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It takes me another few days, but eventually my impending eviction and the calls from debt collectors—who took only a few weeks to find my brand new number—make my decision easier.
I push the accept button, turn off my phone, then bury my face in a pillow, and scream.
&nbs
p; Hunter
Two days later I’m out walking in the woods with Cocoa, checking out the damage from a recently fallen tree. I haven’t heard a word back from the dating site, and I wonder if she’s rethinking her application. If the cards were reversed and I was the one about to leave my home and fly out to meet someone I’d never met on their home turf with the prospect of being married, I’d be scared to death.
I wonder if there’s something she’s running away from.
When I get back to the house, I’ve got an email from the dating site. Match confirmed! My heart races. I’m given a date for a few weeks from now when Sophia will be flying out.
I stare at my email, realizing I’d been expecting her to say no. And there it is, an email address where I can contact her to make arrangements. The plane tickets will be taken care of—on my dime, of course—but the email suggests we might want to discuss dietary habits, schedules, and sleeping arrangements before she arrives.
Sleeping arrangements.
I have an extra room, but there’s no furniture in it, due to never having guests. But I can’t expect her to stay in my room on the first night—if she even decides she wants to stay—and it also feels rude to make her sleep on the couch. I go online and find a furniture website—I can make a bed frame myself easily enough, and god knows I’ve got enough wood, but I’ll need to order a mattress and then take my truck to pick it up in town.
Then I open an email, intending to introduce myself, I have no idea what to say. This is a problem I commonly have with women, but now I’m at even more of a loss. In six weeks, we’ll either be married, or she’ll have gone back home disappointed.
Hey. I’m Hunter. Obviously. I’m looking forward to meeting you. To tell you a bit about myself, I’ve got a mountain cabin—more of a house really, in the woods. I run an advertising company from my home office. I delete the last sentence. She knows this stuff from the website, no doubt, and I’m sure not showing off my prowess at writing ad copy now.
Maybe this is my problem with dating. I could treat myself like a product and sell myself. So much about advertising is about casting the truth in its best light…but inevitably anyone in a relationship is going to figure out the whole truth. And in relationships, no matter how long its been, there’s always an open return policy.
Besides, the main key to advertising is that you have to have a killer product. Maybe that’s been my problem all along.
Let me know if there’s anything that I can get for you before you get here. I’d like to make you comfortable.
I sign my name to the email and then stare at my inbox. It could be any amount of time before she responds—assuming she does respond. I’m not even sure what time it is in Ireland.
At least she must speak English. Until this moment I hadn’t thought of the possibility of ending up with a match that didn’t speak my language and having to explain that to my mother. Telling Mom I met her on the internet is one thing; having to explain how I met someone and need a translator would raise more questions.
I head up to my office and before I even get in the door, my phone dings.
I have an email. From Sophia.
4
Sophia
I’m curled up in bed in my apartment, surrounded by boxes when I get Hunter’s first email. I’ve got to be out of the apartment by the weekend, but I’m still sorting through old things, trying to decide which I’m going to pay to store for a month and which I need to sell now.
The furniture is the hardest, like our old armchair I used to curl up in when I was young enough to fit entirely on the small cushion like a sleeping cat.
I know I should sell it—no man of means is going to want to pay to ship threadbare and scratched furniture across the Atlantic ocean—but a part of me just can’t bear to let it go.
I stare at my disposable phone, on which I’ve paid for exactly one month. Hey, the email says. I’m Hunter.
I’d gotten that from the name on the email, but it’s sort of cute that he feels the need to clarify. The email is only a few sentences long and mostly about his “cabin in the woods.” I’m not sure if I should read this as a creepy omen or if he thinks his vacation home is his best asset, so he’s leading with that.
Do you go to your cabin often? I reply. There’s a long pause—which there should be, I suppose. It’s email, not texting, and it’s crossing the ocean to get to him.
But then my phone buzzes, and there is his response.
No, I mean…well, yes. I live there. Full time. In the woods.
Now I’m definitely erring on the side of the omen. Okay, I respond. I hesitate for a moment and then decide I’m probably best off being honest. That’s a bit creepy.
