Elin Hilderbrand - The Matchmaker

Dabney dialed the number for Eleanor Sea Fishing Charters. “Eleanor Sea” was named for Eleanor C.-Jack’s mother, who had once owned a boardinghouse on India Street.

Dabney had been expecting to leave a message on the machine; guys like Jack never answered their office phones, especially not during the summer. She was surprised when Jack picked up.

“Coppah heah.”

“Hi, Jack,” Dabney said. “It’s Dabney Kimball!”

Dabney told Jack that he had won the raffle at the last Business After Hours and that the prize was a hundred-dollar gift certificate to Hatch’s liquor store, and could Jack come into the office and pick it up that afternoon?

She knew Jack would not turn down free beer.

“Hell yeah!” Jack said. “I’ll be theah at three o’clawk.”

Dabney was delighted when Nina appeared at work wearing a sassy red tank dress that slowed off her cleavage. Nina rarely dressed like that. It was almost as if she knew.

At two thirty, Dabney said, “I’m going to take a late lunch. I should be back in an hour or so.” She signed out on the log.

Nina said, “I don’t know why you do that.”

Dabney said, “I’m a goody-goody.”

Nina said, “Well, you used to be. I’m not sure I would use that term to describe you anymore.”

Dabney said, “I think Jack Copper is stopping by to pick this up.” She dropped an envelope on Nina’s desk.

Nina said, “What is it?”

“A gift certificate for Hatch’s. He won it in the raffle at the last Business After Hours.”

“No, he didn’t,” Nina said. “Hal Allen won the raffle.” She squinted at Dabney. “You weren’t even at the last Business After Hours.”

“Make sure Jack gets that,” Dabney said. “He’s coming at three to pick it up.”

“Dabney,” Nina said, “what are you doing?”

But Dabney was halfway down the stairs, and she pretended not to hear.

When Dabney returned an hour later (after going out the Polpis Road to spend “five minutes” with Clen), the office was filled with green smoke. Dabney raced up the stairs, as panicked as if she’d set the building on fire.

The front room, where Dabney and Nina sat, was thick with the green fog, but Nina’s desk was unoccupied. Dabney poked her head into the back office. Both Celerie and Riley were on the phone, yammering cheerfully away, oblivious to the atmospheric disaster right outside the doorway. Of course, Dabney reminded herself, they couldn’t see it. Only she could.

She waved her arms until Celerie put her call on hold.

“Yes, boss?” she said.

“Where is Nina?” Dabney said. “She’s not at her desk.”

Celerie shrugged. “She was here a minute ago, talking to some guy in a white visor.”

Dabney zipped back out to the front office, waving away the pea-green soup, and checked the log. Nina hadn’t signed out, but Nina wasn’t the stickler about it that Dabney was. She might have left with Jack to get a coffee, or a drink.

Then Dabney thought she heard a noise coming from the conference room. Dabney hoped she was imagining it. She had to check. If the conference room was empty, then she would run down the street to the Anglers’ Club.

She opened the door to find Jack Copper and Nina hooked together at the hips and at the mouth, leaning against the table used for board meetings. The green smoke was so thick that Dabney could barely see them, but she could tell they were seriously going at it.

“Hey, you two!” Dabney said brightly.

Immediately, they separated, and the air cleared enough for Dabney to see the stricken look on Nina’s face.

“Nina, I need to talk to you for a second,” Dabney said. “And, Jack, you can go. You got what you came for, right?”

Jack tugged at the bottom of his fishing shirt and adjusted his visor. “Um…yup,” he said. “See you later.” He beat a hasty retreat out of the conference room. Dabney waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before she closed the door. The air had cleared dramatically.

“God, that was embarrassing,” Nina said. “I feel like I’m sixteen again and you’re my mother. Why didn’t you knock?”

“I didn’t know where you were,” Dabney said. “I was worried.

“Worried about what?” Nina said. “We were just kissing. That is why you called him up, right? That is why you paid a hundred dollars of your own money for a second gift certificate, right? That is why you told him to come at three and conveniently exited stage left at two thirty. Right?”

“Right,” Dabney said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Nina said. She looked out the window, down Main Street, at the receding figure of Jack Copper, hurrying away. “That’s over, for sure. He’ll never come up here again. Now if I want to see him, I’ll have to hunt him down. Thanks a million.”

“I actually did you a favor,” Dabney said.

