Page 40 of The Matchmaker
“No, we need something cool,” she corrects. “Or someone. We should get a celebrity.”
“We definitely can’t get a celebrity.”
“Notfamous, famous,” she says, as Gemma takes a seat next to me. “Someone from the local radio. Or that man from Rossbridge who got intoThe Guinness Book of World Records.”
“He didn’t get in; he just tried out for it.”
“Yes, but the adjudicator came and everything.”
“We’re starting with a raffle,” I say firmly. “Once we know our budget, we can start thinking about the other stuff.”
“Speaking of other stuff,” Gemma begins. “We do appear to be missing one key element of the festival. Have you picked a matchmaker yet?”
“A what?”
She stares at me. “A matchmaker,” she repeats. “For your matchmaking festival.”
“Ourmatchmaking festival.”
“Katie—”
“We don’t need a matchmaker,” I interrupt, reaching into my bag to take out the surveys I printed off this morning. “I found some questionnaires online. We’ll pair people up ourselves.”
“We need a matchmaker,” Gemma insists.
“I’ll be the matchmaker!” I wave the paper as proof. “And these are pretty thorough. Fill one in with me now and I’ll show you. It’s not hard.”
“I’m not going to—”
“I’ll do it.” Nush’s hand shoots in the air. “I want to find my soulmate.”
“I guarantee you she got those questions from her first Google hit,” Gemma says.
“It was thethirdGoogle hit, for your information. And don’t knock it till you try it.” I take a pen from my pocket and smooth the paper out on my knee. “Okay,” I say, turning to Nush. “What—”
“Anushka Sandar. Thirty-one. I own a salon in Ennisbawn, I have a cat named Chester and I’ve been single for five months. I dumped him,” she adds, and Gemma smirks.
“That’s great,” I say. “But the question I wasgoingto ask is what do you look for in a partner?”
“Oh, easy.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Someone who knows how to cook.”
“Brilliant. See?” I glance at Gemma. “Easy.”Cook. I note that down. “And what about—”
“Also, how to bake,” Nush says. “Those are two different things.”
“Okay, well we can—”
“And they need to care about the environment. But not in an annoying way. Billionaires are taking private jets to their islands on the weekend, I’m allowed to use a plastic straw every now and then.”
Gemma swings one leg over the other, looking like she’s settling in for the long haul.
“They should be traveled, but not too traveled,” Nush continues, as I stare at her. “I don’t care about their music taste so long as they don’t blare it around the house. But no musicians. Or artists. Or anyone in any kind of creative field. I find artistic types needy. I’d also prefer it if they were an animal lover. That’s a hard line, actually. Can you write that down? Good with animals. Financially, it would be nice if they did a little better than me. But not too much. And not too rich. Rich brings its own problems. Religious but not too religious. Just a little bit of faith. In terms of a fashion sense, they’d need—”
“Wait, wait, wait. We have a faith question.” I scan the list. “Do you care what that faith is?”
Nush shakes her head. “We’re all going to the same place.”
“I hope not,” Gemma mutters.
