Sparks the Matchmaker

CHAPTER 8

With the majority of Joy’s luggage in Ollie’s arms, they walked together the short distance back to where Ollie’s car was parked in his driveway. Why is it girls think they need to bring so much stuff on a two day trip?

“Do you know anything about this girl Lynn?” Ollie asked, as they drove a few blocks to pick her up.

“Nope. Seemed nice enough on the phone, I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, ya know. We’ll be spending the next chunk of time in the car with her. What if she’s weird or something?”

“Yeah. What if she stinks?” Joy held her nose and puffed out her cheeks like she was about to run out of breath.

“Well, did she stink over the phone?”

Joy didn’t miss a beat with her retort. “Not any more than you do.”

They continued to laugh as they parked the car and made their way to Lynn’s front door.

Lynn couldn’t have been taller than five foot three, but even before she said a word Ollie could tell that where she lacked in size she made up for in spunk.

“Let’s do this!” Lynn said with an enormous smile, rushing past them before Ollie could even offer to carry her bags.

“See, Ollie? I told you,” Joy said as they approached the car.

“What?” Ollie asked.

“I told you Lynn doesn’t stink.”

“I never said that! I just said—”

“Relax, Ollie,” Lynn said. “You caught me on a good day. I happened to shower right before you came. And you’re lucky, too, because my next shower isn’t scheduled until Thanksgiving weekend.”

The color that had left his face with Joy’s comment came back when he could see that Lynn had a sense of humor, something Joy must have already known by their phone conversations. Two things were apparent to him in his first impression of Lynn: she never slowed down and she never stopped smiling, a smile that brought out a dimple on her right cheek but not her left.

It took a few minutes to arrange the car so that everybody’s bags could fit comfortably, but he enjoyed every second of it. