Elin Hilderbrand - The Matchmaker

“Miranda has resigned, she’s going to Columbia to work with Wilma.” He cleared his throat. “Seems she’s broken off the engagement with Christian.”

“Oh,” Dabney said. “Wow!”

Five days of silence from CJ. It was now a standoff. He was waiting for her to break down and change her mind. The silence was also eerie; she hadn’t believed him capable of it.

She started joining Riley for trips to the beach after work. She swam while he surfed, then they lay around on his cherry-red beach blanket like a couple of seals and enjoyed the golden hour-the hour when the sun was sublime and mellow. Despite the turmoil of the summer, Agnes relaxed with Riley.

One night, she let Clendenin cook her dinner. Fried rice with authentic spices that he had ordered on the Internet-the fragrant rice was a deep yellow and was studded with delicious tidbits-golden raisins, lacquered pork, rock shrimp-that looked like tiny gems. That night, Clen talked about what Dabney had been like in high school-how popular and confident she had been, her elaborate matchmaking schemes, even among the faculty, her love of Nantucket. Dabney had been salutatorian of their class, and Clen the valedictorian; Dabney had been bitter about that, Clen said. He had her by three-tenths of a percentage point in GPA and forty points verbal and ten points math in the SAT-but she had gotten into Harvard and he hadn’t. Back then, it had been easier to get into Harvard as a girl, or so Clen had told himself at the time. Dabney used to keep a notebook, he said, of her favorite streets on the island. Charter Street, in the fish lots, was her very favorite. She wanted to live on Charter Street when she grew up, and if not Charter, then Quince, or Lily.

After dinner, Clen poured them each a bourbon and he smoked a cigarette on the front porch while Agnes did the dishes. Then she joined him on the porch and they looked at the stars in the sky, and at the large, empty, illuminated house that it was Clen’s job to caretake.

Agnes said, “Will you stay here on Nantucket?”

“I don’t see ever leaving again,” Clendenin said. “Unless something happens to your mother. For me, this island is home, but it’s home because of Dabney. I moved here when I was fourteen. I lived here only three weeks before she befriended me, and as soon as she did, I never wanted to leave. She gives this island its meaning. Dabney, Nantucket. Nantucket, Dabney.” He exhaled. “And long as she stays, I stay.”

Agnes wanted to ask him what he thought was going to happen. Did he think Dabney would leave Box? And…marry him? At that moment, Agnes understood that she had gotten way too involved in the love triangle. Her mother, her father, her other father.

She gathered up the keys to the Prius. “I’d better go,” she said.

She was at the farm, selecting ears of corn for dinner. She felt so weak and so sick, she could barely stand. She should have called the doctor weeks ago-but as soon as she resolved to do it, she felt better, or life got in the way. That morning, Dr. Marcus Cobb, Nina Mobley’s beau, had gone fishing and caught five striped bass. When he came into the office to take Nina out to lunch, he gave Dabney a heavy bag of fresh filets.

Dabney had been thrilled with the fish; she instantly planned dinner: grilled striped bass, corn on the cob, farm greens lightly dressed. It had sounded like the perfect meal at noon, but now, at five, Dabney was in so much pain that she wanted to take a pill and sleep until morning.

Forbearance. She would choose the corn. The fish was already marinating on her kitchen counter. With a few simple instructions, Agnes could pull dinner together.

Suddenly, there was a woman at the corn crib, trying to get Dabney’s attention. It was Elizabeth Jennings.

“Elizabeth!” Dabney said. “Hello!” She was in too much pain to talk to Elizabeth. The pain was like a black marble, and Dabney was suspended inside.

“Dabney!” Elizabeth said. “I’m so happy I bumped into you. I have the most interesting piece of news to share.”

Dabney was wary of “interesting pieces of news,” because they were usually rumors or gossip, and yet people came to her with “interesting pieces of news” all the time. Dabney did not want to hear any “interesting pieces of news” from Elizabeth Jennings, that was for darn sure.

“I’m in a terrible hurry,” Dabney said. She indiscriminately stuck two final ears of corn into her recyclable shopping bag.

But Elizabeth either didn’t hear Dabney or she chose to ignore her. She said, “You’re friends with Clendenin Hughes, right?”

Dabney froze. Her insides contorted. Lovesick.

