The Dating Experiment

Chapter Nine - Matches are Made

We all go back to the Center, because mailing things in would still be too complicated and slow. Not that staring at each other while someone sorts our matches by hand is going to feel any less slow, but it was already decided that that was the best plan of action. So there I sat, with Ava, Katie (who I'd reconnected with), and Ava's new friend, Klare.

We handed out slips to a lady at the front desk. Then we were ushered into the middle room. There was a lot of buzz going around as people made guesses on whether or not they would be matched with their number one pick or not. Personally, I didn't want to be included in any of those conversations. I was too nervous already, imaging August had some amazing, practically-marriage-worthy date with his third woman.

"That guy in the mouse head is eyeing you up," Katie observed. "You must have made quite the impression."

She subtly pointed in his direction and I did my best to make it look like I was simply glancing around the room for general purposes. She was right. He wasn't looking in any other direction. He was looking directly at me. Whispering things to his buddy.

"We had a pretty good date," I admitted.

"Ooh! Is he your number one? Because I'm pretty sure you're his."

I shifted uncomfortably.

"Well... no... actually. The date was great, and he seemed like a really nice guy, but I feel like I connected with someone else."

Speaking of which, I did another casual sweep around the room and found August on the other end of our row. His eyes were not on me, though. They were on the skunk animatedly chatting away with my sister. That had to be his third date. There was no other reason I could think of for him to be watching her so intently.

Maybe it did go well after all.

Maybe he wanted her.

"Ella?"

"Huh?"

I looked back at Katie, who was staring at me, her deer head looking just as lost as she probably was underneath it.

"Do you think you'll get paired with him?"

"I sure hope so."

Holly Van Warden walked into the room at that moment, her high heels clicking against the tile floor. She stood at her podium and addressed us all with a smile.

"Good morning everyone! I hope this experience has been going well for all of you so far. As you know, today is the day where you ranked your dates from three being the worst to one being the best, and my team just got done sorting out the best-matched pairs!"

I'm not sure if we were supposed to cheer for that? Anyway, once the small awkward pause was out of the way, she continued...

"On the screen behind me, you will soon see who you got paired with. As always, we did our best, and we sincerely hope that each choice we've made is just right for each and every one of you."

She stepped down out of the way and soon the screen on the wall behind her podium lit up. On it, appeared the female list, and after a dramatic pause (of course) the men's animal head pictures started to file in alongside the women's.

Across the room, I heard a lot of sighs of relief, and a few exclamations of joy. I belonged to the group of sighers once I saw August's koala face pop up next to my panda. I hoped that meant he picked me as his number one as well. There were good odds for that, right?

When I glanced over at him, he was walking in my direction. I didn't even look to see who Ava got, whether or not it was the dream man from her first date. I was too focused on August, who came and stood in front of me, and thought I still couldn't tell if he was smiling or not, I wanted to believe that he was. I was.

"Hey!" he said cheerfully.

"Hey. I see we will, in fact, be going on more dates."

"That we will, and I very much look forward to it."

"Oh... so did... I mean..."

"She was nice," he answered without me needing to finish the question. "The date was nice. However, my gut feeling told me that I should stick with the panda. She did seem pretty chill and all that, as far as pandas go."

My cheeks flushed.

"You're silly, but thank you. I'm glad you picked me."

I was very glad. I already liked hearing his voice again. God, maybe Ava was right. I had gone too long without a man in my life. I was desperate for a man's voice after one date! I had forgotten what I was missing, especially how it felt to have butterflies fluttering around inside my stomach.

We stood around talking for a while. I introduced him to Ava and she, in turn, introduced me to Nate. He was, in fact, the first-night-boat-guy. When we were done, we said our goodbyes for the day, as there was no required date to go on. This meant I got to go into work again.

-

I arrived at Sugar Beat ten minutes early to my late afternoon shift and got myself ready. My boss, Shannon, was covered in flour and putting finishing details on a four-tier wedding cake. Honestly, those were the kinds of projects I wasn't allowed to touch yet. There was Shannon and her main crew, and then there were those of us who decorated children's birthday sheet cakes and cookies.

"Nice to see you again!" said Shannon. "I think this is the longest we've been without you."

"Shannon, it's only been three days."

She smiled.

"Yes, but you're one of my most reliable workers."

"That's because I usually don't have a life."

She laughed her sweet, soft laugh and shook her head.

"I suppose that works out well for me, now doesn't it? How's this whole, having a life thing working out anyway? Meet the man of your dreams yet?"

Unfortunately, I couldn't save myself the embarrassment of having to be honest to Shannon about why I needed days off. So yeah... she knew it all.

"I met a nice guy. I'm not sure he's the man of my dreams, though. We've only been on one date."

"Sometimes that's all it takes, Hon."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Shannon was a middle-aged hopeless romantic. We had very different views on the matter.

"You know I don't believe in that whole 'love at first sight' thing, right?" I asked.

She let out a defiant "hmpf!"

Meanwhile, I got to work. At this point in the day, I didn't get to do my usual decorating. Instead, I had to cover the front counter. I didn't mind the sales part, but my passions laid more in creating art with sugar and frosting. Sometimes with fondant, but in my personal opinion, that stuff mostly tastes like cardboard. (It can be pretty, though, and neater detail-wise... so we use it a lot.

At the time, since it was still officially summer, there were some warm weather themed cookies that I was particularly proud of. For instance, the beach ball, the popsicle, and the watermelon slice cookies. In my absence, they were made by the hands of someone else, but the designs were still mine.

I sold a family a pack of four cookies, which their son and daughter just had to have. The girl's favorite was the monarch butterfly cookie. That one was a favorite of mine as well. It always made me happy to do something for a living that not only made use of my creativity, but put such big smiles on the faces of our customers. I couldn't wait to have my own bakery.

When the last few had gone about the rest of their day with the box of muffins I'd packaged for them, I grabbed our cleaning supplies out of the closet and got to tidying up the storefront. It never really got too dirty, but I took extra care in my work anyway, utilizing every last minute I was scheduled for.

After all, was said and done, I closed up, said goodbye to Shannon, and left with a smile on my face. Overall, I'd had a productive and rather good day. Tomorrow was the first date I would be planning. I was nervous about messing everything up, but underneath all of the questions running through my head as I made plans, was the comforting fact that August had picked me too. Maybe I needed to keep that more in the forefront of my mind.