Page 47 of Love's a Script
Ruben wanted to tell her that he didn’t see a future for them, but he waffled on whether it was insensitive to do so right after sharing a kiss. He debated too long, and Soledad said goodnight with a sweet smile and entered her car. Inside his own vehicle, Ruben took a moment before driving off to check his phone, lying to himself that he wasn’t hoping to see a message from Mary until he only found notifications for news and emails.
His attention had waned throughout the date. The conversation with Soledad had been paint-by-numbers. Which was normal since they didn’t know each other, but it was difficult not to compare it to the talks he’d had with Mary that past week. Those ones always felt like being on a road without a map. They moved aimlessly, discovering delightful troves along the way. One moment they were sharing their perspectives on self-driving cars (with corresponding links to articles to bolster their arguments), the next, making a definitive ranking of Miss Vickie’s potato chip flavors.
He would’ve preferred to be in his heated apartment on the phone with her tonight, and it was a terrifying realization. One person couldn’t take that much space in his brain. It would snowball into something more complicated, and he couldn’t afford complicated right now. The radio feature was his priority, so things had to change. No more night chats with Mary.
As Ruben pulled out of the parking lot toward home, he drowned out thoughts of that very woman with Top 40 tunes.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“So you have no idea what it says?” Mary’s sister asked as they both stared at the manila envelope in front of them on the kitchen counter.
Mary shook her head. “I thought we should open it together.”
“I wish you’d just read it,” Hattie said, rocking her youngest son in her arms after his tearful morning.
Mary hadn’t expected the investigator to have such a quick turnaround. It had barely been a week, but that morning when she’d gone to her car to head to work, she’d spotted the envelope under her windshield wipers, “For Mary Neilson” scrawled on top. She’d texted her sister immediately and told her she was on her way.
“You open it,” Hattie said as she shut her eyes, so Mary tore open the envelope and spilled the documents onto the counter, sifting through them once, twice, and a final time to make sure.
“She’s real,” Mary said.
Hattie pried one eye open. “Really?”
Mary nodded, and her sister let out a long exhale and began going through the papers herself.
Aurora Pryor was in fact her real name. She was a retired ICU nurse. A divorced mother of four children ranging from twenty-nine to forty years old. She’d lived in the same home for two decades.
“She’s gorgeous,” Hattie said, studying a picture of Aurora in front of a fleet of vintage cars. Her skin was bronzed, and her white hair coiffed. A red lipstick highlighted her brilliant smile. The longer Mary looked at the photo, the more she could imagine her dad, perhaps sometime in the near future, standing beside her in one of his plaid shirts he always buttoned to the very top.
“She’s real,” Hattie sang softly to her baby, who smiled with all his gums. “She’s real. She’s real. Aurora is real.”
Not only did Aurora exist, but she appeared honest. Their father had sent her money for music festival tickets and supposed home repairs after the blizzard, and included in the PI’s pile of evidence was a ticket purchase receipt for the festival and a picture of a debris removal truck parked in front of Aurora’s house which had a great leafless tree impressed into its roof.
“The PI was thorough,” Hattie said.
Mary didn’t want to think of the powerful telephoto lens he must have used to capture the photos.
“Might hire him to find the shoes Luther keeps hiding around the house,” she said. “How much did he charge?”
“Nothing.”
“He did all of this for free?” Hattie was incredulous.
“He did it as a favor to the person who connected us.”
“Aren’t we lucky,” Hattie said. “Make sure to thank both of them.”
Mary nodded, though she would not be doing that. Her evening talks with Ruben had come to an unceremonious end when they both just stopped reaching out. Despite her resolve, for the last few days since, Mary would check for his missed call and wonder if the date he’d gone on was why he hadn’t so much as texted her. Shame prevented her from asking Eden for intel.
“You want to stay for breakfast?”
“No, I have to get going,” she said, kissing her nephew’s temple. “It’s kind of a big day at work.”
Over the weekend, Mary was included in an agency-wide email from her boss, scheduling a staff meeting for that day. So, within the next hour, she’d know if she got cruise lead or not. She’d taken extra care with her outfit and hair that morning, and she’d planned to get to work early, but the PI’s delivery had detoured her.
She still arrived at the agency with time to spare but found that the other matchmakers, also wearing their best, had taken the good seats around the conference table.
“Finally, right?” Mary said when Eden showed up and slipped into the chair beside her.
