Elin Hilderbrand - The Matchmaker

She thought she heard a noise outside; there was a rustling like someone poking around in her mother’s hydrangea bushes. Agnes was afraid to check out the windows, then she chastised herself. Nantucket was one of the safest places in the world. Half their neighbors didn’t even lock their houses; Dabney and Box only did so because of their art.

Agnes’s apartment door in New York had four dead bolts.

Agnes scooped up her car keys. She couldn’t stay in the house alone.

She found herself involuntarily driving out the Polpis Road toward Clendenin’s cottage. He would be at home; he was a self-described hermit, and Dabney was at the Levinsons’ with Box, so there would be no danger of disrupting a rendezvous. Agnes found Clen easy to talk to. He listened in a way that so few men listened, even Box. Box heard every third word you said-only when he was talking economics was he present. Agnes understood how seductive it would be for Dabney to know that her words were being cherished and appreciated.

Agnes would talk to Clendenin.

She pulled into the driveway, but the cottage was dark, and Agnes’s heart sank. Where was everyone tonight? It felt like the whole world had abandoned her. The big house was lit with the usual lights, which were on timers. Clendenin had told Agnes that the family who owned it, the Joneses, weren’t coming to Nantucket at all this summer; they were going to the south of France instead.

Agnes sat in the driveway outside Clen’s cottage and rested her forehead against the steering wheel of the Prius.

Headlights swung into the driveway, which meant that Clen was home, thank God. He used the Joneses’ Volvo only when he had to get groceries or had another errand for which his bicycle wasn’t suitable.

The headlights pointed right into Agnes’s windshield, blinding her, and she realized it wasn’t Clen in the Volvo. She thought to panic-it was a lot quieter out in Polpis, there weren’t any neighbors nearby to hear her yell for help-but then Agnes assumed that the car belonged to someone who was lost and had turned into the wrong driveway. Agnes got out of her car, thinking she would help this lost soul, then leave Clen a note and head into town for a drink.

A man got out of the other car and started walking toward her.

Agnes blinked.

It was CJ.

Box didn’t speak, and Dabney hoped that he would believe she was working out her feelings for Clendenin Hughes, trying to find a resolution and a sense of peace, and that he would sensibly walk back into the tent.

The problem was that Elizabeth Jennings had followed Box out.

Dabney casually extracted herself from Clendenin’s arms, then she faced Box and Elizabeth head-on and said, “Everything is okay, everything’s fine. I just wasn’t feeling well is all.”

Box glared at Clendenin, and Dabney thought there might be another fistfight. She wanted to vaporize. Her mind was racing with the scandal of it all. Tomorrow, everyone would be talking about Dabney Kimball Beech; the island’s most beloved citizen, and its fiercest champion, would be revealed as a liar and a cheat.

And yet, she realized that this was her chance; all the other chances had been practice, trial runs. She wasn’t sure if she believed in Fate, but she was pretty sure that Clendenin Hughes had lost his arm and returned to Nantucket for a reason. He had been meant to reconcile with Dabney before it was too late. Take things a moment at a time.

Dabney cleared her throat and aimed her words at her impossibly dignified husband. She didn’t care one bit about Elizabeth. “You told me today that you thought I might have residual feelings for Clendenin, but that you didn’t know what those feelings were. The answer is that…I’m in love with him.” She paused, wondering if she’d really just said those words. “I’ve been in love with him my whole life. I’m so sorry.”

Box nodded, but it looked like the lightbulb was slow to come on. Was there a way that Dabney could have been clearer, or kinder? Finally, he said, “Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I thought I was going crazy. It’s nice to know that my instincts were correct and that my sanity, at least, is intact.” With that, Dabney watched him go, her brilliant and esteemed professor, the man who had saved her, the man who had loved her and allowed her to be herself, the man who had raised Agnes as his own, a good, principled man. Dabney decided to do him the favor of not chasing after him and exhibiting more histrionics.

Elizabeth made a noise-a sniff or a soft cry-then said, “I had no idea.”

Clen said, “Really, Elizabeth, this is none of your business.”

“I knew something was going on, too,” Elizabeth said. “On the Fourth of July I knew.” She shook her head as if to clear it, and then gave Dabney a wobbly smile. “You’ve got yourself a regular love triangle.”

