Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

April cackled like a witch over a cauldron, pecking at the backspace key. She had moved from the phone to the computer for ease of typing.

“What if you’d accidentally uploaded that?” Macy couldn’t help a burst of laughter. “I’d be swarmed by perverts!”

“You think there are that many big penises out there?” April scoffed.

“I think there are that many men who think they have big penises out there.”

The two of them cracked up again, and April poured another slug of wine into Macy’s coffee mug. They’d stayed late to write the profile—April running out to get wine and Chinese food—and Macy was getting just tipsy enough to think that maybe this was worth trying. After all, she could sit at the privacy of her own computer and flip through scads of men without ever having to leave her chair. The filtering aspects of it were awesome. You could knock out guys who smoked with the click of the mouse. You could choose them by political party. You could search by age, status, college degree—even hair or eye color, if you were that picky.

“I’ve never really liked blond guys,” Macy admitted when they got to that section.

“Give me a break ,” April said. “Ruling out blonds is like men ruling out women with small breasts. Tell me you’re not that person.”

“Of course not.” She waved the suggestion off with her mug. “I was only saying. It’s weird, what you look for and what you don’t, what’s attractive and what’s not. It’s so . . . inexplicable. It’s a wonder anybody finds anybody. Don’t put that in there.” She clasped her mug in both hands, elbows on armrests and lips on the rim. “Though maybe you should add something about not being in love with technology . . .”

“Calling all Luddites,” April typed. “That’ll be our headline. You’ll end up with a guy who’s been living under a rock. With an illicit computer.”

They’d gotten through the multiple choice questions quickly and were halfway through the essay. April had typed in a few positive things about Macy and was racing through what she wanted in a guy.

“What else?” April sat with her hands poised over the computer keyboard. Taking another sip of her wine, Macy leaned over to see what she’d written so far. It all sounded pretty cliché, but she thought it best not to mention that to April. She was, after all, just trying to help.

“He should be funny, and well-read,” Macy added. “With a goofy sense of humor.” She smiled, remembering Jeremy doing an impromptu dance while taking off his boxers in the middle of her bedroom. “And he should have kick-ass shoulders. Dreamy eyes, and long fingers . . .” Fingers that caressed with just the right amount of pressure, not tickling, yet not poking. A touch that sent shivers not just down a girl’s spine but into her toes, melting her insides . . .

“Yeah, we all know what long fingers means.”

Macy snorted. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m not putting all that. Especially not ‘goofy.’ You’ll end up with some loser bodybuilder with a kick-ass comic book collection.”

April laughed hard at her own joke, but Macy suddenly felt depressed. She put her mug down, blinking at the top of her desk.

“What? It was funny!” April protested. “Okay I’m putting down here that you want someone fit, with a good sense of humor . . .”

“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

April looked over at her, then down at the desk where Macy was gazing. “What do you mean? Did you forget to do something?”

“No.” She looked up at her friend, her stomach in her throat, the conviction of having let something slip through her fingers filling her. How had she lost it? What had she been thinking ?

“About Jeremy, I mean,” she continued, her voice reedy. “I think I’ve made a mistake. I can’t stop thinking about him. He was perfect, except for that one thing.”

April’s face lost its glee. “That one thing being that he didn’t pay any attention to you.”

She pictured Jeremy’s eyes gazing down at her as his body moved over hers, their breath mingling while their torsos arched and flexed together, legs tangling. “He paid attention to me sometimes.”

April made a sound in the back of her throat. “Sometimes. Listen to yourself. You’re a powerful woman, Mace. Look, it says so right here.” She jabbed at a place on the screen. “Come on, don’t get all maudlin on me now, or I’m taking my Three-Buck Chuck back. Jeremy was an addict, and like with any addict, you were number two. Is that what you want?”

It was true. At times, it was true.

“Remember that time you told me he spent the entire evening on his phone while you were trapped in a conversation with Weird Mildred at Rob and Frank’s?”

“Ugh.” Macy shuddered. She’d tried and tried to catch his eye, but not once did he look up to see where she was; and when she finally had escaped Weird Mildred, she’d gotten caught by the woman who ran the co-op, who went on and on about organic carrots. Something about how they shouldn’t be grown on farms, but in people’s backyards because that soil doesn’t usually have a history of pesticides— Could that be true?

“And he waited in the car with his phone one time, didn’t he? Instead of going in to your cousin’s baby shower?”

She tapped her fingers on her desk. “I had to go get him. To be fair, it was a baby shower. Most of the guys there looked miserable.”

“Sure, but if you say you’ll go, you go . You don’t sit in the freaking car.”

Macy turned to her. “I thought you liked Jeremy.”

“I did!” She lifted a shoulder, let it drop, continued to scroll down the profile page. “But, I don’t know, it just seemed like . . .”

Macy waited, but April didn’t finish.

“Seemed like what?” she pushed.

April exhaled and took her hand off the mouse. She turned the swivel chair toward her. “Don’t get mad.”

A bad feeling erupted in Macy’s stomach. “I never get mad at you.”

“Well, okay, don’t get upset, then.”

“Just spit it out,” Macy said, feeling ill. “Was he cheating on me? Did he make a pass at you? Oh my god, it’s not one of those things like Suzanne’s boyfriend where you all took an oath not to tell—”

“Oh for god’s sake, no! To be honest, I started thinking it wasn’t right when you told me about that time he answered a text in the middle of having sex with you.”

Macy’s cheeks flamed. “That was a work thing. It was really important. And we weren’t supposed to be having sex, actually. We were at the tennis club, in one of those unisex bathrooms near the pro shop.”

April laughed and rustled Macy’s hair. “That’s right! I was so proud of you, thinking outside the box like that. A public restroom! That was a first for you, wasn’t it?”

But he had taken the text, she was thinking now. He must have had one eye on the phone the whole time . . .

“Seriously,” April said, “and I’ll only say this once, in case you end up back together with him.”

Macy’s eyes shifted to hers, knowing it was hopeless. He’d texted during sex . You didn’t come back from that. Granted, that had been months ago, but in light of all the evidence since then, it was significant now.

“What?” Macy was uncomfortable under April’s scrutinizing gaze.

“He just wasn’t that into you,” she said finally, looking at her sorrowfully. “I hate to say it, but if you have to fight for a guy’s attention, that’s the bottom line.”

“You don’t . . . ?” April’s words were injury enough, but she steeled herself and forced the question. “You don’t think he was in love with me?”