Matchmaking for Beginners

by Dawson, Maddie

  And I wonder if she knew even way back then that I was meant for Patrick. Someday I hope I can ask her.

  Oh yeah. It’s now a year later, and here are some other things that have happened.

  My parents were upset at first about me staying in Brooklyn, and could barely stand that I broke Jeremy’s heart two times. But they came around. Parents always do when they see you are truly happy. My mother said she just knew, with a mother’s intuition, that when I went to Brooklyn my whole life was going to change. And she’s resigned to the fact that I’ll turn into a Northerner and that my children, when Patrick and I get around to having them, will speak Northern instead of Southern.

  Natalie has visited me and met Patrick. She said she needed to see my life here, to figure out what in the world Brooklyn offered. She left still perplexed, I’m afraid. She’ll always prefer big green lawns, swimming pools, and the quiet certainty of a suburban boulevard at midday. Me, I love how the city wakes up merely two hours after it went to sleep, and the way the 6:43 bus roars around the corner and hits the pothole—the same pothole—every single morning. And how the dance of the city means you never know who’s going to show up next on your street, in your life.

  Jeremy—well now, Jeremy is really the casualty of the whole situation. No getting around that. What can I say? Such a nice guy, and I know he’s telling himself the story of how nice guys always finish last, never get the girl. He joked that maybe he and I will try again when I’m between husbands number two and number three. I told him that wasn’t funny at all, but actually I was happy to hear him say that. Maybe it means that his snarkiness is coming back.

  William Sullivan is on number ninety-two of A Year of One Hundred Dates with Lola. He says he has the patience of a mule. And I happen to know that she’s been to the drugstore. For products that make things easier, you know. On their one-hundredth date, he tells me, not only is he going to propose, but they’re going to figure out whether to move to New Jersey or stay in Brooklyn. (Lola told me they’re staying, and she thinks Walter will be fine with that.)

  Andrew and Jessica, now members of a family of four, bought a house in Ditmas Park (a much more residential section of Brooklyn). They’re planning a spring wedding. Best man: Sammy. The maid of honor will only be nine months old, so her mother plans to carry her up the aisle.

  Sammy’s school bus brings him to me after school twice a week, and we sit in the kitchen while he works on the poem he’s going to read for the wedding toast. (It’s a pretty good bet we’ll be hearing about the further adventures of the egg and the toast.)

  And some new tenants moved into Jessica’s apartment: Leila and Amanda, who will forever after be known as the lesbian moms, a title they love, by the way. Their baby is adorable. And their sperm donor, the one they were writing the note to when I first met them at Best Buds—well, I have to say he’s around a fair amount, too. I’ve been asked if I can think of a spell that might bring him his own woman and baby.

  Oh, and then there’s Patrick—and, well, Patrick is still Patrick. Wonderful and generous, startled by life and all it can hold. I talked him into quitting his depressing job when he moved in with me upstairs. Now at night I’ll see a wistful look come to his face, and he’ll get his watercolors out and take my hand, and we go up on the roof, where he paints the Brooklyn sunsets and the skyline while Bedford and Roy and I keep him company. He’s taking photographs, too—going outside and taking pictures of everything that Brooklyn holds for both of us.

  Here’s something. The other day we were in a store buying art supplies, and there was a little girl, about four years old, who was staring at him curiously. Normally Patrick would have tightened up, scowling and turning away. But this time I watched as he bent down there to her level, and then she reached her little hands up and lightly touched his skin, ran her fingers slowly along the scars and the places where the skin is pulled tight. I could hardly breathe. I saw them look into each other’s eyes, and then she said, in barely a whisper, “Does it hurt?” And he smiled at her, closed his eyes for just a moment, and then he said, “No. No more hurt. Not anymore.”

  You don’t know, until there’s a moment like that, how much more space there can be in your heart. How much breathing room there is out in the world just for you. That’s when you learn for sure that love will win in the end. It just will.

  As for me, I’m still working at Best Buds. And I keep the book of spells right there with me—with all its vines and flowers on the cover—because sometimes I add in one of Blix’s little blessings when a customer needs some magic along with their bouquet.

  Oh! And Patrick and I are working together on baking cupcakes with the little messages in them. We’ve figured it out, I think. Just last night I told him that all the messages should say the same thing: WHATEVER HAPPENS, LOVE THAT.

  Because, as Blix told me at the wedding, if you need a mantra, that’s one of the best.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes at least a spark of magic, a whole lot of luck, and the patience and intelligence of countless good friends to get a book out there in the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to have all these things in my corner while writing Matchmaking for Beginners.

  I particularly want to thank Kim Caldwell Steffen, who walks with me nearly every day and knows my characters at least as well as I do; and Alice Mattison, my longtime writing friend, who knows everything about storytelling and is always willing to help me get my book unstuck; and Leslie Connor, who listened to many, many early drafts and shared her best ideas and opinions. Nancy Antle read a very early draft and has encouraged this book every step of the way, as have Susanne Davis, Holly Robinson, and Nancy Hall. Karen and Terry Bergantino gave me a week at their friendly, warm condo in Newport, where I wrote without stopping.

  I have so much gratitude for my wonderful, insightful, and brilliant editor, Jodi Warshaw, who loves talking about books and plots and always helps me figure out the story I’m trying to tell. She and Amara Holstein are both editing geniuses. My agent, Nancy Yost, is a treasure who makes me laugh and who always believes I’ll be able to finish the book.

  Many thanks to my children—Ben, Allie, and Stephanie—who have taught me everything I know about love and patience, and also to the wonderful people they’ve brought into my life: Amy, Mike, Alex, Charlie, Josh, Miles, and Emma.

  I also want to thank the “Blix” in my own life—my outrageous, hell-raising, spirited grandmother, Virginia Reeves, who taught me that love is the only thing that really matters.

  And as always, my undying love to Jim, who shares my life and makes everything fun.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2015 Peter Casolino

  Maddie Dawson grew up in the South, born into a family of outrageous storytellers. Her various careers as a substitute English teacher, department-store clerk, medical-records typist, waitress, cat sitter, wedding-invitation-company receptionist, nanny, day care worker, electrocardiogram technician, and Taco Bell taco maker were made bearable by thinking up stories as she worked. Today she lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with her husband. She’s the bestselling author of five previous novels: The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness, The Opposite of Maybe, The Stuff That Never Happened, Kissing Games of the World, and A Piece of Normal.