Matchmaking for Beginners

by Maddie Dawson

  “Maybe he just overslept,” I say. “Or maybe the bridge is stuck in the up position and he can’t get across. Or maybe he misplaced part of his tux, and he didn’t realize which tux shop my dad was using so he’s lost, and his phone isn’t charged.”

  Blix laughs. “Yeah, and maybe Mercury is in retrograde, too, or he’s got jet lag or there are sunspots. Who knows? But you are going to be fine. Big life. Remember that. I told you that. A big, big life for you.”

  She blows kisses to all of us and sashays out. And that’s when I hear it: the roar of Whipple’s BMW out in the parking lot. They’re here. Fifty-eight minutes late, but they’re here, and oxygen flows back into the room like somebody turned on the valve once again.

  I stand up, still shaking.

  We hear pounding footsteps, and then the door bursts open, and there is Noah, standing there looking more like he’s arriving to film a battle scene than to get married. His hair is sticking up all over the place, and he didn’t shave, and his eyes are like little black dots in a sea of bloodshot white space—and—and—oh my God, he is wearing his tuxedo shirt with his pair of blue jeans.

  I put my hand over my mouth. I may be making a little sound. Something a pigeon would say.

  “Marnie,” he says. “Marnie, I have to talk to you.”

  He leads me outside. Outside outside—not to the parking lot, or the little sidewalk area in front where all the nice people gather after church to talk. No, he takes me by the hand to the meadow off to the side of the church, where the church school holds picnics. Where I got my first kiss when I was in seventh grade. Steve Peacock. His parents are right now in that church waiting to watch me get married.

  “Marnie,” he says, and his mouth is so dry it makes a clacking sound when he talks. I want him to stop saying my name. I want him to look normal and happy and groom-like, but none of that is going to happen. “Marnie,” he says, “baby, I am so, so sorry, but I’m afraid there is no way I can do this.”

  And the world—the big, vast, beautiful world—vanishes, shrinking down to a little point right in front of me. The only thing left is the blood roaring through my ears, and some deep feeling that nothing—nothing—is ever going to make sense again.

  FOUR

  MARNIE

  This kind of thing has actually happened to me before.

  In third grade, I was chosen to be Mary in the Christmas Eve pageant. I was to wear my mother’s blue filmy bathrobe, and I made a foil halo that tied to my plastic headband. Being Mary was the high point of my life up to that time—a life in which I was already realizing that my older sister, Natalie, was going to walk away with all the best prizes, things she didn’t even seem to strive for: good grades, teachers’ admiration, boyfriends, the plastic diamond ring in the Cracker Jack box.

  But Natalie couldn’t be Mary because she had already been Mary two years ago, and so she had to be a shepherd. It was all me, and I would be propped up there by the manger, holding the Smiths’ eight-week-old baby, who was playing the part of Baby Jesus. Mrs. Smith had taught me how to support the baby’s head and everything.

  But when we went to the church for the pageant, it turned out there was a terrible mix-up; according to the rules, Janie Hopkins, a fourth grader, was really the next in line to be Mary. There was a list, you see. And even though Janie hadn’t been to Sunday school in months, now she was here, and besides, she was going to move away in the spring and was sad about it, so the Sunday school director knelt down to my level, and looking at me with her eyes all full of feeling, she told me she hoped I’d understand but we really did have to be Christian about it and let Janie be Mary. My throat closed up but I managed to say of course, fine. I took off the halo and the bathrobe, and I sat in the audience because by then there wasn’t even a shepherd costume for me.

  And then in ninth grade, Todd Yellin called the house, and when I answered the phone he asked me to go to the movies with him, and I said yes, and the next day at school when I went over to him at lunchtime, it turned out that he had thought he was talking to Natalie instead of me, and that’s who he wanted to take. Natalie! She wasn’t even in his grade. I was. And then in twelfth grade, the worst thing of all happened: my boyfriend, Brad Whitaker, the coolest guy in the whole senior class, somehow forgot we were boyfriend and girlfriend and asked someone else to the prom.

