Matchmaking for Beginners(104)

Is this love? Or is it what he thinks it is—pity, perhaps mixed with some adoration because he was this tragic superhero, trying to save his girlfriend from the fire? He would say I love his story, not him. Not the reality of a man whose soul and body have been burned beyond his own recognition.

Lola comes outside on her stoop, and she waves to me, a listless wave. Nothing like before.

“That the real estate agent?” she calls.

“Yeah.”

“You’re going with her then?”

“I guess so. How are you?” I ask her, and she says she’s fine.

Then she leans over the railing and says, “I’m sorry I got so mad at you yesterday. It’s really my old argument with Blix, I realized. I loved her to pieces, but damned if that woman didn’t always think she knew best about everybody else’s life! I can’t stand the feeling of being manipulated—even by magic. Especially by magic.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“You should feel the same way I do! What she’s done with you and Patrick!”

“Well,” I say. “But it’s not going to work with me and Patrick.”

But she waves her hands over her head like she’s trying to bat away a bunch of gnats, and then she goes inside.

I head back in, too. The sun is beaming through the windows, making patches of light on the oak floors. I love the bay windows, the brick fireplace, Patrick’s graceful sculpture on the mantel. I’m overcome suddenly with the feel of this room, and the high ceilings, the staircase up to the kitchen. The little decorative touches, the wainscoting in the kitchen. The way the stove leans just a bit. The soapstone sink that stopped me in my tracks that very first afternoon, when Noah was showing me around, before he knew.

And, may I just say, I love the turquoise hand-painted refrigerator. It speaks to me, this refrigerator.

Ah, this house is a sly one, piling up the memories—Blix’s and mine. The scarred table with the star carved into it. The little plants on the windowsill. The view of the park and the busy street below.

The dust motes drift down, ready to coat everything as they always have. The light continues to pour in, making shifting patterns on the floor as the breeze moves the gingko tree outside, shedding the last of its four leaves, pretending we belong together.

Marnie, it’s okay to love him.

No, he won’t let me.

It’s okay to love him.

“Well, my friend, I think we struck out.”

I’m at Best Buds the next day, and I look up from deadheading the chrysanthemums, hearing a familiar voice. Sure enough, William Sullivan is standing there smiling and jingling the change in his pocket.

“If we struck out, then what are you doing here?” I ask him. Which isn’t the most polite way I’ve ever spoken to a customer, I admit. But really—he drives up from New Jersey to tell me how Lola turned him down? Has the world gone barking mad?

“Well, I’m here because we’ve got to try again,” he says, his eyes lit up. “I thought I’d visit her this weekend, our usual Saturday outing, and I thought you and I could think up something new. For me to say to her.”

“Wait a second. She turned you down, and she was furious at both of us, and yet you still think she’s going to be open to your usual Saturday?”

“Yep.” He smiles at me. “Well, I hope so, at least. I’m going to give it the old college try.”

I want to say, What is wrong with you, William Sullivan? What is it about a woman turning down your proposal of marriage that makes you think she’ll be willing to go on an outing with you forty-eight hours later? Instead I say, wearily but with a fascination at the obtuseness of the human spirit, “So you see this plan involving flowers, do you?”

“Well, sure, involving flowers. You’re a flower shop, aren’t you?”

“All right,” I say. “I have to say, though, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to change her mind. She’s pretty convinced she doesn’t want anything interesting to happen for the rest of her life.”

“Ah, I know. That’s how she feels now. She’s pretty fierce.” He chuckles. “She was something else on Thanksgiving, wasn’t she?”

“Well, yeah. She was pretty upset.”

He wanders around the shop, whistling something. And then he comes over to me at the counter. “What did you say your favorite flowers were?”

What had I said? “Gerbera daisies?”

“Oh, yes. Okay, I’d like a bouquet of those. And while you’re fixing them up, I want to tell you my plan. Because I have cooked up a great one. And I am very optimistic that this is really going to work.”

I shake my head. “William, I’d sort of forgotten that people can even be optimistic sometimes.”

“Oh, I’m frightfully optimistic,” he says. “Frightfully. Okay, let me tell you what I’ve realized. I was a basketball coach in my old life, and what happened here is that I misjudged the layup. Simple problem. I thought this was going to be a slam dunk because Lola and I were such good friends from before, and we were both lonely, and we had all this history—good, good history—but no! I hadn’t prepared for no. I hadn’t thought it all through.” He grins.

“Well, that can happen.”