by Nella Tyler
She could feel a nervous rumble in her stomach and realized that she had behaved out of character for herself by coming into the store and being so openly friendly with everyone. The man with the glasses probably thought she was an idiot, or so she imagined. She dug in her bag once again, looking for a business card in case he would want to exchange contact information. The only one she could find had been shoved down behind a credit card and was now wrinkled with a bent corner. She sighed and frowned, feeling once again like a fish out of water. She looked for the man in the sunglasses, but he had yet to appear.
Next to the café was a salad bar where customers could fill their plates or to go containers from its selections and pay by the pound. She watched each person and tried to guess what the next item they would add to their salad. She loved to watch people and this entertained her for some time.
Again she looked for the man in the sunglasses. She knew that at least ten minutes had passed and wondered what was keeping him. Perhaps he had trouble with his debit card, or had forgotten something and went back to get it.
She told herself to be patient and busied herself reading the ingredients of a box of cereal she had purchased. She pulled her phone out and checked for email, but as usual, it was only spam. She tapped one of her favorite games and played that for a few minutes, the growing sense of dread in her stomach making her feel ill.
Finally, Mackenzie stood up and walked toward the checkout lane where she and the man with sunglasses had been. He wasn’t there. She searched up and down the front of the store and he was nowhere to be seen. Her sense of dread was confirmed. He had been teasing her and had no intention of having coffee with her. At that point, she felt her face flush and assumed that everyone in the store knew she had been stood up.
Humiliated, she exited by the café, even though it was quite a distant walk to her car. It was her walk of shame, and she punished herself mentally with every step. She found her car, unlocked it, and threw her groceries in as quickly as she could. She swore to herself she would never come to that store again, if only to eliminate the chance that she might run into the man with sunglasses.
All the way home she berated herself. Why did I do such a blatantly hussy kind of thing? That’s really not my style, and it’s obvious because the man was giving me a line and I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Talk about a fish out of water, I take the prize for the biggest fool.
She could feel her face flushing even within the privacy of her car. She stopped at a drive-through and ordered a tall lemonade, sipping it as she pulled out into traffic and headed toward home. At the last minute, she took an alternate turn and headed out in the country for a bit. Although she would not allow herself to admit it, she knew where she was headed.
The entrance was framed by wrought iron gates that were never locked. There was no one to lock within, and no one who fought to enter. Maple Hill Cemetery, third street on the left, second row, second headstone from the end. She left the car and walked to stand at David’s feet.
The tears had already begun as she opened the car door. Nothing had changed since her last visit just three weeks earlier. She had planted two tiny evergreens on either side of his headstone. She couldn’t stand to see vases and wreaths with dead flowers – it was too similar to what lay beneath. She came here often to talk to David and went home with the solid belief that he heard her.
“I miss you.” The words were simple, but the sentiment ran so deeply. “I’ve come to ask you a question. You’re the only one who can answer this for me because I surely don’t know the answer myself. You should’ve seen the fool I just made of myself. So, here it is. Has the time come for me to move on?”
Mackenzie listened to the silence. It was neither judgmental nor encouraging. She waited a little longer and just as she turned to go, a robin dropped down and landed on David’s headstone. It cocked its head, looking at her. She knew robins rarely landed anywhere but the ground, as they were eternally looking for a worm or bug to eat.
This one, however, landed with David. It seemed to turn its head so it could look at her directly before flying off.
Mackenzie’s heart broke, right there in the Maple Hill Cemetery. She and David had always competed with one another to who could spot the first robin each Spring. She knew he had sent her a sign; he told her to move on.
Chapter Four
It began to rain on her way home. It was the perfect backdrop to her melancholy mood. She recalled how she used to think of rain as being a prelude to romance – a romance with the world and with the man who loved her. It was the cleansing that encouraged two people to turn to one another and orchestrate a rhythm between them matching that of the following drops.
That was all gone. Now, it was the sound of loneliness.
She pulled into the garage and carried the groceries inside. When the garage door lowered again, it sounded vaguely like the lid of a casket closing. Why am I dramatizing everything in such a negative light? she asked herself.
She put her groceries away and pulled on soft cotton leggings and a long tunic. These constituted her comfort clothes, as did the pizza she popped in the oven and the icy glass of cola. She knew she would regret those the next morning, but for now, it was all she had at hand.
She channel surfed for a while, but nothing looked good. It seemed like everything she stopped on had a couple, happy family, or a beautiful young girl embroiled in an exciting romance. None of it related to her, other than making her feel worse than she had an hour earlier.
The oven timer went off, so she pulled out the pizza and defiantly cut it into only two slices. She slapped one on a paper plate, picked up the cola, and headed for the sofa with its remote control power.
She considered how ironic the concept of power actually was. The older she got, the more she realized there was very little in life that could be controlled or over which anyone had power. You only had the power to choose how to interpret what happens.