“A favor?” Nina said. “You get to go out and have fun. You’ve seen Clen practically every day since Box has been in London. And do I say a word about it? No! Because you are my best friend and I want you to be happy. But you don’t feel the same way about me.”

“I do, though,” Dabney said.

“You don’t!” Nina said. “You set me up just to tear me down.”

“When I got to the office, I saw green smoke,” Dabney said. “Just like with George! Jack Copper isn’t a perfect match for you, Nina.”

“I don’t care if he’s a perfect match!” Nina said, her voice louder now. “I just want a man to pay attention to me! I just want to have fun! Isn’t there a third category? Where you see happy-for-now yellow? Or a peaceful blue? Or a pulsing-hot red?”

“No,” Dabney said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Well, too bad,” Nina said.

“I want to find you someone special,” Dabney said. “Someone right. Someone for forever.”

“I don’t want someone for forever! I want someone for today! And you just chased him away!”

“You do want someone for forever,” Dabney said. “I know you do.” She welled up with tears. “And even if you don’t want it, I want it for you.” Tears streamed down Dabney’s face. She had been so sure Jack Copper would work, but no-he was the wrong choice. Dabney’s instincts were way off.

Nina plucked Dabney a tissue. “Dabney,” she said, “what is wrong with you?”

But Dabney wasn’t sure.

She had a group of ten bikers heading out to Quidnet Pond. Six boys, four girls, all of them strong riders except for a child named Dalton, who hailed from New York City (Park Avenue between Sixty-Ninth and Seventieth) and who attended Collegiate. Dalton had gruesomely chapped lips and one of the reasons he was lagging behind and holding up the group was that he had to stop every three to four minutes to apply his SPF 30ChapStick. That, and his bike helmet-which Agnes noted was the most expensive bike helmet money could buy-didn’t fit properly and kept slipping forward into his eyes. He had nearly had a collision with the girls in front of him thanks to said helmet.

Agnes hated to admit it, but she wasn’t very fond of Dalton. She had snapped at him earlier, telling him he had to keep up or he would be demoted to the nine-year-olds’ group. It wasn’t a very nice thing for her to say. She wasn’t really angry at Dalton-he was merely annoying-she was angry at CJ. CJ had canceled coming up for the weekend; the room at the White Elephant hadn’t come through, and that apparently was a deal breaker.

“I don’t see why you can’t stay at the house,” Agnes had said. “Box is in London and my mother is never home.”

“I won’t be comfortable,” CJ said. “I won’t be relaxed. And if I’m going to spend time with you, I’d like to be both of those things.”

Uncomfortable and ill at ease because of Dabney, Agnes thought. If Dabney had been in London, CJ would have come.

He said, “I’d like you to come to New York this weekend.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” he said.

She had tried to come up with a reason. She could go to New York, but she didn’t want to. CJ would be on the phone all weekend anyway, negotiating the never-ending Bantam Killjoy deal. BK had been drafted by the Jaguars, but he was unhappy; he wanted to be out West. CJ was trying to get him to Kansas City or San Diego. Or at least that was what Agnes thought was happening; she had sort of lost track.

“I’m on Nantucket, CJ,” she said. “I’d like to go to the beach. Enjoy summer.”

“We can enjoy summer in the city,” he said. “We can walk in Central Park and put our feet in the fountain. We can go to a Yanks game. We can get reservations at any restaurant in the city. You want me to book at Le Bernadin? Minetta Tavern?”

“Um…” she said. “Maybe next weekend?”

“It doesn’t even sound like you want to see me,” CJ said.

“I do,” Agnes said. She had then sung out a chorus of apologies that she didn’t quite mean.

At the turnoff for Quidnet Road, Agnes gathered her campers. There were some fun personalities here-Archie, Samantha, Bronwyn, and Jamey (boy) and Jamie (girl). But everyone was hot and thirsty, the water bottles were down to the last inches, and the kids were eager for a swim and lunch.

Agnes gave the final directions-slight left onto Quidnet Road, half a mile to the pond, lock up, head to the beach, stay together, no one in the water until Agnes blew the whistle-and they all waited for Dalton to catch up. He was forty yards back, ChapStick break.

Just then, Agnes’s attention was snared by the sight of the Impala barreling up the Polpis Road. Her mother, sunglasses on, was at the wheel, singing. Agnes caught the strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Hang Fire.”

Agnes waved. She shouted, “Mom! Mom!” But the Impala cruised past; Dabney was too intent on where she was going to notice her only child.