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I run in, fill out the ten-page questionnaire, and let out a sigh of relief, which surprises me. As I leave the library, I already know I’m going to have to get a cheap phone to at least check email. If I’m chosen to go through the matching process, I’m going to need to check my email far more often than, and if I’m no longer trying to pay off Mr. Murphy, I will have a few euros to spare.
God, Sophia, I think. Are you really doing this?
I nod to myself, and a smile fills my face. As I walk home, I feel lighter than I have in ages.
3
Hunter
I don’t tell my mother about the plan. I only say that I’m dating again, trying to find someone. She smiles and squeezes my hand and tells me she knows this time I’m going to find the one.
I’m not sure I believe I’ll find that, but as her body shrinks smaller and smaller, and medicine drips through thin tubes into a port surgically installed in her chest, I’m at least trying.
Emotions aren’t something I’m good at, but I do know what helplessness feels like. I wish I could take the cancer and pain away.
Mom squeezes tighter and tells me she’s prayed for God to send me someone, and that night the international dating site emailed me to tell me they’ve found a perfect match.
I pull out my bottle of whiskey and a clean tumbler from the bottom drawer and read every word of the email. Even Cocoa seems to know something’s up—she comes over and puts her head on my knee, looking up at me with warm eyes.
“Her name’s Sophia,” I say to Cocoa. That’s pretty, and I like the way it sounds out loud. “And she’s twenty-six years old.” That’s a few years younger than me, but not an indecent number.
“She’s from Ireland.” I wonder about this girl across the Atlantic, what she might be doing or thinking right now.
Was she also reading an email, telling her she’s been matched? If so, what was she thinking about me?
The profile lists her occupation as a manager of a local market in Dublin. It says she’s in good health, doesn’t smoke or do drugs and drinks on occasion.
I take a long look at the bottle of whiskey, and then pour myself half a glass.
There’s not much else listed there—no reason why she might want to come to America and entertain the idea of a wedding with a man she’s never met. And there, at the bottom of the screen, is a button.
Accept or reject.
This is all I get, all I can know about her until after her tickets are booked, and she’s ready to come to meet me. Then I’ll get her email address, and we can exchange some basics. I’ve already paid an application fee, but pushing this button will authorize them to charge my card for flights, ferry rides—whatever she needs to get from Dublin to here.
I hover my cursor over the accept button and take a long drag of my drink.
What am I waiting for? Unless I’m going to go back to online dating or give up altogether, this is it.
I hit the accept button and pour myself another glass.
Sophia
I haven’t even gotten out of bed in the morning before I check my phone—one of those cheap, pay by the month deals that lacks bells and whistles, but gets the job done. In this case, the job is sparing me a run to the library three times a day to check to see if the agency is going to match me with anyone. I’ve gotten some legal advice from an old friend of my mothers, as I can’t afford a real lawyer. I’ve managed to put off my eviction for a few extra weeks by filling out some forms and filing them, but I won’t be able to stay in this apartment forever, and after that, I don’t know where I’ll go.
I try to ignore the fact my only plan at this point is to go live in another country with a man I’ve never met. And that it’s quite unlikely that he’ll actually be Colin Firth.
Blinking bleary-eyed at my phone screen, I find it.
An email, telling me a match has been found. I bolt upright in bed, and immediately open it.
His name is Hunter, the email says, and he runs an internet marketing company in America. He’s thirty-three, which is older, but hardly inappropriate. He’s apparently well off enough to spring for plane tickets for a woman he’s never met to interview to be his wife. A cold bolt pierces me through the heart.
That’s not theoretical. It’s me he’s asking to interview. Not that he has any idea who I am, but some patented algorithm has processed our data and decided that we’d be compatible.
There’s a button at the bottom of the email.
Accept or Reject.
