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Dates? I’m going ondates?
It won’t amount to anything, but I can’t tell her that, not when she’d looked at me like I’m a puzzle she wants nothing more than to solve. She’d bet on the wrong man when she’d dared me to it.
I shouldn’t have gone along with it.
But her naive optimism and belief in love galled something inside of me, itched at the bitterness that sometimes threatened to choke me.
Summer Davis. Blonde, cutesy, with a matching golden retriever sidekick to complete an image fit for an advertisement.
I frown at the text on my computer. Had it been this difficult to read only moments before? No, I’m sure it had been clearer. It’s been months since I had to increase the size of the on-screen text. I enlarge it a few sizes more, and the text becomes clearer. Even if doing so makes me want to punch the screen, shattering the damn thing as well as my hand in the process.
At least my hand would heal.
I’d stopped working in the office soon after my diagnosis, preferring to sit here, where I can control the light source and the computer. Where I can shut it all down on bad days.
My phone rings, but there’s no one I’m in the mood to talk to right now. Right after the diagnosis, I’d interacted with the world regularly, but I’d learned soon enough that things just got worse when I did. I couldn’t conceal my rancor.
Call it black curiosity or restlessness, but I answer my phone. The number is unknown to me.
The voice on the other end is feminine, professional and familiar. “I have another date for you, Mr. Winter,” she announces, without preamble or hello.
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. Her voice is interesting. Deep and soft, but with a distinct bubbliness to it.
“I hope you’ve found someone better this time,” I tell her.
“I won’t respond to that,” she says primly. “Isabelle is terrific, as are all of our clients. Some people simply don’t work together.”
And some people don’t work together with anyone. “Right.”
“Are you free Thursday for lunch?” she asks. “I think this one will be good.”
Why am I putting myself through this charade? I should say no, but the sound of her voice and this inane scheme is something,anything,to soothe my restlessness.
“Yes, I’ll meet your candidate.”
“Her name is Ciara,” she says. “Do you want to go into this blind, or with a bit of information?”
I grit my teeth. “Not blind, if I can help it.”
“All righty. She’s twenty-three and a model. Originally from Georgia, but has been in New York for the past few years.”
“Twenty-three?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“No, I suppose it’s not.”
“She suggested a Japanese place for lunch. Is that acceptable?”
It had been a long time since I’d rotated Japanese food into my takeout schedule. “Yes.”
She breathes a sigh of relief, as if she’d expected me to be prickly about that. “Okay, good.”
“I suppose you’ll want me to come to the office afterwards,” I say. “For the debrief?”
Summer’s voice is pleased. “That’s right. It’s such an important part of the process for us.”
Meeting with this model would be… well. It’d be quick. And then I‘d get to see Summer flustered again, her hopeless romantic idea of this job fighting against the facts she saw sitting right in front of her.
