Missed Connections

Erica Malone's morning routine hasn't changed in eight years. She grinds the sleep out of her eyes at seven thirty on the dot after pressing snooze twice and gets out of her double bed, careful not to ruffle the blankets too much. She tucks the sheet back in and smoothes out the comforter. The rest of the bed looks like it hasn't been touched in years. She sleeps on the left side, further away from the door.

She takes a shower and lets her brown hair dry naturally while she makes a pot of coffee and waits for her two pieces of whole grain toast to pop. She eats a vanilla yogurt while she waits, staring out the window above the sink. She is still half asleep, despite the shower.

Sitting at the table, she spreads out the morning newspaper that she retrieved from the front step. Her coffee, one milk, two sugars sits beside her plate of buttered toast. She flips past the News and Sports stories to the Classified section. Taking a sip of her coffee she runs her finger down the page until she comes to what she is looking for.

Missed Connections. The ads people place every day trying to find someone they feel they had a connection with but let it pass them by. The guy that pumped your gas, did the two of you have a moment? Did you smile at him shyly? Did he wink at you and give you a coupon for a muffin from the bakery inside? Did you drive away thinking, he could have been the one, why didn't I say something?

You aren't the only one. Every day, there is a full page of people hoping to find the person they let drive away without so much as a "nice to meet you".

Erica sits every morning, sipping her coffee, reading through the missed connections, hoping that maybe one will call out to her. Maybe someone watched her walk away and thought, she is the one. Maybe they thought 'it's a long shot, but maybe she will read my ad and we will live happily ever after'.

For eight years, Erica has read through the ads in the morning paper, looking for her Mr. Right. Once in awhile an ad strikes her fancy so strongly that she contacts the person even though she knows she was not on the corner of Main and Fifth on Saturday walking her chihuahua. She figures, hey, the real person will never see this ad anyway, why let an opportunity go to waste?

You, blond, wearing red shorts and a black halter top, dark sunglasses. Old Hollywood glamour comes to mind. Me, jeans, white polo shirt, salt and pepper hair. I held the door open for you at the bank on Talbot street yesterday. You smelled like roses. I would love to have coffee, call me.

Erica sighs into her mug. If only this as were directed at her. She and the man with salt and pepper hair could reunite and get to know each other over a latte and a scone. But she runs her finger down to the next ad.

You, short, dark hair, jeans, flip flops, green purse. Me, dark hair, jeans, orange construction vest. You walked past the construction site on Harper on Monday and smiled at me. I think we had a moment. Let me know if you feel the same way.

Erica thinks back to Monday. She works on Harper street just a block away from the construction site. She knows full well she was not wearing flip flops, she is not allowed to wear them to work. But maybe.. just maybe the man was mistaken about her foot wear. She makes a mental note to call this one and circles the ad in red marker.

By this time it is almost nine o'clock and time for her to leave for work. She pulls on her conservative navy blue blazer and heads out the front door, checking the knob twice to be sure it's locked. She does this every day in the same order.

The day is as uneventful as any other day but Erica keeps her eyes peeling for the man of her dreams. She watches patients for any sign of interest. Maybe they are too shy to catch her eye. She analyzes every hello, every half smile, every thank you for a sign that her soul mate has come in that day for a teeth cleaning. She mentally memorizes the personal information of a few of them, just in case they place an ad in the morning newspaper. She wants to be ready, just in case.

"Haven't you met a nice boy yet Erica?" her mother asks her at Sunday brunch every week.

"I'm thirty one years old mother, I'm not interested in boys," she tells her mom as gently as she can. Her mother shakes her head and fiddles with the linen napkin tucked into the front of her floral button down.

"Oh, I just want to meet my grandchildren before I'm too old to spoil them," her mother says.

Erica sighs. Her mother has lived in the McCormick Home for the elderly for the last two and a half years and every Sunday she asks when Erica is going to bring the grandchildren by. The reminder that she hasn't found a man to marry yet puts a lump in her throat that doesn't dissolve until the next morning when she picks out a few ads to reply to.

Usually she spends her weeknights alone watching television until eleven o'clock when she turns off all the lights and heads up to bed. But this Wednesday Erica Malone has a date. She picks out a white halter dress with blue flowers and slips on her new white sandals. She curls her long hair and pins her bangs back. She is careful not to spritz too much of her favourite perfume on her neck and wrists. She is a picture of perfection. Who could resist?

