Playing With Matches (5 page)

Friday night was the beginning of Shabbos. From sundown to darkness on Saturday, time stands still, and you’re unwired for twenty-five hours of calm. It gave me the chance to approach Jeremy when he came over for dinner. He stood at a stringy six feet, with chestnut eyes and a lock of black hair falling over his forehead. I hadn’t really paid much attention to his appearance before but now that I really looked at him, he didn’t score too badly on the looks scale.

When he and Uncle Eli came home from
shul
he wandered into the family room while my aunt and Leah puttered around the kitchen putting last-minute touches on the salads. Leah had made a fine chicken soup and the smell wafted through the air, beckoning me to the kitchen, but I held my ground. Jeremy smiled at me and sank into the leather recliner. I positioned myself across from him on the matching couch, watching him leaf through a copy of
Jewish Family Life
magazine. He glanced up at me with a quizzical smile.

I swallowed hard and glanced at the hallway. Mira, Eli, and Leah were drifting to the dining room table, where Bubby was already sitting and waiting, spoon in hand.

I cleared my throat. “Um … how was
shul
?”

Jeremy lowered the magazine to his lap. “Well, I guess it was —”

There didn’t seem to be an elegant way of doing this. “I think … I might have met someone for you,” I blurted out. I could feel my face flush. The words fell out like they were trespassing private property. “A single woman who is just awesome.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You mean your sister?” It felt like my
eyeballs
were turning red now.

I cleared my throat. “No.” I shook my head. “There’s no way that she’s dating yet.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” he said, dropping the magazine back in the rattan basket.

“This one is really special.”

Jeremy nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”

“She’s a financial consultant,” I said. “She’s really pretty. And sweet.”

“Age?” He was actually considering this.

“Twenty-eight.”

“She lives in the city?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“From Toronto?”

“No, Vancouver.”

Jeremy grasped his chin and squinted in concentration for a moment. Leah walked past the doorway with a dish towel in her hands, her eyes flicking at me. I squirmed in my seat until Leah returned to Aunt Mira. Her breakup with Ben was fresh enough that she didn’t need to hear about any set-ups going on around her.

“And you personally recommend her?” Jeremy said.

“I do,” I said, feeling tension draining from my body. “I really, really like her.”

“Well, you’re Mira and Eli’s niece and they mean a lot to me.” He leaned back in the recliner chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Give me a day to think about it.”

I wanted to pump my fists. “You’re open?”

“I’m open,” he said with a nod. “And thank you.” He sauntered to the dining room, leaving me alone in the den where I leapt to my feet and danced a private jig. Jeremy and Tamara — I might have pulled this off!

Who knew that matching up two people could be so oddly thrilling?

After dinner the following Thursday, the smell of Mira’s meatloaf hung in the air like mustard gas. I couldn’t wait to get to the library. In the six days since my conversation with Jeremy,
they’d seen each other four times
!

My bus rides with Tamara just weren’t long enough to give me what I craved more than anything.

Details.

I needed details.

“Aunt Mira, can I use your car to go the library?”

“Why not,” Mira said as she wiped down the granite counter. “Just be back by nine.”

Uncle Eli wandered over to the dishwasher and tucked his plate inside. “Did you hear that Jeremy is dating someone?” he said.

I swerved around to him. “I know! It’s so —”

“What?”
Mira yelled.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Eli said. “Maybe that’s why we haven’t been seeing him all week.”

Leah’s mouth hung open, and a tiny croak came out. She spun around and fled from the kitchen.

We stood in silence until Eli spread his hands. “What did I say?”

Was Leah still that raw from the break-up?

Mira slammed the dishwasher door shut. “He was supposed to go out with
Leah
.”

He was?

Eli palmed the side of his head. “Me and my big mouth.”

This was obviously the work of the Jewish grapevine. If I had to describe that grapevine I’d say it was what the internet was dreaming of becoming one day. “Fast” doesn’t even begin to describe it. From the kitchen table, where I thought I detected a slight chortle, Bubby was watching events unfold.

“Why would Jeremy do that?” Mira said as she flung the dishrag into the sink. “He knew I wanted to fix him up with Leah. She was interested too.”

She was?

So is
that
why the Bernsteins kept inviting him over? How was I supposed to know that Leah was ready to date again? If fixing Jeremy up with Leah had been the Bernstein plan, then I was in some deep trouble here.

I dropped into Aunt Mira’s Camry with a blend of conflicting emotions brewing in my head. I should have been feeling charged that I finally had my first social outing. But my excitement for Tamara to give me the 411 on her and Jeremy was drowned out by the terror of being exposed as the one who introduced Jeremy and Tamara. I didn’t need to give Leah more reason to be mad at me.

