“Meg,” Johnny called from his office. “Remember to fold the towels in thirds first, then in half.”
***
All morning, I kept the Circle of Love website pulled up on the computer in front of me, hidden behind a few other windows. Around eleven, I toggled back to it and reread Cory’s latest message. You are the best kind of distraction, but I almost missed a parent meeting.
Amelia and Cory had been going back and forth all morning, starting out with a flirty one from him. I can’t believe I’ve been surfing LA beaches forever and never run into you. But in the hours since that first message, he’d also revealed a lot about himself, and I was gathering the information, trying to draw out more.
I started with a simple question. What matters the most to you?
His response was predictably sappy. My family. Above personal success or wealth, above health, everything.
His greatest regret was about not making amends with his grandfather before he died. It was painful, but I learned a lot from it. Who are we if we’re not constantly learning and growing? I think it’s the difficult lessons that teach us the most.
When I asked about his job, he wrote, Engaging young minds is both a thrill and a privilege.
I also learned smaller details, things that would cement a connection. He was allergic to cats. He didn’t understand hockey but pretended to. He despised anything with ginger in it and loved black coffee. He called himself a conscious optimist.
Don’t feel bad, I had to Google it too.
Amelia shared as well, telling Cory how she dropped out of college her sophomore year to help her parents care for her younger brother who got sick with leukemia （he was fine now but the path back to college was hard!）。 How she lost her serving job because she reported a coworker who was stealing food, not realizing the coworker was her manager’s girlfriend.
It astonished me how easily the stories came. They arrived, fully formed, and all I had to do was retell them. I can’t believe how effortless it is to talk to you, I typed now. Most guys on here ask three superficial questions and then go straight for the hookup.
I liked being Amelia. To be able to shed my problems and become a different person was liberating. Amelia had options where I had none, and with a few keystrokes, she could have even more. Today she might be out of work, but tomorrow she could find an even better job, simply because I said so.
“What are you doing?” Johnny’s voice, just over my shoulder, made me jump. I toggled away from the dating site, but he’d already seen it. “No personal business on the computer. If I catch you again, I’ll have to write you up.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again.” I hated myself for groveling, but I needed this job.
I closed the tab and resumed staring out the window, and when Johnny dumped a new batch of freshly laundered towels on the counter in front of me, I offered him a bright smile and started folding.
***
After work, I drove to the public library in Santa Monica, not wanting to splurge on another session at an internet café. If I wanted to eat this weekend, I needed to set up at least one date. I entered the large space with its oversize book return bins and the circulation desk that spanned an entire wall, and let my memory travel backward. Libraries had always been my refuge. My mother used to take me every weekend, and we’d spend hours reading in a corner, insulated from the outside world. She’d fill her biggest purse with snacks—granola bars, small bags of chips and cookies—and we’d settle in as soon as the library opened, staking out the best chairs on the second floor that overlooked the street below. We’d take turns looking for books, surreptitiously eating and reading the day away, only leaving when the lights flashed and the closing announcement was made.
I approached the librarian working the information desk and showed her my library card. She pointed to the bank of computers and said, “Take your pick.”