Page 9 of Doomsdate

“I feel, so, connected. To, ah, you.” Her eyes flicker up to mine but don’t quite settle there, grazing somewhere around my forehead instead. “Do you feel the…connection between us? Because of our”—she swallows—“dead people?”

The server takes this moment to deliver our food, and Maisie lurches back in her seat.

I’ve never been so glad to see a rutabaga in my life. Ugh. This date was a bad idea, but I tried. I came here, I got dressed, I even showered. Nobody can fault me for giving up now.

Before he leaves, I tap him on the arm and mouth, Box. Check. Now.

When I turn back to the table, Maisie’s holding a rose. The red bud is slightly crushed, and the stem has been broken to fold into thirds, presumably to fit into one of her large cargo pockets. It hangs limply from her fist.

“This is for you,” she pronounces, then lays the flower’s mangled corpse in front of me. “Like me, the rose is beautiful and sweet, but it’s guarded, too. Covered in thorns from all its trauma, unable to let others in, unable to trust. I am but a rose.” She pauses this speech long enough to wince down at the poor flower. “So, you should watch out for my thorns.”

My eyes widen. “Oh my god. Are you—”

“I’m not here to make friends, Everett!” she rushes out, panicked. “Are you sex-positive?”

“You are!” An incredulous laugh bubbles out of me. “You’re reciting Shayla’s speech from episode, what? Two? Of Dreamsdate?”

Maisie hangs her head, defeated. “Bits from episodes one through four, actually. I’m not good at dating. Shayla is, though, so I thought…I’m sorry, this was stupid.”

The server reappears then with two boxes for our untouched food, the check, and a sympathetic smile. Maisie glances at him in surprise, then at me with horrible, heartbreaking understanding. He stands there, waiting, until I clear my throat.

“We’re, ah, not ready just yet. Thanks.”

“God, I really messed this up,” Maisie says into her hands. She leans her whole face into them, refusing to look at me. “Just go, I’ll pay.”

My eyebrows pinch together as I regard her slumped shoulders. Maisie was so nervous about tonight she memorized lines from a reality dating show? All the discomfort I’ve felt in the last ten minutes evaporates into a tender, gentle regard. I may not be interested in dating this woman, or any woman ever again for that matter, but in this moment, I do feel strangely connected to Maisie. Not knowing how to talk to others or what to say. That was never a problem for me before Louise died, but ever since, it’s like a curtain fell between me and everyone else, muffling their voices, obscuring their faces, preventing me from finding and connecting with them at all. Is that how it’s been for Maisie since she lost her someone, too? Was reciting lines from Dreamsdate her painfully awkward way of trying to reach out and grasp my hand through her own curtain of isolating grief?

I can’t leave her here like this. Louise would never forgive me.

I clear my throat again. “Not until we discuss how Shayla picked Jeremy over my boy Fawkes.”

Maisie peeks out between two fingers. “I—hated Jeremy.”

“Jeremy is the Antichrist and has the personality of a heel blister.”

She hiccups out a laugh. “Fawkes isn’t much better, though.”

I lean over my rutabagas. “At least Fawkes doesn’t go to Guy Fieri’s tips specialist.”

She frowns. “Who’s Guy Fieri? And what’s wrong with his tip?”

“Oh, god, don’t say it like that,” I groan. “I’m sex-positive, but not that sex-positive.”

“His tip is sexual?” Her forehead wrinkles. “What?”

I arch an eyebrow. “Just the tip?”

She stares at me, waiting, and now I’m the one blushing.

“Mm, never mind.” I smile, feeling soft and sorry for this strangely clueless person. “Maybe we should start over a third time?”

Maisie exhales a big sigh of relief. “Yes. This time, with no reality-TV speeches.” She shakes her head. “Why do they call it reality TV when it all seems so fake?”

“You don’t watch a lot of TV, do you?”

“No,” Maisie admits. “I don’t understand most of it, to be honest. I wasn’t raised around TV, but I do enjoy baking shows. Do you like TV?” she asks tentatively, as though she’s not sure this is a good date question but is going to try it anyway.

Luckily for me, it is.