Elizabeth said, “When we had dinner a few weeks ago, he told me the two of you have known each other since high school. So sweet!” Elizabeth smiled, showing off her capped teeth. She was wearing a turquoise-and-white dress with matching turquoise sandals, and her toenails, Dabney noticed, were painted the same shade of turquoise. Was it possible that Elizabeth Jennings had her pedicure done each day to match her outfit? It wasn’t impossible. What else did Elizabeth Jennings have to do all day except gossip and chase after Clendenin? She wasn’t even at the corn crib to pick out corn, Dabney realized. She had come only to torment Dabney!

“I have to go,” Dabney said. She turned to her cart and loaded in her ears.

“I went to Clen’s house to drop off a pie I made,” Elizabeth said.

Involuntarily, Dabney shook her head. There was no way Elizabeth had made a pie.

“And there was a young woman pulling out of his driveway as I was pulling in. A very beautiful young woman. I think Clendenin has a girlfriend!”

Dabney barely made it to the Impala before the pain became unbearable. Elizabeth Jennings had been jealous, spiteful even, and possibly suspicious of Dabney’s relationship with Clen. Either she had wanted Dabney to tell her who this young mystery woman was or she wanted Dabney to commiserate. Men always chose younger women. Life was unfair in many aspects, but this, perhaps, was the most unfair.

At the very least, Dabney knew that Elizabeth Jennings hadn’t been the guest at five o’clock. Someone else had been.

Dabney called Clen from the parking lot.

She said, “Who were your plans with the other day? When I wanted to come over at five o’clock and you said you were busy?”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Cupe. I can’t tell you.”

“Clen!” she shouted. She was in so much pain, and now this. “A young woman? A beautiful young woman?”

“Dabney,” he said. “I can’t tell you.”

The sharp, shining knives piercing her gut…She moaned. Her insides were being gnawed on by millions of tiny razor teeth.

I think Clendenin has a girlfriend!

I’m sorry, Cupe. I can’t tell you.

Lovesick.

No, she thought.

In the morning, she called Genevieve at Dr. Field’s office. “I need to talk to Ted,” she said. “Please, I think it’s an emergency.”

“Like, an emergency-room emergency?” Genevieve said.

“Please, Genevieve,” Dabney said. “I need to talk to Ted. Can you make that happen?”

“For you, I can make anything happen.”

Ted Field set it all up. He sent Dabney’s blood work to the correct person at Mass General, and they scheduled a CT scan for Thursday morning.

“You do realize,” Ted Field said, “that you have to go to Boston.”

“Yes,” Dabney said. It had long been her mantra that she would leave the island only if her life depended on it. Now, she was suddenly certain, her life depended on it.

She told Box first.

“I spoke to Ted Field,” she said. “I’m going to Boston for a CT scan.”

“That sounds serious,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Dabney said. “I’m going alone.”

“It’s my city and it’s been aeons since you’ve been there, or anywhere else, by yourself. Let me go with you. We can end the day with dinner at Harvest, spend the night in my apartment, and come back in the morning.”

“That sounds like your idea of a lovely time,” Dabney said. “I want to go and come back, and I am going alone.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Box said.

“First flight to Boston on Thursday,” she said. “Last flight back Thursday.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that you’re going alone,” he said.

“I’m going alone,” she said.

She told Clen next.

“Boston on Thursday,” she said. “I have to have some tests.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds,” he said. “Let me go with you.”

“You can’t,” she said.

“Wanna bet?”

“Clen.”

He frowned. “Is the economist going with you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going alone.”

She told Agnes, and then Nina. Boston on Thursday for tests. Before either of them could open her mouth, she said, “I’m going alone.”

At the airline counter, she accepted her boarding pass and thought, Am I really doing this? It would have been far easier with Box or Clen or Agnes or Nina there to prop her up. But she felt it was important that she go alone, self-motivated, powered by her own two feet.

At the very moment the airplane lifted off the ground, something fell back down to earth. Her spirit, her soul, her self. She was nothing but a shell.

Taxi, Ted Williams Tunnel, Cambridge Street, Mass General. She had seen the Prudential Building and the Hancock Tower as she flew in. Skyscrapers, the wider world. It was just Boston, she reminded herself, only ninety miles from home. She had gone to college across the river, she had made it through four years of higher education; she would make it through today.

Blood pressure, temperature, needles, hundreds of medical questions, culminating with the CT scan, which was like something out of science fiction.