Miss Match

by Leslie Carroll

  The only thing that invariably restored his equilibrium after a particularly stressful workday was his music. Walker lifted the cover of the piano bench and flipped through the stacks of sheet music, drawing out a few selections. Then he fixed himself a Bombay Sapphire extra dry martini and placed it on the piano above his right hand.

  It felt good to touch the keys again. He closed his eyes and let his hands roll over and over one another as he warmed up his fingers, getting used once again to the feel of the keyboard. His left hand felt a bit constricted, so he removed his gold signet ring. It had been his father’s ring. He wore it because he had nothing else of his, and that was all the old man had passed on. Max Hart hadn’t been much for possessions, and had walked out on the family when Walker was six years old, taking only a Gladstone-style overnight bag with him. Four years ago when the family learned of Max’s death, all that was sent to Walker was the gold ring; a more substantial legacy than any of his childhood memories of the man.

  Walker flipped the music stand into place, and arranged the sheet music on it, breaking into a passionate rendition of “Night and Day.” Good thing his windows faced west. The only nice thing about being able to see New Jersey was that he had excellent views of the sunset as he played. Time must have flown because he couldn’t figure out why he kept hearing an occasional strident buzz while he was playing through the score of Red, Hot, and Blue, until he realized it was the doorbell—and Josh—with two cold six-packs.

  “Hey, bro!” Josh swung his elbow at Walker by way of a greeting and walked through the living room into the kitchenette. “Carlos downstairs said you were in, even though you weren’t answering the intercom, so he let me up. Then you didn’t answer the doorbell. These were cold when I entered the building,” he admonished, indicating the twelve beer bottles in his hands. “But I heard the piano through the door, so I knew you were in here. You always seem to go off into LaLa land somewhere when you play.”

  Walker followed his friend into the kitchen. “Well, a life without music is a sorry one. Hey, you know I heard that today from someone else? A client.”

  Josh shoved the beers in the refrigerator. “We’re gonna have to order in. I don’t think you can make a meal out of Worcestershire sauce and vodka. And those eggrolls date from the Pleistecene era.” He walked back out into the living room and sunk into an Italian leather armchair, immediately grabbing the opportunity to remove his tasseled loafers. “I hate these. I tailor my shoe wardrobe to whichever clients have appointments on a given day. We’ve got the loafer crowd, the combat-boot crowd, and the Timberland crowd.”

  Walker came out of the kitchen with two cold long-necks. “I didn’t think the Timberland crowd bought art.”

  “You’re not what you seem at first glance—why should everyone else be a stereotype?”

  “Aren’t you the guy who just pigeonholed art buyers into three categories of footwear?”

  Josh changed the subject before he allowed his old college roommate to push him into an argument. Walker had been able to find the perfect ways to push Josh’s defensive buttons for the past twenty years. This time, Josh refused to play. “So tell me about the client who has the same mantra you do.”

  “What?”

  “Your ‘life without music is a sorry one’ litany. I agree with you, bro, but you mentioned that a client said the same thing this afternoon.”

  “Oh, yeah. This schoolteacher named Kitty Lamb . . .”

  “Kitty Lamb? That is too cute.”

  “That’s exactly what I said. Her real name is Kathryn. She came in because my mother nagged her into it.”

  “Does that mean she’s not a serious client?”

  “I’m not sure what it means. She admits that she came to Six in the City because she’s really looking to get married, but she cracked herself up when she was making the video, because she thought that talking herself up while trying to be deep and meaningful was the corniest, funniest, most unnatural thing in the world.”

  “It is.”

  “But I thought she was adorable, and spontaneous and refreshing, so I just left the camera running when she started going off. She thought I would rewind the tape so she could start over again after she pulled herself together, but I had it all on video, so I told her that her thirty seconds were up, and that was it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. And when she asked for a do-over, I wouldn’t let her have one.”

  “That’s unethical.”

  “You’re telling me about unethical? Weren’t you the one who hacked his way into the Cornell computers and changed all our grades? I remember the only reason they didn’t expel you was because you cut a deal with them to reveal how you did it.”

