A spinning icon appeared as the system processed the information I’d just fed into it. When it stopped spinning, the page refreshed with a set of questions.
Question 1—If I were at a party in a room full of strangers, would I:
(a) Stand by myself and not talk to a living soul?
(b) Scour the room introducing myself to strangers?
(c) Sign on as understudy in the Broadway revival of a lost Arthur Mouldain play?
(I added that last one.)
Question 2—What kind of evening do I consider romantic?
(a) Cooking dinner at home with my partner.
(b) Fine dining in a five-star restaurant.
(c) Not spending a year alone in Chicago.
(I added that last one too.)
I answered multiple questions, taking them seriously. My answers came quickly, probably because of all those personality tests I’d taken in the back of magazines during college.
By 9:20 p.m., I’d lost track of how many questions I’d answered. The LoveSetMatch.com icon continued to spin on the screen. It refreshed one last time, and then there were no more questions. LoveSetMatch.com wanted me to upload a recent picture of myself.
It was raising the ante.
Was I willing to upload my photo? Did I even have one? It wasn’t like I’d moved my photo albums with me to New York. Any pictures I did have were sitting in plastic storage tubs in my dad’s basement in Elizabethtown, and everything in them would be outdated anyway. Except …
I slid back the wooden chair from the desk, making a scraping sound as I lurched into the bedroom looking for my cell phone. I picked it up from the charger on the nightstand, powering it to life with the push of a button. Its smiling face greeted me with sing-song chimes.
I shuffled through the new messages until I came upon HARPER IN NYC, and sent the photo to my email account without ever opening it.
Technology.
By the time I sat down, HARPER IN NYC had already materialized in my in-box. Another click, and I watched as the color image expanded to full size on the computer screen.
It was the first time I’d seen the photo. My smile looked a little sleepy, but satisfied. Even my coffee-brown hair had decided to cooperate, for once. Behind me, Times Square appeared in a breathtaking display of fireworks, and blazing neon blurred around me out of focus. The camera even caught snowflakes reflecting the bright lights of Times Square. Avril’s shot captured my story in a single frame, a woman standing still while the rest of the crazy world spun out of control around her.
It wasn’t a bad photo, but was I willing to share it with the gawkers on LoveSetMatch.com?
Evidently yes, because I uploaded it and for one last time watched the wheel flip round and round like a fan in the hands of a dancer.
Somewhere in Silicon Valley, I pictured a colossal supercomputer handling my personal, romantic data, juggling then comparing it against all the compatible matches in their 12–million-member database.
A final screen appeared. This one didn’t want to know any more about my personal likes and dislikes. This screen wanted money.
“Congratulations,” the page announced. LoveSetMatch.com had found highly compatible matches for me, but before I could see my matches, I’d first need to become a member of the most respected, reliable, and scientific online dating system available in the modern world.
This privilege would cost me seventy-five dollars for three months.
What’s the children’s story about a boy who takes the last of his family’s money and buys magic beans? The story vaguely crossed my mind as I searched my leather wallet for my one credit card, not sure if it would take one more purchase. I’d like to say I prayed about the decision, but I didn’t. It was an impulsive, spontaneous, reckless, and too-late-to-turn-back-now decision.
I thought of Avril and how she sparkled and purred at the thought of Jon. I thought about how everything went so well for her and how this was exactly the kind of thing she would do—in fact, had done.
I tapped my Visa number in, using the keypad. The timepiece turned around one more time before my personal page went up, showing my Times Square photo and all the public information I’d made accessible. I saw the impossible-to-miss “New Matches” tab under my name and a bold number “2” embossed over it.
Two matches.
I tilted back in my chair, chuckling at the foolish amount of time and money I’d poured into this rabbit hole. Just two matches from their 12–million-member database? For this I paid seventy-five dollars?
It was only morbid curiosity that compelled me to examine their profiles. According to LoveSetMatch.com’s unparalleled scientific compatibility service, my two perfect soul mates were Gus, a husky fifty-seven-year-old farmer from Lima, Ohio, and Jimbo, a forty-three-year-old live-bait salesman currently residing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
I shut off the computer and apartment lights, brushed my teeth, and laughed at how I’d allowed myself to be swept up in the fantasy. In bed, I switched off the bedside lamp and pulled my blankets over my head. I was no longer laughing.
How long would it take to meet someone and genuinely fall in love? The answer depressed me. Even if I met my soul mate tomorrow, would we recognize each other? Wouldn’t it take months or even years to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was “the one”?
I rolled over, burrowing into my pillow. God could do anything, anything. But the question was, What did He want to do?
~ Ten ~
When Ben had overheard me asking Avril if she wanted to go to church on Sunday morning, he half-jokingly asked me to say a prayer for opening night. I looked for derision in Ben’s question, saw it in the faces of both Marshall and Melissa, but not in Ben. He seemed to welcome any heavenly backing. I walked away certain I was getting a reputation as the oddball cast member who prays.
