Chapter 9
Matchmakr: Your Profile
@salt&seagirl’s short biography:
I like to sit on the roof and think.
I think people are far too focused on the past, especially when we are committed to starting over.
I like to chat for a while before meeting.
Get to know @salt&seagirl with Three Random Questions:
Favorite time of day: dusk
Favorite dessert: crepes
How close are you with your family?
I’m really close with my sisters—
I live with my great aunt—
Not very. I don’t have much of a family.
! You have four new messages.
I’m settled at work, in the middle of reading through an incredibly boring old text written by some old white dude who has a hard-on for increasing tithes for the poor (literally that’s the only thing this book is about.
Why the poor need to “absolve” their sins by paying more to the church.
Which will…keep them even poorer? I swear, men, especially white men, have been the same for all of time: thinking their boring, stupid ideas will automatically captivate willing audiences).
When I can’t take it anymore, I shelve Sir Thomas Buchanan’s hopefully only masterpiece in “potential recycling,” because Anise told me I can’t label books as “literary dumpster fires” in case her boss, or her boss’s boss, ever dropped by to check on me and my pile of chocolate wrappers piled high on my technically stolen desk here in the basement.
Not that they ever would. But I do it for Anise’s peace of mind.
I grab my phone to think about ordering lunch—I’d been too upset to meal prep yesterday, which is what I usually do Sunday nights—when notifications from Matchmakr pop up all over my screen like confetti. “Oh,” I say, putting one hand on my stomach. All of a sudden I feel too nervous to be hungry.
I open the app, tap the messages button with the red, vibrating notifications, and deflate.
Hey sexy. Show me that ass, says the first one.
lol what the fuck is a crepe, asks the next.
Chat for a while befor meeting? Typical female. All u do is lead us men on and USE us for FREE. DINNeR.
Block.
When I’d first heard various young women around town talking about how online dating was a shit show nowadays, I…
somehow thought they were referring to when they actually got to the dating part.
That the men they’d decided to go out with didn’t tip the server or asked them what kind of underwear they had on even before ordering drinks or otherwise displayed some enormous red flag immediately.
I didn’t realize until I first tried out a dating app that they meant it was a shit show before chatting virtually had even begun.
I don’t know why I thought a regional app would be any different.
I guess, you know, I had imagined that men in big cities would be more patient and sophisticated compared to a high percentage of the men in Cranberry.
When I was fourteen, my high school band took a trip to Baltimore to perform at a little amphitheater downtown.
I remember almost nothing about the performance itself, but what’s seared in my mind is just after it, the moment we stepped out into the city street right as the sun was folded into the sky, the lights in the tall buildings and coffee shops and bakeries all glowing spun gold.
The sidewalks were full of people in business-casual wear making their way home for the day.
I always thought, surrounded by that many perspectives, each human their own whole universe, it would make someone a great deal more contemplative than say, your average Grayson Baker.
But, I was wrong. Everywhere it seems, men are… ugh, men.
I’m about to clear my inbox when my gaze settles on the fourth message.
So, what do you think about on the roof?
It’s from a profile with the name @tryingsomethingnew, which I find instantly intriguing. After all, I’m literally doing the same thing. Trying something new. And scary. And…kind of exciting, now that I have one (1) single message that doesn’t appear to be remotely creepy or weirdly angry.
A quick look at his profile shows that he’s a man who enjoys kayaking and hate-watching reality television (especially house-flipping shows), and he loves potatoes in all forms. Sounds like Not a Murderer so far, unlike literally all the others.
I write back: It’s kind of different every time. Sometimes I think about the whales in the ocean…because I can see the distant waves from my rooftop. Right? And whales sing in different languages. Or dialects, maybe.
I hit send and then immediately wish I could undo the message. This is already too much of an info dump straight from my brain. I’m supposed to be flirty and sexy, not…discussing whale dialects. I’m supposed to be the opposite of Weird Girl Who Hangs Out with Wolves in the Forest.
I begin composing an apology when his reply comes through.
Have you ever heard about the loneliest whale in the world?
He sends an article about “52 Blue,” a whale who sings at 52 hertz.
Fifty-two hertz is too high a frequency for 52 Blue to be able to connect with any other whales…
which is lonely indeed. Whales, like humans, are a social species.
Before I can respond, @tryingsomethingnew sends another link. This one is to a recording of 52 Blue’s call. I turn up the volume on my cell phone. When I hit play, I can’t help myself. My eyes fill with tears.
The Flores women, as far as we can remember, have been born with gifts.
Supernatural gifts. Magic gifts. Nadia has always said that our gifts come from some Flores woman long ago offending the old gods—a sure way to attract some kind of generational curse.
But I don’t know how she can know that for sure.
It’s never made sense to me. How can my connection with those who are more than human be a punishment of some kind?
We call them gifts because they feel like gifts because they are gifts.
Nadia says that we must keep our gifts a secret because way back in the day, missionaries called them demonic and tried to beat them out of our ancestors. Which, valid. I can see her reasoning on that.
From what I’ve been reading, though, our Indigenous ancestors interacted with this world in ways that colonizers would call evil, or uncivilized, or superstitious, or any combination of these.
