Page 24 of The Matchmaker's Melody
“It’s a while since we’ve just hung out to chat,” she began. “I wanted to catch up. You know, find out what’s new.” She raised her brows in curious invitation, waiting for Halli’s reply.
“I’m so busy,” her friend answered. “I knew engineering classes would be tough, but wow, they really keep us working.”
Wrong answer. Emma tried again. “I never really had the time to apologise about… well, about Phil. I tried to push you together and convinced you that he liked you, and he was just a rat the whole time.”
Halli cocked her head. “Phil? We went through this back in December, when it happened. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” She took a big bite of her fudgy chocolate pastry square. “I mean, it was pretty awful at the party, when everyone was exchanging gifts and he just left, but I can’t blame you for that. He was angry at you and tried to take it out on me, and now I see what a jerk he is. I should be grateful that I found out. I’d hate to be mooning over him, thinking he’s still a decent guy.”
She took another bite and licked the chocolate off her top lip. “It was good to go home the next day and forget about him, and I’m glad my exams were over before. That might have messed me up a bit. But if I ever liked him, I don’t any more. You’ve seen him at rehearsal, right? He won’t even look at me, and spends all his time chatting up that alto—what’s her name? Mabel or something?—like he’s trying to make me jealous. I think he’s pathetic.”
Emma’s shoulders dropped in relief. They really hadn’t had time to hash things through, and the guilt of what she’d done had been playing on her conscience. She had been right—she was convinced about that. Phil was still objectively superior to Rob the chair pusher, but she’d never meant to hurt her friend through her well-intentioned actions.
And what Halli said was true. Phil was really showing his colours by snubbing both Emma and Halli, and making an ass of himself by sucking up to Mabel, whose blonde hair came from a bottle and whose boobs owed more to a good surgeon than to mother nature, as far as Emma could tell. Well, if that’s the sort of artificial bimbette he liked, he was welcome to her. The girl could hardly even sing. How on earth did she get into the choir, anyway?
Then Halli spoke again, disrupting Emma’s thoughts.
“Besides, now I know what a real good guy is like. Compared to him, Phil is less than nothing.”
A real good guy?
“Who—” Emma began, but snapped her mouth closed before the first word was fully out. “No. Don’t answer that. I screwed up before when I tried to push you and Phil together, and I’ve learned my lesson. No more matchmaking. I promised, and I won’t break my word.”
Halli’s dark eyes flickered downward toward the table where the last crumbs of her square were scattered about the edge of the white plate. Was she disappointed?
“If you want to talk about him, I’ll listen,” Emma offered. “You can tell me anything, we can talk about anything. But… but no names. I’ll pretend I have no idea who you’re talking about so I can answer without bias.”
“That’s silly,” Halli giggled.
“No. I promised. No interfering, and if I don’t know for certain who he is, I won’t be able to say anything without somehow inadvertently nudging him.”
She picked up her coffee cup and held it before her like a chalice of consecrated wine. “An oath. No interfering in Halli’s affairs.”
Halli let out a peal of laughter. “You’re crazy. I know you’ll figure it out. You’re so good at this. But if you insist.” She picked up her own cup, almost empty now, and held it out as well. Then, with the solemnity of an ancient mystical rite, she touched Emma’s mug with her own, and the two linked elbows, each winding their arms around the other’s to drink in unison from the remains of their coffees.
“An oath.” Emma fixed her eyes on Halli.
“An oath.”
“Not to mention names.”
“No names.”
Then Halli giggled again, breaking the spell.
“But… I can talk about him. I mean, he’s really great, even though he’s totally out of my league. I know he doesn’t think of me as anything other than a kid, but he’s now my model of what a man should be. He’s handsome and kind and really interesting. And even though I’m so much younger than him, he doesn’t talk down to me or anything. I can’t mention him to my school friends, because they’ll tease me, but I’m really glad we’ve gotten to know each other recently.”
Emma smiled indulgently. She’d sworn to keep this mystery man anonymous, going as far as that silly coffee-linking-oath, but it could only be one person.
Who had Halli been with when she texted last night? Who did she say often dropped by to chat? Who worked near campus, was handsome, charming, and kind? It could only be Jean-François. Their friendship must have started when he’d offered to drive Halli home after the Christmas party, when Emma was too upset to follow through on her own offer.
It made perfect sense, now that she thought about it. Halli had been upset, and Jean-François gallant and friendly, and during the drive through the busy city streets, they must have formed some sort of connection.
Now, with the new year underway, and with him working close to where Halli was at school, they were building on that first bud of friendship… perhaps to encourage it to grow into something new and wonderful.
She could picture them together: Him, strikingly handsome and suave, with his blue eyes and dark hair and that charming smile. Her, so pretty with her rich dark skin, bright and intelligent eyes, and brilliant smile. Baritone and soprano, a perfect combination.
True, he was older than her, but what was ten years between adults? Halli would be twenty soon; it was nothing weird to date a guy close to thirty. Perfectly normal, especially for a mature and smart person like Halli.
And so, instead of agreeing with her friend that this mystery man could never be anything but a friend, Emma replied, “You never know. If he’s got any sense and knows a good thing when he sees it, he might decide that you’re the perfect person for him after all.”
