Page 32 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“Woman. I’m a woman. I haven’t been a girl for a long time now.”

“Really? How long a time are we talking, Mary?”

I sighed. I could not believe I was having this conversation. In the dark. At whatever the hell hour of the morning it was. “Listen, it’s . . . really early. I’m sorry, but—”

“Not so early. Almost seven. I’ve been up for two hours, at least.”

“It is”—I looked at my phone—“six thirty-five.”

“Like I said. Can’t just let the day pass you by!”

There was clanging in the background, and his voice was loud and cheery, which just made everything infinitely worse.

“Congratulations, sir. It sounds like you’re having a very productive morning, but I only went to sleep a few hours ago, so I think we’re probably on a different, you know . . . life schedule.”

“Shouldn’t be staying up so late at your age.”

Oh. My God.

“I’m. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Thank you. I will write that down so that I can remember it when I do actually wake up and want life advice. I am going to go back to sleep now.” I took a settling breath and thought of Jackie. I’d walked out on his date last night, and no matter the ungodly time, I didn’t really want to insult this guy as well. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but please feel free to call or text another time, preferably during—”

“Naa. Doesn’t sound like a good fit to me. Good luck to ye.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried very hard not to catch fire. “Okay. Good luck to—” And he hung up.

I considered calling him back immediately. Why? I could dig covertly for more details, track him down, hire a mariachi band, break into his house, creep into his bedroom, horns at the ready, and shake him violently awake at three a.m., while trumpets blazed “Guantanamera.”

It wasn’t a bad plan. With enough coffee, I was pretty sure I could do it.

What I could not do, I soon found out, was go back to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tawny glow of a threatening sunrise began to creep over my windowsill, and a few roosters (whom I now regretted joyously tossing corn to the day before, like Oprah giving away cars) had decided that this was their moment to assassinate me. I pouted hard and kicked my feet under the blankets like a petulant toddler. I texted Simone.

You awake?

Yeah. You?

Let me check—nope. Dead.

The phone rang, but this time the sound made me smile. “What do you want? You do know I’m extremely busy over here husband-hunting, right?”

“You mean you’re still looking? Jeez. What’s taking so long?”

“Actually, I did get married yesterday morning, now that you mention it. But the groom was a hundred and four and didn’t survive the honeymoon. Now I’ve got to do it all over again.”

“Rotten luck. Better luck next time. So tell me, how many dates have you gone on?”

“You mean in the thirty-two hours since I’ve arrived?”

“Yeah.”

“Two, smart-ass.”

“You’re kidding! Tell me now!”

I laughed. “Crap. Do I have to? I’m too sleepy to relive the trauma.”

“You do. You do have to. Right now.”

“Well, last night I was set up with a xenophobe who looked like one of Dad’s bowling buddies and said reading books was a waste of time.”