The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay (7 page)

I am afraid. I dart to a three-story brick building with an elaborate facade. Pull open the world's heaviest door. Feel a burst of warmth and brightness and hear, oh thank you lord, hear a fire.

“Welcome to the Minnow Bay Inn. You must be Lily.”

My heart melts on contact. Oh, Minnow Bay. You sweet, sweet little place where the only lodging in town has just one reservation.

“Hi,” I say to a beaming, soft blond woman about my age, with a round baby face and big blue eyes. “It's cold,” I add, gesturing to the spot where the door is sealing itself shut against the storm.

“Really? It was warm when I ran out this morning. Must have taken a turn.”

I purse my lips. It didn't take a turn, I'm quite sure of it. I am just a weenie, and she's too polite to say so.

“This is beautiful,” I say, gesturing to her lobby. It really is. I don't normally go in for chintz, so most bed and breakfasts make my eyes bleed a little, but this is the idea done right. Intensely feminine, but not cluttered or dusty or bland. Baby blue cabbage rose wallpaper over a chair rail, white bead board below, faded woven carpets. Cream velvet couches grouped around the white brick fireplace. A hearth crowded with handwritten notes and postcards and snapshots in mismatched frames. A round bowl on the table full of fresh white roses that must have come rather dear at this time of year. Round gilt frames around really pleasing portraits of who knows whom, and a truly amazing crystal chandelier hung low and glowing dimly even at 3:00
P.M.

“Oh,” says the innkeeper. “I'm so glad you like it. Your room is in much the same style, only whiter still.”

“Whiter? Don't let me have a bottle of red wine in there.”

The innkeeper laughs. “Don't fret. Stainmaster is my best friend.” She pulls out a leather notebook and presses it open to a page marked by a ribbon. Even the sound of her hand sliding over the vellum pages is soothing. “Shall we check you in?”

The innkeeper's name is Colleen, and she's a lifelong resident of Minnow Bay and sole proprietor of the Minnow Bay Inn. She lives in the attic and is available at a moment's notice, should I need her, she adds. I give her my last good credit card. She gives me a tour. There's a little round dining room with another stunning chandelier and more lovely portraiture. The table seats six, and there are three guest rooms up the grand tapered staircase. “Just the right size for good service and lively conversation,” Colleen tells me. My room, just up the stairs, is white, ecru, and rich mahogany in color scheme, with enough soft pink—a pinstriped bolster, a border on the rug—to make me feel like the prettiest princess at the ball. On the landing above the stairs there is a little pod-style coffee maker and a fridge stocked with white wine, Perrier, and Izze sodas. Heaven. I wish I could live here. I tell the innkeeper so.

She laughs, a round laugh with a flattered little peal at the finish. “You can, sweetie, at least for tonight. Make yourself utterly at home. What do you need to be comfortable?”

“You mean besides the whirlpool tub and the gas fireplace in my room?”

“Besides those. Do you have dinner reservations?”

I give her a wry look. “Do I need them?”

“Not in the slightest. But we like to pretend. Now, for dinner tonight. The bistro across the street really is amazing, not just for Minnow Bay, but for anywhere. The steak frites on the winter menu are the whole reason I have to wear yoga pants all January long.” I give her a skeptical look. She is dressed like a Ralph Lauren model who tarried too long in Land's End. Perfectly fitted denim, a marled fisherman's sweater, rich brown leather boots. “And there's a good coffee shop, too, with a lovely bakery, and the brew pub across the street does a killer fish fry on Fridays and Wednesdays. I've got a town map downstairs, not that you'll need it, that tells you where everything is and what's open this time of year. The shops, the bookstore, the winery.”

A winery. Delightful. “What else is there to do around here?” I ask her, feeling I may have some time to kill.

“Besides skiing, you mean?”

“Uh, yes. Besides skiing.”

“Ice fishing, of course. That's the biggie.”

I grit my teeth. “I'm not sure I'm the ice fishing type. I nearly lost a toe to hypothermia between here and the parking lot.”

She smiles and shakes her head slightly. “You will get used to it, fast. Do you have any warm clothes? That is what will really make it easier on you.”

I shrug. “I thought I
was
wearing warm clothes.”

“Show me your gloves.”

