anyway—“You’ll be on there forever, trust me; you should go stand on the taxi line instead!”—so that’s where I go, and sure enough, all the New Yorkers there seem to be also heading to Brooklyn. Led by a man in a black knit cap who seems to be part of a comedy team and who makes jokes out of the side of his mouth in a gravelly voice, they’re all having fun complaining about the slow service, the fact that it’s starting to rain, and also arguing about whether or not the Mets are going to win the World Series. A woman with a blue streak in her hair lines up behind me, bumping into my arm as she juggles her suitcase, then shoots me a brief apologetic smile.
Just then my mom sends a screaming text, all in capital letters: OH GOD! WATCHING THE NEWS. SOMEBODY GOT STABBED IN A CLUB LAST NITE IN NYC. DO NOT GO TO ANY CLUBS!!!!!!!!!
I turn off my phone quickly and put it back in my coat pocket. And then I do the little concentrating thing I do—the thing that makes stoplights turn green and taxis show up, and suddenly it’s my turn for a cab.
It works everywhere.
Brooklyn, just like San Francisco, is so overcrowded that the cab is forced to meander its way in traffic inch by inch. The driver is practically comatose with indifference, and finally, after he has had to slam on his brakes for three bicycles as well as swerve around another car that suddenly just parks in the middle of the too-narrow street, he drops me off at the address I gave him and tells me that I owe him eighty-seven dollars. He seems quite serious about it. Which is so ridiculous that I can’t think of anything to do except pay it. He says thank you, helps me with my suitcase, and then drives off. For a moment, I stand, dazed, on the sidewalk, looking around me.
Supposedly I’m at the law office of Brockman, Wyatt, and Sanford, but the only signs visible are for City Nails (mani-pedis are twenty-five dollars, a good price) and Brooklyn Burger (now with gluten-free buns). The whole street smells like hamburgers cooking, along with a load of garbage festering near the curb, and the strong perfume of an angry-faced woman who race-walks herself right into me without even bothering to say excuse me.
I square my shoulders and go inside a dingy little hallway. The directory sign is missing all the As, but apparently I’m to go to the fourth floor to see BROCKMN, WYTT, AND SNFORD. When the elevator door creaks open, there’s a magenta-haired receptionist in a black dress who buzzes me in, looking annoyed as hell. A little sign in front of her says her name is LaRue Bennett.
I give her my best Florida smile. “Hello. I’m Marnie MacGraw, and I’m . . .”
“What?” She peers at me. I see that she has a tattoo of a rose on her wrist.
I begin again. “I’m Marnie MacGraw, and I’m here to pick up the keys to Blix Holliday’s apartment, or house, or whatever.”
“Blix Holliday? Do you have any ID?”
“Oh. Sure.” I put down my suitcase and open my purse, which is filled with my boarding pass and my package of gum and my hairbrush and—well, everything except my wallet, which seems to have disappeared. I channel my mother and go immediately into panic mode—the wicked New Yorkers have already stolen my wallet!—but then after I’ve emptied everything onto the counter, with LaRue Bennett watching me, I remember that I put my wallet back in my pocket when I got out of the cab. Sweat is starting to trickle down between my breasts by the time I get out my ID and hand it to her, and she lets out a sigh. Possibly she was on the side of the wallet being gone forever.
She looks it over and then pushes it back to me.
“Okay, well. Charles isn’t here. He’s gone for the weekend. Back Monday.”
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.” I shift my weight to my other foot. “Well, um, I just flew in from Florida. He said I should get here as soon as possible. I’ve apparently inherited Blix Holliday’s house, and I’m supposed to make arrangements, I guess.”
“But he’s gone.”
“Can you reach him? I mean, I was hoping maybe I could at least get the key to the house. I’m to stay there, I think.”
Her face is impassive. “There are stipulations to the will he needs to talk to you about first.”
“Stipulations?”
Oh, yes. Apparently Blix didn’t just do a straight blah blah blah . . . She did things her own way . . . blah blah blah . . . not until Monday . . .