Seems to me, colonizers have long, long ago closed themselves off to magic.
They insist that everything in the Land of the Living can be explained by some kind of dogmatism, rooted in religion or science, whatever dogma they’re into at the moment.
And so they refuse to see the world as it is, full of old, wild magic.
And when they hear us talking about old, wild magic? It’s just misguided superstition! When they happen to get a glimpse of that old, wild magic? It’s the work of demons!
What an insanely sad way to live, you know? Where you have to reject the most beautiful things about this life for no reason other than an inherited, cultural fear of What Cannot Be Fully Known.
Because of the violence of colonization, I no longer know our ancestral tribes. I do not know who we were, before the lands of our people became Mexico and then Texas.
But what I do know for certain? The magic of my ancestors still exists, inside all of our bodies.
It’s not a punishment from the old gods. It’s an act of resistance against the new gods.
Sage’s gift is plants. Teal’s is the weather. Nadia’s gift is psychic abilities, and my grandmother, Amá Sonya, can see ghosts.
But animals are my gift, and that’s why I can sense so deeply the emotion of this beautiful, sweet whale…
the loneliness of swimming, and calling, and calling, with no one answering.
No one coming around to see you. To be unseen, even though you are right there, screaming at the top of your strong whale lungs.
This song is the song of ghosts. I would know. I would know.
Instead of typing up that dissertation, I keep my response short. Beautiful and haunting.
Yes is all he writes back.
I try to think of something fascinating to share with him.
To move him the way he’s already moved me.
But instead, my phone chirps and a text pops up from Anise.
A strapping young man is here to see you.
She adds the eyes emoji, which I know now, after studying an online emoji dictionary after returning to the Land of the Living, indicates her intrigue.
I stare at the message with an extraordinarily confused expression on my face. Who the hell would ever come to see me? Especially here at work?
I immediately think of Grayson Baker and everyone who was in on the Antlered Vagina Prank.
Would they really try something just as horrific here, at my job?
In front of Anise? I rack my brain, feeling like my thoughts have become a jumble just as disorderly as the labyrinth of shelves and books in the basement—but I can’t think of anyone else who’d come to see me, unless they were delivering food.
Which I hadn’t even ordered yet, thanks to @tryingsomethingnew and his distractions.
I take the stairs instead of the elevator, darting around the shelves to spy on whoever he is before he spots me. I blink when he finally comes into view. It’s Adam.
He’s got on gray jeans paired with a navy Henley, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his veined, thick forearms. A simple leather rucksack the color of toasted pistachios is slung over one shoulder. Black Vans adorn his feet.
The outfit is simple. I would even say a bit uninspired.
But he’s a beautiful man, so it doesn’t matter what he’s wearing.
His angled, wide face breaks into a stunning smile at something Anise says, and even from here I can see how his blue eyes twinkle like an artist used the same shade to paint a cloudless desert sky or something.
He’s fresh-shaved and I think he’s even had a trim since I’ve last seen him, the golden red hair on the top of his head just a bit longer than the sides and back.
He glances around and spots me, instantly double-taking. He’s kind enough to not ask why I’m hidden behind a shelf, peeking at him like a creeper. “There you are.”
I walk over from my spying spot, as casual as I can pretend to be.
“Hi. What are…you…doing here?” I don’t mean to make it sound like I’ve never put words together to form a question before, but my brain has shut down sometime between me being afraid I’m about to be horrifically pranked at work and realizing it’s Adam who’s here to see me.
He shrugs and gives me a slow smile. “It’s lunchtime. Anise was just telling me you haven’t taken your break yet.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can think of to say. Is he…
asking me to lunch? Anise raises her eyebrows at me, like Are you seriously going to hesitate on going out with him?
I can’t help but hesitate, though. He didn’t ask me out, is the thing, he just made a few factual statements.
How can I infer lunch date intentions if he doesn’t actually say those words?
Also, although I understand he and I did make an agreement to become illusory friends, this feels a bit sudden.
I figured at some point, he and I would sit down with a planner and schedule some Cranberry appearances. Not…this.
I ignore her expression. “Well, I’m working, so—”
I’m not really sure how I was planning on ending that sentence, but luckily Anise doesn’t let me finish. “Why don’t you let this fine young man feed you, Sky? I’ll steer the ship while you’re away.”
I swallow. “But—the ship doesn’t really need to be steered, does it? What if you, you know, joined…”
She shakes her head and raises her eyebrows, stopping my question without saying a single word.
I suspect I’m missing a joke here, but I am much too socially awkward to figure it out with the time frame I’m dealing with.
In an ideal world, I’d get at least ten minutes after every conversation to go over everything everyone said a few times, making sure I didn’t miss something integral.
Like jokes. But unfortunately, no one seems to have time for the introspection I require.
Regardless, Anise isn’t going to let up on this.
I can tell by the exasperated look on her face.
So I say to Adam, “Well, okay, but I only have an hour.”
“Hour and a half,” Anise amends. When I give her a look of complete confusion, she says, “I’m the boss and that’s the rule. Some days you get lunch and a half. So go, shoo. Be cute together, somewhere else.”
And just like that, my boss forces me to go out on my first friendship outing with Adam Noemi.