Elin Hilderbrand - The Matchmaker

“Well, he’s very naughty and didn’t say goodbye,” Elizabeth said. She then seemed to take stock of the situation before her-Dabney and Clen alone together in the living room where a glass had broken and an endowed chair of economics at Harvard had left a party without thanking the hostess. Elizabeth Jennings knew nothing of Dabney and Clen’s past-or did she? one could never be certain-but neither was the woman naive. She probably had a good idea about what had transpired, or at least its general nature. She might be mentally sharpening the tines of her gossip fork.

Leave, Dabney thought. Go home, and find some way to apologize to Box. Or end the shenanigans now, and just tell him the truth.

But Dabney did not leave. She headed back onto the deck, ostensibly in search of another glass of vintage Moët & Chandon which she did not need. She was almost instantly captured by the congressman, who apparently had already bored everyone else at the party and hence had no choice but to give Dabney a second helping of his opinions.

Clendenin was at the end of the porch. Elizabeth still held his arm, rather proprietarily, Dabney thought. Jealousy started as a burn at her hairline.

Clendenin and Elizabeth?

The good thing about the congressman was that he didn’t require any actual conversation from her. He talked and Dabney had only to nod along, and at the appropriate moments say, Right, yes, I see, of course.

Clendenin and Elizabeth had spent time together “overseas.” Elizabeth wasn’t afraid to travel; she was a woman who arrived in the lobby of the Oriental Hotel smoking a cigarette in a mother-of-pearl holder while some Thai boy in traditional garb dragged in her Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. But Dabney was being ridiculous. She had seen too many movies.

Dabney drained her champagne quickly and the congressman snapped at a waiter to have it refilled, a gesture born less out of rudeness, she suspected, than out of the fear that Dabney might abandon him for the bar. Another glass of champagne appeared, and a different waiter materialized with fruit tarts that were as pretty as stained glass. Dabney demurred; she couldn’t eat a thing.

Clendenin and Elizabeth. Dabney would lose him to the East-or the burnished memories thereof-again!

Jealousy consumed her face: her lip was curling, her molars grinding.

Look my way, Dabney thought. She would be okay if Clen made eye contact.

But he was engaged in conversation; he was making a point to Elizabeth and another couple whom Dabney didn’t recognize. She heard his voice but not exactly what he was saying. She had forgotten how lively he could be in public. He was handling himself brilliantly now, so well that Dabney hated him a little. The group was hanging on his every word.

This was her punishment, she supposed, for what she was doing to Box.

The fireworks began and everyone turned to watch them explode over the harbor. Enjoy them, she thought. But no, she couldn’t, not without Clen. She had half a mind to yank Clen away from Elizabeth. Scandal would ripple through the party, but what did Dabney care? She would be able to watch the fireworks with the safe, heavy weight of Clen’s arm around her.

Love was awful. She hated love.

And to make matters worse, the congressman seemed suddenly to realize that he was standing next to a living, breathing woman.

“Dabney?” he said. “Are you all right?”

Dabney raised her face to the sky just as a giant white chrysanthemum of fire burst open above them. Dabney hoped her face was illuminated in such a way that her excruciating heartache looked like rapture.

She found her engagement ring sitting in the pool of icy water at the bottom of the drinks cooler.

Not lost. Here in her palm. Not gone.

Not gone! Not lost!

There weren’t words for her relief.

But there was another emotion shadowing the relief, an emotion without a name, which felt like an escape hatch closing.

Dabney

On July 5, she was too sick to rise from bed. She’d called in to work, leaving Nina a message on voice mail, saying that the flu had returned with a vengeance and, if she was lucky, she would be in at noon. But even by nine she knew there would be no way. She could barely make it to the bathroom. Agnes was at work and Box was downstairs in his study. She heard him early in the afternoon, banging around in the kitchen making lunch, but he didn’t come up to check on her. She needed ice water and Advil. She had to wait until five thirty for Agnes. She also asked Agnes for her cell phone, and Agnes gave her a confused look. The landline was right next to Dabney’s bed.

But Agnes brought the water and the medicine and Dabney’s cell phone-and a piece of buttered toast, which Dabney couldn’t eat.

“Thank you,” Dabney whispered.

“Oh, Mommy,” Agnes said.

