Matched

“Funny guy,” Isaac murmured into the glass before taking a sip.

The alcohol burned his throat, and the pungent fumes left him craving clean, unfiltered air. Maybe this weekend he’d head up to the Poconos. For all that he loved the city—its vibrancy, international community and resulting diverse culture—there was nothing like New York’s mountains in the fall.

“Isaac?”

He turned toward the familiar voice. “Hello, Jaline.”

She handed him his packet and visibly cringed. “Sorry. Jonathan said to make sure you didn’t skip out.”

Irritation prickled along his hairline and he rubbed at the sensation, trying to get it to go away. “I told him I wouldn’t bail on him, and I won’t.”

“Fair enough. My job is to get you your paperwork and see you seated at table twelve. Then? I’m out, and you’re on your own with the women Lucky paired you with.”

“Fantastic.” In reality, this whole thing was anything but.

Taking the paperwork, he made his way to table twelve, well aware the woman watched his every move. He had to wonder what she’d do if he feinted toward the door, but he didn’t. He was many things—unnecessarily cruel wasn’t one of them. That he’d even considered it was evidence as to how much the evening had worn on him. Only brotherly affection kept him from walking out. Jonathan had made it clear he needed Isaac to see this through. And at the end of the night, Isaac would be disqualified for any future test runs of the Power Match app.

Whatever. It amused him that he would end up being declared insufficient. That hadn’t ever happened to him before.

Sinking into a chair, he set his drink and paperwork on the table and then shrugged out of his suit jacket. Less than two minutes passed before he found himself putting the jacket on again.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, yanking the jacket so it hung straight and then rearranging his tie. “It’s a couple hours of one night of my life. Nothing more. I’ve been civil for far longer and under worse conditions.” He picked up his martini glass and gave Jaline, who still watched him, a somber salute. “I’ll survive.”

With the lyrics from that same iconic 70s song ringing through his head, he smiled benignly as the first woman approached his table.

* * *

Rachel leaned over the ladies’-room counter and reapplied her lipstick. The sound system had been piped into the spacious room, so she heard the moderator calling participants together to attend what was deemed their final “power match.” The woman’s enthusiasm grated on Rachel’s nerves, particularly since her first two meet and greets had been unmitigated catastrophes.

“Calling all lab rats together for the final observation session of mating behaviors as they occur in an urban environment,” someone said from behind a closed stall door.

“In a controlled urban environment,” someone else qualified from another stall.

The two commentators laughed.

Rachel didn’t.

Were they right? Was that all this was—a structured environment where psychologists would watch with an educated eye and report their findings back to the mysterious people who designed apps like this? What would they do with the personal information when the app went live? She racked her brain, trying to remember the contract language regarding using an applicant’s personal information for advertising and promotional purposes.

Damn it. Wine haze had her questioning what she thought she remembered.

She knew better than to sign anything, even her bar tab, when she’d had that third glass of red.

Could she back out? Yes, but she needed the cash offered to participants to pay off the remaining balance on her March trip with Casey to the Dominican Republic. If she didn’t collect the two grand, she’d be seriously hard-pressed to make that vacation happen. And she needed that vacation. Two weeks in paradise. No incessantly ringing phones. No senior attorneys treating her like she was a secretary instead of an active member of the New York State Bar. No ten-and twelve-hour days ending with cold Chinese takeout. No Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons in the office trying to catch up. No insane commute that involved crowded subway stations, jostling crowds at every crosswalk or attempts to avoid the unpredictable weather.

Two weeks of complimentary drinks, fine dining, spa services and beach chairs situated just out of reach of the surf.

“For that, I can tolerate a hell of a lot more than being called a lab rat,” she said to her reflection.

An attractive woman left one of the stalls, stepped up to the mirror and began fussing with her hair. “You here for the dating thing?”

“Yeah.” Rachel glanced over. “You?”

“No. I’m Jaline’s assistant.”

Rachel searched her brain for the name but came up empty. “Jaline?”

“Jaline Harkins. The moderator.” Making an O with her mouth, the woman used a piece of tissue to clean up the places she seemed to think her lipstick had feathered. “She’s the doctor—well, she’s a psychologist but has her PhD—for the app developer. She worked for the number one dating app in the United States, developing the software that helped them get to where they were. But the guy who came up with the app that paired powerful men and women? He came in and stole her right out from under the competition.”

