Elin Hilderbrand - The Matchmaker

But the house was empty, although there was a note on the kitchen table about the things Dabney had left for Agnes’s dinner. The end of the note said, “Daddy and I are at the Levinsons’. Don’t wait up-hopefully we’ll be home very, very late!”

The Levinsons. Dabney loved the party at the Levinsons’; she had really been looking forward to it. Agnes could not call Dabney or Box at the Levinsons’ and ruin their night out just because CJ wasn’t answering his phone.

Agnes sat at the kitchen table and bit her nails. She tried to come up with a plausible reason why CJ had missed his flight. If he’d hurt himself or gotten sick, he would have called in to the office. What else could it be? Had he gotten hit by a bus? Had he gone on a weeklong Dirty Goose bender once he received the ring back, and was he now passed out facedown on a bar somewhere? Should Agnes call someone? Both of CJ’s parents had passed away; there was a brother somewhere in Upstate New York, but he and CJ no longer spoke. CJ knew a million people, but he wasn’t close to anyone, really, except Agnes. And Rocky…he played squash with Rocky. He had gone to high school at Collegiate, on the Upper West Side, and then had a PG year at the Berkshire School before going to the University of Florida. He never talked about anyone from high school or college, except for the Gators, who had later become his clients. Agnes then thought of Annabelle Pippin in her waterfront home in Boca Raton. Should Agnes call Annabelle and ask about CJ…about…Charlie Pippin, her ex-husband? Was it weird that CJ had changed his name after his divorce? Agnes had all but decided that she wasn’t going to marry CJ, at least not right away-so why did she care that he was missing?

No answer for this, but she did care. She felt responsible.

What to do?

She called Riley. Riley would be able to calm her.

But her call to Riley went straight to voice mail, which was unusual. Agnes considered driving to Antenna Beach to see if he was surfing. She stared at her phone. She needed more friends. It was CJ’s fault that she had no friends.

She tried Riley again-straight to voice mail. Then, she called Celerie. Celerie wouldn’t be able to help at all but Agnes craved someone’s positive outlook-and, well, Celerie was a cheerleader.

Her call to Celerie also went straight to voice mail, which was even stranger than Riley’s call going to voice mail. Celerie lived and died by her cell phone.

Agnes wondered if maybe Riley and Celerie were on a date somewhere. She wondered if they were in bed together. She had to admit, the thought bothered her.

What to do? Call her mother? Drive out to Antenna Beach in search of Riley? Call back Rocky DeMotta?

Almost against her will, she dialed CJ’s number, then racked her brain for what she might say in her message. Should she say, Hey, it’s me? or, Hey, it’s Agnes? Now that she had returned the ring, she figured she had pretty much given up the right to say, Hey, it’s me.

“Hello?”

Agnes was so startled, she nearly dropped the phone. CJ had answered.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice sounded bright and normal, but her thoughts darted around like a school of frightened fish. What was she going to say?

“Hey, Agnes,” CJ said. His voice was calm, and a little flat. “Where are you?”

“On Nantucket,” she said. “At my parents’ house. Where are you?”

Click. CJ had hung up.

It was as Dabney was standing in the buffet line, eyeing the mashed-potato bar and thinking, bacon, chives, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, cheddar, a dollop of sour cream, that she saw Clendenin walk into the tent with Elizabeth Jennings.

Not possible.

But there they were. Together, indisputably together. Clen was…what, then? Dating her? Lying to Dabney?

The thick white china plate wobbled in Dabney’s hand and her vision started to splotch. She couldn’t help herself to the mashed-potato bar or the grilled lobster tail or the beef tenderloin or the luscious-looking tomatoes with burrata cheese. She couldn’t eat a thing right now; she felt like she might never eat again. But she also couldn’t move through the buffet line with an empty plate. Box was right behind her, and she knew everyone at this party. She took a scoop of potatoes, a lobster tail, a few spears of grilled asparagus, and a lone tomato, then she cast about for a place to sit. There were two empty seats at the Levinsons’ table, but in her present state of mind, Dabney didn’t want to eat with the host and hostess.

Someone touched her back. Dabney turned around. Clen and Elizabeth.

“Hey there, Dabney!” Elizabeth said. She looked like the cat that ate the canary.

“Hey there,” Dabney said. It hurt to make herself smile, but she did it. “Look at you two.”

