What she needed was to let Marilyn be in her element.
Rafael. Could there be anything there? CEO and bartender/artist. At first blush, no. But … but opposites did attract. And they weren’t in directly competitive fields. And if Marilyn could have time to do her work during the day then she’d be happy to throw all those dinner parties for Rafael. And they were the only people left in her box. But how would she get Marilyn to cooperate?
• • •
“Reston, I think I have someone for Rafael.”
“Excellent. You do have your grandmother’s gift.”
If only you knew
, she thought.
“The problem is, the woman I have in mind isn’t really looking.”
“Ah.”
“She’s an artist. A sculptor.”
“Ah,” he said again. “You know, this is fun. Let’s see. A sculptor. I think we may need to redecorate our lobby. What’s her name?”
“Marilyn Knight.”
“One of Ms. Knight’s works would be perfect. I’ve heard a great deal about her. Let me see … I need Rafael to take a look and tell me what he thinks before I authorize the expense.”
“Perfect,” Rilka said.
• • •
Marilyn wiped her palms on her jeans and said, “God, I’m nervous. I hope he likes the stuff.”
“Me, too,” Rilka said, a hint of despair tweaking her heart. Marilyn was wearing her working clothes: heavy boots, heavy workshirt, old jeans, hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. Not exactly making the most of her feminine attributes. But she’d wanted Marilyn to meet Rafael in her element, and this was it.
They heard the sound of the elevator gate sliding open and then Rafael was striding into the room, glancing at his watch as if he were wasting valuable time on nonessentials. Rilka’s heart sank further.
“Hi, Rafael. This is the friend I mentioned to Reston. Marilyn Knight.”
Marilyn held out a hand that trembled with nerves. Rafael took it briefly then dropped it.
Well, damn. At least the two people involved would never have to know how badly Rilka had miscalculated.
“Over here is my workroom,” Marilyn said. “Through here. Watch your step. This is my current work-in-progress.” Hands on hips, she stared up at the towering pile of metal, beaming proudly.
“Is this all found material?” Rafael asked curiously.
“Oh, yes. I’m known as the scrap-metal lady around town. You should see the junk people drop off. I did an installation last year, a series of dead refrigerators.”
“Grab Me a Cold One?”
“That’s it! You saw it!” Marilyn said delightedly.
“I did. I thought it was ridiculous.”
“Exactly.” Marilyn grinned.
“So when Reston said you might do a piece on commission of course I agreed,” Rafael said. “What’s this called?”
“Your Tax Dollars at Work,” Marilyn said. “But I think it may be too obvious.”
How it could be obvious, Rilka did not know.
“Pork Barrel Politics,” Rafael tried.
“Inside the Beltway,” Marilyn said.
Apparently they were speaking in tongues now.
“Marilyn, will you allow me to take you to lunch?” Rafael asked. “I’d love to talk with you a little more.”
• • •
“I finally did it right,” Rilka said to Jeremy. She was calling him at work, which she had never done before and which meant … what?
“Congratulations,” he said cautiously. “What did you finally do right?”
“Marilyn and Rafael really hit it off.”
“Marilyn? Wait a minute. She was pretty clear that she didn’t want you matchmaking.”
“She never knew what hit her,” Rilka gloated.
“Huh,” Jeremy said. The Marilyn he knew had seemed, if possible, even less interested in a relationship than Rilka did. Which meant … what?
“I did it! I really did it. I cleared them all.”
“Not
all
,” Jeremy said.
“So I can do anything I want.”
She wasn’t listening. “Okay,” Jeremy said and gripped the phone tighter. That meant
sabbatical
. That meant she was
leaving
. And she still hadn’t helped Jeremy with this problem, which wasn’t, he admitted, about getting laid — or at least not entirely so.
She sounded drunk with happiness. “But I did it, I made a match!”
“Go, you,” he said because he had to say something. Sabbatical. Leaving. What if she didn’t come back? What if she matched him before she left? He could just imagine her setting him up with someone great and then beaming at him, saying, “My work here is done,” when actually it hadn’t gotten started yet.
“Umm,” he stalled, trying to figure out what to do now. “Why don’t I treat you to lunch? To … celebrate? We can go somewhere nice.”