  And here I am, the same old Marnie, only now it’s so much worse because it’s my wedding day, damn it, the day I get to have it be about me and the man who said he loved me, only the light is too bright, the bees too loud, and Noah’s hands are shoved in his jeans pockets, and he is walking in circles, looking down at the ground.

  And it’s all so unfair because he loved me first, damn it. He was the one who thought it was time we moved in together, a guy who is so adventurous and amazing that he proposed to me on an ultralight plane he’d rented just for that purpose—not realizing it would be so loud up there that he’d have to shout, and that the gusting wind was going to send the engagement ring sailing into the sky and that he’d have to buy a new one.

  Also, he wrote an actual song to sing at the wedding, a song about our love. And he tells me he loves me all the time. He brings me a bag of chocolate almonds every Friday afternoon. He polishes my toenails, and . . . and he lights candles around the bathtub for me. And whenever I start feeling low about missing my family, he declares we’re having a Play Hooky Day, and we stay in the house in our pajamas, eating ice cream out of the carton and drinking beer.

  And now he has gone out of his mind.

  It’s a panic attack, that’s all this is. I take a deep breath and reach out and take his hand. “Noah,” I hear myself say. “It’s okay, honey. Take a deep breath. Here, sit down. Let’s take deep breaths together,” I say.

  “Marnie, listen, I love you too much to do this to you. It’s not going to work. We’re not going to make it. I see that now. I am so, so sorry, baby, but I can’t.”

  “Of course we’re going to make it,” I hear myself say. “We love each other, and that’s—”

  “No! No, it’s not. It’s not enough to love each other. You think I want to do this to you? Marnie, I’m fucked up. I’m not ready to do the husband thing. I thought I could, but I have stuff I still need to do. I can’t, baby.”

  My mouth goes dry. “Is there someone else? Do you have another woman?”

  “No,” he says. His eyes dart away. “God, no! No one. It’s not that.”

  “Then. What. Is. It.”

  “I can’t put it into words. I just can’t say those vows. I can’t settle down yet, be some man with a lawn mower.”

  “A lawn mower? What the hell does a lawn mower have to do with it?”

  He’s quiet.

  “It’s the permanence? That’s what the lawn mower means? Just what the hell is it about the lawn mower, Noah?”

  He puts his hands over his face and sits down in the tall grass.

  I start laughing. “Ohhh, I know what this is! You and Whipple stayed up all night, didn’t you? And now you’re hungover and sleep deprived, and you’re probably dehydrated. You need to eat every few hours, and you need at least six hours of sleep, or you go crazy.”

  He doesn’t answer me, just keeps his head in his hands.

  “Damn it, Noah Spinnaker. People are waiting for us, and all you need is a nap, some ibuprofen, and about a gallon of ice water, maybe a Bloody Mary and maybe a cheeseburger with onion rings, and you’ll be fine.”

  It’s suddenly crystal clear even in its craziness.

  I plop myself down on the ground next to him. I am the only one who can save him, and the only way to save him is to marry him, and yes, there will be grass stains and possibly mud on my dress, but I don’t care. I rub his back, his fine muscled back that I have rubbed a thousand times and want to spend at least the next fifty years rubbing.

  “Noah, darling, it’s all right. Listen, I love you more than life itself, and I know that we are meant to be together, and that we are going to
have a happy marriage.”

  “No,” he says into his arm. “It won’t work.”

  “It will work, trust me. And if it doesn’t—so what? We’ll get divorced. People do it all the time.”

  There’s a silence and then he says, “Divorce is terrible.”

  I explain then how much more terrible it would be if one of us has to walk into that church and break the hearts of my parents and all the people sitting there by announcing there will not be a wedding because of lawn mowers.

  After a moment, he says, “What if we’re making a huge mistake?”

  “It’s not a mistake,” I say, and I realize I believe that with all my heart. “Anyway, let’s make a mistake if we have to! So what? That’s what living is, Noah. Failing and making mistakes and figuring it out as you go along, for next time. At least we’re alive and trying things. Listen—let’s just do this. If we have to get a divorce tomorrow, we will. But today we’ll go in there and say those words out loud and everybody will clap for us, and then we’ll dance a waltz and eat some wedding cake, and we’ll go on the honeymoon because windsurfing in Costa Rica sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And then we’ll come back, and if we want to, we’ll get a divorce.”