Clen was wearing a crisp blue-and-white-gingham shirt with the cuff turned smartly back on his right wrist, and he had trimmed his beard. His expression, however, was one of sheer misery. He looked the way Dabney would have looked if she weren’t trying so hard to conceal how she felt.

“Dabney,” Clen said. He bent down to kiss the side of her mouth. It was like a stranger kissing her.

Elizabeth said, “Where is that naughty husband of yours? I’m still angry at him for leaving my party without saying goodbye.”

Dabney hunted around for Box; he had been right behind her in the buffet line. He hadn’t been more than three feet away from her all night long. But now, Dabney saw, he was sitting down with the Levinsons. He must have noticed Clen and peeled off. From across the tent, he beckoned to Dabney.

Dabney waved at him. “He’s over there,” she said to Elizabeth. “Go say hi.”

“I will,” Elizabeth said. To Clen she said, “Be right back.”

Dabney waited until Elizabeth was safely at Box’s side before she raised her eyes to Clen.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“What?” she said.

He took the plate of food from her hands and set it on an empty waiter’s tray. “Come out to the lawn with me so I can talk to you.”

“Are you crazy?” Dabney said. “Everyone is watching us.”

“I don’t care,” Clen said.

“Well, I do,” Dabney said. She heard the trill of Elizabeth’s laugh, but Dabney knew that no matter how witty Box was being, he also had one eye glued on his wife.

“Come out onto the lawn,” Clen said. “So I can talk to you.”

He cut a path through two tables and headed for the opening in the side of the tent and the purpling night outside.

This was, Dabney saw, a defining moment. We all make choices.

Dabney followed him out.

You’ve been lying to me. You’re seeing Elizabeth Jennings.

We didn’t come together. We met at the entrance and she latched on to me. It was an awful coincidence.

You expect me to believe that.

I rode my bicycle. She came in Mingus’s old Mercedes, is my guess.

You didn’t plan to meet here?

Did not plan.

Who is the beautiful young woman Elizabeth is talking about?

Dabney.

Tell me! This, practically, loud enough to silence the tent-but no, it was only in Dabney’s imagination. In reality, the tent hummed with voices and laughter and the band tuning up.

My new cleaning lady, Clen said. I’ve been taking some time to get to know her.

Dabney furrowed her brow. Weeks earlier, she had sent Clen a new cleaning lady from Brazil named Opaline.

You mean Opaline?

Opaline, yes.

This didn’t sound right to Dabney. Opaline was in her late thirties and had five sons back in Rio; she wasn’t someone Dabney would consider young or pretty. She had dyed orange hair and a hard-line mouth.

Elizabeth is after you. You said she tried to kiss you.

She did try, yes. However, kissing requires two interested parties.

Why can’t you stay away from her? Tell her to go away. What are you doing? Are you trying to torture me?

No, Cupe, I’m not trying to torture you.

Well, you are! She started to cry.

How do you think I feel, knowing that you’re still living with the economist? Sharing a bed with him? You’ve been telling me you’re going to leave, but you know what, Dabney?

His use of her real name frightened her.

What?

You’re never going to leave him. I want you to be truly only mine, but you never will be. Ever.

Dabney stepped forward into Clendenin’s arms.

You jerk. You stupid, stubborn, difficult man. I have always been truly only yours.

He squeezed her so tightly that her insides screamed out in pain, and then he kissed her until her vision went black and she saw stars. She was going to faint from love, die right here of it.

“Dabney!”

Dabney didn’t bother turning around to look at Box, nor did she pull away from Clendenin. At that moment, she didn’t see the point.

She called CJ back three times, but there was no answer. Agnes supposed she should feel relieved. She had nothing to say to CJ anyway. She was merely glad he was alive. If he didn’t want to show up for his client, he didn’t want to show up for his client. It wasn’t Agnes’s concern.

She wished Riley would answer his phone or listen to his messages and call her back. Or Celerie. She wished her parents would come home. She had never once felt scared or uncomfortable in this house, but she felt scared now. She turned on the TV for the voices, and helped herself to her mother’s chicken salad and a cheddar scone, which she heated up and slathered with butter, but she was too agitated to eat. She could go out by herself, she supposed-to the Straight Wharf bar or down to Cru-and get a glass of champagne and some oysters. She had a wallet full of cash-Box pressed twenties and fifties and hundreds into her hand every time she left the house. She might meet someone nice, someone new-man or woman. She was pathetically low on friends.