Page 28 of Experiments in Offline Dating

The man in question—Arnold, I presumed—had a massive, booming voice that made my eyes water. His face was an alarming shade of tomato, and his hair was whiter than the retinal damage you get from staring directly at the sun.

“Arnold! Glad to see you again. Thanks for coming up all this way to meet our Maya here.” Wait! Jackie had met this man before? And thought we could be a good match? He was as old as my father.

I laughed nervously. “How far did you have to come?”

“I’ve come up from Connemara. It’s about two and a half hours from here.” Shit! I’m not getting out of this one easy, am I?

“Oh! Two and a half hours is a long way for a woman you’ve never met, right? Why would you do that?” I laughed because I was dying inside. Was that rude?

“Aye, well. Jackie has good taste!”

That voice! It could peel the paint off a moving bus. At least I could understand him, though, that was a blessing, at least.

Jackie clapped him on a big shoulder encouragingly. “Why don’t you go ahead and get out of the car, Arnold, and we’ll go find you a drink?”

Arnold took a second, and I hoped for a blessed moment that he might refuse for some reason, but then he nodded and stepped out. He was a big man. Taller than I was, with a rib cage like a barrel. He wasn’t bad-looking, if I was being objective, but for a woman in her fifties or sixties.

We all three walked back to the Ritz in excruciating silence. As Jackie opened the door to the pub, to my horror, Arnold put his hand on my lower back and kept it there as we walked to the bar, as if I were already his.

Bad touch! It crawled up my spine. I sidestepped out of his reach.

“She’s a fine-looking girl, Jackie.”

Oh, good God! He’d said this—out loud—for all the souls in the pub to hear, as if Jackie had shown him a horse that he was considering buying.

“What’ll you have, Maya? I would really like to buy you a drink.”

That was a weird way to put it. “No. Please don’t buy me anything.” Backpedal! “I mean, that’s nice of you, but this is still quite full. Thank you, though.”

“Are ye sure?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. Just a lemonade for me, please.” Well, that was something. At least I didn’t have to worry about him getting drunk and handsy. But what about sober and handsy?

I looked to Jackie. Save me! I said with my eyes. He gave me a look that was the facial equivalent of high-five emoji, eggplant emoji.

“Now, why don’t you two have a little seat just there and get to know each other. I’ll be back after a dance or two.”

I didn’t want that. I had thought Jackie was my friend and ally. How could he leave me with the loud van man? I would only name a bad cat after him now!

Arnold and I both listened to instructions like we didn’t have two brains of our own, and sat at a table with two chairs that were far too small to be comfortable for anyone larger than the Lollipop Guild. The single square foot of terrorizing Formica shook as Arnold adjusted against the wall. I snatched our glasses and held them to safety until he settled. Then we stared at each other. Then we stared at our hands. Then our eyes darted around the room uncomfortably, until I could stand the silence no more.

“So, um.” Oh my God. Is he going to make me do this? Because I was almost certainly going to make it a hell of a lot worse. “So, um. So. Do you like to drive?” Oh my God.

“Sure, sure. Driving’s fine.”

I gave it a minute, just in case he decided to take charge. But no. Of course he didn’t.

For a woman who loved to wrap herself in cozy, comfortable silences, I hated nothing more than awkward silences; they were my nemesis, they were my downfall. When I found myself stuck in one, I, very much against my better judgment, did everything I could to fight my way out. And yet time and time again, they were quicksand, and for all my flailing, I sank all the faster. Did I learn anything from this? No. No, I did not.

“So when you drove, like, up here today, did you have your radio on? Or like a CD or something?”

“Radio.”

“Ahh, right. Radio.” I nodded wisely, like I’ve heard of radio. “And do you, you know . . . do something?”

“Do something? When I’m driving?” He almost sounded angry. That makes it sound dirty! No no no! Don’t picture it! I pictured it.