Matchmaking for Beginners

by Dawson, Maddie

  “Oh,” I say. I love Sammy’s non sequiturs, and I have decided to assume that this is simply one of those. “Well, then. What’s the second thing?”

  “I heard my mom ask my dad if they should have a whole wedding when they get back together officially, or just go down to the courthouse and sign the papers.”

  “Really! And what did he say?”

  “He said he wants a wedding, and he wants me to walk with them down the aisle and have everybody there cheering for all of us. He wants me to hold both their hands.”

  “That’s so nice,” I say. “Are you up for that? I bet you are.”

  “I’m up for it,” he says.

  I don’t tell him the secret that I know—that Jessica is already pregnant. There’s a baby coming in about eight and a half months. Yeah, she knew early. She’s one of those women who knows she’s conceived the moment she gets up from the bed, she told me. She’s keeping it from Sammy, she says, until she’s absolutely sure everything’s okay.

  And I have another secret, too. Andrew’s already gone out and bought her a new ring. He says the old wedding ring might have to be put down, like a sick animal. It didn’t do its job so great.

  The new ring is going to be one you can count on for life.

  Will that work? What do I know? All I know is that sometimes miracles simply show up, and you have to take them at face value. What really happened is probably something that Jessica can’t put into words: she just made up her mind to love him again.

  Maybe it was timing, or, in some weird way, it could have even been the waitress showing up at Thanksgiving. But I can’t rule out that it was the spell I did.

  I wonder if Blix had these doubts. Or if she just cast the spells and asked for the miracles, and then sat back and welcomed anything that came. Maybe this is how the whole system works. You put the wish out there, and then it takes the entire universe operating on your behalf to get it to come true.

  If Blix’s idea was to put Patrick and me together, though, she’s not done so well. I’m awaiting an offer on the house, and right now there’s a U-Haul truck parked out in front of the building that’s saying that sometimes things simply don’t work out.

  Patrick is getting ready to leave.

  Around one o’clock, Sammy and I are bored with playing checkers, doing puzzles, and baking cookies, and I can no longer stand to see that truck sitting there, so we take Bedford out to the park. It’s still snowing, but we bundle up. Jessica lends me her snow pants and a parka and a scarf. She’s decided she’ll stay home and do the lie-about-the-house-napping-and-gestating routine. Sammy gets his gear all together, his snow saucer and his mittens and hat and scarf. Winter requires so much stuff. I don’t know how these Northerners keep track of it all.

  We walk over to Prospect Park with Bedford on his leash. He’s fascinated by snow. He wants to run around in circles and bark at the snowflakes. He’s really lost his little doggie mind, such as it is, and he’s dragging me along, trying to make me go into the street so he can chase more flakes. As for me, I may be just as bad. I can’t get over the way the snow feels landing on my nose and face. These are big, fat flakes, drifting down to earth looking like jagged pieces of lace, all clumped together. Soft and delicate, melting on impact.

  “The world looks so different,” I keep exclaiming. “It’s like it got all cleaned up.”

  Sammy shows me where the best sledding hill is, and we take turns, one of us holding the leash while the other rides the saucer down the slope. Every time I get myself on the saucer, tucking in my legs and arms and holding on for dear life, the pan spins me around, and I always seem to go down the hill backward, screaming and laughing and closing my eyes.

  “If you lean the other way, you won’t go backward!” Sammy calls. “Here, lean!”

  “I don’t know what you meeeeeeeeeean!” I scream, because I’ve hit an icy patch and I’m careening across the whole length of the park. “Heelllllllllp!”

  He comes running alongside me, laughing and saying, “Lean left, Marnie! Lean to the left! I mean, the other left! Lean to the other left!”

  I wipe out on the path, and I’m lying there, glad to finally be at a stop, sprawled out on my back staring up at the sky, feeling the snow coming down right in my face, landing on my mouth and nose and eyes. I can’t stop laughing.