  “That was my misspent youth. And you probably wouldn’t have gotten accepted into a master’s program if I hadn’t. Besides, Bear, this is your job right now. I can’t believe you didn’t allow her a retake. These poor stiffs pay ridiculous amounts of money for Six in the City. Why didn’t you just rewind the videotape?”

  “Honestly, I thought she was a breath of fresh air. Dishonestly? Or maybe subconsciously? Something weird happened to me in her presence. I know it’s my job to fix her up, in the hope that she’ll meet someone through Six in the City and live ‘happily ever after,’ but I sort of wanted to keep her for myself.”

  “In the twenty years I’ve known you, Bear, you have never wanted to enter the state of marital bliss any more than you’ve wanted to enter the state of New Jersey. That’s completely unfair to Ms. Lamb. Poor Kitty.”

  “I did make a deal with her. I told her that if she was unhappy, or if she felt that her performance on the videotape in any way sabotaged her chances with the five guys we guarantee to fix her up with, that either we’d reshoot the tape and go through the cycle all over again, free of charge, or I’d refund her five hundred dollars. She seemed amenable. Finally. And don’t worry, I told her that I’m not part of the package.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said she wasn’t into animal husbandry.”

  “I like her. Fix me up.”

  “You’re engaged, bozo. And Lou is a great woman. I don’t want you to do anything stupid, because I’ve been working on my best-man toast ever since senior year.” Walker flipped the cap off his beer bottle. “She’s got this heat that seems to come off her body.”

  “Who does?”

  “Kathryn Lamb. When we shook hands to clinch the deal, it felt as though someone had turned up the thermostat in my office. Then we shook hands again before she left. I think she was trying to see if the same thing would happen again. I’m glad she did it, because I was ready to try the same experiment. She also fills out a sweater like Lana Turner.”

  “You know what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  Walker shot his friend one of his trademark “don’t get me started” looks.

  “Bear. Ask her out. It’s patently obvious you want the woman.”

  “No I don’t. It’s patently obvious that she wants a husband, and it’s patently obvious that I do not, I repeat, emphatically do not, want a wife. Ergo: I do not want Kitty Lamb.”

  “The Bear doth protest too much.”

  “My role—not my role, my job—is to find Ms. Lamb five clients who also want to get married, which is why they’re registered with Six in the City. But I admit that I find Kitty attractive as all hell, and would love to check out what’s under the blue cashmere sweater she was wearing this afternoon. Anyway, weren’t you the guy who told me that marriage was the death of sex?”

  Josh took another swig of Rolling Rock. “So I’ve heard. But even I am finally taking the plunge.” He used a sock-clad foot to maneuver the remote control within his grasp. “I think if you’re not going to ask the woman out, Bear, you should allow her a retake of her tape and give her an honest chance—since I’m sure you’ve already banked her bucks—to meet some truly eligible men.”

  “I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I’d ra
ther watch Vinnie and the Jets. Just toss me the damn remote.” Walker took a deep swig of his beer and looked over at Josh, whose eyes were already glazed over watching the graphic image of two helmets colliding and exploding on contact. “Okay,” he said to his distracted former roommate, “if it’ll make you happy, I’ll think about it.”

  Chapter 4

  “Evening, Tito,” Kathryn said, acknowledging the day doorman, as she strolled through her lobby two days later.

  “Buenos tardes, Señorita Lamb,” the jovial gatekeeper responded.

  Kathryn checked her watch. Good grief! Only four-thirty? She was so exhausted, it felt like she’d been slogging it out for days. The freshmen had been particularly belligerent that afternoon; openly, even hostilely, avowing that drama was kid stuff, sneering at the notion that make-believe could set you free. Tandy Newman had shown promise—proclaiming, when it was each student’s turn to share a little bit about themselves, that she had theater people in her family. The kid had poise and polish, and was awfully precocious for a ninth grader.