She lost interest in the pizza about six bites into it, tossing the plate and leftovers in the trash. The soda seemed too sweet, and she realized she was terribly out of sorts overall. Her having been made a joke of at the grocery store still stung.
She wished she knew his name. Not that she felt terribly revengeful, but at least it would’ve been nice to contemplate it. The soft rain had turned into a steady downpour, which didn’t help things.
She knew what was bothering her.
That computer was sitting over there on her desk, trying to signal her attention. It wanted to lure her with the concept that it was a new window into a mysterious world in which she could anonymously play and not be held accountable. The thought was exhilarating and more than tempting.
She gave eventually in, turning it on and as the computer loaded, her exhilaration increased. She logged in to the dating website. To her great surprise, it appeared that she had an inbox and there were actually letters waiting for her. Not only that, there were flirts, which she assumed were preprogrammed little comments you could toss to someone if you were neither articulate nor overly interested, but just testing the waters.
She mentally rolled up her sleeves and settled into reading the email. The first was from someone named Noliarshere.
Dear AliceWonderland: You popped up in my suggested matches and when I saw how close by you lived, I thought I would send a smile your way. I’m divorced, I have two children in high school, a mother in the nursing home, and a dog laying by my feet. You notice I didn’t mention the breed of the dog, primarily because no one has any idea. That may give you some insight into my life overall. I teach high school; they say you stick with what you know. Don’t asked me what that means, these messages are hard enough to write on their own. Hope to hear back from you. – Bill
Mackenzie considered the message and decided he sounded like a fairly normal person. She tapped the reply button and answered.
Dear Bill,
I hope you’ll forgive my informality in not addressing you by your pro
file name – Bill is much easier to remember. LOL that happens to be my favorite breed of dog. As you saw on my profile, I’m widowed, two years now. I have no children, and I work full-time in a small office. As you know, I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. You might think that would make you feel comfortable and surrounded with security. In my case, it makes me feel exactly the opposite. Maybe it’s because I was always defined as half of a whole while my husband was alive, and now that makes me off-limits as an individual. Gosh, I’m not really sure where that remark came from, it just sort of popped out. It might’ve been the pizza I had for dinner. LOL- Alice
Mackenzie took a few minutes to look at his profile. What she saw was a man about her own age, apparently fit and with a smile on his face. It looked like he was at a local ball field and there were two boys standing behind him in baseball uniforms.
From this, she gathered sports were an important part of his life, and that meant he probably watched a lot of television on Sundays with the remote in his hand, flipping between the various games. She didn’t have a problem with that, but maybe that led to his divorce in the first place.
She laughed as she realized she was typecasting this poor man without even hearing his voice. That made her wonder what he would think about her. Looking back over what she had written it, could be assumed that she did not cook since she had pizza for dinner, that she was depressed and lonely because her husband was dead, and overall, that she was a loser because she had called herself off-limits as an individual.
That was hardly putting my best foot forward. At that moment, she wished there was a way to edit or delete a message you had already sent, but although she looked around, there was no option for that.
The now familiar dings sounded as a message box popped up. Apparently, Bill was online at the moment because his profile name was in the box header.
Noliarshere: Hi, there. I just got your message and saw you were online.
AliceWonderland: Oh, hello there. That surprised me.
Noliarshere: I’m sorry to hear about your loss. While mine was only a divorce, I think there are some similarities. I don’t like being alone.
AliceWonderland: I get that. Especially on weekends. It seems like people are going out to dinner and doing family things, and here I sit alone. My, but I do sound depressed and selfish, don’t I?
Noliarshere: No, not really. You sound a lot like me.
AliceWonderland: So, I’m assuming the two boys and your picture are your sons? They’re nice-looking kids.
Noliarshere: Yes, that’s Ethan and Warren. They are definitely a handful. What one doesn’t think of, the other one does. They stay with their mother during the week, and I see them on weekends. Coincidentally, that’s when they have to be chauffeured to all their sporting events. I don’t mind, really. I enjoy watching them play, but I’ll admit that it doesn’t leave much time for social life.
AliceWonderland: Have you dated a lot of women on here?
Noliarshere: I’ve had a few meet and greets.
AliceWonderland: I’m sorry, I’m new here. What is a meet and greet?
Noliarshere: Oh, you know, where you make a date for a drink or cup of coffee somewhere local. In the meantime, you’ve gotten to know one another fairly well in messages and maybe on the phone, so you have this big picture built up in your mind as to who the other person will be. Then suddenly, you decide to meet and you’re a bundle of nerves driving there. They turn out to be completely different than what they told you. Their picture was twenty years old, they really aren’t divorced but just separated, or they just went through bankruptcy and are looking for a place to stay, no questions asked.
AliceWonderland: All that in a meet and greet?
Noliarshere: Well, maybe not all that, but it’s not uncommon. I guess you can tell I’ve not had a lot of good luck on here.
AliceWonderland: I’m starting to get a little discouraged. I haven’t met anyone face-to-face yet, but everyone I’ve talked to has warned me about the liars and scam artists on here. That’s not very encouraging.