I drove to the library, or at least I tried to. Whoever designed this neighbourhood apparently didn’t want anyone to leave. I motored through a confusing maze of streets — each one named after somebody’s grandmother — just rows and rows of identical houses, each one hiding behind a big boxy garage. The trees were bare now, having shaken off the last of their dazzling autumn leaves into crunchy mounds along the roads. I finally arrived at the library, entered the building, and sucked in the scent of Java coffee beans and hazelnut. I dug my hand in my purse, dismayed to realize I had forgotten my cell. I padded over to a pay phone on the wall and dialled Jeremy. He picked up right after the first ring, which definitely bumped up his score on the dork-o-meter.

“Hi, Jeremy,” I said. “It’s me, Rain.”

There was a moment of silence, then he exhaled loudly on the other end.

“Rain, I
like
Tamara. I mean I
really,
really
like her. I don’t even know how to thank you.”

Yes!

“Jeremy, I have a problem,” I blurted out. “I didn’t realize that Leah actually wanted to go out with you. And she’s already mad at me.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “No worries. We don’t have to tell anyone that you introduced us. It’ll be our secret.”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. “Aunt Mira can’t find out either. I think she was almost as upset as Leah.”

“That’s sort of news to me. But either way it’s not a problem. By the way, is this your cell phone number? How do I reach you if I need to or should I call you at the Bernsteins? You
are
the matchmaker, after all,” he said with a laugh.

Of course he might need to reach me. I had made one initial phone call to him with Tamara’s number but now that I was playing the role of traditional matchmaker, I had to be available to mediate problems and situations. “I don’t think you should call me on my cell phone,” I said. “Aunt Mira shares a cell with Uncle Eli so she borrows mine sometimes. I wouldn’t want her to recognize your number.”

Which was a more dignified way of saying that I lived under the grip of Mira’s electronic surveillance.

“Well, I love your aunt and uncle too and don’t want them to be upset with me either,” he said. “What about email?”

My mind started racing. The IMAX-sized computer monitor in the kitchen was not exactly conducive to secret matchmaking.

“She can access my email on my phone!” I thought out loud. If I put a password on my cell phone, Aunt Mira would become immediately suspicious.

“Set up an anonymous email account.” Jeremy laughed. “Call it Matchmaven.”

I considered that. “I guess that could work.”

I jumped when a soft tap on my shoulder interrupted the call. I spun around to find Tamara smiling next to me.

“It’s Jeremy,” I whispered, pointing at the phone.

“Oh,” she said, blushing. “Can I say hello?”

I handed Tamara the phone and studied her. She leaned into the receiver, her face, shoulders, and arms charged by an invisible current that ran out of that phone. Even though she was six inches away from me, she might as well have been in another country. A country with a citizenry of two, I might add, and since I wasn’t one of them, I decided to give her some space.

My heart sailed — Tamara and Jeremy were falling in love! Even though I wasn’t a member of their private universe, I was practically intoxicated from the effects of secondhand bliss. I skipped over the worn carpet to a display shelf and glanced at the books. I picked up a vegetarian cookbook and absently flipped through the pages.

Five eggplant casseroles later, Tamara was still deep in animated conversation. It looked like she couldn’t be wrenched from that phone. Joy warmed me like a sunny Sunday at Fenway Park. I immediately found myself wandering over to the non-fiction section to search for my favourite number in the whole world.

796.35764.

It’s true.

To me the number 796.35764 smells like freshly grilled hot dogs, cheesy nachos, and popcorn. It’s the sound of David Ortiz cracking bat against ball, and the entire population of Fenway Park thundering to its feet and roaring with excitement. It’s a humid summer breeze on the bleachers, wrapping me like a soft worn sweater.

796.35764 is Dewey for Red Sox, and in any library of any city we’ve ever lived in, that number always led me directly to the books about my beloved ball team.

I leafed through a pictorial volume about the American League Eastern Division until I finished the Red Sox chapter. Tamara was still on the phone so I wandered over to the computer terminals where, taking Jeremy’s suggestion, I set up my new email account and sent her my first email.

To: Tamara Green

From: Matchmaven

I can see you from this computer and I can tell that you’re having another awesome conversation with Jeremy. It looks like it’s going really well. ☺ Kind of cool! Just one thing: I don’t want my aunt or sister to know that I set you two up, so let’s use this anonymous account.

xoxo,

Rain

I finally approached Tamara as she whispered a goodbye into the phone. She and Jeremy were so happening that I could have ordered up the stuffed chicken squab with roasted baby carrots for the wedding meal right then and there.

Tamara shrugged. “I’m so sorry —”

“Are you kidding?” I said.
“I just made a match!”

“An amazing one,” she said, her face stretched in a grin. “I just feel bad that I kept you waiting.”

“Not at all,” I said.

“Well, let’s grab a coffee — my treat,” she said.

Matchmaven. I really liked it. Maybe Jeremy wasn’t so bad after all. Which just goes to show: you can never really judge a man by his ball club.

chapter 7

Hanging with the Old Guy