The Matchmaker's Medium (8 page)

“So—what do you do now?” he asked, changing the subject. I wanted to hug him even more.

“Well, now I help find ‘matches’ for those who are unlucky in love.”

He stared at me, his mouth open a little.

“What?” I asked, in my fake-confused voice.

“You’re a
matchmaker
?” the look on his face was wavering between surprised and bemused.

“Sure. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Just that my best friend’s mom was a gypsy fortune teller slash matchmaker back when I was a kid, in the Bronx. And she was
crazy
, let me tell ya.”

“We’re not all crazy, you know.”

“What made you choose
matchmaking
as a career?”

“Could you stop saying it like it’s some kind of Disneyland job?”

He chuckled, reaching for the bread. Evidently, making fun of my career does wonders for restoring the appetite.

“Only if you promise to not try and make a ‘match’ for me.”

“Oh, I can guaran-
tee
that’s not gonna happen. You can take
that
to the bank.”

He looked up, finally aware that he had ticked me off.

“My bad,” he said, reaching out to me, so I could slip my hands in his.
Jerk.

“I’m hungry. Where’s our food?” I said, pretending to be overly-busy looking for the world’s greatest disappearing waiter. He got the hint and pulled his hands back. Again.

Several minutes passed, while I picked at my salad and he fiddled with his napkin.

Awkward much?
I thought, wishing I had just stayed home.

“Truce?” he asked, ducking his head just under my chin so I had to look down just to see him.

I giggled, in spite of myself.

“Whew!” he said, wiping his napkin across his forehead. “I almost blew it!”

“Yeah, well, don’t be too sure you’re out of the woods just yet, Mister Mouthy.” I tried to make an angry face, but it came off pretty lame and funny.

The waiter finally brought our main courses, steaming plates of delicious gourmet food easily solving our problems.

“Let’s eat!” he said, digging into a massive steak.

Chapter Seven

We pulled up to his place in separate cars, thanks to my ‘progressive feminine independence’ (his words). It might seem dumb to him, but I had found myself in more than one uncomfortable situation where a guy refused to take me home because he was mad that I wouldn’t ‘put out’. Talk about the opposite of progressive.

I turned off my noisy engine, which was immediately replaced by the sound of barking dogs.
Enter Dog 1 and Dog 2, stage left.

Grabbing my purse and cell phone, I killed the headlights and looked at his cute little house. It wasn’t fancy, but it was just like his shop: older and well-kept. The grass was neatly trimmed, along with the bushes and plants at the edge of the yard. The paint wasn’t new, but it was recent; probably touched up within the last few months. He even had a couple of potted plants hanging from hooks above the porch, and a little rubber mat in front of the door that said ‘Welcome’ facing one direction and ‘Farewell’ facing the other.
If I smell freshly-baked cookies when we walk in, I’m outta here.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he called from the other room, as I walked inside, “I need to let the dogs out.” I heard a door slide open and shut, the barking moving from inside the house to the back yard.

I looked at the comfortable but worn furniture and minimal decorations on the wall, finally realizing this was a long-term bachelor’s house.
Although he’s a
clean
bachelor, which is a big plus.
Walking around the tiny room, I picked up a framed photograph of a very young, sweet-looking girl and slightly older, football-holding boy. They were beaming at the camera, their arms wrapped around a huge black-and-brown dog, whose face nearly took up the whole picture.
The Rotty.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Esteban yelled from the kitchen.

“No thanks, I’m stuffed!” I yelled back.

Finally exhausted from a long day, I plopped down into a soft brown La-Z-Boy chair, yanked the handle, and settled back into the cushions, closing my eyes.

“I see you found a place to sit?”

I popped my eyes open and saw his gorgeous face was hovering only inches above mine. Suddenly, it felt
way
too warm in the room.

“Uh, yep! Great chair!” I said, way too loud. He must have sensed my nervousness, because he smiled and backed away to sit on the other side of the room. I almost sighed out loud, I was so relieved.
Why does he make me so damn nervous?

“Cute kids,” I said.

“Thanks. I tried. Maybe the third one will be cuter.”

“You’re a pretty funny guy.”

“I aims ta pleaz, ma’am,” he said, in his best house-slave-imitation voice.
Smartass.

“Why you always callin’ me names, white girl?” Jamal said, right behind me. I almost jumped out of the chair, he scared me so bad.
What is
wrong
with you? Why do you do that?

“Somebody has to keep you on your toes. Ain’t gonna be this knucklehead, here,” he said, gesturing towards Esteban.
Great. Disapproving Daddy makes another appearance.

“Now that we’re away from that stupid waiter, can we talk about your matchmaking thing?”

I jumped a little at the sound of Esteban’s voice. Juggling conversations with these two was not going to be easy.

“I guess so. Just try to remember I’m not the gypsy queen from the Bronx, okay?”

“Got it.”

“Uh, okay, so…where to start? Hmm…I guess the best place to start is what happened after Isabella.”

* * * *

When you’re ten years old, it seems like the whole world exists just for you. Even though we were broke as a joke, it didn’t really matter, because in 1983 a dollar could buy at least two of everything I wanted from the candy section.

“Quit hogging all the green ones!” I yelled, grabbing for the bag.

“You said I could have some. You didn’t say what color!” Chris yelled, raising the bag higher, out of my reach. In the world of kids, if you’re older or taller or stronger, you win. He was all of the above.

“I’m telling mo-om!”

“Go ahead, you big baby, tell mom everything. You know what she’s gonna say. Then you’ll be in big trouble for
sure
, you stupid tattletale.” One of the worst kid insults of all time. Being a tattletale was the most awful thing a kid could be, so punishment was harsh. Tortures for the crime were Indian burns, purple nurples, swirlies or mega-wedgies. Sometimes you got all of them.

