Cupid’s Match

I don’t move. Cal pauses, eyes holding mine.

“If you still don’t believe me after what I’m about to show you, we’ll stop sending the letters,” he says.

“And emails. And Messages.”

“I will see to it myself. Personally.”

I exhale. “You’d better . . .”

He inclines his head sharply, then spins on his heel to lead me through the chaotic office and into the indoor courtyard beyond the arch, where the statue I noticed earlier overlooks a stone-rimmed pond. The water is so clear that it reflects a perfect mirror image of the summer sky shining in through a skylight. Ivy creeps up the high walls and trails over the three other archways. The scent permeating the air is a strange mixture of old and sweet, like flowers in a museum.

It’s beautiful and still—a stark contrast to the bustling office we have just left behind.

Cal pauses to give the stone statue an odd look I can’t quite read before quickly striding across the courtyard to one of the arches on the other side. It might just be my imagination, but he seems to put as much space between himself and the toga-wearing

woman as possible.

The statue is clearly ancient, its face worn and its body chipped. Any recognizable features have been eroded. There’s something unnerving about her blank eyes, so I let my gaze wander down to her podium, where something’s been carved—a list, although the only line I can make out is: “No cupid must ever be matched.”

“Miss Black,” Cal says sharply. “I haven’t got all day.”

I look at him as seriously as I can. “Yes, being a cupid must be very busy work.”

He looks at me coldly. Then, as he disappears beneath the ivy-covered arch, I hear him mutter, “Should have known his match would have an attitude problem.”

We enter a long corridor that employs the same chiaroscuro color scheme as the office. Dimly lit by faux candle lamps, it’s lined by closed doors and wallpaper with jet-black swirls. Cal heads to the door at the very end, his footsteps echoing against the white linoleum. I walk behind him and we enter the room.

I blink a couple of times as my eyes adjust to my surroundings.

We’re in a huge, dark space. Artificial beams of light cut through the darkness, causing pools of white to collect on the black floor tiles. A vast screen surrounded by hundreds of smaller monitors dominates the opposite wall. On each small screen I can see a variety of different people going about their daily business—having coffee at a street cafe, eating ice cream in the park, waiting at the checkout line in Walmart, and some even sleeping in their beds.

The whole place smells like warm electricity—that overheating-

computer smell that reminds me of Dad’s old office before he was let go.

Cal walks over to a black control desk in the center of the room that has a joystick, a keyboard, and a range of red and amber buttons. He clicks something and the screens fade into darkness.

“Who are all these people?” I ask. “Do they know you’re watching them? You’re a dating service, not the freaking CIA.”

Cal doesn’t look at me. He types something into the keyboard and a serial number appears in the middle of the central screen.

“Hey,” I say, frowning. “You haven’t answered my questions.”

“We’re not a dating service. We’re cupids. How many times must I tell you?” He looks at me, and even in the near-darkness his eyes blaze silver. “Monitoring our clients is necessary when setting up a match. We use advanced statistical algorithms to ensure our clients end up in the right place, at the right time. But unfortunately, statistics cannot always predict human behavior. Manual interference is sometimes required. Now,” he says, looking at the screen once more, “I’m about to show you something a little shocking. Something that you may not be prepared to see. But I have little choice.”

Before I can protest, he clicks Enter and a crowded scene materializes on the largest monitor. When he clicks another button, the screen zooms in on a person who’s halfway through a laugh. I inhale sharply and feel a sudden jolt in my heart.

Bright eyes, dimpled cheeks; I’d recognize that face anywhere.

It’s my mother.

But how?

My mother died two years ago.

Cal presses a button and the image pauses. I can’t stop staring at the woman. It’s my mother, there’s no question, though on closer inspection she’s younger than she was when she died. A teenager.

I glare at Cal. “What is this?” I’m no longer finding this situation remotely amusing.

Cal’s gaze moves away from the monitor, his cold eyes softening momentarily before he becomes stone faced once more. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I don’t say anything, my attention fixed to the image of my mother. She looks beautiful and carefree, with her strawberry blond hair long and her green eyes sparkling. This was before the cancer diagnosis—before the battle she was forced to fight, before her hair thinned and her eyes lost their brightness. This was before I was born, before I loved her, before she was gone forever.

I feel a tightening in my throat.

“Do you know how your parents met?” asks Cal.

Part of me wants to leave. Part of me wants to grab Cal and slam him into the wall until he feels a fraction of the pain he’s just forced upon me. I feel the buildup of violence inside of me that I’ve been trying to suppress ever since she left us on our own. I grasp for the breathing exercise the school counselor made me learn after I shoved someone who made a comment about my mom into a locker.

Breathe in. Count to four. Breathe out. Count to eight.

I can’t just walk away from this recording of my mother.

I need to know why he has this.

I swallow my anger and calm my nerves. “They met at a bowling alley. The person behind the counter got their shoes mixed up.”

He nods, then presses another button on the control desk. The image zooms out and the recording begins to play.

It’s a bowling alley.

I watch as my mother gracefully approaches the counter, then gently slips off her bowling shoes and places them on the surface. An attendant in a striped uniform and baseball cap marked Castle Tenpin Bowling takes them from her and swaps them with a pair of shoes in one of the cubbyholes behind him. I can’t see his face as he places a pair of men’s shoes on the countertop.

She looks confused for a moment then throws her head back in laughter. Farther down the counter, a dorky-looking man with dark hair and gray eyes is clasping a pair of stilettos.

It’s my father.

He approaches her. The sound is muted, so I can’t hear what is being said, but I can tell my dad has just told one of his lame jokes; my mom’s face lights up the way it always did when he tried to be funny.

They swap shoes.

Cal pauses the screen.

I look up at him weakly, not wanting the recording to stop. “How do you have this?” I ask. “Why are you showing it to me?”

He doesn’t say anything, only turns back to the control desk and moves the joystick to the left. After the recording rewinds, he pushes the stick forward so the monitor zooms in on the bowling alley attendant as he bends over the cubbyholes. I start as I see him swap the shoes around.

“Wait, did he do that on purpose?”

Cal fast-forwards the recording and I watch my parents meet again in triple time. Then he again pauses and zooms back in on the attendant. I take a step backward in cold shock.

I can now see the face below the striped baseball cap.

This video must have been taken thirty years ago, but he looks the same as he does now—around seventeen years old, with sharp eyes, blond hair, and smooth skin.

It’s Cal.