His name is Ryan Jacobs. He is the one in the orange construction vest. Erica called him two nights ago and managed to answer the questions he asked correctly. He seemed excited she had called. He really wanted to see her again and he couldn't wait until the weekend. She agreed to meet him at the coffee shop right across the street from her own office on Wednesday night at seven p.m..

She feels good about this one. She thinks this could be the end of her lonely weekends and Sunday brunch with her mother at the nursing home, avoiding questions she asked herself asked daily.

Ryan Jacobs sits in one of the booths, his hands wrapped around a mug. His eyes watch the door, waiting for the girl he is expecting. His hair is shaggy and light brown. He wears a plaid shirt and jeans with tennis shoes. He looks a bit younger than Erica but age isn't important to her. She glances down at her own outfit and realizes she might have overdressed a little bit.

She enters the coffee shop, Ryan looks up but away when he realizes Erica is not the girl he is waiting for. Erica heads to the counter and orders a latte. She sits at the table closest to Ryan and pretends to read a book. The one she always brings to her coffee shop meetings, Catcher in the Rye. Minutes tick by, five, ten, fifteen minutes past the time she promised Ryan she would meet him inside the coffee shop.

He keeps glancing at his watch. Finally, thirty minutes have past and it is obvious that Ryan is about to leave. This is when Erica makes her move.

"Excuse me," she turns to him and says, "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you but is your name Max by any chance?"

He shakes his head, "No, sorry." He looks at his watch again.

"Oh," she looks at the door and the clock despondently. "I was supposed to meet someone, looks like I have been stood up," she says, as if just speaking to herself.

"Must be going around," Ryan says and smiles at her a little. "I was supposed to meet someone too," he tells her.

"Ah, a girlfriend?" Erica asks.

"No, just.. a friend," he says.

"Well, since we are both sitting here alone, would you mind if I joined you?" she says and smiles the smile she practices in the mirror. Not to big, just enough to appear friendly and open.

He thinks for a minute. "Sure, why not."

This is how most of her meetings go. No one is vulnerable and in need of an ego boost like a man who has just put himself on the line and been stood up.

Erica and Ryan end up hitting it off. This is what she has always dreamed about. This is what she scours the morning Classified ads for every morning. To Erica, the ends justify the means and she adores hearing Ryan tell the story of how they met. A happy coincidence. Fate. A chance meeting that changed both of their lives. She even takes him to meet her mother for Sunday brunch.

It is six months into the most honest relationship Erica has ever been in that a crack appears. She is at home, preparing a pasta salad for a barbeque at Ryan's brother's house that night when he comes in the front door, a case of beer in his hands.

"The weirdest thing just happened," he says, setting the beer on the floor.

"What is it?" Erica asks, totally oblivious.

"I was at the beer store and this woman came up to me. You'll never guess who it was," he says.

"Who?"

"The woman I was supposed to meet at the coffee shop that night we first met," he says.

Erica's breath catches in her throat and she stops chopping the green onion on the cutting board. She waits for what comes next.

"She told me she noticed me when I used to work over there, on Harper. She said she thought I was really cute and wishes she had said something then," he says. He shakes his head in confusion.

"It was like she didn't even remember standing me up."

"Well she doesn't sound like a very nice person. She stands you up and then has the nerve to talk to you six months later?" Erica says quickly.

"I told her I waited a half an hour for her. She didn't know what I was talking about," Ryan says and looks up at Erica.

She stares at him. Just because he happened to see the one he really wanted again doesn't mean he figured out what Erica did. He would never realize it was her that stood him up and pretended to meet him by accident that night.

"But it doesn't matter now, right? I met you that night instead so I'm glad she didn't show up," he says and starts moving beer from the case into the fridge.

Erica sighs and goes back to chopping green onion for her pasta salad. The realization that she might have interfered with true destiny at work weighs on her like a bad hangover. But didn't she deserve to be happy? Maybe it all worked out how it was supposed to. Maybe she and Ryan really were supposed to be together.

Years go by and Erica and Ryan get married. Erica never stops looking through the missed connections because somehow she thinks in her blind focus to find someone who was looking for her, she forgot to look for someone who was right for her. Now, here she is, with everything she ever wanted, wondering every night before she falls asleep if it is really meant to be. And if it even matters.