Noliarshere: No liar here, as the name says. I don’t have time to keep track of stories. Anyway, I have a certain reputation I have to guard since I’m a teacher.
AliceWonderland: So, tell me how these messages are supposed to go. As I said, I’m pretty new here – in fact only two days old.
Noliarshere: Pretty much just like this. We swap a few details, a few war stories, reassure one another that we are unlike all the others, and eventually, we’ll swap phone numbers and either text or call each other on the phone. At that point, we’ve both got skin in the game, as the saying goes.
AliceWonderland: And, what do you do if you don’t like the person you’re talking to?
Noliarshere: Just stop talking to them. What else would you do?
AliceWonderland: That feels kind of rude. Maybe it’s because I had a bad experience today.
Noliarshere: Want to tell me about it?
AliceWonderland: It’s a little embarrassing, but I might as well. There are probably far worse stories here. Well, I was at the grocery store, and one thing led to another and I struck up a conversation with a man behind me in the checkout line. He invited me for cup of coffee in the store café and I agreed. I went out ahead to wait for him and he, must’ve gone out the other entrance because he never showed up. I was totally embarrassed, felt everyone in the store was looking at me, and will never go back to that store again.
Noliarshere: Ouch. I’ll bet that didn’t feel very good. That guy was a jerk. You didn’t deserve that.
AliceWonderland: That’s the thing. I know you mean well when you say that, but a part of me asks how you know that to be true. For all you know, I’m the guy at the grocery store, pretending to be a woman. I could’ve made all this up.
Noliarshere: Did you?
AliceWonderland: No, of course not. But you really have no way of knowing that.
Noliarshere: Actually, I consider myself to be a fairly decent judge of character. If you are that jerk, you wouldn’t be bragging about what you had done. You are reacting like a woman would, and should, and I just have a sense about you.
AliceWonderland: Then, how do you know when someone is pulling your leg?
Noliarshere: You don’t, not always, but you begin to develop a nose for that sort of thing. Have you met anyone at all yet?
AliceWonderland: Not yet. I’m a little afraid, to tell the truth. In fact, as of last night, I thought I was done with this online dating thing entirely. Then I had kind of a bad time today, and tonight I’m home alone so here I am, addicted to a world that barely exists.
Noliarshere: Alice, don’t let a few bad experiences get you down. Just like everything else in life, it’s a matter of numbers. The more times you put yourself out there, the greater the chances that you find the right person. Oddly enough, sometimes these sites can be like a dress rehearsal. You get used to flirting a little, maybe do a little self-improvement, tend to volunteer or join up for more things, and sooner or later, you will run across someone in your own backyard that you would have ignored before. The same goes for them. It’s like you turn your radar on.
AliceWonderland: Huh, I never thought of it that way. I will admit, though, this morning when I went to the store, I did put on a little bit nicer clothes and took a little more time with my makeup than usual. I know I made a conscious effort to smile at people, kids and women included. It did make me feel happier.
Noliarshere: There you go! See? You turned the radar on. So, what your radar telling you right now?
AliceWonderland: I really can’t answer that; it hasn’t been on long enough for me to notice a difference. What does it feel like for you?
Noliarshere: To be quite honest with you, I don’t want to be a jerk like some of the other guys on here, but I have to say I’m intrigued by you. I know were supposed to have those requisite three or four conversations before we moved to the phone for a while, and then
after the phone for a while we moved to meeting in person. That whole thing seems rather strange, however, when it would be so much easier to meet you face-to-face. After all, we’re just a couple of miles apart, it’s not like either one of us has to make a huge effort to go and see the other one. I guess you could say the risk is lower and the odds are greater because we had already have a lot of things in common.
AliceWonderland: I was sort of feeling the same way, but thought maybe I was being a little over anxious and getting ahead of myself.
Noliarshere: What would you say to meeting at Joe’s Place and just have a glass of wine? If you walk in the door and change your mind, just turn around and leave. There are lots of people in there on a Saturday night and we certainly won’t be out of place. Worst-case, you might make a new friend. How about it?
Mackenzie drew in her breath. This all happened within a matter of minutes and she was rather shocked by his suggestion. What’s holding me back?
AliceWonderland: It feels a little fast to me.
Noliarshere: I get that. But I’m not asking you to marry me, just to share a table and a little conversation over a glass of wine. You don’t have to hug me or kiss me goodnight or give me your phone number or address or even share the names of mutual friends. It won’t be much more than what we’re doing right now. Come on, it’s a Saturday night, I’m alone, you’re alone – let’s just do this out of curiosity.
AliceWonderland: I am literally sitting here in the least attractive clothes I own, my hair is a mess and I cried all my makeup off earlier today. It would take me at least an hour to get ready.
Noliarshere: I’ll meet you at Joe’s in an hour and a half. That will make it 9:30. You up for it?
Mackenzie type the letters “OK” and paused a full thirty seconds before taking a deep breath and hitting send.
