Page 4 of Say Yes to the Hot Mess
“Sam,” I say, rubbing my hand tiredly over my eyes.
“Oops,” she says sheepishly, her eyes darting to Carter before coming back to me. “Sorry.”
“What internet friend?” Carter says again, more insistently this time.
I feel myself blush at the thought of my email pen pal. “It’s no one,” I say with a shrug. “Just a friend I write to.”
“Amanfriend?” Carter says, leaning forward.
I hesitate before answering. “Yes, but—but—it’s not like that at all,” I say quickly. “There’s nothing romantic. He’s just a friend.”
And heisjust a friend. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a little crush on him, but it’s never going to happen—for about a billion reasons, number one being that I’ve sworn off men, number two being that I don’t even know this guy’s real name.
Carter narrows his eyes at me. “How’d you meet him?” he says, sounding suspicious.
I sigh; I guess we’re having this conversation now. I shift to make myself more comfortable on the couch. “Sunset Horizons has an app with a chat function, kind of like a chat room,” I say, grabbing a pillow and scrunching it between my head and the arm of the sofa. “It’s for members of the community and their families and caregivers to use, basically. So I set up a profile for Frank when I first got here, and he convinced me to make one for myself. I did it pretty much just to appease him, but me and this guy ended up talking.”
“So you’ve been…what, chatting with some guy in that retirement community? Like an old dude?” Carter says, both looking and sounding horrified.
“Yes,” I say flatly. “I have a sugar daddy now.”
Carter’s eyes almost pop out of his head.
“I’m kidding, Carter,” I say with a tired laugh. “Of course he’s not old. His profile is a family and caregivers profile.” Seeing Carter’s blank look, I go on, “Okay, so there are the residents here, right? The retirees? They can create resident profiles. But then you have their caregivers or their families. They can use the app too, as well as the chat function, but they’re not residents. So they don’t have resident profiles, they have family and caregiver profiles. So my friend is either related to someone here, or he’s their caregiver.”
Carter still looks suspicious, but he does lean back, relaxing a little. He says something, but the words are garbled as the image becomes choppy and pixelated.
“I’m losing you,” I say.
A second later, the picture smooths out again, Carter and Sam jumping back to life.
“How old is he?” Carter repeats.
I shrug again. “Mid-twenties. Look, Carter, you’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. This guy is honestly just my friend. I’ve sworn off men, remember? Besides, we stay completely anonymous. I don’t know his name or exact age or even who he’s related to here. We’re not sending each other pictures or sharing our Social Security numbers. We just chat through the app. That’s really it.”
Carter doesn’t look convinced, but he drops it, and I’m glad.
Because my virtual relationship with Kingston—the fake name my online friend gave me—is strangely personal to me. I’m not sure why; I know nothing concrete about the man. We originally connected when I reached out after seeing that he was the only other person in the 20s-30s age bracket in the Sunset Horizons chat room. There may be more—probably are, actually—but he was the only one I saw at the time, so I messaged him and said hello. We started talking occasionally, and over the course of several weeks it grew into something resembling an actual friendship as we began to open up more.
I was the one who gave him a fake name to start out with. Once we’d been talking for a while, I told him I’d lied about my name, but it turns out he’d done the same thing; I guess neither of us wanted to give an online stranger our real names. We decided to keep it that way, as well as avoiding any personal identifying details. So we’re basically Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks fromYou’ve Got Mail, except I don’t own a tiny little bookstore and my guess is he’s not secretly going to put me out of business.
Also, we’re not going to fall in love. So there’s that.
Carter clears his throat loudly, and with a start I realize I’ve totally spaced out thinking about Kingston. That’s what happens when you’re barely sleeping at night—random zoning out.
“Sorry,” I say, giving my head a little shake. “I’m very tired and mentally I’m not all here right now.”
“It’s fine,” Sam says. “We completely understand. Carter,” she goes on, looking at him, “I’m going to go get ready, and then we need to go.” Then she looks back at me. “It was good to see you! Send me pictures of Archer when you get a chance.”
I tell her goodbye and watch as she exits the frame, leaving only Carter’s pixelated image.
He’s quiet for a few seconds, seemingly watching Sam go, and I’m about to open my mouth to speak when he leans forward, his face looming larger until all I can see is his nose and mouth.
“Maya,” he whispers, “I’m going to propose!”
My jaw drops, my eyebrows shooting up. I’ve been lounging, but now I pull myself upright. “What?” I say, starting to smile. “Are you serious? When?”
“Soon,” he says, pulling the phone away from his face so I can see more than just the bottom half of it. He glances away from me, looking past the screen, and my guess is that he’s checking to make sure Sam isn’t coming back. When he looks at me again, he says, “I’m picking up the ring early next week.”
