“Juice! Juice! Juice!” The women chanted. As before, signs with Dylan’s name dotted the crowd. To Fia, it reminded her of homeless people with their brown cardboard and black Sharpie; just as pathetic in a way. These women were not going to get what they wanted today. They were never going to get what they wanted, and it was beyond foolish for them to stand there with their fucking signs and scream at him with glazed eyeballs and hoarse voices and shiny LipSensed mouths. She slumped in her chair for a second before righting herself. This was so awful, all around.
“Pick me!” one voice rose above the crowd, a thin scream, before merging back into the melee. “I want to date Dylan! I don’t get seasick!”
“Sorry, Chels, no exciting details,” Dylan said smoothly, giving his co-host a quick side-hug and kiss on the cheek. “You know I’m saving myself for you, right?”
The audience was delighted with this change of course, and howled appreciatively.
Chelsea looked somewhat mollified, although her mouth still had a quirk that to Fia didn’t spell happiness. If Dylan’s eyes could talk, so could the line of Chelsea’s mouth, and right now the mouth was saying how pissed it was.
“Well, it looks like Connie is ahead, two to one!” Chelsea bubbled, smiling broadly. “Connie, tell us a little bit about the magic that you do. What is it that makes your matching so effective?”
Connie leaned in. “It’s not magic, Chelsea, it’s just human nature. I’m a great watcher, always have been. I’m good at observing what people do. I find that what they say they want, and what they think they want, are usually pretty different from what actually makes them happy.”
“So you’re smarter than they are, is that right?” Chelsea laughed loudly.
“Not smarter, not at all!” Connie laughed. “It’s more about being quiet and listening to what people are really telling you they want, and then finding them…that. But in all fairness, I have to point out that I’d say Fia and I are at the same place right now.”
“No way!” Chelsea shook her head dramatically. “Not after what I saw!”
Connie tilted her head diplomatically. “Well, from what I understand, there wasn’t a lasting connection forged on any of Dylan’s dates so far. Regardless of what we see on the video, that’s the final answer, really, isn’t it? Finding him love? I think we’re both still searching for his perfect woman.”
Chelsea didn’t appear to be pleased with this comment. She cleared her throat and gave Connie an evil stare, and finally laughed it off. “So right you are, Connie. So right. What a smart cookie, am I right? Audience, am I right? Speaking of cookies, we have a free box of gluten-free fat-free egg-free low-cal Vegan Chunk Delights for everyone in the studio audience!”
Lost in a haze of “what the everlasting fuck?” Fia stumbled off the filming platform to find her things off set. She was pissed at Dylan and Chelsea, although for different reasons, and confused by Connie. Also, she wanted to find a corner and cry for about an hour, but that wasn’t something to be done in public, so she pasted a smile on her face and pretended that everything was super awesome and cool and that she wasn’t dying inside.
“Fia.” Dylan materialized in front of her. “We need to talk.”
“Not right now.” She shook her head and scooped up her purse. “I need to go.”
“Please.”
“Sorry, Dylan, I’m in a pretty big hurry. Later.” She increased her pace down the hallway, her heels tapping a staccato rhythm.
He kept up. “I sense that you’re angry.”
She shrugged, not looking at him. “I have to be somewhere, okay?”
“Fia, can you give me a minute?” He sounded frustrated.
She stopped abruptly. “Can I give you a minute?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know when you had a minute? Lots of minutes? The other day, that’s when. That would have been a really good time to tell me about the cluster-fuck of a date you had with Kellie so I could maybe, just maybe, do some preventative damage control. But you told me everything was fine. So I went in there today completely fucking blind, Dylan!”
Her voice rose and her gestures became wilder. “I went in there like an idiot, thinking everything was cool, my embarrassment from last week was over, but no! Surprise! My date got seasick and tongue tied and you were stupid and rude to her. And I thought she wasn’t calling because, I don’t even know, but it was clearly because she’s pissed. Or still vomiting. I don’t know which.”
