Free The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay by Kelly Harms

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.
    I go to bed early, for me, and wake up late, and go to the big bay window with the set-in seat, and kneel on it facing the street and yet more falling snow, and let myself feel purified by Minnow Bay. Maybe Renee was right. Maybe Chicago isn’t the right place for me anymore. I could move here, fall in love with my already-existing husband like in a romance novel, become the wife of a high school teacher, learn to ski.
    Except I don’t want to do any of those things. I want to go back to my apartment in the city. I want to go over to Mitchell’s apartment and watch fantastic foreign films and drink good wine and be inspired by his other artist friends who are always dropping by and saying brilliant, sophisticated things. I want to wander through the shops in Lincoln Park with Renee, and linger at Red or Dead for an hour with Annie and Jo, and go to the gallery’s beautifully catered events, and keep painting that view out my apartment window until I finally get it right. In other words, I want things the way they were a week ago.
    Out the window, something catches my eye. It’s a yellow Lab, bounding off-leash down the street. The color of his fur is beautiful against the snow. Like he is made of snow himself, part dog, part polar bear, carrying a bloodred leash in his mouth with no one holding the other end. I reach for my camera without taking my eyes off of him.
    The windows are soundproof but I know the dog is called when I see him halt suddenly. His body turns toward the east and his rump immediately finds the ground. His head is high, and one ear is cocked. I snap a photo. Maybe this is what my recent series is missing. I’ve tried people and snow, together and separately, but never dogs and weather. Never anything quite that color of creamy custard.
    The dog bounds up again. Runs in a circle, then drops down on his belly and rolls in the snow. When he comes right side up again, his fur is whiter, coated with snow, those hard sticky iceballs that will stay frozen in his coat until he is inside again. His tongue lolls out, and his tail wags maniacally. I snap more photos. Then he trots back the way he came, until his leash is picked up by his master and the spell is broken. As it should be, I remind myself. I’m not here to make art.
    My plan today is to go hang around the high school, find out when Ben’s prep time is, and talk to him then. It’s a safe public place for both of us, but, assuming he has a classroom of some kind with a door, it still has elements of privacy that will allow him to keep this private business private. And privacy is key. I’ve seen Northern Exposure . It doesn’t take meeting a teenager in a muumuu for me to understand the power of gossip in a tiny town like this one. Gossip is probably the official town sport. In fact, though I try not to be overly cynical, a loud voice in my head does suspect the cuteness of this town is a mirage. How could a little place like this stay afloat if it were made only of aw-shucks northerners doing good for others and shaking hands in church? It’s probably all fueled by frack-sand money, or racist, or populated only by urban expats running away from the real world, chasing a fantasy that doesn’t really exist. Not that I would know anything about that.
    Still, Colleen, the innkeeper, seems like the real deal, friendly, mellow, genuine, and straightforward. In some ways she reminds me of Renee before Renee became a downtown divorce