That night, Box did not come up to bed, and Dabney supposed he was either angry or ashamed, but she couldn’t predict which. She had a dream that Clendenin and Elizabeth Jennings were playing mah-jongg on a wooden raft at Steps Beach, and the raft was engulfed in a miasma of rosy pink. Clen and Elizabeth Jennings a perfect match?

She woke up and thought, No!

July 6, sick. Dabney heard classical music downstairs, but Box did not appear.

Her cell phone remained silent. She wanted Clen to text, but maybe he was angry with her, too, or he was ashamed, or he was besotted with Elizabeth Jennings. Maybe both Box and Clen would forsake her. They would abandon her, as her mother had.

Dabney’s father had done a wonderful job in raising her, but it was fair to say that there had always been a part of Dabney that had felt unloved.

July 7, sick. Agnes stayed home from work; Dabney tried to protest but forming the sentence was too difficult. Then Agnes explained, “It’s raining, Mom. Pouring rain. Camp is canceled today.”

The sound of the rain against the window was comforting.

Dabney heard Agnes’s voice from downstairs. “Daddy, she’s really bad. Should we take her to the hospital?”

Box said, “Give her one more day.”

One more day, Dabney thought.

How was he getting clean clothes? she wondered. And what were he and Agnes eating?

At midnight, a text from Clen: Tell me when I can see you.

On the morning of July 8, Dabney woke up feeling like a flat, empty version of herself, but she was well enough to shower and go downstairs for a bowl of shredded wheat.

Box was at the table with his black coffee and the Wall Street Journal. He looked at her over the top of the paper. “You feel better?”

She nodded.

He nodded. He said, “I have to go to Washington tomorrow. I’ll be back on Friday.”

Dabney thought, Washington. Back Friday.

Dabney made it to work by noon.

Riley left a message on her voice mail that said, “Your mother signed out on the log at three o’clock and I followed her. She drove out the Polpis Road to number 436. She turned in the driveway.”

Agnes listened to the message twice. Riley had followed Dabney? That was an audacious maneuver. He had done it for Agnes. Or because he was naturally curious, or he was intrigued that Dabney was keeping a secret.

Agnes googled 436 Polpis Road and found that it was owned by Trevor and Anna Jones, people Agnes had never heard of.

That evening, Dabney was back in the kitchen, making dinner-grilled lamb, fresh succotash, baby lettuces. Box was still in his study, but Agnes assumed he would soon be lured out by the aroma of the roasting meat, garlic, and rosemary. The last three nights, they had ordered in Thai food.

Agnes said, “Mom, do you know anyone named Trevor or Anna Jones?”

Dabney was tossing the salad. Agnes sensed the slightest hesitation with the utensils.

“No,” Dabney said.

“Really?” Agnes said. “You know everyone. Trevor and Anna Jones? They live on the Polpis Road?”

“No,” Dabney said. She met Agnes’s gaze straight-on. “I don’t know Trevor or Anna Jones.”

Dabney

The board of directors met four times a year: in January, in April, in July, and in October. Dabney loathed the board meetings. She started dreading them weeks in advance, even though they always proceeded smoothly.

The meetings were held in the conference room, which was tiny and airless; it was the same room where Dabney had unfortunately barged in on Nina and Jack Copper. The conference room held a rectangular table and ten chairs. It had one small window, which opened from the top, and one electrical outlet, where Dabney plugged in a standing oscillating fan. The fan blew everyone’s papers about and made a lot of noise, but experience had taught them that holding the July meeting without the fan was next to unbearable.

All ten of the directors showed up to the July meeting because Elizabeth Jennings and Bob Browning, the only two summer residents on the board, attended that meeting. Normally, Dabney stood at the July meeting because there wasn’t room for an eleventh chair, and she was not among equals. She was the employee. These were her bosses.

Dabney had the treasury report done and the grant requests from the regional tourism council, as well as a full recap of Daffodil Weekend and a plan for Christmas Stroll. She had a dozen bottles of cold water in the center of the table, and extra pens. She wasn’t sure why she felt so much anxiety; nothing ever went wrong in these meetings. The directors listened to Dabney’s description of how well the Chamber was doing, and they looked at how thick and detailed Dabney’s grant reports were, although nobody ever read them. They all simply nodded in approval and adoration, and Vaughan basically patted Dabney on the head like a good dog, and the meeting was adjourned.