I pull out my leather gloves, lined in a thin layer of cashmere. A gift from my father at high school graduation.

“No,” is all she says in response. “Go down the block to River Street Outfitters. Get good gloves, a serious hat, and some wool socks. That coat will do,” she says about the shearling jacket she hung up for me back in the foyer. “And a gaiter.”

“A gaiter?”

“Something to keep your neck warm.”

“And then I'll be ready for ice fishing?”

“No. But then you'll be ready for walking back to the inn from the outfitters. It's a start.”

“I'm utterly unprepared for Minnow Bay, Wisconsin, aren't I?”

She laughs. “Honey, the only way to prepare for Minnow Bay, Wisconsin, is to come to Minnow Bay, Wisconsin.”

“Well, then. Here I am.”

“And soon you'll never want to leave.”

I keep my thoughts on that matter entirely to myself.

*   *   *

Here is what I have on when I lay eyes on Ben Hutchinson—my
husband
—for the first time in ten years: my dark brown shearling jacket buttoned up to my throat, a white down-filled bomber hat lined with gray-brown faux rabbit fur with the earflaps down, a Möbius scarf looped around and around and around my neck until it's a little puddle I can rest my chin in, and the most ridiculously soft, warm, comforting mittens the world has ever known. They are camel-colored wool, with thrumming—which means, apparently, that though the outsides of the mitts are itchy knitted yarn and the palms are soft undyed leather, the insides are a bed of fluffy unspun wool, leaving me with the feeling that I'm putting my hands directly into the winter coat of a lamb. The friendly guy at the outfitters showed me all kinds of techno fabrics and gloves that you can leave on while you use your phone, but when I spotted these mittens all was lost. “You'll be warm and dry,” he told me, “but you can't do much.”

I can manipulate the latch of the Minnow Bay coffee shop door, though, and I do, and as soon as I walk in I smell cocoa powder, melted butter, rising yeast, and oranges.

And, to my great surprise, I see Ben.

The coffee shop is crowded. It seems to be doing a steady business in chocolate croissants and plain coffee, the kind dispensed from airpots set in a row with little hand-inked signs stuck onto them with masking tape. “Highland Roast.” “Crisp Winter Blend.” “Downtime Decaf.” Down the row are three flasks of milk, a honey bear, and some sugar dispensers. Then there are small round tables, with people in various states of bundlement, some peeling off layer after layer, some pulling them back on, some sitting still in their hand-knit scarves and watch caps, and a very few who are warm enough to be down to their indoor clothes. Ben is one of those people. He is wearing a flannel shirt, gray with a tartan plaid, rolled up to his elbows, and glasses—he definitely didn't wear glasses in Vegas—and sitting alone reading something on a tablet. He is eating a chocolate croissant. There is a flake of pastry by the corner of his mouth.

I stare for a while, my heartbeat slowing down, my mouth growing dry. There is no mistaking him for someone else, and there is no doubting he is the same man I married, and there is no denying that he is as handsome as I remembered. His face is ten years older. His jaw more defined, stubble darker, skin creased in three places by his eyes. His hair is the same golden brown but styled with much less attention. It is a bit longer now, and shaggier, and blonder on top, and his skin is a bit more weathered, and I wonder if he spends more time outside in the arctic chill of the North Woods than he did in mild Santa Clara County.

Maybe he feels me staring because he looks up, and I feel my lips part slowly, as though caught, and my heart starts to speed up again, like maybe this is
it.
But it is not it. He just gives me the world's most innocuous smile and looks back at his tablet. He has no idea who I am.

“Can I help you?” asks the teen girl behind the counter. I order a chocolate croissant—who am I to buck a trend?—and a latte. All I have to do, I tell myself, is get a cup of something and go ask him if I can sit down. Just introduce myself, and bring him up to speed. Hope he doesn't get angry. Hope he's glad to see me.

“How about coffee,” the barista helpfully counters, gesturing to the airpots.

I tear my eyes away from Ben. “Thanks, but I'm feeling like something richer.”

“Richer than a chocolate croissant?” she asks.