“Fia—”
“And now I looked dumb twice in a row, Dylan. I told you how much my business means to me. Don’t you think you could have had the courtesy to tell me I was going to walk into a shit-storm so I could at least bring an umbrella?” She shook her head. “Unbelievable. You kissed me, you asked to come in, but this you held back?”
“I didn’t think it was going to do down like that.”
“Like me being made to look like an inept naïve fool?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean, I know Chelsea sort of has it out for you—”
“What do you mean?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Well, she sort of said that she likes Connie a lot, and always speaks very highly of Connie. And she likes making fun of your dates. And it’s great for ratings, and you know she’s a ratings whore. So she’s playing it up. My date with Kellie wasn’t as bad as it looked. There was good conversation, I promise you, after she stopped vomiting and felt better. It’s just that Chelsea cherry-picked the especially bad moments to make it funnier.”
“It wasn’t funny for me.” She blinked hard. “Not at all. Now I really need to go.”
“I don’t want you to be angry at me.”
“Well, I don’t want my business to flush itself down the toilet, but apparently we don’t always get what we want.” She rearranged her purse and pushed the elevator button several times, jabbing with her finger.
“Your business is not flushing.”
“I’m sorry. Were we just at the same taping?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “You’re new to this. I keep telling you that publicity—”
“Yeah, you can say that all you want. But what I know is this: The way I’m being made to look on this show? It’s not the way my service really runs. It’s not the way most of my dates go. Okay? And I’m angry that Chelsea is doing that to me. But I’m angrier that you knew, and you didn’t tell me. You want my pussy? Try having my back, first. Asshole.”
It would have been a great exit line, except the elevator was nowhere in sight. Behind the battered metal doors, a groan and whir of cables indicated a slow descent or ascent, it wasn’t clear, in the cavity of the wall.
“Fuck.” She kicked the door. “This elevator sucks.”
He touched her arm. “I’m really sorry. You’re right, I guess I should have told you. I just…didn’t.”
“Why not?” She looked at him, question in her eyes. “Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “We were having a good time, connecting. There was chemistry, right? I didn’t want to ruin that by talking about a date with someone else.”
“You were treating my service like a joke.”
“Not a joke.” His voice was earnest.
“You were, though. If you’d taken it seriously, or really listened to me when I told you how much this TV spot means to me, and how much I care about my reputation, you wouldn’t have let me jeopardize it.”
“What am I supposed to do, Fia?” His voice hardened. “Pretend to fall in love with the girls you pick out just so you look good on TV? I told you I was going to be honest. If I don’t have a connection with a woman, I don’t have one. Period. I’m not going to manufacture some loving shit to help you get clients.”
“That’s a lot different from just acting like a basic decent human being,” she snapped. “And I feel like you’re being nicer to Connie’s dates than mine, for whatever reason.”
“That’s not true,” he interjected. “The truth is that the two women you picked
for me, we just had a not-so-great experience. Okay? It happens. It’s life. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or your company. If I bonded better with the women from Connie, it’s just…randomness.”
Deflated, she watched as the elevator doors finally slid open. “Well, I’ll be contacting you for the next date,” she said, her voice stiff. “I’ll try to do better this time.”
The café buzzed with millennials ordering kale smoothies and snapping pictures of their entrees for Instagram, and Fia immediately spotted Connie’s signature blonde-white bun and sleek jacket at a corner table. She slid into the opposite chair.
“Hi.” Fia smiled and hung her purse over the back of the metallic trendy chair.
“Thanks for joining me.” Connie’s face was pleasant, although her eyes were shrewd. “I wanted to talk shop. Specifically, the Chelsea situation.”
Fia was beyond curious. “Okay?”
“You’re not aware of a few things, and I wanted to clear the air. Oh, here’s our waiter. I recommend the gluten-free Vietnamese spring rolls. Want to share a plate of that?”
