“You just have to check them out, and trust your instincts. That’s all any of us can do. You can run a check on him later, if it makes you feel better. You can hire a PI. Some people do. But at least Internet dating broadens the pool.” She glanced at her watch in answer to what he had just said.
“Okay. Show me.” She pointed at his computer with a mischievous grin. She was ready. The time was now.
“Now? Are you serious?” David looked a little shocked.
“Yes, I am. Timmie won’t be back till five o’clock, and she won’t care. We cleared her desk before she left. I have three letters she doesn’t need me to do till tomorrow. Okay, Maestro, introduce me to Internet dating. What the hell, it can’t be any worse than what I dig up on my own. If I get fixed up on another blind date with a lemon, I may throw up.”
He smiled as he turned to his computer and brought one of the better-known matchmaking services up on his screen. It was the one he had previously used, although he hadn’t bothered to use it in about a year, for all the reasons he had mentioned over lunch. Mostly, no time. He had actually corresponded with a woman he had met through the personals section in the Harvard alumni magazine. She had just graduated from business school, and lived in San Francisco. They had met once, but as he put it after they met, she was “too granola” for him, although the smartest girl he’d ever met. She had moved to Berkeley shortly after that, had written to him, and said she was now in a committed relationship with a woman. Clearly, she had not been his destiny, nor he hers. He had written her back and wished her the best of luck, and had been too busy to think about it, or pursue others since. He was in no rush to find a relationship, although he wanted to get married and have kids eventually. He preferred the Jewish Internet dating service, because in his heart of hearts, he wanted to meet a nice Jewish girl. But he chose a service with a broader client base for Jade, and asked her several specific questions about age preference, and geographical location.
“What do you mean?” She looked momentarily confused. The process seemed exciting, but still somewhat scary to her. “Like what city?”
“More specific,” David said as he waited to type it in. “How close to where you live? How wide a radius? Same city, same zip code, ten miles from where you live, five, one? Same state? Anywhere in the country? Major cities?”
“Shit, I don’t know. What about the Greater L.A. area? Is that too broad?” The possibilities appeared to be endless. She was more interested in educational background and profession. She admitted to being a job snob, and had gone to U.C. Berkeley herself.
“That’s up to you. I like same zip code, because I’m lazy about sitting around in gridlock on the freeway, and I don’t want to spend an hour picking up a date. But I’m not exactly committed to the project either. I just do it to keep my hand in, so I don’t forget how to date. And I haven’t done it in a while.”
“Let’s stick with Greater L.A.,” she said, feeling as though she were ordering from Groceries Express, which was how she got her food delivered. She ordered it by phone from the office, and had her doorman put it in her fridge when it arrived. The world was set up for busy people who no longer had time to attend to the menial tasks of life, between demanding jobs, travel, weekend projects, and whatever time was left over spent at the gym.
After typing in what she wanted, along with an age range of thirty-five to fifty-two, a series of photographs came up, almost like a menu, and David motioned to her to bring her chair closer so she could check out what was on his screen. There were long rows of photographs of men, some funny-looking, some handsome, and some in between, with descriptions they had written of themselves. Some sounded embarrassingly stupid, to the point of being absurd. “Hot Sexy Dad” made Jade groan as David explained that some of their answers and descriptions were formulated by checking off a box. When she liked one of the photos and brief descriptions, they pulled up a more detailed profile, which stated their religious preference, sexual habits, previous marital history, number of children, what sports they spent time doing, whether or not they had tattoos or piercings, and what they were looking for in a woman. Some wanted the same religion, Olympic-class athletic prowess, or made reference to sexual fantasies. They mentioned their professions, and some referred to salary range, again selected by clicking a box, if one chose to, and educational background. And then they wrote a brief paragraph about themselves, most of which made Jade wince. But there were six she liked from what she’d seen. They looked nice, sounded sane, had decent jobs and educations, two were divorced with young kids, which wasn’t her preference but was acceptable to her, and all six said they were looking for a professional woman in her age range, liked to travel, were looking for committed relationships, and said they wanted to marry eventually and have kids. One said he preferred Asian women, which she considered a yellow flag but not a red one, in case he had illusions about finding someone submissive. One had even graduated from Berkeley the same year she had, but his photograph didn’t look familiar, and with a student body of nearly forty thousand at U.C. Berkeley, that was hardly surprising. He was an architect and lived in Beverly Hills.
“What’s wrong with all these people that they can’t find dates?” Jade asked David, looking suspicious, and he laughed at her.
“Who was it who said any club that would have me, I wouldn’t want to belong to? It was either Woody Allen, or Mark Twain, I think. Look, they’re all in the same boat we are. We work our asses off, don’t have time, are sick of the weirdos our friends fix us up with, we don’t have relatives who fix us up with their friends’ sons or daughters, and if we do, we wish they wouldn’t. What do I know? This seems to work for a lot of people. It’s worth a shot. I’ve hit a couple of lemons when I tried it, but most of the women I met through Internet dating were actually very nice. One or two of them might have been serious options, I just didn’t have the time, or the inclination to get serious. But I had a nice time with the women I went out with. You follow the rules. You contact them through their box on the Internet, you don’t give them your home address or phone number, or even the office at first. You meet in a public place a few times, you feel them out, follow your instincts, and don’t put yourself in any scary or potentially dangerous situations. And you see how it shakes out. What have you got to lose?”