  Kathryn preferred to play theater games with them, to watch them interact with one another before they were burdened with a script. She also liked to see what their imaginations would produce without benefit of an already created character to explore. In order for these kids to let go, they would have to learn to first be comfortable with, then appreciate, and finally celebrate their own expressiveness. And the freshmen were at an awkward stage to begin with. She remembered the horrifying peer pressure she’d undergone at their age—stuffing her feet into clunky Frye boots that never quite broke in, fighting with her mother for the right to wear Levis to school like everyone else, instead of Danskin leggings. Kathryn smiled to herself as she looked down at her legs. Danskin leggings. Burgundy ones, and plum-colored suede boots that cross-laced up the center.

  She loved her job, though. Her parents hadn’t given it much credence, never letting her forget that a private schoolteacher’s salary is lower than the average custodial worker’s wages at a public school. Although, in their favor, they were glad that she had gotten the Briarcliff job. As far as they were concerned, if she did insist on wallowing in poverty, at least she wasn’t doing it in a dicey neighborhood where the graduating seniors were almost her own age, and she would have to spend half her days busting up fights, instead of imparting actual knowledge to a bunch of overprivileged adolescents.

  The only time she’d ever gotten a compliment from her father was when a parent had approached him after one of Kathryn’s triumphs—she had coached and directed her seniors in a production of Blithe Spirit . The kid’s father, Mr. Paredes, had told Mr. Lamb that he should be very proud of his daughter, because Evan had a lot of rage in him, and Ms. Lamb had taught him to focus and direct his energies more usefully and the boy had been a changed person for the past year. Because of Ms. Lamb, the kid had even decided to major in theater arts in college and had gotten himself accepted to a combination conservatory and liberal arts college out in Ohio.

  Kathryn remembered her father saying to Mr. Paredes that a career in theater as opposed to one in, say, law, was not exactly something to crow over. Whereupon, Mr. Paredes explained that it was remarkable that his son had found any direction whatsoever, and had finally come across something he enjoyed doing, all thanks to his drama teacher. So, her own father decided to accept the compliment; he became suitably proud of his older daughter for almost two whole weeks.

  It was amazing what memories could flood your mind while waiting for an elevator. Why did both of the damn things always seem to be stuck at the penthouse? If she didn’t live on the ninth floor, Kathryn would have walked, but it was just high enough to be an exhausting trek. Actually, she thought, as she changed her mind and headed for the stairs, I have to get myself in shape for the new lingerie.

  By the time she reached her front door, Kathryn was sure she had a charley horse from climbing all those steps. She unlocked all three locks and kicked the day’s residue of Chinese menus inside the door, where they promptly slid halfway under her faded oriental throw rug. How did all those take-out places have time to leaflet everyone’s apartment and still deliver any meals?

  “Goddamn,” Kathryn muttered to herself as she bent down to retrieve the menus, her purse sliding off her shoulder and thudding to the floor in the process. Her cordovan leather wallet, a cinnamon-colored combination lipstick/lipliner, a bottle of GAP spray cologne, a tortoiseshell hairclip, and a dog-eared copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire spilled out onto the floor. Actually, Harry Potter sort of thudded. The cylindrically packaged cosmetics, which she had forgotten to slip back inside the Tsarina bag when she freshened up after her last class, rolled somewhere under the sofa. She made an exasperated sputtering noise with her lips.

  Kathryn threw herself on the wine-colored sofa and shoved a tapestry pillow under her head. One of her own needlepointed creations. “Just five minutes of rest, that’s all I need,” she said to herself. She immediately got up and turned on the CD player, slipping in the She Loves Me original soundtrack recording, then flopped back on the couch.

  Then she popped back up, fixed herself a Harvey’s Bristol Cream on the rocks with a twist, and resumed her supine position on the dark velvet sofa. A few minutes and several sips of sherry later, her attitude was adjusted enough to check her answering machine for messages. Actually, she had forgotten that her five Six in the City bachelors were going to start calling her. Will wonders never cease? The red light was blinking three times.