  “Oh my God, you’re insane,” he says. “You’re actually fucking crazy!”

  “It would be hard at this moment to say for sure who is more insane,” I say in a low voice. “Come on. Let’s go drink to a big mistake!”

  I have him. I see with some surprise that I am stronger than he is and that I always have been.

  “Let me put this another way,” I say amicably. My hands are on my hips. “I am marrying you today. I just am. So get up. Suck it up and come with me.”

  And he does. He actually does it. I am not even surprised when he gets up. I knew he would.

  We don’t touch each other on the way into the church. We walk in quickly, with our heads down, and we stride down the aisle together—him in his jeans and me in my grass-stained wedding dress—and people actually stand up and clap for us. They do. They clap so hard it’s as though we’re Prince and Michael Jackson and possibly even Elvis and the Three Stooges, all returned from the dead.

  I keep smiling. I don’t know what he’s doing because I can’t bring myself to look at him, but when we get to the altar and the ceremony starts, we say the words we’re supposed to say, like all this never happened. I’m just there, getting married like so many women before me, and maybe when I stop to unpack all my emotions, I’ll figure out how I really feel. But for now, I just keep moving forward, and so does he, and finally we hear the words, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and Noah kisses me and together we run down the aisle, and everything is just like I thought it would be, except for the feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I’ve just come down a mile-high hill on a roller coaster and realized the track ahead of me is broken.

  The reception, held at my parents’ country club, is lovely even if I spend a lot of it knocking back more cocktails than is medically advisable and dancing with anyone who will dance with me, getting more and more raucous as the night wears on. For some reason, Noah goes ahead and sings the song he wrote to me, which has all the right sentiments since he wrote it back when he still wanted to marry me, and when he sings it, people go “Awww.” Then he sings another and another, like he can’t stop himself; he just needs the attention.

  Some people ask me what the holdup was all about, and I tell them, “Oh, it was just some mix-up with the time and the tuxedo shop.” I wave my arms as though it’s all nothing to us now; the wedding went forward, and we’re married. And, ha ha, every wedding needs some little drama to make it memorable, right? A bridegroom in jeans, arriving late with his nostrils flaring like a wild stallion who’s been spooked. What of it?

  My new in-laws stay at their table, looking dismayed and judgmental. My parents’ country club perhaps does not live up to the standards they like to see in polite society, so they keep to themselves. Or perhaps, given what’s happened already today, they’re thinking this marriage will only be temporary, so why should they make the effort? But Blix—I see Blix off to the side dancing with everyone, even the groomsmen, even Whipple at one point. When she comes over and pulls me out onto the floor with her, we close our eyes and smile and fling ourselves around with abandon, like maybe we’re communicating something in our own perfect, unseen world.

  It’s my wedding day, and I am married and doomed and half drunk, flying on the outskirts of crazy, with the world tilting under my feet and the whole night opening up in the middle of my head.

  Later, after I have danced myself into a whirling frenzy, I go outside alone to get some air. I’m hanging over the railing of the deck, looking out at the moon shining on the swamp, and I’m soaking up the Florida humidity and wondering if I’d feel better if I let myself go ahead and throw up, when I hear a voice behind me.

  It’s Blix. “Well, you’ve certainly got yourself an interesting wedding story to tell, don’t you, my love?” She lowers her voice. “Are you doing okay?”

  I stand up straighter, put on my public happy-bride face. “Hi! Yeah. I’m fine. Just danced too much, is all.”

  She gets busy taking off her shoes, and loosening her blouse, flapping her skirt up and down, humming something. I look over at her.

  “I’m trying to cool off my legs,” she says. “Do your legs get hot when you dance?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.” I am suddenly so very tired. I don’t want her to see me this way, on the verge of tears. A gecko runs across the top of the deck and stops to look at me, then hurries off, on a mission to catch mosquitoes. I give him my blessing and try to pull myself together.

