by Elsa Kurt
Welcome to the single life, Keira.
***
Now, you might wonder at my ability to narrate such events as these without, shall we say, discomfort, but I assure you, we narrators are nothing if not professional, thank you. Let’s wrap this one up, shall we? She sees this fellow a few more times, realizes he’s only good for one thing and promptly ‘ghosts’ him (popular modern terminology for ceasing all communications with someone of former interest in hopes that they simply go away.). After a handful of calls, texts and one unexpected house visit at three a.m., he seemed to have taken the ‘hint.’ Let’s skip ahead, shall we?
***
SIX MONTHS LATER
3 DRINK MORE, THINK LESS
Chapter Two in The Smart Woman’s Guide To Dating. Dating websites can be a lot of fun… IF you’re careful and SMART. There are all kinds of strange men out there, so really check them out well BEFORE going out with any of them. Do an internet search for arrest records, marriages and anything else you can find. It’s all about safety.
“This is not a good idea.”
“What? Oh, come on, Keira. It can’t be worse than the guy from the band, or—what’s his name? The long-haired dude. Or you-know-who. He Who Shall Not Be Named, and it definitely can’t be worse than Darren the Dick. Two minutes ago, you were totally on board. Besides, have I ever steered you wrong?”
Keira cocked one eyebrow in her best friend Molly’s direction, but before she could snap back a list of times Molly had indeed steered her wrong, Molly held up a hand and said,
“Okay, don’t answer that. This time is different.”
The two best friends sat at the kitchen island. Since Keira refused to turn the central air on in the house until after the first of July, the chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio perspired onto the butcher block between them, leaving a wet circle beaded around it. Their glasses were less than a quarter full and ready for refilling. It was two o’clock on a Wednesday, and neither woman had anywhere they had to be, or anything they had to do. This made for mischief—the kind divorced thirty-something’s got into when they’ve had a little too much wine and not enough supervision from sober, married friends. No, Keira and Molly—best friends since middle school and now once again (sort of) neighbors—had no… more adulter adults around to supervise their adulting. The latest Molly idea? Online dating. It was neither her best idea nor was it her worst. Still, Keira wasn’t ready to give in.
“So, it’s not like the time in eighth grade, when you said, ‘let’s shave one side of our head and start a new trend. Everyone will do it,’?”
“We looked bad ass.”
“No, we looked bad.”
“I’m telling you, this will be fun. Finish your wine and let’s do this.”
“It’s —I don’t... I mean, you’ve met me, Molly. I am not good at... people-ing. And this requires a lot of people skills. And as you were so kind to mention, my taste in men has a history of sucking. Big time.”
Isn’t that the truth?
“Oh, stop. I mean, sure, you suck at picking men. Like, so, so suck at it, but you’re way better at, at ‘people-ing’ than you think you are.”
Molly’s tone belied her words, but Keira couldn’t help laughing. They’d been sitting in front of her and Molly’s laptops for two hours, browsing men on a dating app that Molly had joined a few weeks prior. Oh, and drinking wine. A lot of wine. Molly gathered her thick auburn hair in a bun at the top of her head and fanned herself with Keira’s Home Garden Life magazine.
“Listen, it’s easy. And it’s fun. Come on, tell me you’re not having fun scrolling through these hot —” She squinted at the screen, “and not so hot guys? Speaking of hot, how about turning the air on in here? Jesus, I’m dying.”
Keira rolled her eyes, “There’s a lovely cross breeze. You’re fine.” Biting her bottom lip, Keira gave her and the dating site the thumbs up. It was true, they were having a blast. But whenever they involved wine, they had fun. Which usually led to—“Trouble. You are trouble, Molly. All right, pour me another glass of wine and let’s do this. What the hell.”
“Atta girl. Oh, and listen—I love you, but… the thumbs up thing? Don’t do that when you go out and meet someone. It’s circa 1970s Fonzi. Weirdo.”
See, I told you.
“Oh, shut up and sign me up before I change my mind. And Fonzi is forever cool. Oh, for the record, Rock Band and Long-Haired Dude were post-divorce flings, I was never serious about either of them. So there.”