I can see LaRue Bennett’s mouth moving, but my brain has suddenly gotten all staticky. Ha! Did I really and truly think that I had somehow managed to outrun my usual luck, and that I
had seriously inherited a building in Brooklyn, New York? Of course there are stipulations! I am the biggest idiot there ever was, falling for this kind of thing again and again throughout my whole life. Thinking Noah was really going to marry me! Thinking it was my turn to be Mary in the Christmas pageant! Even thinking that Brad Whitaker was going to take me to the prom!
And of course the stipulations are going to turn out to be that Blix didn’t leave me the house after all, which, now that I think of it, is totally fine with me. I just wish I had known before I paid airfare and then taxi fare of nearly ninety dollars plus tip to get to a place that smells like garbage and hamburgers. She probably meant to leave the house to Noah anyway, but he was married to me when she wrote the will, so my name got put on it by accident. Probably happens all the time.
“What am I supposed to do next?” I say, looking around the room and starting to panic just the slightest, tiniest amount. Maybe I should forget this whole thing and simply go back to the airport and get a flight back to Florida. Go back to that diner, have another shake and fries, and pretend this never happened. Later this year, I’ll marry Jeremy and have a baby.
LaRue sighs. “I’ll try to reach Charles and see what he can do for you. Go sit.”
The chairs actually do look good. Beige upholstered armchairs with a Queen Anne table between them. Magazines about architecture. Botanical paintings on the wall. I make my way over to the nearest chair and collapse into it as LaRue disappears into the inner sanctum.
My phone dings.
Hope you’re not on your way to becoming a Brooklyn hipster. LOL!
Jeremy.
Yeah. My clothing turned all black the minute I crossed into Brooklyn.
After what feels like forever, LaRue returns with the news that she reached Charles and he’d authorized her to give me the key.
“There’s a letter, too, but he says he wants to be with you for that. He’ll meet with you Monday morning and go over all the details then. Can you be here at ten a.m.?”
“Okay.” I get to my feet and take the manila envelope she offers with a ring of keys jingling inside. Outside, I hear sirens coming closer and closer and the bleating of horns, the squealing of brakes. Hot, spoiled city noises.
I wish I were back at home, floating in my sister’s pool, listening to the hum of lawn mowers.
TWENTY-ONE
MARNIE
“This is it,” says the cab driver who is taking me to Blix’s building. We’ve been in stop-and-go traffic on a huge, busy avenue for quite a while, passing everything from ridiculously pricey boutiques to a giant natural-foods store, little restaurants and cafés with handwritten signs in the windows advertising matcha tea and kale smoothies. But after a while, he turns onto a leafy side street, and scoots over to the curb to let me out. I’m in front of a series of towering brownstones all jammed together and hovering near the street, with wide staircases leading up to the landings.
So this is where Blix lived. I take a deep breath and look down at the address, written on a piece of paper that LaRue Bennett gave me. Blix’s building appears a little worn out, frankly, with rusty-looking wind chimes hanging off the peaked roof over her door and some ragged Tibetan prayer flags clinging to the railing.
Next door, which is closer than you might think, an older woman is sitting on the stoop, drinking a can of Coke and watching me.
“Are you lost?” she calls out to me.
“Not really. I mean, I don’t think so! I think this is the place I’m looking for.”
She stands up. She must be in her sixties or seventies, but she’s wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt that says FREE TIBET and red tennis shoes, and her gray hair is all nestled in curls around her face like anybody’s sweet old grandmother. “Are you Marnie, by any chance?”
“I am!”
“Oh, for goodness sakes. Marnie MacGraw! I’ve been expecting you. I’m Lola! Lola Dunleavy!” She comes sprinting down the cement steps and over to me and holds out her arms to hug me.
“Lola. Yes,” I say, dimly remembering Blix talking about her friend who lived next door.
“You are exactly who I pictured!” she says. Her eyes, in their nest of lines, are shiny. She grasps my hand and looks as if she might burst into tears. “You’re probably tired and just off the plane, so I should stop talking to you and let you get inside, but oh, honey! It was so sad, her passing, I still can’t get over it. Although I have to say she did it her own way. If you’ve got to pass, and evidently it was time, nobody does it with more flair than Blix Holliday.” She pauses for a moment and closes her eyes briefly and then lowers her voice, leans in. “So do you know everything that’s going on? I mean, did you get the lay of the land?” When she says lay of the land, her eyebrows go up into a little peak.
