I drop the letter.
Of course this is a mistake. It has to be. Surely Blix left it to Noah, and the post office forwarded it on to me because he’s in some forsaken place in Africa with no forwarding address . . . or maybe she left it to the two of us during the twenty minutes or so that we were husband and wife, and she never got around to changing her will and taking my name off.
But nope. I pick up the letter and read further. I am the sole owner of the house, according to Mr. Sanford.
Me, Ms. Marnie MacGraw.
Mr. Sanford urges me to come to Brooklyn as soon as I can. Right away would be nice since there are decisions I need to make.
Decisions.
He ends the letter with, “I know this may come as a surprise to you, Ms. MacGraw, which was exactly what my client wished. She spoke to me many times of her great hope that you would live in Brooklyn and take care of the house. Most recently, right before she died, she urged me to impress upon you the urgency of coming to Brooklyn immediately to review the terms of the will and to participate in the pending decisions that must be made. And she asked that I assure you that your expenses would be paid in full. She wishes for you to stay in the house while you are here making arrangements. Also, I am to tell you that there are tenants living in the house who are anxious to meet you. And if you knew Blix, who was a dear personal friend, you also know that she liked to do things a certain way, and have her wishes respected. Sincerely yours, Charles F. Sanford, Esq.”
Holy cow. I put the letter down and rub my head. Blix is summoning me. That time she invited me and I turned her down—now she’s insisting that I come, now that it’s too late. Too late to see her, that is.
But why? What does she want with me?
I can almost hear her voice: This is your adventure. Take it.
Is that it? An adventure right when I’m in no need of one? I look out the window. A dragonfly is dancing past the glass.
That evening, I hand the letter to Jeremy, who reads it once and then starts over and reads it again. He’s about to embark on a third reading when I take it out of his hands. He has such a disapproving expression on his face that I feel I should tuck Blix back into the safety of my purse, nestled up between my sunglasses and the little bag that holds my art supplies.
“So I take it you’re planning to go to Brooklyn for this,” he says in the flattest voice anybody ever used. Of course. He’s a practical person, and this makes no sense to anybody who didn’t know Blix.
“Well, yes. I’ve made a reservation for Friday.”
“Friday!”
He sighs. I know what he’s thinking: here we are, in our favorite diner, on an evening when we’re supposed to be talking convertibles and beaches and islands—and now we have to deal with this. Decisions that have nothing to do with us. A house that we also never thought about. And a trip. Tenants. Brooklyn. Freaking New York. Who cares about any of it? And . . . worst of all for him, I imagine, is the fact that the great-aunt of my ex-husband, a man whose name I am apparently not even allowed to say in front of Jeremy, has somehow stepped back into my life, even indirectly. It must feel to him as if Noah himself has just tossed a hand grenade into our relationship.
“But how do we know this isn’t a scam?” he says. “Maybe there are going to be legal problems. Complications. I mean, what are you really walking into? You didn’t know her.”
I stir my glass of iced tea. “It’s not a scam. And I did know her.”
“She didn’t even have your new address,” he points out. “How close could you have been?”
“That’s more my fault than hers. I haven’t kept in touch. I didn’t know she was actively dying or I would’ve. She left me this building as a good thing. A nice gesture. It’s not a punishment.”
He’s smiling. “Okay. Maybe I’m missing something, but I still don’t see why she wouldn’t leave her property to her family. Isn’t that what people do? No offense, but why give it to her grandnephew’s ex-wife?”
“Well, I think—well, I think she liked me.” I shrug.
He eats more of his hamburger and then pushes his plate away. “Also, we were planning such a fun trip. I thought you wanted to drive up the coast with me.”
“I do,” I say. “And we will when I get back. But first I have to go to Brooklyn and see about the building.” I finish off two of his French fries.
At the booth across from us, a man and woman are on a first date, and without even paying attention to what they’re saying, I almost feel the need to go over and tell them that they are perfect together. The air around their booth shimmers a little. I’m startled to realize that this is the first time in so long that I’ve noticed anybody falling in love, that I’ve seen sparkles.
“You’re not going to want to live in Brooklyn, are you? Because I do not see myself as a city guy, and I didn’t think you wanted that either.” He laughs a short little laugh.
“Jeremy. Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody’s talking about moving to Brooklyn. I’m going to look at the building, most likely put it on the market, and come right back. You know . . .” I lean forward and lower my voice. “This could be really good for me. I could sell it and get some money and that could give me a fresh start here. Some money for a house here. You know?”
“Okay,” he says. His face softens a little, goes back to its nonparanoid state. “Well. So listen.” He swallows. “Along those same lines. I’ve been thinking about this, and I really didn’t prepare any speech or anything. But . . .” He reaches for my hand across the table, nearly knocking over the ketchup bottle. “But, well, when you come back and everything, what would you think about us getting engaged? I know it’s soon and all—” His face is so full of fear and trepidation that it stops my heart.
“Oh, Jeremy! Really? Are you serious?”
He blanches, as if I’ve just turned him down. “Well, I don’t know, it just seemed like everything is going in the right direction, and I just thought maybe . . .”
But then he has to stop talking because I am coming over to his side of the booth, and when I get there, I put my mouth on his, hard. He tastes like salt and fries and hamburger. When I finally let go of him, my heart is hammering away, and his face is shining and he’s smiling so big, and I see my life figured out just as I’d hoped, gloriously unfolding like a movie in front of me. We’ll work together every day in his office, and we’ll come home together weeknights to our own place, kick off our shoes, put music on, smile while we cook dinner together, and on weekends we’ll go biking and eat brunch with my family, and I’ll tend to his mother, and he’ll drink beers with my father and Brian, and wow, it’s a whole built-in, secure life and all I have to say is yes.
So I say it. “Yes.” He’s laughing as I keep my arms around his neck, kissing him on both cheeks.
“Holy shit,” he says. He kisses my nose and my eyelashes. And finally I settle down and go back over to my side of the booth, and he mops his forehead, grinning at me, and he says, “I did not expect that kind of reaction. Whew!” Then after we sit and smile at each other for a while, basking in this new decision, he says, “So you’ll go to Brooklyn and then when you come back, what do you say we tell our families we’re getting married and then we’ll find a place? Move in together? Give it the old trial run?”
“Okay! Yes! The old trial run!” I can’t seem to stop myself.
“So . . . are we engaged? We’re engaged. Is that what this means?”
“I think it means we’re engaged,” I say. “This is how it happens.”
“Wow,” he says. “Who knew it was that easy?”
It is so very, very easy when it’s right. I sit there smiling and holding his hand, and the one thing I know for sure is that everything is going to be all right.
TWENTY
MARNIE