Matchmaking for Beginners(16)

Ah, love. Why does it have to get all convoluted? I’ve been eighty-five years on this planet, and I still think the universe could have worked out a better system than this stumbling mess we find ourselves in.

I kiss Sammy on the top of his delicious little head and tell him I’ll see him later; I squeeze Jessica’s arm—and then they’re off, but first she turns and gives me a look, a tearful look that says all is lost.

All is not lost, I beam to her.

I’m always beaming love messages and light over to Jessica, but Lola, next door, who is keeping score, says that Jessica’s negative vibes are so far winning against my efforts. Lola jokingly claims to have an Excel spreadsheet on what she calls my Human Being Projects and that she can tell me just how all of them are going on any given date. The numbers would show, she says, that my Jessica Project might be a little bit lacking in success, which doesn’t mean a thing, of course, because, as I’ve explained to Lola, everything can reverse in an instant when the vibes change.

And if you want to know the truth, my Lola Project might need some tending, too. She’s been a widow forever, which she claims is fine, but I happen to know that, with just a tiny bit of courage, she could be having the time of her life and could love again. I keep calling for the universe to send her love, doing little love spells here and there when I think of them. But Lola—she can’t see it.

So I have Jessica and Lola . . . and now I also have Marnie.

And oh yes, then there’s Patrick.

Houndy comes into the kitchen, scratching his huge, round belly and smiling. “Is that our boy off to school already?”

“Yep, and today’s the day he’s going away for a month to see his dad.”

“Oh, no! I’ve got to tell him good-bye!”

“You’ll see him later. We’re—”

But Houndy’s already bounding off, going out the back door and down the stairs, and I hear him reach Sammy and Jessica, and hear them all talking at once. And then after a bit, he comes clomping back up the stairs, winded as hell, with Lola following him, wearing her lavender housedress and carrying a cardboard tray of cups filled with iced coffee that she goes and buys every morning even though it makes no sense at all. We can make our own coffee. But that’s Lola; she’s been my best friend forever, in this life and probably about five lives before this one, if you believe in that sort of thing and I do, so I don’t question her. I start throwing fruit into the blender to make us our daily kale-strawberry smoothies, and Lola gets out the frying pan to fix the eggs for the mushroom omelet that we’ll take up onto the roof. We all have our jobs to do to get breakfast going.

“By the way,” says Houndy while he’s collecting the plates and silverware. “I told Jessica she might as well come up after work. Have a glass of wine so she just doesn’t go home and cry herself to sleep. That girl—she always looks like she’s going to fall apart.”

The phone rings just then, and it’s Patrick. The phone seems to ring in an altogether different tone when it’s him.

He lives in the basement apartment—the one that’s almost completely underground, which he claims suits him perfectly—and he’s calling to find out if a package was delivered for him yesterday. I tell him no but invite him up for eggs and mushrooms anyway. He’s an introvert of the highest order, and so he hesitates and says he might come, only first he’s got to write all the symptoms of all the diseases that have ever been recorded and invent a computer program that will cure Alzheimer’s, so he’ll probably be busy for a while getting that done.

I laugh. “Get on up here, you big galoot. You can save the world from illness after breakfast,” I tell him, and he sighs.

Which means he’s not coming.

“Come on,” I say. “We’ll sit up on the roof, just the four of us.”

“Um, I’d have to take a shower first.”

“No, you don’t. We’ll be on the roof. The fresh air will blow the stink off you.”

“My hair isn’t good. I should at least wash that.”

“Put on your hat. You’re always wearing a hat.” I get out the cloth napkins and put them on the tray. I’m distracted suddenly by a dust mote that seems lit up in a sunbeam. My hairline is tingling just a little.

“And I should cut my toenails maybe.”

“Now you’re just toying with me.”

“Get up here!” yells Houndy from across the room. “We need more representation by testosterone. Don’t make me cope with these women by myself!”

Patrick says something about how he’s already eaten breakfast, and he really does have a lot of work to do. And also he’s waiting on a package. He’s lobbing excuses like they’re pebbles and he’s laughing while he does it, knowing that I understand that he can’t come. It’s not one of the days when Patrick can do stuff.

If I squint, I suddenly see little points of light everywhere. My head feels funny, like something is trying to signal me.

“I have to sit down,” I whisper to Lola, and she gives me an odd look. Houndy has taken the tray and gone on upstairs to the roof, and I hear the door slam behind him, feel how the whole building shakes, like it’s answering him.

“Are you dizzy?” she says.

“No . . .”