  “Get out of the way! MARNIE! Here comes somebody!” Sammy is yelling, and I jump up just in time to avoid being hit by a demon in a red snowsuit screeching as she barely misses me, going hundreds of miles per hour. The wind whistles past me as she breaks the sound barrier.

  “Oh my God! How am I ever going to not want to do this every day? This is what winter is about? Why didn’t anybody ever tell me the good parts?” I ask him. We link arms and go trudging up the hill, back to the line again.

  We’re standing in line—on line—and suddenly I look around. “Wait! Where’s Bedford?”

  “Oh, no!” says Sammy. “Where did he go? I went to help you, and I—”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll go find him. You stay on the snow pan.”

  “No, I’m coming with you,” he says. His face has gone pale.

  We thread our way through the crowds of people all coming to sled and play, calling his name. There’s a German shepherd roaming free, and a golden retriever who’s walking along between some twins like he’s their supervisor. No Bedford. A poodle comes by in a fussy sweater. And two dachshunds in down jackets.

  “Bedford! BEDFORD! Here, boy!” I call. It’s snowing harder now, and I can’t see quite as far as I want to.

  Sammy looks like he’s about to cry. “This is my fault. I lost him. I lost your dog.”

  “It’s fine. We’ll find him. Let’s go down this other street. Maybe he left the park and started for home.”

  “Yeah, dogs always know the way home,” he says. “I heard that somewhere.”

  I don’t want to say that I’m not so sure that’s true of Bedford. He’s been a freelance dog since long before he belonged to me. He may not really know for sure where his home is, or even that he belongs with me. Maybe he met some nice people at the park and trotted off with them because they had fried chicken or something. I may never see him again, and I won’t know if he left me for a ham sandwich, or if he got taken to the pound.

  I get out my cell phone and call Jessica. “Are you feeling okay?” I ask when she answers.

  “I’m now lying about, being lazy,” she says. “What are you doing?”

  “Well, we’re having a fine old time, but Bedford seems to have gone missing. Would you mind looking outside and seeing if you can spot his lovely countenance? Sammy has a theory that dogs know to go home when they’re lost.”

  After a while, she comes back to the phone. “No sign of him. I’ll ask Patrick if he’s seen him and I’ll call you back.”

  “Oh, don’t bother Patrick. He doesn’t even like Bedford. I’m sure he hasn’t seen him.”

  “Well,” she says. “Okay.”

  “I’ll keep looking around here for a while, and then Sammy and I will come back. The wind’s coming up, and it’s getting kind of cold.”

  “I can barely hear you, there’s so much noise from the wind,” she says.

  “I know. But listen, my battery is about to die, so we’re going to keep searching and then we’ll come back . . .”

  “Shall I send Andrew? Are you near the pond?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure exactly. But give me a little while to look before you send him.”

  The phone goes dead.

  “She hasn’t seen him?” asks Sammy. His shoulders slump, but then he gathers himself up and starts calling again, “BEDFORD! BEDFORD!”

  We walk along. My hands and ears are freezing. And even though the snow has stopped falling, it’s even harder to see. By the time it’s four thirty, we’ve walked blocks and blocks, and there’s the feeling of twilight. People packing up to go. I think I have possibly lost a couple of toes by now.

  �
��I think we have to give up, Sammy boy,” I say. “I’m sure he’ll show up at home.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “He will. Dogs are smart creatures.”

  “But what if a car hit him or something? What if somebody took him and stole him?”

  “Sssh. Let’s think positive. He’s probably just fine somewhere. Probably he’s gone to a bodega and is enjoying a meatball sub in the back. Let’s go home and warm up. Get some hot chocolate. Maybe we’ll go out later and look again, with your dad.”

  We walk along the sidewalk. I keep peering down the street, trying to see. And then I see two men coming toward us, and one of them is Andrew—and the other one is Patrick, and my stomach feels like it slides down to my toes.

  Patrick. Outside, in a flimsy parka and sweatpants. Running toward me. He’s outside and he’s running to me, and I put my hand over my mouth because this is clearly not good. I freeze in position, but Sammy says, “Dad!” and starts galloping to Andrew’s side, blubbering now, talking about the dog and how he’s sorry. Andrew leans down and scoops him into a hug, but Patrick keeps coming toward me.

