Truest Online

The date is set. 

Her name is Belle.  Like Southern Belle, she texted me.  Ring the bell.  Ding-dong.  

Got it.

I’ve met people online before.  We typically email, talk by phone, then schedule a time to meet in person.

But the virus has changed everything for those concerned about contracting something that should stay with another person.  SWAP!  That’s how Belle refers to it in a text.  She says there is nothing wrong with fear of getting sick or making someone else sick.  In this context, she says, it is a matter of respect. 

I figure we have at least that much in common: our mutual fear.  Maybe it’s something we can build on. 

Or SWOO, she says in another text: Stay With the Original Owner.  Maybe we can build on that too.

The point is, we will be keeping our distance.  In fact, we will be keeping our date online. 

“Remember, the first date is all about first impressions,” Telly says.

For the record, I did not ask a ninety-two-year-old man for dating advise.  However, Telly is ninety-two years of knowledge and experience.  And he’s willing to share.  In fact, he insists.

“So, you can’t wear a hat,” he tells me.

“Then I’m going to have to find the brush.” 

“You are not the only person who has gone three months without a haircut.  Just don’t wear a hat.  That’s not a good first impression.”

“What about second impressions?  Don’t they count?”

“Of course.  If you get that far.”

If I get that far.

“The first date you just talk.  Keep the conversation neutral.  No religion.  No politics.”

“But those reveal so much about a person,” I say.

“Wait until you’re four or five impressions in before you start playing with fire.”

Got it.

Some days, a cat won’t have anything to do with you.  Other days, you can’t take a shower without them scaling the curtain until the rod fails.  Today is one of those other days.  It’s also date-day.  So Toby and I compromise: he sits on the desk next to the laptop and agrees to let me do all the talking. 

I make the Skype call, and an image of what Belle in her profile photo should look like in ten years appears on the screen.  Ding-Dong. 

Right off the bat she says, “I know I should update my picture.  I’ve been using that old thing for years.”  Thoughts of a years-old profile are spinning in my head like tumblers in a lock, but before they can settle on one thing to say, Belle strikes one of Telly’s proverbial matches.  “Do you mind if we pray first?”  While Belle proceeds to banish any romantic possibility in this first impression, Toby and I peek at the screen and see two clasped hands encased in blue nitrile gloves.  The tumblers continue to spin.

“So, Belle,” I say, “have you ever dated remotely before?” 

“Oh, yeah,” she says.  “I do this all the time.”  One of her false eyelashes drops into her lap and she casually catches it and presses it back in place.  “It would be nice to see someone in person, but that’s second or third-date.  Maybe fourth.”

“What’s different about the second date?” I ask.

A question knots Belle’s brows.  The lighting in her world flickers.  “I don’t really know.”  She is candid to a fault.  “I like this site, because I get to meet a lot of nice guys I probably wouldn’t otherwise.  We talk.  I like that.”

The false lash comes unhinged again and one blue finger presses it back.

“I like talk too.”

“I know there is a lot more that can happen on a second date.”  She says this while rolling her eyes and twisting her blue gloves.  “A lot,” she says like a kid in her first bathing suit looking up at the high dive.  With just a few expressions, one prayer and a couple drops of her lashes, Belle both confirms the datedness of her profile picture and cuts her age in half.

“But talking is good,” I say, encouraging her to back away from the high dive.  “That’s how you get to know a person and decide if you want the other lot.  Of course, if all you want is the other lot, there are other websites for that.”

“Yeah,” she says with a smile.

“So, what do you do?” I ask her.  “When you’re not…dating?”

“I live with my parents.”

“That’s what you do for a living?”

“No, silly.”  She rolls her eyes and pushes the false-lash envelope.  “But they’re older and I agreed to move back home and help.  They give me my space.  I have my own room.  But’s a little weird moving back home after so many years.  Sometimes, I have a hard time feeling like myself.  Like an adult.”

“I remember feeling that way when I was a kid.”

“Yeah.  I know they love me and they try to support me.  But they want me to be their idea of a daughter.  When I was in college, they really pressured me to go into medicine.”

“Huh.  So what career path did you end up choosing?”

“I went into medicine.”

At this point, Toby chooses to remind me that there is no pressuring a cat, no training a cat, no reason to expect a cat to follow protocol or give any advanced warning of what path they will choose next.  He does this by striding across my desk.  Right in front of the laptop’s camera.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God!” Belle says excitedly.  “You have a cat.”

I laugh and tell her, “You know, he gives me my own room and sometimes he lets me spend time in it alone.  But never for long.”

Belle’s false lashes both spring into oblivion and her face lights up like a packet of proverbial matches.  “I love it,” she says.  “This is just like work.”  This odd comment brings Toby back into the picture and he wonders, with me, what in the world my remote date is talking about.  “I’m a veterinarian,” she says. “My parents said they would help with my tuition, but only if I went into medicine.  It is probably the truest decision I have ever made for myself.”

“Truest decision.  I like that.  Well, Truest, meet Toby the cat.”

“Hey Toby.”  She waves her gloved hands at the camera.  “My name is Belle, like Southern Belle, ring the bell.  Ding-dong.”

Toby looks to me for verification.  I nod.

“Do you have a specialty?”

“Not exactly a specialty,” she says.  “But I have my favorites.”

“Do you mean your favorite areas of medicine?  Like cancer, orthopedics, kissing boo-boo’s?”

She laughs.  “I like cats.  I mean, I like all animals, but they’re my favorite.  That’s why I went into medicine.  That’s how I chose to be me.  The only problem…”  She looks around at that part of her world I can’t see.  “I sort of bring my work home with me.”  She reaches off-camera and pulls a black cat into the picture.  “This is Archimedes.  Someone dropped him off, after-hours, outside the office in a box.  I think he had been hit by a car.”  Her voice gets emotional.  “Things were pretty grim for a while.  But we pulled through.”

As Toby and I watch Belle scratch Archimedes behind his ears, another cat puts its paws on her shoulders and rubs cheeks with her.

“Oh, this is…” She turns to look.  “This is Descartes.  Once again, someone abandoned this handsome fellow at my office.  A woman actually brought him in, handed him to me and left.  There was nothing wrong with him.  I figure the person who dropped him off just wasn’t a cat person.  You know?” 

A third furry face looks in our date-arama.  And then a fourth one, wearing a rogue eyelash for a uni-brow, lifts up from Belle’s lap.  The longer we watch, the more cats edge from out of the unseen periphery, onto or beside their truest friend. 

Toby offers a simple meow in greeting.  A whole chorus of meows returns to him.  Toby puts his paw on the screen, and at once the other side is filled with furry arms and faces.  I hear Belle laughing, unseen behind the wall of pink paws. 

This is good for about thirty seconds, until someone hisses and fur starts flying.

Belle apologizes and says she needs to end the call before she has to pull out her first aid kit.  But we agree to try this again, if not for the elusive second date, as a play-date for the kids.

Love PPE-style.