Early Sunday morning, I stood outside Avril’s bedroom door, knocking softly. When she didn’t answer, I cracked open her door and asked if she’d like to go with me to church. From beneath a thick layer of winter bedding, the mop of blonde hair sticking out of the blankets politely declined.
I assembled what seemed like suitable church clothes for a downtown worship experience in New York City, an understated green dress and flats. Attire had been casual at the weeknight service, but I didn’t know what to expect on a Sunday morning. Thankfully, my other suitcase had arrived late Saturday afternoon.
The trip to Fellowship Community Church was uneventful, a welcomed island of calm in an otherwise hectic two days in the city. The sun was bright and clear, the sky overhead a perfect patch of blue. Another subway ride, the drawn faces of three-dozen strangers traveling alone in the dark. I got off at the Forty-second Street Station in Times Square, climbed the cement stairs back to street level, then walked the remaining four blocks to the church.
“Twice in one week,” David said, greeting me at the door of the sanctuary.
He offered me his hand, which felt warm to my own since I’d forgotten my gloves and my hands were freezing.
“I couldn’t resist after everyone was so friendly.”
“That’s our specialty. By the way, sorry if I was a little abrupt on Friday night when I ran into you. Katie said I might want to work on my social skills.”
“No worries,” I told him, becoming aware of how relaxed I felt whenever I stepped into the church building. “Where is Katie?”
“Right behind you,” David said, pointing over my shoulder.
I turned to see Katie standing inches behind me as people made their way past us to the sanctuary.
By the way she was dressed—dark blue jeans and a claret-colored sweater pulled over her white oxford—I gathered she’d just come up from downstairs, the children’s area, and not from the icy outdoors. A pair of brown penny loafers com
plemented a very preppy look. She took hold of both my hands.
“I hoped I’d see you today. Do you have someone to sit with?”
“Not really.” I shook my head.
“Can we sit together?” Katie asked.
I was vaguely aware of David disappearing behind us, drawn away by the details of leading a Sunday morning service. There were two hundred or so people gathered in the church, a room made doubly warm by the bold morning sunlight filtering through the colorful stained glass windows.
“I’d like that.”
Katie led us to seats on the third row, left side. I wondered if this was the preacher’s wife section, then flashed back to the Carney where I’d been planting myself on the last row for the past two days. I did a quick search for Mrs. Gruens, just to say hi, but didn’t see her or the worship leader Bobby Mars.
“I’m glad you’re here, Harper. I really enjoyed meeting you and Avril on Friday night, and … I don’t know, there was just something about you I liked instantly. David says I have a knack for reading people, an intuition, but I just think it’s appreciation for others.”
“I loved Friday night’s service. I’ve been thinking about getting back here ever since. I tried waking Avril, but she was exhausted, and tonight’s a big night for her.”
“Anything you can talk about?”
“The play we’re in—Apartment 19—opens. Avril has one of the leads.”
“What role do you play?”
“Funny you should say it like that. Technically, I’m understudy for Helen Payne, but since it’s unlikely I’ll ever be onstage, I’ve been asking myself that very question.”
“How long do you plan to stay in New York?”
“About six weeks. That’s the entire run of the show, forty-two performances. After that, we’re back on the streets.” I smiled, cuing her that I was making a joke. Katie only stared back, reading my face so closely I wondered if I’d see her lips move.
“Mind if I pray about that?”
“My staying in New York?”
“No, that you’ll see what God wants you to do, in the show, and wherever else He’s working in your life.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking that sounded exactly like something Bella would say.
The service was sweet. Ruthann, the student missing from Friday night, led the worship. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, standing in front of microphone strumming her guitar, wearing a simple brown peasant dress with a strand of Indian beads around her neck. A second female student accompanied her on guitar and vocals.
David spoke his message in a style so casual, I didn’t realize he’d started until he said something about “wrapping up.” The kingdom of heaven, he said, is where “people do the right thing. It’s where people forgive, sacrifice, live, and support each other. Most of all, it’s a place where all people love one another.”
The simplicity spoke to me.
Before I knew it, the hour had ended. Katie reached over to me, squeezing my hand and making me promise to call her for lunch the following week. I took the lilac-colored card she gave me, her name and cell number printed on one side, just before she was pulled away into a group of older ladies in pretty church dresses.
I glanced around the sanctuary, wondering on the off chance I’d know somebody, from the Carney, I guess.
Bobby Mars stuck out from the crowd this time, sitting on the back pew, his hair now dyed an impulsive shade of punk rocker blue, the natural black locks on the back and sides surviving the home dye job. I wove through the crowd, winding down the center aisle. I expected we’d make eye contact as I approached and slipped into the row in front of him, but that didn’t happen. His eyes were in a dreamy, faraway place. He was wearing dungarees marked up with a black ink pen—a spiderweb design—and a fading black T-shirt bearing a silkscreen image of Yoda and the words “May the Force be with you.” I peeked over the pew between us, curious if he was wearing shoes.
