It’s a Sunday morning in late November, and even though it was only sixty degrees yesterday, it is eighty-five today.
“This weather makes no sense to me,” Mila says. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to me.”
Christina is watching the kids. Mila’s only request for the morning was, “I don’t care where we go. Just get me away from children and moms.” So I figured the Rose Bowl flea market would be fun. She seemed to be in a pretty bad mood when I picked her up, but she perked up once we got on the road. Now that we’re here, she seems much more like herself. The only issue is that neither of us is really shopping for anything in particular, so we are just aimlessly wandering through the aisles.
A booth of dream catchers draws Mila in, and she starts looking. “What do dream catchers even do?” she asks.
“I’m going to avoid the obvious answer of ‘catch dreams,’” I say.
“Yeah, but what does that actually mean? Catch dreams?”
“No idea,” I say. I don’t want to talk loudly enough that the booth owner hears us and insists on giving us a ten-minute lesson. I made this mistake once with a guy selling antique chamber pots. As I see the owner coming over, I aim to change the subject by saying, “Let’s change the subject.”
Mila walks away from the dream catchers and heads further in. “OK,” she says. “How about we discuss me setting you up on a blind date?” She turns to me and makes an overly excited face, as if her abundance of excitement about this idea might sway me at all.
“That’s a no. That’s actually an ‘absolutely not,’” I say.
“Oh, stop,” she says. “You need to meet somebody! Have a good time!”
Do I think it would be nice to meet somebody? Sure, yeah. Sometimes I do. But a blind date? No. “It’s just not my style.”
“What is your style? Meeting people in study hall?”
I open my mouth wide to indicate that I am insulted. “It was the dining hall, for your information.”
“Look, you haven’t been in the dating world for a long time, so I think it’s important that you understand that people don’t meet people standing in line at the pharmacy or when they go to reach for the same magazine at the bookstore.”
“Then how do they meet them?”
“Blind dates!” she says. “Well, also online, but you’re not ready for that. It’s all about blind dates.”
That’s absurd. Obviously, people meet people other ways. Although the truth is, I don’t really know how anybody meets anybody outside of college. And I don’t know that I want to find out just yet. “I’m just not sure if I’m ready,” I say. I head toward a booth selling silver jewelry and start trying on rings.
“Suit yourself,” she says. “Christina says he’s cute, though.”
“You have someone in mind already? What, do the two of you sit at home snuggled up in your matching pajamas talking about my sad life?”
Mila joins me at the ring booth. “First of all, we have never worn matching pajamas. We’re lesbians, not twins,” she says. “And second of all, no, we do not snuggle and talk about your sad life. We do, however, sometimes get bored and try to meddle where we don’t belong. I see it as a public service.”
“A public service?”
“You think you’re the first person I set up on a blind date? My sister and her husband? Me. Christina’s boss and her boyfriend? Me.”
“Didn’t you also set up Samuel in admissions with Samantha in the housing office?”
Mila waves it off. “That one was a mistake. I thought the Sam/Sam thing was adorable, and it clouded my vision. But Christina says this guy is really cute. He’s recently divorced. Mid-thirties. Eighth-grade social studies teacher, so you know he’s probably a sweetheart.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It sounds complicated. I’m not looking for anything serious. I don’t know. I just . . . I don’t think so.”
“OK,” she says, falsely resigned. “I’ll just have Christina tell him it’s a no go.”
I put down the ring I was looking at. “She already talked to him?”
“Yeah,” Mila says, shrugging. “It’s a shame, too, because he was excited about it. She showed him your picture, and he said you were beautiful.”
I look up at her, skeptical. “You’re not making this up?”
She puts her hand up as if swearing an oath. “Hand to God.”
I smile at her, despite myself.
Mila smiles back at me. She got further than she thought she would.
I walk past her to the booth next to us. It’s a man selling hats. Half of them are Dodgers caps. It’s enough to make me wonder where my husband is at this very moment. He stopped writing me long ago. I have no idea what his life is like. He could be in bed with a blond woman. He could be making her breakfast. He could be in love. He could be having sex with her this very minute. That man who stood on the steps of Vernal Fall and told me he couldn’t live without me . . . I wonder what he’s doing right now, living without me.
“You OK?” Mila asks me, when she finally gets my attention. “You look distracted.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.” It’s not the full truth, exactly. But it’s much less of a lie than it used to be.