Dabney thought, Was there ever anything regular about a love triangle? Maybe there was. Maybe years ago, while “overseas,” Elizabeth herself had been involved in a love triangle with Clen, or had wanted to be. What did Dabney know? Regret overwhelmed her at that moment. She had made a spectacular mess of things. As she gazed at the tent, its pearly, incandescent walls containing light and music and food and conversation, she realized that among her regrets was that she wouldn’t dance tonight.

Elizabeth said, “I’m going back in. See you two later, I guess.”

Clen said, “Have a good night.”

Elizabeth strolled back into the party with purpose, and Dabney shuddered. Her good name was about to be destroyed.

Clen said, “Well.”

Dabney said, “Well, what?”

Clen said, “You’ll have to ride home on my handlebars.”

There was a bottle of Grey Goose dangling from CJ’s left hand, two-thirds gone. Agnes noticed this, then his rumpled suit, which looked like he’d slept in it three days straight. His hair was standing on end, and he bared his glinting teeth. He was absolutely terrifying.

He said, “Hey, baby.”

“Hey,” she said. Her emotions surged at the sound of his voice, and at the raw physicality of him. He was here-he had skipped out on precious Bantam Killjoy and come to Nantucket to see her. There was something desperate and romantic about that, and she felt herself rethinking her decision.

He handed the bottle of vodka to Agnes and said, “You want?”

She accepted the bottle; it was icy cold. She brought it to her lips and threw back a little more than a shot, grateful for the cold burn down her throat and into her chest. Deep breath. She set the bottle down on the hood of the Prius.

What to say?

She wasn’t sure. She waited.

CJ took her face in his hands and kissed her hard, his teeth tearing at her lips. He grabbed her by the hair-it had grown past the nape of her neck over the summer-and yanked her head back like she was a doll he intended to decapitate.

“You sent back the ring,” he said.

“I…” She couldn’t talk; her neck was so stretched that the skin was taut, he was hurting her, and she was having a hard time getting air. “Let…go,” she said.

He lunged at her with his mouth, biting and sucking on her clavicle, chewing on her like a rabid dog. He was hurting her.

“Get off me!” she said.

CJ held her by the back of the head and grabbed her left wrist, right below her Cartier love bracelet. His grip was ironclad, a different kind of bracelet, a bracelet of fury. He shoved her up against the side of the Prius. She felt him hard against her leg, but she didn’t find it arousing. She wasn’t about to have sex with CJ here in Clendenin’s driveway.

She tried to push him away, but he only tightened his grip on her wrist.

Bruises, she thought. He’s going to leave bruises.

“Let go of me,” she said. He had a fistful of her hair. “You’re hurting me, CJ.”

“Hurting you?” he said. “Hurting you?” he screamed.“Let’s talk about who’s hurting who here. You sent back my ring! After all I’ve done for you!”

“Yes,” Agnes said, trying to placate him. “You have done a lot for me-”

“You don’t know the half of it!” he shouted. “Your little favorites, the ones you worry so much about? Quincy and…?”

“Dahlia,” Agnes bleated.

“I bought their mother an apartment!” CJ screamed. “A fucking apartment, so that they would have a home. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Oh my God,” Agnes said. CJ had bought Quincy and Dahlia’s mother an apartment? Agnes couldn’t believe it. And yet, it was exactly the kind of thing CJ did. He was insanely generous with material things, because there was some kind of deficiency in his heart.

“Thank you,” Agnes said. “That was very kind…”

“Kind? You think I did it to be kind? I did it because I love you!”

“Let go of my hair, CJ,” she said. “And let go of my arm.” She heard Manny Partida, clear as day: I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you.

“I sent the ring back because,” Agnes said. “Because-”

“Because why?” he demanded.

“Because I don’t want to marry you, CJ.”

CJ brought her head forward, nearly to his chest, and then he slammed her head back against the Prius. Agnes gasped. In the morning there would be a lump, she thought. An egg.

“Stop,” she said. “Please, CJ.”

“Please, Charlie,” he said. “Please Charlie please Charlie please Charlie please Charlie.” He slammed her head against the car again, and then again. Agnes was confused about what was happening; she felt something warm and wet in her hair. Was she bleeding?

“You bitch!” he screamed. “After all I’ve done for you! You came up here and started screwing somebody else!”