From the other side of the garage, Nate was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, and Jeremy realized he was covered with grease and grime so maybe not his smartest move ever. “Or I can bring pizza,” he added.
“Pizza’s good,” she said, and hung up.
He stared at the phone for a minute before hanging up.
“That had to have been Rilka,” Nate said, opening the door on an 88 Plymouth.
“It was.”
“I suppose you’re taking lunch now. Even though I’m starving.”
“Yes,” Jeremy said.
“And I’m guessing you’re going to take more than half an hour.”
“Yep.”
“Good luck, bro.”
“Shut up.” Jeremy ignored Nate’s chuckle as he rolled into the bathroom to wash up.
• • •
Rilka hung up the phone and looked at it for a minute. She had called Jeremy at work to share the good news, which she didn’t really do with other clients. And she was looking forward to seeing him in a way that she didn’t look forward to seeing her friends. So it wasn’t that he had moved from client to friend.
Her heart stuttered and she found herself in her bedroom, looking through her closet for the lavender shirt because she looked good in lavender.
That made her sit down on her bed and put her head between her knees.
The bastard had snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t
fair
.
She thought about Davis, her last boyfriend. If you had asked her if she’d loved him, she would have said yes. But that had been affection and laziness. Until he’d moved on, she’d been willing to overlook the blindingly obvious truth: theirs was not a partnership. It wasn’t even a love affair.
Oh, boy. She was going to have to say something to Jeremy. She was going to have to say — well, maybe she could get out of it. Maybe she could just go on her sabbatical and move to Bangkok with her mother.
The doorbell rang and she pulled the lavender shirt on, ran a comb through her hair, stopped for a second in the bathroom to check her makeup, and darted down the hall to get the door.
It was Jeremy, pizza on his lap. She scooped up the box and brought it into the kitchen, feeling flustered. The chair that she usually moved out of the way for him had permanently been placed in a corner, and Sugar was snoozing on it. She said in a rush, “Water Diet Coke tea?”
And he said, giving her a strange look, “Water’s fine,” the words coming out in a rush for him, too.
She brought the glasses to the table, her hands shaking a little, and sat down next to him.
“So,” Jeremy said. “Congratulations. You did what you set out to do.”
She had to concentrate for a minute to remember what she had set out to do because that success seemed like a month ago now.
“Yep,” she said.
“So now what?” he said, opening the box of pizza and not looking at her.
She fell back in her chair. “So here’s the weird thing.”
“You don’t want to stop,” Jeremy said.
“Right.”
Okay, so far so good. He had stopped fiddling with the pizza box.
“Really? You’re going to stay?”
She nodded, wiping her slick palms on her jeans. She didn’t have to tell him. Well, she did. But maybe not this minute. Maybe she could take a month or so to get used to the idea.
“What happened?” he asked, giving her an intense look.
“Happened?” Her throat was suddenly dry and she licked her lips and grabbed his glass of water. She swallowed hard and came up gasping.
“That made you change your mind,” he clarified.
“I figured out Gran’s secret.”
“Oh?” He leaned forward. She was going to have to tell him. Okay, maybe she didn’t have to name names.
“So, Gran had been in love,” Rilka said.
Jeremy nodded, and seemed to expect more. But that was all; that was everything. After a minute, Jeremy seemed to realize she had nothing more to say so he said, “Gran had been in love, which, what, made her believe in love?”
“Exactly.” Rilka was having a hard time breathing.
“And she wanted other people to experience that.”
“Right,” she said, trying to go for cheeriness and only sounding desperate. “So she could be patient, and not feel like she was lying when she said love was worth waiting for, love was worth finding. That it was worth looking for.”
“Okay,” Jeremy said. “And that means you’re going to keep matchmaking because?”
“Because I’m in love,” she blurted out and felt her cheeks turn bright red. She hoped he wouldn’t ask the obvious question.
He didn’t, or at least he didn’t ask the question that was obvious to her, which would be
Who’s the lucky guy
, but the one that was obvious to him, which was “Good, because you haven’t actually cleared your client list. When do I get my match?”
She looked up at him, at the grin on his face.
He knew.
“Oh, shut up,” Rilka said. “You know as well as I do that you’ve met your match.”