A warning bell sounded in Rachel’s head. “If she had a noncompete, and I can’t imagine she didn’t, she’s violating the terms of her employment.” And any reasonably intelligent employer would have had a noncompete in place if this woman, Jaline, had exclusive access to proprietary information like the competitor’s software.

Jaline’s assistant elegantly lifted one shoulder with obvious indifference. “No idea. All I know is that Jaline took me with her.” The stranger casually glanced at Rachel from the corner of her eye. “Jaline even got me a raise out of the whole thing. She told me that the guy who scooped us has some pretty serious capital backing. And with Jaline handling the psychology between good and bad matches? This new app is going to be a huge success.”

Rachel had no idea what she was expected to say to that, so she just nodded.

“What do you do?” the other woman asked.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Cool. Your first two matches—what did you think?” The woman didn’t give Rachel time to answer before continuing. “If you’ll excuse me, she’ll need me on the floor as the men try to navigate the paperwork for this final power match. Even men deemed professionally powerful need an assistant if forms are involved. Best of luck finding Mr. Right,” she called over her shoulder as she left the bathroom and returned to the bar.

“I just need to find Mr. Right Now,” Rachel said to the empty air. Neither man she’d been paired with so far had even come close.

The first man had her looking around to see if the whole event was actually a practical joke...one made wholly at her expense. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been. “King John” owned a line of portable toilets used at construction sites and such. “John ain’t my name. It’s Bruce,” he’d said. “But I’m talkin’ ‘John’ as in shitter, sweet cheeks. Get it?”

The “King” had tried to pump her for legal advice for the first thirty minutes of their forty-five-minute introduction. When she’d said that she didn’t give legal advice outside the office, he’d shrugged. Then his face lit with enthusiasm. He offered to take her on a tour of his “personal facilities” as he slid his filthy booted foot up the inside of her bare leg while waggling his eyebrows and asking, again, if she “got it.”

She stood, told him she definitely “got it” and said that if he didn’t get out before the next session, she’d have him thrown out. Then she went straight to the bar and ordered a mojito.

The second man she’d been matched with had been so initially forgettable that he seemed harmless—he reminded her of an actor who played a scientist on a popular sitcom. As irony would have it, the guy was actually a scientist. He held a doctorate in astronomy from MIT. But he also lived in his mother’s basement and was a certified conspiracy theorist. He had spent the entire time telling her that the evening’s events were part of a breeding study being carried out by the government.

When the bell announcing the conclusion of the second match sounded, Rachel had nearly tipped over her chair as she stood and headed for the bar. That hadn’t stopped the guy from calling out an invitation to go back to his mom’s place “to copulate in the name of science.”

Her second drink had been a shot of tequila.

So had her third, and she hadn’t even met the third man she’d been paired with.

She also hadn’t been the only woman at the bar. The bartender had been pouring as fast as he could for the mass of women crowding the counter, all of them sporting some level of shock.

If she was honest with herself, it seemed most prudent at this point to simply cut and run. She wasn’t even opposed to leaving her coat. It could be replaced. Her sanity? No such guarantees. Yes, she needed the money for her vacation. But she was more than willing to eat a ramen-only diet to pay off the trip’s outstanding balance. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d borrow from her 401(k). Anything had to be better than this.

Decision made, she left the women’s room and headed for the exit.

Someone lightly touched her arm, and Rachel spun to find the moderator, Jaline, looking at her. “Is something wrong?”

“You could say that. First, I was felt up by the steel-toed work boot of the man I wouldn’t have selected as a partner if humanity’s very existence hung in the balance. I told him to leave without consulting you, but I also likely saved you sexual-harassment charges. You’re welcome, but make sure he’s taken off the roster for future events. I mean it.” She knew she sounded as crazed as she felt, but there was no reining it in. “My second match is a conspiracy theorist who probably believes Star Trek—any generation—was a documentary. He offered to procreate, in his bedroom in his mother’s basement, in the name of science. I don’t know where you found these guys, but they aren’t even remotely the type of partners we were promised. They aren’t like-minded. They aren’t civilized. And they certainly aren’t gentlemen. Given the looks on most of the women’s faces at the bar, you’re going to need to provide post ‘power match’ therapy to help them get over the horrors of agreeing to this farce.”

Chest heaving, she turned to go, but Jaline stopped her, this time grabbing her arm with enough force to startle Rachel. The woman’s eyes were wide, her expression harried.