Down the Rabbit Hole

A second later she loomed in the doorway.

“We get your type in here allll the time,” she said in a voice low and silky. “Trying to buck the system. Thinking they can outsmart the game. And you know what happens to them?”

Jeremy gritted his teeth. “They get dragged back here against their will?”

“Time and again.”

He could see her grinning from the corner of his eye.

“Have you learned anything today, young man?”

He frowned, staring sightlessly at his email inbox. “Actually, no.” He turned toward her, and looked up, up, up to her broad, maniacal face. The tiara twinkled in the fluorescent lighting.

“And why not?” Her tone gained a harder edge.

“Because, here’s the thing. We’re supposed to find a real relationship, right? That’s the point of iLove? Well, that’s what I was doing.”

“Is. That. Right.”

“Yeah, it was. Not with Gina, of course, but Macy. You know, the one whose phone I get to wander around in upstairs? So I must be here to get back together with her, right? Or else why would one entire floor of this building be dedicated to my accessing her cell phone?”

“Upstairs?” she scoffed. “There is no upstairs. Whatever you think is up there is in your very own head, young man. And I guess it doesn’t surprise me any that what you got up there is nothing but another cellular phone.”

Could he be so crazy that he was crazy even here? Or was the place just built to make him think so? “Okay, sure. But listen, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Macy is the girl for me. I’m not going to find anyone on iLove unless it’s her. So if you let me out of here I will build a relationship with her, a real relationship.”

“Just let you out, huh?”

“Look, you took away all of my tools to make this right. I can’t see her, I can’t talk to her, even on the phone. I can’t even find her on iLove, at least not the way things are set up here. So I had to resort to . . . something else.”

“We didn’t take away your tools. You have all of your tools.” She swept a hand toward his array of screens. “You have everything you thought you needed when you were out before. What’s different now?”

“What’s different? I could see people before, touch them, have face-to-face relationships.”

“Honey,” she said, leaning an elbow on the top of his cubicle wall, “that is exactly the point. You saw people, touched people, had face-to-face relationships, but all you were facing was your smartphone.”

“I get that now,” he said eagerly. “I do. I swear I do. Look, if you let me email her, let me get out of here for a date with her, I know I can make everything right.”

“You want special rules, just for you?”

He exhaled in frustration. “All right, then, just tell me how to find her on iLove. If I make a date that way can I get out and see her?”

“Sure, you know the rules. So that’s what you want? Me to tell you how to find her on iLove?” she asked sweetly.

“Yes!”

“And you’ll do everything else the right way?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I promise.” He gave her his sincerest smile, then held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“What a load of BS, mister. Here you are asking me out of one side of your mouth to break the rules, while out of the other side you’re promising to do everything the right way. You’ve got to get your head on straight, that’s what you’ve got to do. And start paying attention!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Macy picked up her phone for the dozenth time and looked for the little red 1 that would tell her she had a text or an email or a voice mail. She even checked her Facebook page to see if Jeremy might have messaged her there, but there was nothing.

Two days ago, right after she’d seen him at the restaurant, she’d called him. His voice mail had picked up immediately and she hadn’t wanted to leave a message. Then she’d tried again the next day. Same thing. She tried once more yesterday but she figured by then he must have seen her in his missed call list and was simply not calling back. The many possible reasons for this made her want to cry, but that didn’t stop her from hoping he’d get in touch.

“Jeez, I’m really starting to see what you mean about Jeremy,” April said, pushing through a rack of spandex yoga pants and eyeing her skeptically.

Macy looked up, her heart leaping at the possibility that April had spotted him. “About Jeremy? What do you mean?”

“About how annoying it is to be with someone constantly looking at their phone. You’ve barely taken your eyes off that thing the last few days. Not since you saw him at that restaurant. You’re not still thinking you’ll hear from him, are you? He was on a date, for pity’s sake.”

Macy smarted at the words. “You don’t have to be so blunt about it.”

“I’m sorry. But you’ve been mooning around for weeks now, and it’s time to move on. I’m worried about you.” April sighed and pushed away from the clothing rack. “Come on, let’s get out of here. They never put the good stuff on sale and I’m just not the type to do yoga in leopard-print tights.”

Macy shot her a look. “Yes you are.”