At Fia’s nod, Connie ordered, then turned back to her. “So here’s the deal. Chelsea and I attended the same sorority, twenty years apart, but we’re sisters.” She laughed. “So we’re doing each other a favor with this show.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No, of course you didn’t. We didn’t advertise it. But Chelsea came to me a while back with a proposal to benefit both of us financially. By coming on the show, I’d get a chance to showcase my business to new viewers across the city. And by setting up Dylan, she’d gain viewers. To make it more interesting, we decided to set it up on her ‘Who Does It Better’ and invite you.”
“So you knew about this ahead of time?”
“Yes.” Connie sipped her water. “What I didn’t know was that she wanted to make your dating service look ridiculous compared to mine. I don’t want or need that kind of help.” She air quoted on help. “I prefer to play honestly. Although, I do have to admit that you seem off your game.” She peered at Fia quizzically. “I researched you and your match rate is pretty amazing. I don’t always get those kinds of numbers that you’ve been hitting. Your system must really work.”
“It does!” Fia was so relieved and grateful that someone understood, that the words poured out. “It does, Connie. It’s so good, and it usually works. I mean, better than this. I don’t know what happened with Dylan; it’s a mess, but those women I chose? They’re amazing. They’re winners. They’re…I can’t even understand why he didn’t fall all over himself trying to impress them.” Her voice rose with urgency. “He’s so disinterested. He mocks the process! He likes teasing me. It’s horrible.”
Connie laughed. “He told me he’s not going to fall in love. I told him he’d be surprised at how fast it happens.”
“He’s so difficult!” Fia felt frustration build, just thinking about it. “He’s smug, and arrogant, and then he gives you that little grin, you know the one? And he says something stupid. Which is also funny, but isn’t helpful to the process. And, of course, I can dish it back at him, but ugh.” She broke off. “But that’s not the important part. The thing is—what should I do about Chelsea? Should I talk to her and ask her to back off?”
“That,” announced Connie, accepting the plate of spring rolls from the waiter, “thank you!—Is the very last thing you should do. That will be seen as a sign of weakness, and she will treat you with even more contempt. Try one. These are magnificent.”
Fia maneuvered a roll from the tray to her plate and regarded it with little interest. “Then should I get aggressive when I talk to her on the show?”
“No. You need to be assertive and creative. She’s going to keep cutting Dylan’s dates with your women to showcase the bad stuff. No matter if you set him up with his future wife and the mother of his children, and he marries her on the spot, Chelsea will find a way to make it look horrible. She’s decided, and once she decides on a plan, she sticks to it.”
“When you say be assertive and creative?”
Connie chewed and nodded. “Exactly. Now that you know her game-plan, you can think ahead.”
“But how?”
“Well, that part is up to you.”
Fia nodded and took a bite of the roll, which was surprisingly good, given her lack of appetite. “This is tasty.”
“I’m right about a lot of things.” Connie winked. “Look, I still plan to win by getting him to pick my service as the one that provided him the closest match. But I’ll win fairly. And I want you to give it your best.”
“Thank you.”
“I was in your shoes once.” Connie took another roll. “Just starting out, building from nothing, finding out that I was pretty good at finding people who clicked together. With me, it’s just this thing I feel.” She pointed to her chest. “In here. I can’t really put it into words. But when I know, I know. I didn’t totally feel it with the first two dates for him, but I’m getting closer. I’m figuring out what makes him happy.”
“I haven’t done that…yet.” Fia poked at the roll with her fork, ripping the thin skin and letting bean sprouts unfurl like small springy intestines. “But I will. I know my matching system is valid. I just need to keep trying.”
“Just a question. Do you ever go off plan?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your system. I get that you programmed and designed it, and clearly it works. You have marriages to show for it. But once in a while, don’t you sometimes just think that a person—maybe someone like Dylan, perhaps, for whatever reason, just can’t be confined to the system? And you need to take a more…personal approach?” She looked at Fia with her keen blue eyes. “Maybe more…hands on?”
