Magnify

workings of serendipity. My friend Ruthann, 90 years old, had a big grin on her face when she told me how she met her husband. She taught at a junior high school and parked in the same parking garage every day for nearly 20 years when she finally struck up a conversation with Norton, who had been teaching and parking there for just as long. They were both 40 years old. Once married, they had a sunny 30-plus years together, just the two of them in a sprawling white house in the hills, until he collapsed one day while picking raspberries.

Their meeting can’t be characterized as a near-miss. I picture Cupid yawning lazily near the parking garage entrance, or napping once in a while in a green lawn chair next to the elevators, his cache of arrows spilling across his lap while he snoozes, waiting for the perfect week, the perfect year to bring Ruthann and Norton together. Maybe spring, he must have thought to himself, they’ll finish grading papers and have the summer together with picnic baskets and rowboats, if Norton doesn’t get cold feet. No, better to take up the bow and let the arrow fly in winter, when snowy nights bring a longing for firelight and quilts and the pleasure of cold hands made warm by another’s touch.

Cupid has plunged mysteriously in and out of my own life. He likes to surprise me, but has remained conspicuously absent from every casual set-up engineered by friends, as if to show his disdain for mortal interference. He managed near-total invisibility for excruciatingly long stretches of time, seeming to wait until I gave up on love before leaping out like a conjurer from behind the curtains. There he was, mischievous, unmistakable, enjoying showing off at the party I very nearly didn’t attend, the one where I met Mikhail and fell so wildly in love I felt the world catch fire. A time before that, Cupid stowed away on an innocent outing. My women friends and I took a spontaneous detour to a dance club on a country road. He hid almost until closing time and then readied his bow, striking Brian and me, complete strangers, with arrows so deftly aimed we could hardly bear to part at evening’s end.

But, oh, where was Cupid when I met Hunter? We were introduced by my friends Peggy and Al, who’d campaigned for weeks to bring us together at dinner. Hunter was a psychologist with curly dark hair, a warm smile and a knack for conversation. I liked him well enough; at least until we started going out on our own. A succession of dates revealed Hunter’s less-than-stellar qualities: for one thing, he was obsessively frugal, only choosing restaurants for which he had two-for-one coupons, and always waiting until I’d forked over my share of the tab before handing our payment to the waiter. He took me to musicals he knew well, and sang the songs in my ear so loudly I could barely hear the actors. Every time we went out, he had one reason or another why it made better sense for me to pick him up than the reverse, though his efforts to save gas money were disturbingly obvious. The conversational streak I’d found charming at Peg and Al’s house began to seem more than a little one-sided, and his good-night phone calls after our dates, which once sounded appreciative, now struck me as desperate.

Over the next several weeks, I tried to gently extricate myself from what he considered a budding relationship and I suspected was only a sinking ship. But my efforts to turn down outings with Hunter only resulted in his pressing me to plan another specific night with him in the near future. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take the hint. I dreaded hurting him.

My father’s impending visit from out-of-town provided me with what I hoped was the perfect excuse. “I haven’t seen him for a long while, Hunter. You know how it is with family.”

But, alas, Hunter wanted to meet him, just the once, and in some ill-thought-out and possibly perverse burst of creativity, I imagined that introducing my chronically depressed father to the needy psychologist I was trying to dump might make for an interesting evening. At the very least, Dad might be heartened knowing I was dating a mental health professional.

We drove to pick up Hunter at his apartment, which my father found amusing, and then to a Chinese restaurant for which Hunter had both an early-bird-special coupon and a buy-one, get-one-free deal. Dad restrained a grin while my date chattered non-stop, cutting egg rolls and pork buns into exact thirds and carefully distributing everything on the table like war-time rations. My father paid for the entire meal, gallantly waving the coupons away, which threw Hunter into a fit of agitation and conflict. We headed to a jazz club I’d picked out, knowing the music would lift Dad’s spirits, though Hunter seemed depressed that we each had to pay full freight for the cover charge.

“Isn’t there a senior discount?” he asked the girl at the door, pointing to my father. She shook her head and stamped our hands with neon ink. Later, inside the dark, ale-scented depths of the club, I gazed at my father, snapping his fingers in time with the quartet on stage, clearly enjoying himself, and then at Hunter, who had made little earplugs out of his cocktail napkin and slunk down, eyes closed, in his wooden chair, looking for all the world like a miserable old man.

“It’s too damned loud in here, and I have to work tomorrow,” said my date finally, for the very first time ending an evening with me of his own accord. “Would you mind dropping me off?” Beneath the heady thrum of the bass, I could’ve sworn I heard an arrow break and fall noisily to the ground as Hunter wrestled himself into his jacket and stomped down the club’s narrow passageway ahead of us.

My father and I headed over the bridge to my house again in silence, gazing at the fog, which had rolled in thickly, giving the night a lovely soft halo, obscuring the lights of the streets behind us.

“That was some music,” Dad said. “I’d go there again.”

“Good. What did you think of Hunter?” I asked him when we paused at a red light. In the quiet before my father spoke, I wondered why I’d introduced them and how I’d explain to Dad that I wasn’t going to see the guy again.

“Frankly, I was a little hurt that he didn’t kiss us good night,” said my father.

We looked at each other before the light changed. I started to laugh, and Dad laughed back. We just couldn’t stop.

“Who are we going to date next, honey?” he said. “Seems like slim pickin's out there.”

“Maybe a guy who’ll spring for dinner,” I said to my father, which sent him into a fresh fit, his eyes crinkled up with warmth and merriment. I’m not sure when I’ve loved a man more.

Stacy Appel is an award-winning writer in California whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and other publications. She has also written for National Public Radio. She is a contributor to the book You Know You’re a Writer When.... Contact Stacy at WordWork101@aol.com.