2. Speed Dating

My dad is driving me home. His girlfriend is sitting on the front passenger seat. At least they are the same age, I tell myself. I am glad to be in the back seat not driving, but I notice how there is so much room. When I was a kid, and we got in the car, the back seat never had this much room because I had a brother. And he always rode in the back with me. He was asleep most of the time. Being in the car always made him do that. He would look around, then out the window, and then he would blink slowly, and then drift off to sleep. I hadn’t noticed the space back here before until now. Maybe it was that my dad was driving that made me notice the space. And I remind myself, my brother died. He will never sit in the back seat with me when my dad drives. Maybe my dad notices me looking at the empty space back here, and he asks me if I am happy. I tell him that I am. I think I am happy, but I understand my happiness might not look happy to anyone. After, I get an email from the museum. I subscribe to their newsletter. It says for fifteen dollars I can go to a friendship speed dating event they are having on a Saturday afternoon. I like that it’s about friendship so there’s no pressure to go on a date. The museum isn’t far from my place. I can walk there. And after, you get a free ticket to the museum itself. I like that it isn’t at night. So I don’t have to worry about walking back in the dark. What streets I will have to avoid because there isn’t streetlight there. I dress as if I am meeting someone for a date. I have on black trousers, a tailored sleeveless top underneath a jacket. I don’t want to show skin unless I like someone. When I get to the event there is a picture of a cat. In front of the words FRIENDSHIP SPEED DATING are these letters: PRRRRRR. I wonder what that means. I walk up to the entrance and someone greets me and gives me a letter. It is a lowercase j. This means that I will be moving from table to table, rather than staying at one table the whole event. I look around and there is one man. But he is old and has no hair. He is wearing a cotton T-shirt and I think his shorts are cotton too. They are loose and flap like his T-shirt. He looks like he is unbathed the way most of them look online. But I think, This is the museum. A lot of good-looking young men come here. As the event begins and a bell rings he remains the only man. I don’t leave because maybe the person I really want to meet is running late. Besides, the cupcakes on the snack table look delicious and I take a can of pop and slip it into my shoulder bag. I don’t want to buy the family-size bottles at the store. I never finish drinking the whole thing and by the time I get to it the bubbles have all flattened. The host tells us the event is for cat lovers and our ticket entitles us to go to the cat exhibit upstairs. It is only then that I understand the meaning of the letters in front of FRIENDSHIP SPEED DATING. It is the sound a cat makes. I don’t have a cat and don’t want one. A bell rings and I go to a table. I tell the woman waiting there that I didn’t know this event was for cat lovers and signed up accidentally. “I don’t have a cat,” I say. She stares at me blankly like she cannot imagine what kind of life that would be, one without a cat, and says to me, “Well, can I show you pictures of my cat?” Before I am able to answer she shoves her phone at me and I watch her finger swipe at several pictures of her cat. She has three, and two of them don’t get along. They are very territorial. I am familiar with this. I have told someone I don’t have something, but they don’t really care because they have it and they want to tell me about it. I am old enough now to know I don’t want to be friends with her. The bell rings and I move on. I tell the woman at this table the same thing. “I don’t have a cat,” I say. She looks at me with sympathy but also laughs and says, “We don’t have to talk about cats.” I am relieved and wonder why I wasn’t offered this by the person I first talked to. We talk about the city. A bell rings. I look around the room at other tables. See if there’s anyone I want to be friends with. Not really. Everyone here is nice and their desire to be friends are like little stones I will just toss into the lake. A few weeks later, my dad calls. And he asks me if I am happy. I am not annoyed at how often he does this. It was a question he never asked me until recently, after my brother died. When I hear this question, I think of it as a gift my brother’s death has given me. I tell my dad, “You know cats don’t like baths. They actually are very clean and don’t need baths. It’s better to have one because they are territorial. The beautiful ones cost a lot of money.” He tells me I seem to know a lot about cats. And I say, “I do. I really do.”