The Matchmaker (18 page)

Agnes thought about finding the receipt for the ring on his mail table. It had been right out in the open when Agnes let herself into CJ’s apartment and CJ was in the shower. Almost as if he had wanted Agnes to find it.

Twenty-five thousand dollars.

Agnes would apologize, but he might not forgive her, just as he still hadn’t forgiven Dabney for saying that he and Agnes weren’t a perfect match. What Agnes realized at that moment of sitting on the cold beach, sifting through handful after handful of sand, crying her eyes out, was that Dabney was right. CJ was not only wrong for her but, probably, bad for her.

“Here,” said Riley. He handed her a gently used napkin from the picnic basket, and Agnes blotted her eyes and blew her nose.

Agnes had been dating CJ for an entire year before she told him that Box wasn’t her biological father. She had wanted to keep that part of her history private, but when it looked like things were getting serious, she told him the truth. CJ had told her it was okay, she didn’t need to be ashamed or embarrassed, he was glad she had finally felt comfortable telling him. He had smiled at her reassuringly and said, “It explains certain things about you.”

“Certain things like what?” she asked.

But he hadn’t answered, and Agnes’s world had tilted a little more out of kilter.

Down the beach, some kids were setting off bottle rockets. Agnes let Riley pull her to her feet.

S
he watched Box stride across Elizabeth Jennings’s front lawn toward Cliff Road, where they had parked the Impala. Dabney knew she should follow him, but she couldn’t make herself go.

She wanted to be where Clen was.

The second Box walked out the door, Dabney raised her eyebrows at Clen and said, “What happened, really?”

“He hit me,” Clen said. “Punched me.” He pointed at his chest.

“I find that hard to believe,” Dabney said. “What did you say to him?”

“I know you’d like this to be my fault,” Clen said.

“That’s not true.”

“You need to tell him, Cupe.”

“I know I do. But…”

They were interrupted at that moment by Elizabeth Jennings herself, who came rushing into the room in her usual imperious manner. Dabney knew Elizabeth because Elizabeth had sat on the Chamber of Commerce board of directors for the past eighteen months. If Dabney was very honest, she would admit that she found Elizabeth a bit self-important and her so-called elegance a bit practiced. Elizabeth was popular in Washington circles; she was a hostess along the lines of Sally Quinn and Katharine Graham. What else did Dabney know about her? Her résumé stated that she had attended Mary Washington and worked briefly as an administrative assistant at the State Department. Dabney knew she came from old Washington money; she was related somehow to President Taft. Dabney knew that Elizabeth had had two daughters, and that her husband had died. Dabney did
not
know that Elizabeth’s husband, Mingus, had been friends (indeed, partners in crime!) with Clendenin Hughes. This was unfortunate indeed.

“I heard there was a brouhaha in here,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes skipped about the room, narrowing in on the rug under the side console, which was askew. She bent to straighten it. When she stood, she glared at Dabney like she was an errant child. “Dare I ask what happened?”

“Oh,” Dabney said. She was afraid to look at Clen. “Nothing.”

“I lost my balance,” Clen said. “Dropped my glass and it broke. I’m very sorry, Elizabeth.”

“I hope you’re all right,” Elizabeth said.

“Fine,” Clen said. “We got the shards picked up but you might want to vacuum in the morning.”

Elizabeth beamed at Clen, as if nothing delighted her more than the thought of pulling out her Dyson or giving an extra instruction to her cleaning lady. Ever the gracious hostess, Dabney supposed.

“And John?” Elizabeth said, addressing Dabney. “Where has he gone off to?”

John? Dabney was temporarily stymied, until she realized that Elizabeth was asking about Box. Nobody called him John. That Elizabeth chose to do so only increased Dabney’s ire.

“He left,” Dabney said bluntly. She had other words at her disposal that would have softened the blow—
he had to scoot, he wasn’t feeling well, he was tuckered out after all the excitement at the White House—
but Dabney didn’t feel like granting Elizabeth the favor of a lovely excuse.

“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.

S
he 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.

O
n 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.

R
iley 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.”

T
he 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.

Today, as usual, the arriving board members greeted Dabney—Jeffrey Jackson kissed her cheek as he always did, and Martha asked lovingly after Dabney’s new laptop as though it were a pet. Betty and Karen were more solicitous than usual. Betty actually offered Dabney her seat at the table, but Dabney declined. Forbearance. She couldn’t sit while one of the directors stood.

Old Mr. Armstrong from Nantucket Auto Body said, “Dabney can just sit on my lap.”

Everyone laughed at that, although weakly, because Mr. Armstrong was a dirty old man and probably would have loved to have Dabney on his lap.

