All Grown Up(3)

For Eve to sound worried about telling me something, I knew it wasn’t small. “What did you do?”

“I accidentally put your phone number on Match.com.”

“You WHAT?”

“I didn’t mean to make it public. I thought it was private, but the setting was wrong. Green means go. Red means stop. Who the hell makes a website where the red button means yes?”

“What are you talking about? I don’t even have a Match.com account.”

“Umm…you do now.”

My stomach sank. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I didn’t.” She paused, and for a second I felt a little relief. Then she continued. “I didn’t…mean to.”

“What did you do?”

“I signed you up for a Match.com account last night when I got home. I set it all up, but didn’t intend for it to be public. At least not right away. I thought if I set it up and made it easy for you, you might be willing to give it a shot. I was going to talk to you about it at the barbeque.”

“You intended for it to be private. Meaning it isn’t private?”

“That’s not the worst part.”

“What could be worse?”

“Since I thought it was set to private. I set up the account with a joke status to show you.”

Oh God.

I ran to my laptop and flipped it open. “What does it say?”

“Relax. It’s down now. I took it down within an hour. But not before it got a lot of attention. I realized what had happened when the email I set up to use with the account started pinging every two minutes.”

“What did it say?” I screeched.

“It said, Thirty-seven-year-old, divorced mother of one seeks casual fuck to get primed for dating again.”

“Please tell me you’re joking!”

“I wish I was.”

***

A week later, my phone seemed to have calmed down. One night, sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, I even summoned the courage to look at the page Eve had set up for me.

Something you’ve always wanted to do: Go to Italy.

Favorite color: Hot pink. Not cotton candy or strawberry ice cream pink. Fuchsia. The bolder the better.

I sipped my wine and smiled. That was totally something I would say. Eve had done a good job being me.

Favorite quote: Una cena senza vino e come un giorno senza sole.

My smile widened. She had actually spelled it right. A meal without wine is a day without sunshine. It was my father’s favorite quote. When he passed, I had two wooden signs custom made—one for my kitchen and one for my mother’s.

Physical description: Five foot five, slim waist with curves north and south. Olive skin, long, dark, curly hair that I obsessively straighten, even though my curls kick ass, and blue eyes that are my only genetic gift from my mom. My best friend said to tell you, “You’ll look twice. I promise.”

Age: Twenty-nine (plus eight, but who’s counting).

Who I’m looking for: Mr. Right, of course.

My ideal match is: Between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-eight. Tall. Smart. Funny. Loves to travel. Can dance (because I can’t). Takes the scenic route when driving. Has a distinguished palate. Is not named Ryan. Has a fun nickname. (Nicknames of Cunnilingus King go to the top of the pile.) She had posted a few pictures of me. Each one was captioned. The first was a shot of me in a bikini cannonballing off the diving board into Eve’s inground pool. My hair was flying in the air, knees tucked, and I held my nose. You couldn’t see my full face, but from the profile, you could tell I was smiling and laughing. The picture was funny. It wasn’t one I would have picked, but it had a lot of personality, and I liked it. Underneath it, she’d captioned: Not afraid to fly.

The second picture was taken at Ryan’s high school graduation. I was wearing a black and white floral sundress with a halter top that made my boobs look bigger than they are. I had on a wide-brimmed, white sun hat. It had been windy that day, so I was holding the rim of the hat down, and it covered almost all of my face—except my lips. The only thing you could see was bright red lipstick on an ear-to-ear smile. The caption on that one read: This is me being a proud mom.

The last shot was a picture of Eve and me in high school. It must have been taken in 9th or 10th grade, seeing as I wasn’t pregnant yet. We had our arms around each other and wore matching outfits. Underneath that one she had written: Same best friend for more than twenty years.

After editing out some of the crazy Eve had imparted into my profile, I left it set to private. I walked to the fridge and poured myself a third glass of wine. As I shut the door, a magnet tumbled to the floor. The piece of paper it had been holding floated through the air and landed at my feet. I picked it up and read a little. Eve had made the list during one of our movie nights a few weeks ago. The title was written in bold strokes and underlined: Val’s My Turn List. The first few entries were in her handwriting. They started innocently enough…

Become a teacher

Visit Rome

Plant a giant garden with only flowers

Take dance lessons

Go to prom

Learn to surf

Go to a music festival

Leave my Christmas tree up until March

Get a pug

These were all things I’d wanted to do, but Ryan had been against—going back to school, traveling to Europe, planting a garden for no reason other than to smell flowers, getting a dog. We’d had a garden in our yard, but my ex-husband had filled it with vegetables. He’d thought planting flowers where no one could see them was a waste. And the tree—I loved having my Christmas tree up. There’s just something about coming down the stairs in the morning when it’s still dark, and the tree lighting up the living room. But Ryan hated decorations—he called them clutter and always insisted our tree come down on December 26th. If it were my choice, I’d keep it up year-round. I’d also wanted a dog, a pug, to be specific. But Ryan claimed they made him sneeze, even though we had plenty of friends with dogs, and he seemed fine at their houses.