Less than thirty minutes and a full glass of wine later, Keira was a pre-paid, three-month member of MateMatch, ‘The Number 1 Place to Meet... Your... MATE.’ She was giddy, or was that nausea? Both. It was both. She also felt pretty witty, too (thanks to the wine) so when she wrote her required dating bio, it was with a snarky, I-don’t-care kind of flair.
That is, without a doubt, a self-defense mechanism.
“Come on, now. Let me see what you’ve written, will ya?.”
“All right, all right, I’m just... about... done. Check it out.”
Keira’s bio—if she were to say so herself—came out well-crafted, short-but-sweet, honest yet cheeky, and off the cuff.
Profile Name. KAT1024
Bio. “Hi, I like long walks on the—
Kidding. No clichés here, just me.
So, here’s the deal. I’m divorced,
two kids. Two little dogs. We’re all slightly crazy,
but in a good way. If that’s your kind of thing,
cool. If not, well... run, Forest, run.”
Likes. honesty, class, laughter, optimists, anything Elvis Presley
Dislikes. pessimists, bad manners, mustaches, smokers
Hobbies. anything outdoors, reading
“Umm, so... that’s what you’re going with?”
“Yup, I am. Why? No good?”
“It’s... fucking... perfect. Perfectly you. See what happens when you drink more and think less?”
“It is kinda great, right? If only I could date from behind my computer screen, instead of in person, it’d be perfect,” Keira sighed.
“Okay, well, you need practice, Bubble Barbie. And constant supervision so you don’t pick total time-wasters or losers. That’s why MateMatch will be so great. You’ll get out of your little safety bubble, meet new people, have fun. But try to meet someone who isn’t obsessive, controlling or plain fucking weird. As my favorite free spirit likes to say, maybe you’ll meet lots of ‘someone special’s’.”
Her favorite free spirit was none other than Keira’s mother, Chloe. A woman who ‘met someone special’ on an every six-months-or-so rotation. One might think this bothered Keira, but to the contrary, she was happy for her mother. She simply didn’t want to be her. Let us pause here for a quick, insightful flashback of young Keira…
***
Age eleven.
“Mom. I mean Chloe, it is not ‘drivel.’ Jane Austen is not ‘drivel.’ It is classic literature, and Pride and Prejudice is one of the greatest love stories ever written.”
The jiggle and jangle of Chloe’s bangle bracelets rang across the room as she placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her green eyes at her confounding daughter with mild annoyance. Chloe gathered her waist-length blonde hair and deftly braided it as she spoke.
“Sweet child of mine, just because our last name is the same as your beloved protagonist, we are not changing your name to Elizabeth, or Eliza, or Lizzy. And please stop filling your head with these notions of a ‘Mr. Darcy’ being out there. I could strangle your Aunt Eve for getting you started on this. There are thousands of Darcy’s out in the world. Plenty of Mr. Rochester’s, oh and boundless Gilbert Blythe’s, too. I mean, personally, I’d look for a few Captain Jack Sparrow’s, but that’s me. And please don’t walk while reading, Keira.”
Ha. You and I know that Darcy is the greatest, though.
Keira rolled her eyes and continued walking until her big toe met the couch corner. Chloe dropped her head in her han
d and continued.
“All I’m saying is, stop looking for Mr. Perfect. You’re eleven, sweetheart. You should read Judy Blume or something, shouldn’t you? My advice? Fall in love with love. It’s much more fun, sweetheart.”
Keira limped away frustrated. Chloe didn’t understand. For Keira, even at age eleven, there could and would only be a Fitzwilliam Darcy-like love for her. Even if she had to create one herself.
