Future Date #3
“Maybe he has a nickname he goes by.”
“Maybe you should accept his request and find out.”
Ella looked back at the screen at the photo of a man with a smile that made her feelsafe for some reason. He just looked like a nice guy, one who called his mother every week, didn’t move too fast on a date, and was kind to animals and children.
“Maybe I should,” she said, and clicked accept before she could think twice.
Four
Ella’s curiosity continued to get the better of her.
She stayed away from the computer long enough to watch a few television programmes while she sat on her couch, eating a microwave frozen dinner.
But the siren song of the computer, and whether or not the good-looking man with the nice smile had replied to her yet, made her finally dig out her laptop and fire it up.
While it was loading, she noticed her hands were shaking and her stomach had butterflies.
“What is wrong with you?” she muttered, mad at herself for acting like a teenager instead of a grown woman. She went to the homepage of the website, logged in and was immediately met with a chat bar and one message.
Glad you decided to accept my request. It’s nice to meet you, Ella.
She bit her lip and typed, It’s nice to meet you, too, Herman. Or do you have a nickname you go by?
She didn’t expect an immediate reply and was surprised to see one.
No, just Herman. I know, Herman’s not a popular name, but I’m bringing it back in style!
She laughed at that. My name didn’t get popular until well after I was out of high school, so I’ve lived with an unusualname too. I don’t usually do internet chats, so I’m probably bad at it.
You’re fine, he replied. Just like making small talk anywhere else. I just finished up covering a city councilmeeting, so trust me, anything you say will be the most wildly interesting thing I’ve heard all day.
She laughed again, already starting to feel comfortable. I helped small children paint a set for a schoolplay. I think more paint ended up on the floor and on their smocks than on the set.
And what play are they doing?
Three Little Pigs. It’s a musical.
Of course it is. I wouldn’t expect anything less.
I wrote it.
Seriously? That’s neat. I was always into theatre growing up and when I went off to college, I originally wanted to write plays.
Not musicals about pigs necessarily, but I wouldn’t have ruled it out either.
Alas, I’ve turned my creative talents to reporting about government woes.
I thought it would pay better and I wanted a steady job.
As long as there are kids, there’s going to be a need for teachers. I love what I do, but the lure of a steady job appealed to me too, I have to admit, she replied. That and having summers off.
They still do that?
She blinked. That was the first time he had worded anything that sounded remotely like he believed the future thing.
Cautiously she typed, Well, I know a lot of schoolsystems have gone to year-round school, but ours hasn’t yet.
Our buildings are so old, they need a lot of work done, or no one would be able to concentrate in the heat of summer.
Who can? I know I can barely pay attention to my work when it’s a nice day out.
I just sit and stare out the window and watch the traffic pass by until my boss asks me what I’m working on.
It’s nice to have to go out on assignment just to have an excuse to be outside instead of in an office all day.
I try to make excuses to take the kids outside, too, she typed. For nature walks. We’ve been raising tadpoles and then releasing them at the pond near the school.
Wish I had a coolteacher like you. My teachers were all stuffy old men that didn’t want to be bothered to do anything active.
They continued to chat back and forth about their respective childhood school memories and best/worst teachers until Ella Ella realized it was almost midnight.
I’ve got to get up in the morning!
Sorry. I forget not everyone is a night owll ike me.
It’s not your fault. I just lost track of time.
That’s a good thing, right?
She smiled. I think so.
Great. Because I was having a good time, too. Want to chat again tomorrow?
She took a deep breath. Did she want to? Yes. Should she? She didn’t know. This was a screwy website, and while he seemed like a normal, sane individual, you never knew who you were really talking to online. He could be some creepy old guy with no teeth for all she really knew.
Screw it. She typed, Sure. Have fun inter viewing councilmen tomorrow.
Have fun with the play. Be sure to tell me if the pigs escape the big bad wolf and live to sing another day.
As she signed off, Ella noticed something strange about Herman’s messages. All of the messages were time and date-stamped, like a lot of email messages. Hers all had the proper date.
His were all dated the next day.