“I think so. I mean, I got the keys.” I drag my eyes away from her and reach inside my coat pocket.
“From the attorney’s office? Oh, good. I mean, I would have given them to you myself, but I guess we’re doing things all official now. Although”—she glances up toward the house, gestures at it like it might be overhearing us—“I don’t really know what exactly is going on. I mean, at the moment.”
“No,” I agree. No one seems to.
“So maybe I should leave you alone, and you can go in and figure things out? Or do you want company?”
“Well. I guess I’ll . . . just unlock the door . . . maybe . . . and go in?”
“Okay!” she says brightly. “And then, if you need anything later—well, you can always call me. I might be able to cast a little light if . . .”
“Sure.”
She follows me up the steps.
“Blix never did like to use the newer lock,” she says. “She didn’t like locks at all, actually. I was always coming over and finding the place wide open. One time the UPS guy came by—I think it was UPS—and he opened the door and called out her name, and she sings out, ‘It’s okay! Come in! I’m in the bathtub!’ That was our Blix.”
The door does not open when I turn the key. I look through the ring of keys I have, and start trying different ones. Some don’t go in at all, others go in but stay stuck in place. There’s a noise from inside, footsteps walking toward the door.
“Oh dear,” says Lola in a low voice. “So he is here. Now we’ve probably disturbed him.”
“Him?”
“You don’t know, do you?” She leans closer to me and cups her hand. “Noah is here.”
“Noah?”
Just then the door flies open, and damned if Noah isn’t standing right in front of me, looking from me to Lola with shock on his face, although it would be hard to guess who’s more shocked, me or him. I feel my knees wobbling just the slightest bit.
“Marnie? What the hell are you doing here, girl?” He’s smiling, his eyes crinkled up into little slits.
I cannot seem to find words, so I simply stare at him like he’s a mirage. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt and holding a bottle of beer and a guitar, of course.
This is going to ruin everything, everything. All of my recovery, all of it.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I manage to say. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Africa?”
Just then Lola, who turns out not to be the bravest human on the planet, touches my arm and says softly that she might have something boiling over on the stove and she’ll be available later, in case I need her. I hear her saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” as she heads to her own house.
And then I look back at Noah, who is smiling at me like the proverbial cat who is about to swallow the canary.
“It’s so good to see you!” he says. “I’m afraid, though, that if you’ve come to see my Aunt Blix, you’re too late. But maybe you know that already.”
“I do,” I say softly, putting down my suitcase. “I was so sorry to hear.”
He is rambling on and on. Blah blah blah. He wants to know why I’m there and not in Burlingame, and I tell him that I’v
e actually been living back in Jacksonville for a while now. (Which he could have known if he’d so much as even looked at my Facebook feed. I mean, who doesn’t do that with an ex? I would know everything about him if he ever bothered to post anything. The last time he posted it was to say that the African sun is hot. And that was right after he left.)
So he goes on and on, and I’m frankly having an out-of-body experience. How is it that just the day before, I was safe and in love and getting engaged again, and now I am standing on some steps in Brooklyn, looking into the face of Noah? Noah, whom I now realize I have missed—and still miss—with a desperation beyond all reason. Which is a horrifying thing to realize.
Meanwhile, he’s kept talking and now, from the way he’s staring at me, it’s apparent that he’s asked me a question that he’s waiting for the answer to. I review the last few seconds of the tape in my head and realize he wants to know why I am living in Jacksonville.
“Complicated reasons involving certain financial obligations of an overpriced apartment, I believe,” I say.
“But you had three months! I paid my portion of the rent for three months.”
“Yes, but as you may be aware, those months ran out.” I am smiling.
“Yes, and then you were supposed to find a roommate.”
“Well, I didn’t. Do you really want to stand here in the doorway and discuss the problematic roommate situation in Northern California, or may I come in?”
“Of course, of course!” he says, stepping aside and flattening himself against the wall so I can get past him. When I brush against him, several of my more alert cells notice that he’s something we all once liked. They have conveniently and traitorously forgotten that we are not Team Noah anymore. We are Team Jeremy.
Matchmaking for Beginners Page 15