Elizabeth Jennings did not say hello to Dabney or even look in her direction, which gave Dabney a queasy feeling. Dabney picked up a packet from the center of the table and handed it to Elizabeth. “Here you go, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth accepted the packet without thanking Dabney or even looking at her, then she turned immediately to Karen the Realtor, who had apparently been at the Company of the Cauldron with Elizabeth the night before. They started talking about the salmon.

A snub, then, Dabney thought. She had been snubbed. Wow. She looked around the table to see if anyone else had noticed it, but of course everyone else was minding their own business, or poring over the packets, attending to the business of keeping Nantucket the busy hive of commerce that it was.

Dabney was on autopilot through the meeting as she stood with the fan shooting air down her back. That was the only way she was going to make it without fainting. Forbearance.
She
had not acted badly at Elizabeth’s party, she told herself. It was Box and Clen. Clen had tried to leave the room when he first saw Box, he said, but Box had pursued the conversation and it grew nasty quickly. They were fighting over Dabney, but there wasn’t any way Elizabeth Jennings would know that. She was perhaps just angry about Box’s poor showing, or about Clen’s broken glass.

The budget was in order, the grant reports were meticulously completed, and the coffers were full. They were so full that Dabney had decided to do that which she rarely did and ask for a raise—not for herself, but for Nina Mobley. The room was very hot and Dabney felt like all her blood was pooling at her feet. Elizabeth Jennings’s cinnamon-colored hair was perfectly straight and smooth, tucked behind one ear, and her nails were perfect, a soft coral color.

She had been holding Clen’s arm so proprietarily at the party.

He’s not yours,
Dabney thought.
He’s mine.

Dabney cleared her throat, to make herself known. She had not warned Vaughan that this request for a raise was coming, because he always asked at the end of each meeting if there was any other business not on the agenda.

It was so hot that Dabney’s vision started to splotch. Bob Browning was nodding off; Karen the Realtor was blatantly texting.

Vaughan said, “Everything appears in order. Is there any other business?”

“Yes,” Dabney said.

They all turned to her. Her feet were tingling. Was it possible for one’s feet to fall asleep while one was standing?

“Yes, Dabney?” Vaughan said.

“I’d like to request a raise,” Dabney said.

There was a murmur through the room. Jeffrey Jackson, who could be counted on to side with Dabney in every instance, said, “You deserve one.”

“Not for me,” Dabney said. “Obviously. I’m very happy with my salary. I’m thinking of Nina Mobley. She has done an exceptional job, and has increased the amount of responsibility she’s taken on, especially in the last few months.” Dabney paused. “I’d like to see her receive a pay raise of twenty percent.”

Elizabeth Jennings made a dismissive noise, air through her nose, with a little haughty laugh attached.

“Well,” she said. “That’s a hell of a bomb to drop at the end of a meeting.”

Hell,
Dabney thought.
Bomb.
Had Elizabeth said
hell of a bomb?
Dabney swayed. She could feel herself losing her feet. She reached out to hold on to the back of Martha’s chair.

Old Man Armstrong shouted out, “
How
much does she want?”

“It’s not her,” Dabney said. “It’s me. I mean, I’m the one asking…for her. She doesn’t even know I’m asking. But she deserves a raise. I would like to see her get a raise. She’s doing her job, and…” Dabney nearly said,
and she’s doing mine.
But she realized at the last minute how bad that would sound. “And she’s doing it well.”

“We’d like to think
all of you
are doing your jobs well,” Elizabeth said. “That’s what we pay you for. To do your jobs well. You don’t get
extra
money for doing your job well.” Elizabeth was looking at Dabney now with piercing eyes. Elizabeth hated Dabney. But why? Dabney had never had an enemy before. There had been Jocelyn, at Yale, at the despicable tailgate. Jocelyn had been in love with Clen, or whatever the collegiate approximation of “in love” was. Now, Elizabeth was after Clen—and she knew, somehow, she
knew,
that Dabney was standing in her way. How did she know?

How did she know?

“Never mind,” Dabney said. She watched her hand do a slow-motion dance in front of her face, as if wiping away the idea of a raise for Nina Mobley. “Wait, let’s discuss this,” Jeffrey Jackson said. Jeffrey Jackson had a port-wine stain on his neck and the lower half of his face, and in elementary school, two other boys had been cruel about it, and Dabney had defended Jeffrey. Ever since, he had been Dabney’s devoted champion.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Elizabeth said. “At least not right now. This room is an oven, and it’s nearly six o’clock, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have other plans for my evening. I think we should table the discussion of a raise for Ms. Mobley until the next meeting.”

“Agreed,” Karen the Realtor said.

Dabney blinked; sweat trickled down her back. She wanted to see how Vaughan Oglethorpe would handle this. He didn’t like other board members to overrule his authority, but when Dabney looked over, Vaughan’s face had turned to melting wax.

Dabney thought,
I’m going to faint.

But thankfully, Vaughan adjourned the meeting. Martha stood to leave, and Dabney collapsed in Martha’s chair.