“Not much, I guess,” Jade said, still unsure, but definitely intrigued. Enough so to check it out.
“Do you want to write to any of the six guys? You can do that on my account. But if you want to do this seriously, you need to put your own picture and profile up. You can do it in a protected way, where only the people you want to give it to can check it out. You don’t have to put your photo up on the main lists. So do you want to write to these guys?”
She nodded, looking pensive. So far, from his description, she liked the architect best. He said he was divorced, had been married for six years, and had no kids. He lived in Beverly Hills. His passion was European literature and art, which she had majored in at school. And his favorite cities were Paris, Venice, and New York, which hit two out of three for her. It definitely narrowed the field. Far more than her friends had been able to do. His favorite weekends were skiing, camping, theater, movies, or cooking with the woman he went out with, or even for her if she couldn’t cook, which Jade said was a good thing. Her culinary skills were limited to Cup A Soup and Top Ramen or salads she brought home from Safeway. And Hostess Twinkies when no one was looking. She always kept one in her desk for emergencies, along with a bag of M&Ms, when she didn’t have time to eat. Health food, as she called it. All six men sounded interesting to her, and she slid her chair over closer to David, and answered each of them with a brief message about herself. She realized that she had to subscribe to the dating service herself, and open her own account, in order to provide them with a profile and pictures, but she wanted to see what kind of responses she got before she did.
She had just finished sending off the last e-mail, and was both nervous and excite
d as David grinned and she giggled, when Timmie walked in.
“What are you two kids up to?” she asked. She had seen the mischievous look on the faces of both of her assistants. She was sure that whatever it was, it was harmless. And it did them good to take a break when she was out, once in a while. There were no major crises at the moment, and she looked relaxed too. Her legal meetings about the pension fund had been informative and had gone well. “Okay, fess up. You look like two cats who ate the canary,” she said, smiling at them.
“Not one canary. Six,” Jade confessed. She knew Timmie was leery of dating services, Internet or otherwise, but Jade had no secrets from her.
“Explain that,” Timmie said, and then saw what was on the screen. There were rows of photographs of men with a few lines of description, and she looked at both of them with a motherly expression. “Watch out, you two! No ax murderers, please. I need you both.”
Jade wanted to tell her to try it too, but she knew Timmie couldn’t. Even if she didn’t give her real name, her face was known all over the world, and she was a very distinctive-looking woman. The long red hair and green eyes would have given her away anywhere, and her face had appeared in articles and ads for years. She was a success story in business schools everywhere, and an icon in the fashion world. She would have wound up in the tabloids in about ten minutes if she put her photograph up on an Internet dating service, or even discreetly with a matchmaker, which were becoming the rage too.
The era of mail-order brides had been modernized and come into its own again, which only proved how hard it was for anyone to meet a mate these days, no matter how young, good-looking, or successful you were. The men Jade had written to all fit into that category and all claimed they were looking for long-term relationships and obviously hadn’t been able to find them on their own. Timmie was not unique in her inability to find an equal partner, although her limitations were more specific, due to age and fame. She had a handicap, and had to settle for what she could find on her own, which wasn’t much, as witnessed by the likes of Zack and the men who had come before him in the past eleven years. And Timmie hadn’t been willing to go on blind dates for years. She said they were too humiliating and too much trouble.
“Just be careful,” Timmie reminded her, and then went back to her own office, as Jade followed her.
David had promised to let Jade know if any responses came in. He said he’d check his e-mail over the weekend. Jade grinned excitedly as she went to go over some notes with Timmie, who seemed in good spirits too.
She left the office at six o’clock, which was early for her, and Zack showed up around seven. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and they had a quiet weekend planned. She had plans the following day, even though it was Saturday, and Zack was good-natured about it. He knew that roughly once or twice a month she had commitments that kept her busy on Saturday mornings and into the early afternoon. She said it was related to work, and it gave him a chance to go to the gym, or work out at her place, and have lunch with friends.
They had dinner at the Little Door that night, which was one of her favorite places, and went to a movie afterward. They saw a thriller Zack had wanted to see. Timmie didn’t love it, and on the way out afterward she teased him that the popcorn had been good at least. She didn’t mind how bad the movie was, it was fun being out with him. And they were both in a good mood. He had gotten a minor acting job that week, and was waiting to hear about a major national commercial that could open other doors to him. He was always happy when he got work, and depressed when he got passed over. It was the nature of what he did. He was lucky he looked as young as he did, and she knew he’d gotten help with that. He had had his eyes done several years earlier, and got Botox shots regularly. He had had collagen shots, and lightened his hair. He wasn’t quite as naturally blond as he looked, and he was far vainer than she was. She had never done any of that to herself, nor would she. She was far more willing to age gracefully, and her work didn’t depend on it as his did.