Bless her heart, she tried and tried over the years. She cast every boy she liked or dated in the role of dashing, brooding, misunderstood, handsome Fitzwilliam Darcy, only to discard them the moment the fantasy fell away, and she realized that she had imagined and projected onto them what she wished to see. Keira was beginning to think her mother was wrong, there wasn’t even but one Darcy in the world. Poor Keira. Well, there’s me, but…
“Ugh. It sounds horrible, Mols. Kidding, I’m kidding. Well, half kidding. And hey, I got out of my bubble, thank you very much. I took a culinary class, I took a botany course, I…”
“You had random sex with two guys you’d never take seriously, you dated a nut job and almost married him after four months. Yes, dear, you sure burst out of your bubble. Relax, relax, I’m not judging. Hell, I’m jealous. But, um, the culinary thing? That one was sort of random. Anyhow, look what happened from your extroverting—you got your dream job—hiding behind your laptop, blogging about gardening. Wooo. Look at you.”
“Your sarcasm is duly noted. Whatever. It is perfect. For me.”
“Yeah, yeah. All right, well, I’ve gotta roll. Janice will lose her shit if I’m not back before sundown.”
“Oh, stop. It’s not that bad, is it?.”
Molly, along with her three daughters, had moved in with her widowed mother, back into her childhood home after her divorce from her passive, dominated-by-his-mother, amiable to a fault husband, Eric. It wasn’t going smoothly.
I like our Molly quite a lot, I must say. Even if she is a bit vulgar.
“I should’ve kept the house. Of course, Eric couldn’t last three months by himself before running back to his mother like a big crybaby, leaving me to call a realtor and list it. God knows how long it’ll be before it sells.”
Their house was adorable but near the power lines, which was why they’d gotten it cheap. Unfortunately, they’d done a lot of remodeling and would probably never recover their losses. It left them both financially strapped, a fact Molly resented.
“Aw, c’mon, now, Janice is the best. She watches the girls for you when you need it, she gives you money. Hell, can Janice be my mom?”
“Ha. She also calls me five hundred times a day, tells me how to do my laundry ‘the right way,’ and micro-manages everything I do. Who does that.?”
“Well, I—”
“Listen, before I go—make sure you fill out the rest of that profile. If you don’t put in your height and age requirements, you’ll get fat old dudes.”
“Okay, but—”
“And don’t commit to meeting anyone without talking to me first.”
Keira stared at her with mock incredulity.
“Gee, Molly, I can’t think of anyone who micro-manages another person like that.”
Molly opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again. Keira was right, and she knew it. So instead of another directive, Molly gave a one-finger salute, and snatched up her laptop before heading to the front door.
“Molly Peterson, how rude.”
“Oh, shut up. Call me later. Goodbye, love you…”
The ending trailed off as she walked down the driveway, heading toward her mother’s house one street over with a decidedly drunken sway to her gait. Janice will not be pleased. Keira laughed to herself. With a sigh, she realized she was pretty buzzed herself.
What to do, what to do, she wondered. Darren had the kids for the night, making her entirely free to do... whatever. Well, she certainly had plenty of work to do for the blog, and now she could work in relative quiet.
“Might as well take advantage of it.”
She grabbed her laptop from the makeshift office—in actuality a corner nook in the kitchen—and opted to sit out on the sunbathed back porch where she could do her own version of multi-tasking. Blog, get fresh air, and watch the birds in her garden. After three attempts—first forgetting her glass of iced tea, next forgetting her reading glasses, and last, forgetting her power cord for the laptop—she was ready to write… as soon as inspiration hit.
She watched the little black-capped chickadees take turns with nuthatches and goldfinches at the feeders in her garden, knowing at any moment an idea would come. At least, she hoped so. Sunday night was her deadline for the article, giving her a tiny window of margin.
“Hmm, what shall I write?”
Write about how wonderful your narrator is. Just a thought.
Keira half expected to look down and see the curious faces of their two chocolate colored Shih-Tzu puppies, Murphy and Silas, but they were with the kids at Darren’s. It amused her to no end to imagine his barely concealed annoyance and dislike for the animals he bought for the girls as a divorce guilt gift—one he’d intended to stay at Keira’s place, and not his. When she dropped them off at his condo, she let him know, with no uncertainty, that the dogs would travel back and forth with the girls. She’d squashed that idea like a bug.