“I hate you!” I yelled back, stomping over to my bike.
I spend my tooth fairy money on candy, and Chris takes it all. Brothers suck.

I swiped my foot at the kick stand, ran next to the bike for a few steps, then swung my leg over the side in one motion. Sure, it took a bunch of tries (and a lot of falls) but I could finally get on my bike just like Chris and his friends. Once I got my bike going, I turned around to stick my tongue out at Chris, but he was too busy pawing through all the candy in the bag—
my candy, in my bag—
to pay attention. Refusing to waste the energy, I turned back around and almost crashed into a kid who was straddling his bike right in front of me.

I slammed my feet down on my pedals so hard my back tire skidded, making a crunching-squealing sound on the gravelly road. “Hey!” After my tires finally stopped sliding, I stood with my legs straddling my own bike and tried to catch my breath. My heart was pounding so hard and so fast I thought it would pop right out of my chest and keeping going down the road. “Watch where you’re going, dummy!”

The kid just stood there, not moving, hands on the handlebars, feet planted on either side of the bike. He was about my age, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, with one of those cloth bags slung over his shoulder. It was filled with rolled up newspapers.

“Aren’t you kinda late delivering those?” I asked, pointing at the bundles. Everybody knew you were supposed to get the papers on the doorsteps before school. But here he was, standing right in front of me, with all those papers
not
on the doorsteps. Either he was too late for today, or
way
too early for tomorrow.

He didn’t say a word. Just stared at me, barely blinking. His hands gripped the handlebars of his BMX, duct tape where the rubber handgrips should’ve been. Boys were always jumping ramps on their bikes, falling, and scraping the handgrips off. Chris had already gone through two pairs, before mom said he had to
earn
the money for the next ones.

“Hey, kid? What’s your name?”

No answer. Just staring at me, with big, brown eyes. They even looked kinda like he wanted to cry—or his eyes were watery from riding into the cold wind. That happened to me all the time, especially now, right before Halloween.

I turned around to see where Chris was. Still back there digging in
my
bag of candy.
Jerk-off.

I turned back, but the kid was gone. I looked around, confused, and finally saw him down the street.
How’d get down there so fast?
I thought, looking at where he used to be—right in front of me—then over to where he ended up. Now, his bike was turned away from me, one foot up on the pedal, like he was about to ride off somewhere.

“Hey! Where are you going?” I yelled.

“What?” Chris yelled back, behind me.

“Not
you
, you big jerk!” I shouted, turning to see him crumple-rolling the bag of candy. He jammed it into his back pocket, and started pedaling toward me.

“Don’t call me a
jerk
you weirdo! I’m not the one talking to my
self
, Amber!”

Uh-oh
, I thought.
Not again.

I turned back around, slowly, hoping the kid wouldn’t be there. He was. Just waiting there, one foot on the pedal, like he wanted me to follow him somewhere.
Ah, crap.

Chris pulled up next to me, straddled his bike, yanked the candy bag out of his pocket, and presented it to me like a sword to the newest knight of the round table.

“Here ya go, ya big baby.”

I didn’t move a muscle, just kept staring at that kid, hoping he would go away. He was starting to creep me out.

Chris looked at me, followed my eyes to see what I was staring at down the street—then turned back to look at me, frowning.

“What’re you lookin’ at, Amber?”

“That kid,” I said.

He looked all around: back where he just came from, down the street, on both sides. Nothing.

“What kid?”

“That one,” I said, lifting my finger to point at the kid who was slowly shaking his head, now. “Don’t you see him?”

“There’s nobody over there, Stinky.” He called me that because I earned the nickname when I was a baby. My first day home from the hospital, mom put me in his lap; he smiled, and kissed me on the forehead, and I pooped all over him.

“Yeah, there is.”

Chris mulled this over for a minute. Then asked, “Well, what’s he doin?”

“He’s getting ready to ride away on his bike, but he’s just waiting.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to follow him?”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Amber, if there’s some invisible kid trying to get you to go somewhere, you should go. If you don’t, he’s just gonna keep following you till you do. Don’t you ever read
anything
?”

“Excuse
me
for not reading a million stupid comic books a day, like
you
do!” I yelled, “Some of us actually have a
life
you big jerk-off!”

“Hey! Don’t get mad at me just because you’re scared of some invisible kid.”

“I’m not scared,” I said, quiet.

“No? Well, maybe you’re ‘terry-fied’?” he laughed for a while at that one.

“It’s not my fault I didn’t know how to say it.”

A few months ago, Chris and I were in the library summer reading contest. For each book you read, they gave you a star or planet sticker, to put on this poster of space with little empty spots all over it. When your poster had all the empty spots filled in, you got a gift certificate for $10 at Kmart. Chris got bored when he found out you had to spend the gift certificate on books, but I wanted to win it really bad. So I checked out a whole pile of books, mostly Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown.

One book I checked out was different, though, these short stories by some guy named Edgar with three names. I liked the scary black bird on the front, so I decided to give it a try. There was one story, “The Black Cat” about this guy who has to kill a mean cat that won’t die. It was hard to read, with all these big words in it, and ‘terrified’ was right near the beginning. When I asked Chris what it meant, he laughed right in my face, then started running around the house yell-singing, “Terry-fied, terry-fied, Amber Green is terry-fied!!!” Jerk.

“Will you come with me?” I asked, trying not to sound like a scared babyish sissy.

“I guess,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But if we’re late for dinner, I’m telling mom I had to chase after you cuz you ran away.”

“Fine,” I said.

I turned back to look at the kid, who was still waiting there. Finally, I made up my mind and started pedaling down the street. Chris followed behind me, whistling. As I watched, the kid started pedaling away from us, heading deeper into the neighborhoods.