Timmie was up at seven o’clock on Saturday morning. She worked out in the gym for half an hour, showered, and made herself a light breakfast of yogurt, cereal, and tea, and she was just about to leave the house when Zack came downstairs with a towel around him. He kissed her lightly on the lips, picked up the newspaper, and headed for the kitchen. It was a peaceful little domestic scene, which gave her the illusion of intimacy with him, which was more fantasy than fact.
“I left you a pot of coffee,” she called back to him.
“Thanks. What time will you be finished?”
“I should be back here by three,” she answered.
“I’ll meet you here,” he said easily. He knew where the key was, and she closed the front door gently behind her. It always intrigued her that he never asked her what she did on the Saturday mornings she didn’t spend with him. He figured it was her business. He didn’t tell her everything he did either. The time she was gone never seemed that long to him. He didn’t mind her being busy.
She had left the house in jeans, sneakers, and an old sweater with a denim jacket over it, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore no makeup, and looked surprisingly good, given the hour of the morning. She rarely worried about her looks, and as a result looked beautiful and real, despite her age.
She drove to Santa Monica, listening to music and smiling to herself. She felt good. She loved the mornings she spent like this, and looked forward to them for weeks. She didn’t have time to do it often, but she carved out time whenever she could. It fed her soul, and was something she wanted to give back to the world, although it gave just as much to her, sometimes more. She knew this was something she could never give up, for anyone. It touched the deepest part of her heart.
Twenty minutes after she left Bel Air, she pulled up in front of a freshly painted building. It was a Victorian house that had obviously been renovated and enlarged. It had an old-fashioned front porch, and a bicycle rack out front, well stocked with bright new bikes. There was a handsome climbing structure in back. It was obviously a house inhabited by kids, and she smiled as she let herself in through the unlocked front door. Two women with weathered faces, kind eyes, and short hair were talking in the front hall, and another sat at a desk.
“Good morning, sisters,” Timmie said easily. The two women talking to each other were considerably older than she was, while the one at the desk looked like a kid herself. All three were nuns, although nothing about their dress would have suggested it. They were wearing sweatshirts and jeans. They looked up with broad smiles as Timmie walked in. “How’s everyone?”
“We thought you’d come today,” the oldest of the three women said. She had been in a Carmelite order in her youth, and had left them to join the Dominicans, and work in Watts. She had worked with underprivileged inner-city kids for forty years, first in Chicago, then in Alabama and Mississippi, and finally in L.A. She ran the house they called St. Cecilia’s.
It was a home for children who had been orphaned but for one reason or another, often health issues or age, were ineligible or inappropriate for adoption, or had been unsuccessful in being adopted out of the system, and had also not done well in foster care. It had been Sister Anne’s idea from the beginning, and having heard of Timmie’s charitable bent and soft spot for children years before, she had come to present her dream to her. She had never expected what had happened next. Without a word of explanation or argument, Timmie had written a million-dollar check and handed it across her desk, to buy the house, staff it, and run it. That had been ten years before, and she had supported it ever since. St. Cecilia’s existed on the benevolence of Timmie O’Neill, although that fact was kept strictly confidential. Only David and Jade knew of her involvement with them. Timmie didn’t like recognition for the charitable works she did.
The house was run by six nuns, and inhabited by anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five kids. There were twenty-one there at the moment, and she knew that two more were due in within the next few weeks. They rang
ed in age from five to eighteen. The balance of sexes was always about equal, as was the racial balance. It varied, and some of the children had been there for as long as five years. Their goal was always to place the children, if possible, but by the very nature of the situations that brought them there, most stayed at St. Cecilia’s for several years. Their longest-term resident had been a blind girl who had been with them for seven years, and had graduated and been accepted at USC on a scholarship the year before, with Timmie’s help. She had been impossible to place through the system, and St. Cecilia’s had been a haven and godsend for her, as it was for the others. There were three children who had juvenile diabetes, which made them equally difficult to place, and another with emotional problems as a result of severe abuse. Several had been chronic bed-wetters when they arrived, for similar reasons, and had stopped wetting their beds within months. Some just weren’t attractive children, others had been oppositional. Several had stolen from their foster parents and been sent to juvenile hall. Some were just extremely shy, or didn’t get along with their foster families’ natural kids. Whatever their reasons, they had been rejected again and again, and sent back like fish thrown into a pond of rejects, and one by one the sisters who ran the house had lovingly fished them out. They provided the children who lived there love, safety, and a good home.
Timmie loved coming to visit, and did so at every opportunity, almost always on Saturday mornings. The children all called her Timmie, and even they had no idea what her connection to the house was, or that she was in fact providing all the bounty that came to them, and their home.
First Sight Page 14