  “Whoo! God, what a time this has been!” Blix is saying. “I think I’ve danced with everything on two legs tonight. And if there’d been some cats and dogs around, I probably would have danced with them as well.” She comes over and stands next to me, yawning and stretching her arms up in the air.

  “Oh fuck it,” she says. “Can’t we just be honest, you and me? You don’t have to answer that, because I’m going to tell you anyway. My grandnephew is a major dick. There. We probably should have done him in right when he arrived and we found out he was still breathing.”

  “Maybe so.” I scrape the railing with my manicured fingernail. The insects are screeching from the swamp below.

  “He’s got some work to do on himself. Some work on his auras, that’s for sure.”

  I don’t want to look at her; it already feels like her eyes are boring right through me. But when I do finally turn toward her, the kindness in her face almost levels me.

  “I think what happened is that he just had a really bad panic attack today,” I tell her, “and that was probably because he didn’t drink enough water. Anyway, he’s said he’s sorry, so I think we’re going to be okay.”

  “Do you now?” she says. Her eyes are twinkling. “Well! Let’s go with that as the official version, then.”

  “We’ve talked it out in the meadow and we’re going on the honeymoon, which will be nice. We’re really good when we’re traveling together, and then when we come back, it’ll just be our same life, living together like we’ve been doing already, and we’ll settle down—” I stop, remembering how she hates the settling-down concept.

  She puts her hand on my arm. “Well, it is going to be all right, darling, but maybe not for the reasons you think. I hope you’ll listen to me because I don’t have a lot of time. You need to forget what society has told you about life and expectations, and don’t let anybody make you pretend. You are enough, just the way you are—do you hear me? You have many gifts. Many, many gifts.”

  To my horror, I burst into tears. “Oh yeah. I’m just fantastic. You have to be a special kind of fantastic for a guy to decide on the wedding day that he’s not going to go through with it.”

  She smiles and pats my cheek. “Now, now. Don’t turn on yourself because of him acting like a jerk. Your life is going to be so big,
Marnie. Such a big, inclusive, loving heart song of a life you’ve got in store! You’re not going to give a shit about this guy. Trust me.”

  “I don’t think I want a big life,” I blubber at her, and she says, “Oh, my, my, my,” and folds me into her massive, soft bosom and we sway back and forth, kind of to the music that’s playing inside but kind of not. “I just want to be ordinary,” I say into her scarves and beads. “Can’t I be ordinary?”

  “Oh, my sweet girl. Oh my goodness. No, you can’t be ordinary. Oh heavens no. I feel like I’m standing in front of a magnificent giraffe, and she’s saying to me, ‘Why do I have to be a giraffe? I don’t think I’m going to go around giraffing anymore.’ But that’s just the way it is: you’re a wonderful, incredible giraffe, and you’ve got a life to lead that’s going to take you to amazing places.” She squeezes me and then lets me go. “You know, sometimes I wish I wasn’t at the end of life, because I just want to stick around and watch your creations. All of them.”

  “Wait. What do you mean, the end of life? Are you dying?” I dab at my eyes with a handkerchief she produces.

  She gets a funny look on her face, and I’m sorry I asked the question. Of course. Noah told me she’s eighty-five. Any way you look at it, that’s got to be pretty near the end of life.

  “Hey, so listen, Ms. Giraffe, I came out here to tell you good-bye because I’ve got to go back to the hotel now,” she says. “My plane leaves early in the morning, and Houndy called me to say that he’s invited about twenty people over for lobsters tomorrow night. He can’t help himself.” Then she smiles at me. The wind blows some sparkles around.

  “And you,” she says. “You’ve got some miracles to perform, honey child. Please try to remember that for me, okay? The world needs your miracles.”

  “I don’t know how to perform miracles,” I tell her.

  “Well, then you better start practicing. Words are a good first step. They have a lot of power. You can summon things by believing in them. First you visualize them being true, and then they come true. You’ll see.” She kisses me on both cheeks and then she heads through the door, but when she gets there she turns around and says, “Oh, I meant to tell you. You need a mantra to help you. You can borrow mine, if you want: ‘Whatever happens, love that.’”