“Like he’s emailing from the future,” she scoffed out loud. Shaking her head and reminding herself of different time zones, she turned off her computer.
But not the nagging feeling in the back of her mind.
Five
Ella paced back and forth outside of the restaurant nervously. “This is crazy,” she hissed into her cell phone. “What am I doing here? I don’t know this guy.”
“You’ve been online chatting with this guy every night for the past two weeks,” Serena said on the other end. “You’re having dinner, not marrying him. Talking to someone online for two weeks is knowing them enough for dinner.”
“If he is who he says he is.”
“A journalist from the future?”
“Ha, ha. He’s never actually said he was from the future, you know.”
“He probably assumes you know that, since the website advertises it.”
“Be serious! You know what I mean. He could turn out to be a sex predator or something.”
“They do background checks, remember. He’s not a sex predator. And if he turns out to be something other than who he says he is, you can just leave and never talk to him again. But if he is who he says he is and he travelled all the way from . . . where did he say he was from?”
“He didn’t. When he suggested meeting, I suggested meeting somewhere in between our two locations and he just said to pick the time, date, and place and he’d be there.”
“Maybe he’s homeless.”
“Homeless guys have computer access?”
“Everyone has computer access, hon.”
“Arrgh!” Ella growled in frustration. “Why am I standing outside in the cold having this ridiculous conversation with you?”
“I have no idea. Get in there and meet him already! Call me later and let me know how it goes. I want details!”
Ella disconnected, stowed her phone in her purse and took a deep breath, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her dress.
This was it. She was finally going to meet Herman, who liked coffee but not tea, loved action movies and had never seen an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and who agreed with her that Duke Ellington was not only the greatest jazz musician, but the greatest musician ever, period.
Ella gave her name to the ma?tre d’ at the door, who whisked her to a table towards the back of the restaurant where a very familiar-looking man sat, looking just as nervous as she felt. “Thank God it’s actually him,” she whispered under her breath.
Seeing her approach, he smiled and stood up, revealing a tuxedo shirt, jacket and tie with jeans.
Her smile quavered slightly. So he had offbeat fashion sense, so what?
At least he didn’t show up for her date with food-stained clothes or cut-off jean shorts, which two of her previous dates had done.
“You’re even lovelier in person,” he said, taking her hand in his for an awkward shake, and then giving her an even more awkward kiss on the cheek. His voice was warm and comfortable, with a hint of familiarity.
“Thank you. It’s so nice to finally meet you in person,” she said, taking the seat he held out for her.
“So I’ve been dying to ask, did you solve the case of the missing lunches?” he asked as they looked over the menu.
She laughed, thinking of the student she had told him about.
“Yes. Apparently he didn’t like what his mom was packing for him in the morning, so he kept ‘losing’ them at schoolin order to have hot lunch instead.
He’d been throwing away the lunches in the boys’ restroom before schoolor giving them to other kids. ”
“You’ve got to admire that kind of ingenuity,” he said with a dazzling smile and the two of them lapsed into easy conversation that lasted throughout the meal.
Ella was enjoying herself, enjoying the ease with which she related to him, as if he was an old friend.
It was almost inconceivable that they had never met face to face until today, and even more strange to think they’d met on some kooky website, which was just what she was about to say to him until he interrupted her with a guilty look, saying, “I’ve been avoiding the subject, but I think we need to talk about the future. ”
She blinked. “The future of us? We just met.”
“No. I mean, yes, we probably should talk about that too, but no, I meant the future. I need to explain to you about the website.”
“Oh, that.” She waved her hand. “I know it’s silly. My friend and I were just being crazy one night and joined up. Was it a similar thing with you too?”
“I figured as much, which is why I’ve been avoiding the subject. I don’t want to upset you, but we can’t build on a relationship when the whole truth isn’t out there.” He took a deep breath. “This is the thing. It’s true. I am from the future.”
Ella stared at him, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her worst fears were coming true. He was crazy.
“In the decade in which I was born, there was a huge overpopulation problem on Earth. The government finally had to declare a limit on births.”
So crazy. “That’s not possible,” she said gently. “The government couldn’t do that. They couldn’t take away people’s rights like that.”