Fia thought about his hands on her body. She flushed, lifted her water glass, coughed and choked, and set the glass back down. “Excuse me!” She grabbed her napkin and coughed again, wiping her mouth. “I’m so sorry. No, I mean, of course I do hands on as well, lots of personal interviews to get a feel for the individual. Do you mean increase that?”
Connie smiled. “Maybe in this case it would be appropriate? I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business. God knows it’s enough work to manage my own.” She laughed. “Just a bit of friendly advice from someone who cares.”
“So the third date for Dylan is coming up,” Gracie announced. “And who’s the lucky woman this time?”
“Well, I’m feeling sort of stuck about this,” confessed Fia. “My first two choices, the women who were in the nineties for a match with him? They both fell through. Bombed. Tanked. Sucked. And they’re awesome! So I’m going to have to go with someone in the eightieth percentile. I don’t know.” She sighed.
“What if he’s not getting along with them because he likes someone else better?” asked Gracie, examining a fingernail with nonchalance, but sneaking a glance at Fia as she did so.
“Well, he told me he doesn’t believe in love or want a relationship, so no. I guess he’s just one of those outliers. The people who make statistics interesting.”
“Statistics, Fia, are really never interesting.” Gracie made a gagging motion with her finger.
“Statistics pay our bills, Gracie, and that makes them fascinating,” corrected Fia. “And as a math major, may I say that your attitude sucks balls.”
“You can say it, but it doesn’t make it true,” Grace pointed out. “But I’m glad you make the little numbers work for us! God knows I couldn’t do it. I can barely add up my rent and grocery bills.”
“Says the woman who scams and trades tickets and favors like a master manipulator.”
“Well, that’s different. That’s fun for me.”
“So, back to Dylan and what’s fun for him. I’m thinking about Alyssa Adler. She’s his next highest match at eighty-five percent. Remember her?”
“Yes!” Grace flipped open her laptop and pulled up a photo of a stunning brunette. “She’s the one who hiked Everest
last year as part of that nature documentary show! She’s freaking amazeballs.”
“Right? I can’t even imagine. I have a hard time walking to the ski lift in those stupid hard boots.”
“She’s tough. And pretty. And smart.”
“If Dylan doesn’t like her better than Connie’s date, then he’s just ridiculous,” proclaimed Fia. “And I have a plan to counterattack Chelsea, too.”
“Give me all the deets and I am here to help.”
This time, standing in front of her third date venue, Fia felt empowered and excited. Alyssa was nearby; she waved and smiled to Fia from the shade of a tree, where she was waiting with an assistant and makeup artists.
Chelsea’s assistant Mika was arranging the on-site location today, designer sunglasses perched atop her head, expensive cold-shoulder top exposing glimpses of tanned, toned skin.
“Are you ready?” she asked Fia, her smile looking a little sinister, or maybe that was her own imagination, Fia thought.
“Yes, absolutely!” Fia replied with a perky grin, giving a thumb’s up and nodding. “Never better.” They were doing the start of this date set-up live, for a change, because Alyssa had requested an early-morning aggressive hiking date with Dylan. Chelsea had jumped on the chance to broadcast it live to her audience. Later, the next Monday, they’d do the regular recap with video footage from later in the date.
Dylan waited just a few dozen feet away, and on the video monitor set up in front of them, she noted Chelsea in the studio.
And we’re on in three, two one…” Mika pointed to the monitor, and cameras around Fia turned on.
From the monitor, Chelsea’s voice burst out, strong and vibrant. Fia saw her tiny image seated on the usual couch, wearing a pretty skirt and top, her hair immaculate and makeup perfect, as usual. “Good morning, and welcome to Morning Brew’s segment of ‘Who Does It Better’ with Chelsea and Dylan!
“Today we’re doing something super special! I’m here in the studio, but Dylan’s on location with his latest date, this one set up by Fia Martin of Perfect Profiles. The first two dates that Fia arranged for Dylan were disasters, to say the least. There’s a lot riding on this one! Let’s check in and see what she’s got set up for today and whether she can redeem herself. Mika, can you bring us to Fia, live at the trailhead?
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