“You look great,” Claire said.
“Oh, thank you. It’s Lucia’s dress. Trust me, she supervised my entire outfit. She said I was basically a presentation. In fact, she did a presentation. She actually had slides.”
“Slides?” Harper said, laughing.
“Yes, on her phone. She showed me three different options and then ranked them by sophistication and approachability. She’s sixteen, but I have absolutely no idea where she gets this.”
“David,” Claire and Harper said at the same time.
Nina smiled. There was only a little bit of sadness behind the smile. Most of it was just easy.
The event coordinator was a woman named Bev, with the energy of a summer camp counselor and the organizational skills of a general.
She pulled together thirty or so people in the back room of the wine bar, where the small tables had been set up in rows of two chairs each. There were candles lit and wine glasses waiting.
There were roughly the same number of men and women, and all of them seemed to be somewhere around forty-five to sixty years old. Everybody had that same expression on their face, a sort of hopeful dread.
Claire imagined that she was probably wearing that same expression too, although she wasn’t going to take a chance and look in the mirror.
“Okay, everybody,” Bev announced, clapping her hands with excitement. “You have four minutes at each table. When you hear the bell, the men will rotate. Women, just stay seated. At the end of the night, you can write who you’re interested in on the cards I’ve given you. If there’s a match, we’ll put you in touch with each other. Now, the most important rule is that everybody has fun. Remember, this is supposed to be fun. This is not a tax audit.”
“This does not feel fun,” Harper murmured.
“It feels like I’m going in for a big performance review,” Claire said.
“Oh, good Lord, it’s four minutes,” Nina said. “We can survive anything for four minutes. We survived thirty seconds in the Atlantic in the bitter cold.”
“Well, the Atlantic didn’t ask me what I do for a living,” Harper said, crossing her arms. “Or make me wear a name tag.”
The bell rang, and speed dating began.
Claire’s first date, which sounded really weird given that she was married and had no interest in dating anyone, was named Tom.
He sold insurance.
And he smiled too much.
And he had those big, overly white, capped teeth that made him look like he might have been a horse in a previous life.
He asked her what she did for a living. She said she was a third-grade teacher. His response was, “Oh, that must be very rewarding.”
She said it was. She wasn’t sure if she meant it. It depended on the day you asked.
He asked her if she had any kids of her own. She said two, grown.
He asked if she was divorced. And she said no, she was married.
His smile flickered for a moment. She could see him recalculating something in his head.
And then he spent the remaining two minutes just telling her about his boat.
She zoned out.
Her second date was a man named Phil. He was recently widowed and talked about his late wife for three of the four minutes. It was gentle and loving. And Claire listened.
She thought of Nina and wanted to reach across the table and hold his hand. But she didn’t, because that wasn’t what this was supposed to be.
And then she thought about Greg and wondered if, after she died, would he talk about her for three minutes straight at a speed date?