“Bobby?” I said. “I’m Harper. I was here on Friday night when you sang? Sorry if I’m interrupting, but I just wanted to tell you how much I’d enjoyed your music the other night.”
Bobby nodded, bobbing his head, as if to say, “Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” but there were no words to accompany his gestures.
“I’m sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say ‘hello.’”
“It’s no problem,” he said, hoisting his right foot up onto his left knee, jostling his body into a more upright position against the hardback wooden pew. “I kind of dig it when people say they like my music. I know it’s like an ego thing, but I think people need to hear it sometimes when they do something that’s okay with somebody else.”
“Well, sure,” I said, agreeing with him. “Do you lead the music here at church very often?”
“I have, sometimes,” he said, biting the nail on his right pinky. “What I like to do is just be here, ’cause this church is pretty much what keeps me alive. I don’t have a lot to say, you know, but what the people here have done for me has kept me off the street.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Downstairs. David and Katie made a couple rooms down there, and they gave one to me.”
Bobby’s face contorted as if he were holding back tears or feeling a sharp pain in his side.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he said, not really answering my question. “I’ve been busted three times, spent two and half years in jail. I’ve got a kid in California I’ve never seen. I’m a drug addict, alcoholic, you name it, and there are lots of times I cry out to Jesus for just the strength to breathe.”
Bobby seemed to catch his breath, the contractions that troubled his body subsiding for the moment. He exhaled slowly, as if practicing a relaxation technique he’d learned somewhere.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I used to have a lot of money. My grandfather left me $150,000 when I was twenty. It was supposed to get me through college and everything, but I blew through it in a couple of years. Thank God He gave me a voice. I used to be in a band that did quite well back in the 1990s, but I didn’t care about it. Half my life is wasted, and that’s only if I live to be sixty. Now I sing here and down at the mission. I always tell people the old me died someplace out on the road, and I got reborn as a poor gospel singer in New York City.”
Bobby laughed. Of course, that’s how I felt too, the old me dying somewhere in an empty Chicago apartment building while the world outside went on its way without me. Unemployed, unmarried actress didn’t sound nearly as heartrending as a homeless drug addict, but I knew where I’d be without God’s intervention.
The pain in Bobby’s side seemed to have returned, and he closed his eyes, ending our conversation. The church was almost empty now; most of the people had wandered outside where it was cold but sunny. I saw David waiting to talk to Bobby, so I smiled at him and headed for the exit.
Avril called my cell phone as I was leaving church to ask if I’d like to meet her and Jon for ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, lunch included. My opportunity to meet the mysterious Jon. I agreed and strolled toward Broadway underneath a sky as clear and blue as heaven.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get up and join you at church,” Avril said over the phone. “But I was so tired. Let me make it up to you.”
“Avril, you don’t have anything to make up to me. Are you with Jon now?”
“Yes, I want you to meet him. He’s so amazing! I’ve been telling him he works too hard, and how it’s my job to help him slow down and enjoy himself more. So this morning he called me to say he was taking Sunday off and surprised me with tickets to go ice-skating at Rock Center. I’ve got one for you, too.”
“You must be having a positive effect on him.”
“Harper, Jon’s
the whole package. You’ll see it when you meet him. Around twelve thirty?”
After going home to change, I found my way to Rockefeller Center and began rummaging through the crowds looking for Jon and Avril. The Glenn Miller Band and other romantic music of the 1940s swing era poured through outdoor loudspeakers. A waist-high wooden fence surrounded the plaza, but I spotted Avril, already on the ice, in a white ski jacket with sporty turquoise armbands and a headband that kept her ears warm, her hair in a ponytail. She waved when she saw me and skated near the fence to talk.
“Hey, here’s your ticket. Just come around the other side and join us on the ice.”
Avril handed me a ticket, which looked like something you’d exchange for a half pint of milk in elementary school. I walked around to the other side of the ice-skating rink; the line was shorter than expected, and within ten minutes I was strapping on skates.
Jon seemed nice enough—quiet, affectionate. He had a rugged look, partly because he hadn’t shaved, a detail that brought to mind the long hours he spent working. Avril didn’t seem bothered by his stubble. She glided across the ice, beaming like the guest of honor at a birthday party.
When he saw a buddy he knew standing at the fence, Jon skated away from our trio. Avril filled the space between us, skating closer, wrapping her warm hand around my cold one. I could feel her strength through the knitted mitten.
“So, what do you think?”
“He’s nice.”
Avril smiled. “He’s amazing. Whenever I think there’s a problem in our relationship, like his being a workaholic, Jon calls to say he’s taking the day off. I can’t believe I found him through online dating. Talk about a needle in a haystack.”
“It is kind of amazing.”
“There are millions of single men in New York City, and that little dating site honed in and picked him out just for me.”
“How do you do it?” I asked, watching an afternoon gust charm her hair like special effects in a movie. “How do you get everything to always work out for you?”
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