  “Bedford—” he says, and I start to cry.

  “Oh my God. Is he dead?”

  “No, but a car hit him. In front of our house. I’ve been trying to call you.” He stops talking, panting so hard he can’t make words right.

  “Oh, no! Where is he? Oh my God. Is he going to be okay?”

  He bends down, puts his hands on his knees, tries to catch his breath. “No . . . it’s okay . . . going to be okay . . . I took him to the vet . . .”

  “The vet? You took him—? Wait. Patrick, take a deep breath. Breathe.” I put my hand on his arm. “Just nod—you saved him, didn’t you?”

  He takes a deep, deep breath, and another and then nods. “He’s going to be okay. A broken leg, they said. They fixed it up. I’ve been looking for you. Jessica said you and Sammy were sledding . . .”

  “Where is he?”

  “The animal hospital four blocks from here. They’re setting it now.” Another deep breath. “So he’ll stay there tonight. Make sure there are no further complications.”

  “You saw it happen? Was it awful?”

  He straightens up and looks at me. “I saw it right afterward. He was in the street, and he was lying down crying and I picked him up and moved him. I probably shouldn’t have moved him, but I needed to get him out of the road.”

  “You picked him up?”

  “I did. Well, I had to. He’s your dog.”

  “Oh, Patrick! Thank you so much. I’m so glad you did. Oh my God. I get a dog, and already I’ve wrecked him.” I can’t help it; I grab him in a hug, and he lets me. He even puts his arm around me. “How did you know it had happened?”

  “I heard it happen. Heard him yelp. So I went out, and the driver of the car was there. He’d pulled over and he came and talked to me. He said he never even saw him dart out.”

  “No. He chases snowflakes and loses his mind. Do you think—I mean, can I see him? Oh, that poor dumb mutt!”

  “Yes, we can see him. They do magical things with dog legs these days, I’ve heard.”

  Andrew and Sammy are coming toward us now, and Sammy is holding back tears. Andrew has his arm around his son’s shoulders. I’ve never noticed how alike the two of them look.

  “It’s my fault, Marnie,” Sammy says.

  “No, it isn’t. Not at all. Bedford is his own free dog, and he should have followed you. He just got distracted in that doggie way. And you were right; he went home. He probably was chasing some snowflakes and went out into the road, because—well, I hate to say it, but he’s kind of an idiot dog. You know? Doesn’t know much about sidewalks and cars.” I hug him, too.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay, sport,” says Patrick. “They’re fixing him up.” He looks at me. “Shall we go over to the animal hospital and see how they’re doing with him?”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” I say. “Wait. You’ll really come with me?”

  He closes his eyes for a moment. “Yes, of course I’m coming.”

  Andrew says he and Sammy are going to head home, if that’s okay. “I’ve gotta get this guy into some dry clothes.”

  I kiss and hug them both good-bye, and then I turn back to Patrick. “Why are you doing this? What in the name of God happened to you since I last talked to you?”

  “Do you want to walk or take my truck?”

  “Wait. You have a truck?”

  “I have the U-Haul. That’s how I got the dog to the vet.”

  “You’re so full of surprises.”

  “I thought we had a moratorium on the word surprise.”

  “Sometimes it’s a good word.”

  We walk for a long time in silence. I keep stealing little looks at him.

  “You don’t even really like him. You said you don’t have any time for dogs.”

  “Yeah, well, he licked my hand. So that may mean we’re bonded for life now.”

  “Patrick.”

  “Yes?”

  “This means more than I can say. Really.”

  “I know.”

  “This is like the most amazing thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  “Listen, I’m not prepared to make a big speech or anything,” he says. “I’m still a wreck. Still me. But I thought about what you said.”

  “Oh my God, Patrick, you’re outside. For me.”

  “Yeah, well, I want to go see how this dog of yours is doing. And I want—well, then I want to start the process where Roy and Bedford get to be friends.”

