Over her shoulder, I catch Shrek’s eye, letting him know there will be a strict code of conduct on their little trip, and that he will be required to send updates obnoxiously often. Looks like I’ll have to give him my phone number after all.
Twenty
Lucas
Saturday night, I’m a little weary as I enter a cute bistro uptown for my third blind date set up by Listen to Your Heart. Honestly, I don’t have big expectations. A not-too-weird evening would already be a triumph. At this point, I’m not even sure I should keep going on these dates, but the agency fee was exorbitant, so I’d rather find love or get at least a partial refund. And then there’s the other thing.
The bet with Medusa.
What if she finds her soulmate before I do?
The thought is disturbing.
Yeah, because it’d mean I’d have to pack my newly set up office.
No. Other. Reason.
Yeah, right, a sarcastic little prick scoffs in my head.
The truth is, lately, Vivian has been on my mind too often. The most random things make me think about her. Like the color pink, which apparently my brain will forever associate with lace and lingerie. Or whenever a client says something funny, I immediately wonder what Vivian would have to say about it. And she has ruined donuts for me forever. If I eat one, I can’t help picturing her lips closing with gusto on the glazed sweet the first day I saw her.
And why do I have to think about her every time I go on a date?
Well, last week she was literally sitting at the adjoining table. Okay, but she isn’t here tonight—I hope—so there’s no need for me to be plagued by her.
At the reception booth, I give my fake name to the hostess and follow her to my table.
My date arrives a few minutes later. A tall woman, with dark auburn hair and brown eyes, who’s smiling brightly at me. Carla, she introduces herself. She seems perfectly normal, but I’m not trusting first impressions any longer. I’ll wait until the end of the evening to form an opinion.
We order our food. Steak for me, risotto for her—not a dish I’d associate with any magical practice, which is a relief.
When we discuss colleges, she doesn’t assume I’ve been to prison. Another point in her favor.
And then we share what we do for a living. She’s a logistics manager for a big company in New Jersey.
So far, so good.
“Have you been on many dates with the agency?” I ask.
“This is my first with Listen to Your Heart,” she admits. “I’ve been with another service before, but it wasn’t a good fit.”
“Crappy dates?”
“Sort of… Their database was filled with men so narrow-minded. You wouldn’t believe how obtuse people can be.”
“Yeah, like about what?”
“Take capitalism. I can say without shame that it has flaws. And I’m not a communist or anything, but it’s obvious that our economic system isn’t perfect, especially after what happened in 2008. Or, you know how some people still refuse to admit that climate change is real…” I nod along as Carla dishes out a list of controversial topics. The nodding, however, abruptly stops as she announces the last one, “Or society not even acknowledging the possibility that the Earth might not be round.”
My heart sinks. There it is. She’s a Flat Earther.
Bye-bye, true love.
Just to make sure, before I give up on her right away, I say, “You believe the Earth is flat?”
“Yeah, a round Earth makes some other phenomena unexplainable.”
At this point, it’s a mere fascination that prompts me to explore the topic. “Yeah, like what?”
“Railways, for example. The tracks run for miles across this country, and they’re always flat. I mean, New York to LA, that supposed curvature should’ve come in at some point but, no. If the world was a globe curving eight inches per mile, the railways should be curved arcs, not flat lines. Or consider airplanes: if the Earth was a sphere 25,000 miles in diameter, pilots would have to constantly adjust their altitude to follow the slope, dipping the nose of the plane down, or they’d be flying straight into outer space. And yet, they fly straight.”
“Well, no,” I say. “Because gravity does the adjusting for them; it keeps the plane sort of on an orbit around the Earth.”
“Oh, please, don’t get me started on gravity.”
Okay, this I have to hear. “Why not?”
“Because ‘gravity’ is an obscure force supposedly strong enough to hold entire buildings, people, even the atmosphere, stuck to the surface of a rapidly spinning ball, but it’s sufficiently weak enough to allow bugs, birds, and even planes to fly and travel in any direction. Don’t you find that contradictory?”
“Um, if I remember correctly, gravity is a function of the weight of an object or the mass, I can’t recall which. Physics was never my strong suit in school. Anyway, a bug doesn’t weigh much, making its gravitational pull weak. It’s why bird’s bones are hollow, so they don’t carry too much deadweight.”
“Yeah? How do you explain the oceans, then? If gravity could curve and hold in place such massive expanses of water, how could fish ever swim through such forcefully held water?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
“See? A round Earth is counterintuitive. A much simpler explanation would be that the Earth is a flat expanse with no gravity.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Why not? You don’t believe it only because you’ve been indoctrinated to think differently. But if you stopped for a second to question the scientific dogmas that have been force-fed to you since childhood, maybe you’d see there are other possible explanations.”
“Like the Earth being flat.” I laugh. “Sorry, I don’t see that as an actual possibility.”
Carla’s face contracts into an indignant grimace, and she gets up, throwing her napkin on the table. “Oh my gosh, you’re another fanatical of the”—she makes air quotes—“common sense club.” She throws two twenty-dollar bills on top of her discarded napkin and adds, “I’m sorry, this isn’t working
