Red Button
That’s what you said in reference to the dating app with
its specific string of letters and numbers that allowed us to connect. You said
You know how to catch me, a response to my let’s-get-together-again jubilance
outside of the Hasco Brewing Company where we had met for the first time. You
had invested 45 minutes on the Greyline to get there: your hair needed a trim;
your shirt faded from wear; your wallet cheap vinyl. I learned you were a stock
boy, never went to college. But you were easy to talk to – nobody else I’d come
across on the local circuit had the gift of making me willing to dump out my
story bucket. Your eyes registered curiosity and bald admiration. You were an
ace at listening!
I
subscribe to the school of thought that less is more, so I pretended I had to
be somewhere after the third bock. Crestfallen is how I’d describe your face
once I announced this.
When we
parted, I turned in circles up Corcoran Avenue to catch another glimpse of your
receding yellow shirt. I conjured up a spiffy missive to telegraph my idea for
a follow-up picnic at the beach on Friday, or a brunch at Harvest Sun. Spare
you the anxiety and any premature disappointment that might propel you to move
on to the next chap in queue.
Only 50
seconds at most till I was at my BMW pulling out my phone to locate the app. I
tapped. I swiped. I flicked. Where were you? Our conversation thread – your
profile in my list of favorites – where’d you go? I shut down and rebooted.
Shuffled. Flipped. Come on! But nowhere. Any clue you had occupied a week of
quippy messaging with me capped by our singular face-to-face evening had
vamoosed.
Then it
sank in. You had pushed the little red button under my picture, the one that
omitted me from your portal, deleted us from collective memory.
You
know how to catch…echoed as a taunt, the kind played in schoolyard dodge ball
with the clumsiest boy of the class who everyone agrees will never hit the
mark. Or had it been genuine when offered - the decision to block me arriving
later? Except there was hardly any footage before later.
I sat
in my parked car unspooling our encounter, every word, every instant when I
lifted an eyebrow, paused in consideration, cocked a grin at your wisecracks.
No missteps, no pratfalls to speak of. You had even, when I finished my dead
dog story, placed a gentle hand upon mine.
But a
slip-up can be so subtle, it doesn’t even register that a muscle was used to
commit it. The press of your fingertip on that button vaporized any possibility
I’d take you to shows on Broadway, bring you breakfast in bed on my schooner,
show you my digs on Nantucket Island.
What a dazzling life! Were you hoping to become part of it - or already
sure you didn’t want it?
DannyBoy*35, didn’t you know what a great catch I am?
Shoshauna Shy
Author of five collections of poetry, Shoshauna Shy's
flash fiction has appeared in 100WordStory, 50-Word Stories, Fiction Southeast,
Sou’wester, Micro fiction Monday Magazine, Thrice Fiction, Brilliant Flash
Fiction, Blink Ink, Crack the Spine and other places.