“Thank God. Does that mean I’m finally going to get laid?”
“Pretty sure,” Rilka said, and leaned in for a kiss. She didn’t have to go far, because he was already leaning in for one himself.
Greta Ferguson folded the morning newspaper and set it aside to join the other clutter on the bedspread: her open laptop, a yellow legal pad, three black pens, and a sketch of the bones of an empty living room. Although she was extremely well organized in all other areas of her life, she liked being able to make a mess — a big mess — in her bedroom, on her bed, and there was no one to complain. It was liberating.
She reminded herself of this fact several times a day.
Greta ran her interior design business from her bedroom because it was the most comfortable place in the house and she was convinced comfort equaled efficiency. Being efficient in a gray fabric cubicle was no way to live your life, as she’d discovered. Plus, she could always take a nap if her clients were being too stressful.
Downstairs, the front door opened, then shut with a decisive snap that heralded the arrival of her sister. A minute later, Tess bounded into the bedroom and handed Greta a cup of coffee. The morning ritual had altered this past spring. Before then, Greta had often fetched her own coffee from the nearby coffee shop, and on many occasions had collected Tess’s at the same time. Then Greta had injured her knee skiing and that mishap had changed everything. She had set into motion a process that hadn’t just changed Tess’s life but her own. That had never been her intention, and she still smarted a little over causing it.
“Good morning,” Tess said cheerfully, which was not how Tess had greeted mornings, or Greta, before. Before spring. Before Greta’s knee injury. Before Michael.
Men
.
“Good morning,” Greta replied. Tess, looking like a gypsy fortune teller in her scoop neck blouse, her dark hair flying every which way, glowed from top to bottom. Greta tried to appreciate the joy in Tess’s shining eyes. To that end, she braced herself and offered a serene smile that cost a great deal of emotional energy.
“Belinda’s going to be an attendant,” Tess said, setting her cup of coffee down and yanking the drapes open. “I found the most darling material for her dress.”
Greta sighed as Tess prattled about her young daughter’s enthusiastic participation in the wedding planning process. Tess,
Tess
, who had never prattled a day in her life. Tess, who had never
planned
anything a day in her life.
Greta shook her irritation off. Tess was entitled to a big goofy wedding if she wanted one. Her first wedding had been conducted by a judge at city hall, with a title registration clerk dragged over to witness. Greta was pretty sure the same judge had presided over Tess’s divorce, one she hadn’t wanted. But Tess had bounced back from disillusionment, unlike some people in the room.
“How is Michael doing?” Greta asked.
“I finally got him to agree to wear a tux,” Tess said, which was not what Greta had asked.
Michael was a friend of Greta’s. Knowing him, he’d be happy with something simple and easy, like wearing jeans and a T-shirt in front of the aforementioned judge at city hall. Well, he’d known what he was getting into when he’d fallen for Tess. He had known it and he had fought hard, but you couldn’t stop love. Or at least you couldn’t stop Tess.
• • •
Greta was able to escape Tess’s shining happiness with the excuse of having to meet a potential new client. Michael had referred him — “My buddy Ian Blake is moving to town and he is definitely going to need some help” — and Michael was a good egg, so she was pretty sure this Ian Blake would be able to keep his hands to himself. She was also pretty sure he would be able to afford her services, or Michael would never have referred him.
So she was feeling somewhat optimistic when she walked up the sidewalk to Mr. Blake’s attractive two-story in a new subdivision. She hadn’t worked on many houses in this part of town so she was interested to see the interior layout.
She patted her chignon to be sure it was in place, straightened her suit jacket, and pressed the doorbell.
The door promptly swung open, which she appreciated — the number of people who seemed surprised when she showed up at ten
A.M.
to keep a ten
A.M.
appointment was by now beyond reckoning.
The man who opened the door was taller than she, which wasn’t always the case for her as it was for Tess, so first she got a good look at a solid chest and broad shoulders in a dress uniform. Then, tilting her head back, she took in a square jaw and dark hair flecked with gray. Warm eyes appreciated her, gray eyes with squint marks around them. Early 40s at a guess. She felt a flutter in her stomach. Not nerves. She hadn’t been nervous about an appointment in ten years.