Matchmaking for Beginners(34)

“Okay, I’ll try to get the lobsters to come right to you,” I say. “And I also have another new project, that I didn’t tell you about yet. But I need to tell you.”

“I hope it’s you staying alive.”

“Sssh. I think Marnie and Patrick are supposed to be together. I’m working on that.”

He pulls away just slightly. “Marnie and Patrick? Are you out of your mind?”

“No, she’s right for Patrick. I’m convinced of it. They’re supposed to be together. That’s what all this has been about, Houndy. All of it. My meeting Marnie at the party. Patrick coming to live here in the first place. Who knows how far back this goes?”

“Oh, no,” he says. “What are you doing this for? Blix! You can’t possibly want to torment poor Patrick any more than he’s already been tormented.”

“Torment? Love is not torment,” I tell him firmly. “Trust me. These two are a match. I knew it the moment I saw her, but I just didn’t know I knew it.”

“Blix.”

“Houndy.”

“He doesn’t want love. He’s hurt.” He gets up out of bed, pretending to be all grouchy. “Patrick just wants to be left alone.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me. Everybody wants love, and the ones who appear to want it the least actually need it the most. Remember when you first came to me? Huh? Remember that? You didn’t know you wanted love.”

“Yeah, but, with all due respect to your matchmaking ways, let’s not overlook that Marnie married Noah. What about that? He’s the one she wants.”

“Well, she did marry him. But he’s left her. The universe works in mysterious ways, Houndy, and I know what I’m doing. You just have to trust me.” I hug myself and laugh.

He starts waving his hands in the air around his head, like there are gnats bothering him. He can only go so far with this kind of talk. And sure enough, he’s pulled his clothes on by now, and he goes to the bedroom door to leave, grousing again about how he has to go get the lobsters, and I remind him that Harry said he’d get the lobsters, and then I say, “Okay, you. I think you need to come back to bed for some special attention.”

“Blix. I don’t wanna.”

“Oh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”

“No.”

“Ohhhhhhh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”

“No, no, no.” But he is standing at the bedroom door again, trying to hide his smile.

I waggle my fingers, like I’m sending over some fairy dust. I crook my finger at him. “Houndy, Houndy, Houndy!”

“Damn it, Blix. What are you doing to me?”

“Youuuu knooooow.”

He comes over to the bedside, and I reach over and lift up his shirt, and unbutton the cargo pants he’s just buttoned up.

“Blix, it—it’s not going to . . . ohhhhh!” And then he comes down onto the bed, tumbling really, and he’s laughing in surprise, so I roll him over and put my nose right up to his, and then—and this is an effort, let me tell you—I hoist myself up on top of him, and sit there, straddling him. And slowly, slowly the light comes back into Houndy, and he gives himself over to me. It’s almost like that moment when you’re sautéing mushrooms, and they give up, yield themselves to you, and the alchemy is complete.

That’s Houndy and me, making love. Mushrooms in a pan.

Like we’ve done for so long, thick and thin, sickness and health, all that. You never know which time is going to be the last time.

He wasn’t my first love, or second, third, fourth, or maybe even thirty-fourth. But Houndy, as I’ve come to see—simple, uncomplicated, straightforward Houndy—is the love of my life.

And when I tell him so, he squeezes his eyes shut tight, and when he opens them again, the light of his love nearly blinds me.

Lola comes over to help me get ready for the wake. I’m washing bowls and trays while she unpacks the streamers and tiaras and confetti left over from our last bash early in the summer.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Somehow I don’t think streamers are quite appropriate for a wake, now are they?”

“Everything should be appropriate. I’m changing the rules of wakes, remember? I’m going out with a bang. Streamers and whatever else. I personally will be wearing a tiara and I hope you will, too. I’d like to die in a tiara, as a matter of fact.”

She turns and smiles at me sadly. “Ah, Blix, you’re not dying. I’ve seen people who are about to die, and they’re nothing like you. They’re not washing bowls for a dinner party, for one thing. And they’re not thinking about sex.”

“Oh dear, did you hear us?”

“Did I hear you? Are you kidding me? Damn straight, I heard you. I was walking outside on the sidewalk, and I thought, that Houndy sounds like—wait, is that why he’s called Houndy? It is, isn’t it? He baaaaays like . . . Oh!” She bursts out laughing.

“That’s it. He’s an old hound dog.”

“God, I miss that.”

“Sex? Do you, really?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Really really?”

“I said yes. But it’s been so long, it would probably kill me. It’d be like sandpaper down there.”