  Message number one. “Hi, it’s your sister. The jujube and I are thinking of going to the carousel before the weather gets too cold. Give us a call.” And faintly in the background “Ju-bee, ju-bee. Izzat Aunt Kittycat?” followed by Eleanor asking Johanna, “Do you want to say hi to Aunt Kittycat?” and a distinct “No” from the tiny voice at the other end of the speakerphone.

  Message number two. “Kathryn, it’s Bear Hart over at Six in the City. Some of my male clients were in this afternoon checking out the new recruits, so to speak, and I know that a number of them saw your tape . . .”

  Great.

  “. . . so you should be getting a call sooner rather than later from at least one of them. I think you’ll be pleased with the results. As I said when we met, keep me posted on how things go. It helps me plan my marketing strategy, and, obviously, we want to provide you with— oops, there’s my other line. Catch you later.”

  Kathryn’s machine beeped, signaling the end of Walker’s message.

  Message number three. “Hullo, Kathryn, my name’s Barnaby . . .”

  Cool British accent. Way cool. Sort of Michael Caineish with a bit more polish. Definitely London, though.

  “I saw your tape over at Six in the City, and I’d really like to meet you. I’m a musician, and I thought perhaps we could go to a concert over the week-end.”

  That’s how he pronounced it—with the emphasis on the second syllable. “Week-end.”

  “You’re welcome to take a gander at my tape, of course, but if you don’t get the chance to between now and Saturday night, I’ve got dark hair, almost shoulder length, nearly black in color, and my eyes are green. Oh, and I’m 5’10‘, one hundred and sixty pounds.”

  Barnaby left his phone number, which Kathryn, with nothing handy to write on, scribbled in the inside cover of Harry Potter.

  Her first call was to Eleanor. “Bachelor Number One has phoned,” she announced.

  “And?”

  “A musician named Barnaby, with an English accent to die for.”

  “You always did go in for those.” Eleanor’s voice shifted in tone. “Johanna, please don’t pull the cord while Mommy’s trying to talk.”

  “What’s today? Wednesday?”

  “Last time I checked. Johanna, Mommy will be off the phone in a minute.”

  “I’m going over to Six in the City to check out this guy’s tape before I phone him back. So far, so good, though. I mean it’s Wednesday, and he called to ask me out fo
r Saturday. That’s a fair amount of lead time.”

  “If you are abiding by that Rules book, Kitty, I’m going to disown you and take back that insanely expensive lingerie we purchased.”

  “I actually did buy a copy a couple of years ago, just to check it out, and it was very useful.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “God’s honest truth. I was reading it in the bathroom—”

  “Appropriate,” Eleanor interjected.

  “—And I accidentally let the tub overflow while I was running a bubble bath, and there was water everywhere, so since it was the first thing handy—I’d be damned if I was going to ruin my new Fieldcrest towels—I ripped out the pages and they sopped up almost the entire sudsy mess.”

  “Ironic how a book on how to forestall the male of the species turns out to be the quicker picker-upper. So, let me know what Barnaby looks like. Call me as soon as you get back from the dating service. I’ve got to give Johanna some attention before she does something I’d prefer she didn’t—like watch Teletubbies.”

  Kathryn checked her watch and thought it would be rude to wait too long to return Barnaby’s call, and since Six in the City was open until seven P.M., she decided to go right over. It was a short walk from the apartment, anyway. She got down on her hands and knees, fished the cosmetics out from under the sofa, ignoring the couple of dust bunnies she’d promised herself to vacuum up last Sunday afternoon, and replenished her lipstick. Was she the only woman on the planet who seemed to “eat” lipstick? She could apply it and not do a damn thing with her mouth and by the time she had gotten out the door, the lipstick was all gone.

  On the walk over to the dating service, Kathryn admitted to herself that she was rushing over there as much to pop in and say hello to Bear Hart, as she was to check out Barnaby’s video. She hoped the boss-man would be around. And that he didn’t have another attractive female client in his office.