Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars #6)(19)

“No, I mean why have you decided now that you want to get married?”

“Because it’s time.”

Before she could ask what that meant, he was back on his cell. “I know you’re nearly capped out, Ron, but I also know you don’t want to lose a great running back. Tell Phoebe she’s going to have to make some adjustments.”

And so, apparently, was Annabelle.



Bodie sent her back to the city in a cab paid for by Heath. By the time she’d retrieved Sherman and driven home, it was after five. She let herself in through the back door and tossed her things down on the kitchen table, a pine drop leaf Nana had bought in the 1980s when she’d gone big on country-style decorating. The appliances were vintage but still serviceable, just like the farm-table chairs with their faded mattress-ticking pillows. Although Annabelle had lived in the house for three months, she’d always think of it as Nana’s, and tossing out the dusty grapevine wreath along with the ruffled cranberry curtain at the kitchen window were about as much as she’d done to update the eating area.

Some of her happiest childhood memories had taken place in this kitchen, especially during the summers when she’d come for a week to visit. She and Nana used to sit at this very table, talking about everything. Her grandmother had never laughed at her daydreams, not even when Annabelle had turned eighteen and announced that she intended to study theater and become a famous actress. Nana dealt only in possibility. It hadn’t occurred to her to point out that Annabelle possessed neither the beauty nor the talent to hit it big on Broadway.

The doorbell rang, and she went to answer it. Years earlier, Nana had converted the living and dining rooms into the reception and office areas for Marriages by Myrna. Like her grandmother, Annabelle lived in the rooms upstairs. Since Nana’s death, Annabelle had repainted and modernized the dining room office space with a computer and a more efficient desk arrangement.

The old front door had a center oval of frosted glass, but the beveled border allowed her to see the distorted figure of Mr. Bronicki. She wished she could pretend she wasn’t home, but he lived across the alley, so he’d seen her pull up in Sherman. Although Wicker Park had lost many of its elderly to gentrification, a few holdouts still lived in the houses where they’d raised their families. Others had moved into a nearby senior living facility, and still others lived on the less expensive fringe streets. Every one of them had known her grandmother.

“Hello, Mr. Bronicki.”

“Annabelle.” He had a lean, wiry build and gray caterpillar eyebrows with a Mephistophelean slant. The hair missing from his head sprouted copiously from his ears, but he was a natty dresser, wearing long-sleeved checked sports shirts and polished oxfords even on the warmest days.

He glared at her from beneath his satanic eyebrows. “You was supposed to call me. I left three messages.”

“You were next on my list,” she lied. “I’ve been out all day.”

“And don’t I know it. Running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Myrna used to stay put so people could find her.” He had the accent of a born-and-bred Chicagoan and the aggression of a man who’d spent his life driving a truck for the gas company. He bulldozed past her into the house. “What are you going to do about my situation?”

“Mr. Bronicki, your agreement was with my grandmother.”

“My agreement was with Marriages by Myrna, ‘Seniors Are My Specialty,’ or have you forgotten your grammie’s slogan?”

How could she forget, when it was plastered over every one of the dozens of yellowed notepads Nana had scattered around the house? “That business no longer exists.”

“Bull pippy.” He made a sharp gesture around the reception area, where Annabelle had exchanged Nana’s wooden geese, silk flower arrangements, and milk-can end tables for a few pieces of Mediterranean-style pottery. Since she couldn’t afford to replace the ruffled chairs and couches, she’d added pillows in a cheery red, cobalt, and yellow Proven?al print that complemented the creamy new buttercup paint.

“Addin’ some doodads don’t change a thing,” he said. “This is still a matchmaker business, and me and your grammie had a contract. With a guarantee.”

“You signed that contract in 1989,” she pointed out, not for the first time.

“I paid her two hundred dollars. In cash.”

“Since you and Mrs. Bronicki were together for almost fifteen years, I’d say you got your money’s worth.”

He whipped a dog-eared paper from his pants pocket and waved it at her. “‘Satisfaction guaranteed.’ That’s what this contract says. And I’m not satisfied. She went loony on me.”

“I know you had a difficult time of it, and I’m sorry about Mrs. Bronicki passing.”

“Sorry don’t cut the mustard. I didn’t have satisfaction even when she was alive.”

Annabelle couldn’t believe she was arguing with an eighty-year-old about a two-hundred-dollar contract signed when Reagan was president. “You married Mrs. Bronicki of your own free will,” she said as patiently as she could manage.

“Kids like you, they don’t understand about customer satisfaction.”

“That’s not true, Mr. Bronicki.”

“My nephew’s a lawyer. I could sue.”