This strange turn in conversation finally causes me to look at the young server for real. She is tiny, pint-sized even, with bleached-white bangs and light purple braids going down both sides of her head, and is dressed in what can only be described as a juniors-section muumuu. It is floral, and horrible, and she has belted it with what looks to be an actual length of rope. Under it is a pair of mukluks covered in road sludge. She is giving me a very, very stern look. Daring me to push the issue. For some reason, I take that dare.

“Don't feel like making a latte?” I ask her. Five years at Starbucks tells me making a latte is really easy, unless the espresso machine is clean and you don't want to get it dirty before closing. Could it be clean at, what, 4:00
P.M.
on a weekday?

“I don't feel like it,” she says mildly. “Plus we don't have an espresso machine.”

I crane my head. “Isn't this a coffee shop?”

She narrows her eyes. “I guess you're new here. Welcome to Minnow Bay.” The words could not be less welcoming.

“So … Okay…” I say patiently, though this is the first time in my life I've been to a coffee shop with no espresso maker. “No espresso, no latte. I get it.”

“Good for you. Do you want coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Here's a to-go cup.”

I look at the nearby tables. Everyone else seems to be drinking from ceramic mugs.

“Actually, I think I'll take it for here.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, not skeptical; rather, disappointed.

I look over at Ben. He is not seeing any of this. Just as well.

“I'm sure.”

“Fine.” She reaches under a counter and produces a real mug. “He's not interested in you,” she says, as she puts back the cardboard cup.

“What?”

“Mr. Hutchinson. He doesn't go for city girls.”

I nod, just once, very slowly. I wonder what it is about this look that screams city girl, now that I'm wearing fifty dollars' worth of quilted down and polar fleece. “I see. Good to know.” I take the mug, maybe a bit aggressively.

“Whatever,” says the girl. “Don't believe me. I don't care. But you're wasting your time.”

I start to open my mouth, to set this hideously dressed and probably lovelorn teen straight, explain that her “Mr. Hutchinson” and I go way, way back, and once upon a time at least, he
did
go for
this
city girl. And how.

But before I can, my phone rings. I think it will be Renee, reading me the riot act for vanishing, but it's Mitchell. Mitchell, my actual boyfriend. The brilliant, influential gallery owner I am seeing. Who has no idea where I am, or that I am probably not going to be back in town for his latest opening tomorrow night, or that I am, for argument's sake, married to someone else.

That Mitchell.

The phone still ringing, I look back to Ben. He is paging on his tablet, oblivious to me, and laughing at something he reads there. His laugh is inaudible, but it warms up his eyes. I could go over there and tell him what I did, screw up his day, and then go home tomorrow and move in with my brother, and still make Mitchell's opening with time to spare.

Or, I could enjoy the cuteness of this little northern town for another night. Check out that bistro. Catch up on my rest. I wonder if the B&B has cable. I
love
cable. I put my phone back in my pocket. “You know what?” I say at last to the girl across the counter, “I'll take that coffee to go, after all.”

“Good call,” she says, sounding unmoved. “Trust me, you never had a chance.”

I nod. “You're probably right. Thanks for the heads-up.”

*   *   *

The B&B does have cable, I discover, when I get back to my home away from, um, evicted home. There's a reason I can't have cable myself, besides the fact that I can never afford the bill. I cannot stop watching the most insane shows. There's one where preschool girls dress up in sequins and go into beauty pageants. It's an hour long. Snuggled into my princess bed with croissant crumbs dusted over my chest, I watch several episodes in happy horror.

Then, around eight, I go to the bistro and have the steak, which really is amazing. It's seared to almost the point of crunchiness on the outside, and meltingly red on the inside. The fries are thin, tender, salty, and the aioli that goes with them is bright but not pungent. Down over the top of the steak is a tangy arugula salad dressed with lemon, and each bite of spicy salad makes the next bite of steak taste as delicious as the first.

When I get back to the B&B I talk to Colleen for a while, show her my winter garb, and she brings out lemon butter cookies and chamomile tea. Her guileless demeanor and soft Irish features balance out her beautiful ballerina's posture and long limbs. She is an avid cross-country skier and, when I look at the way her faded sweater clings to her collarbones and outlines her shapely arms, I want to be one too. I can tell winter visitors are rare here, because she seems happy to entertain me as long as I will linger, and takes requests for breakfast. I request more lemon cookies.