  “You do? Aren’t you moving, like, in twenty minutes? Going to Wyoming?”

  “And then maybe if you want we could have an exploratory preliminary talk about how ridiculous it would be if one of us is walking on the plains of Wyoming alone while the other one is in Florida. Flah-rida, as you say it. You know, as a long-term plan.” He stops walking and faces me and takes both of my hands in his leathery, stitched-together, wonderful hands, the medical miracle hands.

  His eyes are luminous in the half darkness. “I probably can’t be fixed all the way, you know. There’s always going to be some . . . pain . . . and maybe some visits to that planet. The My Lover Died planet. I may have a permanent parking space there for my spaceship. But I . . . well, I need you. I don’t want to live without you.”

  “Patrick . . .”

  “Please. You don’t have to do this. You’re going to have to think very hard about what you want. I’m no bargain, believe me. Just tell me this. Is this—am I—I mean, could this ever be something you even want?”

  I close my eyes. “So much.”

  He pulls me to him and kisses me so softly. “Is that really true?” he whispers. “You want this?”

  I nod. I’m about to burst into tears, so I can’t trust myself to speak.

  “Okay,” he says, “so we’ll go visit Bedford. Then we have to go home and tell Roy the news. That he’s now a dog owner. He’s not going to be happy, believe me.”

  We start walking again, and the sky gets dark, and yes, there may be sparkles everywhere I look, or maybe it’s just the streetlights coming on and shining on the snow. We can’t stop smiling. Smiling and walking and holding hands.

  “You do know there are going to be piles of problems, right?” he says about half a block later. “This isn’t going to be like—”

  “Patrick,” I say.

  “What?”

  “I may need you to be quiet just now so I can love on you better. I’m thinking how it’s going to be so amazing, unwrapping you.”

  “Unwrapping me, did you say? You are?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve been thinking of nothing else.”

  “If you’d been texting that, would there have been periods or commas between all those yeses?”

  I stop walking then and put my arms around him, and he kisses me again and again. And it’s the best, really—kisses that have exclamation points
between them. Like all the yeses from now on.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  MARNIE

  On the day that the three months are up, Charles Sanford gives me the papers to sign, now fully accepting the terms of the will—and then he hands me the last letter from Blix, the letter he’d explained would be mine once I’d fulfilled the terms of the will.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I ask him, “did she really write me two letters—one if I was staying and one if I was going?”

  He laughs a little bit. “Well. No. Not really.”

  “Oh, because she would have been too disappointed in me if I’d gone back to my regular life,” I say.

  “That’s one way to look at it. But probably, it was more that she always was sure you wouldn’t.”

  “But I almost did,” I say. “I even had a real estate agent showing the house! I had a plane ticket home.”

  And he smiles. “Yes, but no offers ever materialized, did they? And you decided to stay. You see, Blix didn’t deal in almosts. She knew what she was doing.”

  I go to the Starbucks where I had read her first letter, three months ago. And then I open up this letter, my heart beating fast.

  Marnie, my love, welcome to your big, big life. Sweetheart, it worked out just as I knew it would. For the good of all.

  As you look around you, I know you’re seeing all the nonstop, everyday, and everywhere miracles. They are everywhere.

  And, sweetheart, keep loving him. He’s a good man—damaged and broken, but as someone wiser than me said, it’s in the broken places where the light gets in.

  And as you and I both know, he is LUMINOUS. Filled with trapped light. It beams out of his eyes, doesn’t it, darling? I also want you to know that he has a Hawaiian shirt and he has straw hats—and when he puts those on and dances, you are not going to believe the transformation that takes place. I am there with you, loving every minute. So live your little hearts out. Love is everything there is. Never forget who you are.

  Love,

  Blix

  I put down the letter and smile off into the distance.

  So she did know. She fixed it so it would happen just this way.

  I feel like if I turned around fast enough, if the principles of time and space could somehow allow it, I’d see her there, dancing in the street, twirling, with her hands in the air, just the way she danced at my wedding.