Hmmm. That’s how you would like it narrated, isn’t it? How that really went down? You let the girls walk in with the dogs and beg their father to let them stay. Then you left quickly, afraid he would bully you into taking them back with you. Anyhow…
Speaking of bugs, a fat, distressed bumblebee had snuck into the porch, buzzing furiously at the screen and batting its fat little body against the mesh as if it would force its way out. Keira sighed and got up once again, grabbing her notepad. Keeping the pad extended as far away from her body as possible, she gently shooed the bee towards the door and sent him on his way.
Darren would’ve killed it with the paper instead of setting it free, then try to get her to look at the residue. She shuddered in disgust. Not that she had a particular love of insects, but she also didn’t see a reason to kill them if she could help it. He had no regard or appreciation for nature and detested the outdoors.
“Still, he had his good qualities,” said Keira.
Eh, not really.
Once settled again, Keira began typing. The title came quickly enough, and once she started writing, the story would tell itself. It was perhaps an unusual work style, unconventional even, but it somehow worked for Keira, and the direction the articles took often surprised and pleased her. More importantly, the editor of Home Garden Life Magazine was pleased with her work and rarely gave her a specific topic to write about, but instead, let her come up with her own.
Typing contentedly, a musical ding sound and a pop-up chat window appearing on her computer screen startled Keira.
Hey there. Great profile pic.
You’re pretty funny... and hot.
Wanna hook up this week?
Keira groaned. She had already forgotten that Molly had set up the dating website on her computer and that there was a chat feature to it. She bit her lower lip, wondering how to respond. Hook up? Did that mean what she thought it meant? She grabbed her phone and muttered until she heard Molly’s hello on the other end of the line.
“Molly. What on earth did you sign me up for?. I just got a message to ‘hook up’. What does that even mean? Is this a—a sex site?”
“Whoa, whoa, calm yourself, princess. No, it is not a sex site, but you recall you’ve had casual sex, right?”
I recall it. Ahem. We’ll let Molly continue.
“That’s the beauty of being grown-ups. We get to have sex with people we’re not married to or in a relationship with and not feel guilty. No shame, no drama, no high school angst, yippee.”
“Okay, okay, I mean, I know, but... I don’t know. Ugh. What do I say to this guy? He’s kinda cute, I guess. And before you say it. No, I do not want to have sex
with him. Rock Band and Long Hair were just flukes.”
“Don’t you mean ‘just fucks’?”
Molly laughed at her own joke loud enough for Keira to have to jerk the phone away from her ear, and said, “Okay, fine. What’s the guy’s profile name?”
“It’s... BIGMIKE. All capital letters. He doesn’t look very big, I—oh. Is he implying—”
“Eww, yup. He’s like the grand fricking marshal of MateMatch, hits on every newbie. Ignore him, he’s a shark.”
“Ignore him? Shouldn’t I at least respond? Like, give a polite ‘thank you, but no thank you’?”
“Oh, honey, you’re gonna be doing that all day if you think you’ve got to respond to every one of these clowns. Answer the ones you like, ignore the ones you don’t. Especially BIGMIKE. If you give him an inch, he’ll send you a dick pic. And trust me, the moniker is NOT accurate.”
“Oh, my God. Are you serious?”
“Yup, a grain of rice. Picture Long Hair’s dick, for example.”
“Molly. Not that. Wait, really? Never mind, don’t answer that. Whatever, I’ll ignore him.”
“Have you checked your MateMatch inbox yet?”
“No, I’m trying to work on my article, I do it when I’m finished. Hey, I just realized something. You’ve been on MateMatch for a month now, and to the best of my knowledge, you haven’t gone on a single date. What gives, Molly-dolly?”
“Ugh, I hate that offensive term of supposed endearment, probably as much as you hate being called ‘Keir.’ And I have seen no one I want to meet yet.”
“Really, now? I’m not buying it. What about the guy with the beard? I thought you were into him?”
Keira recalled that Molly-dolly did chat with a bearded MateMatch man and never responded when he asked her to meet.
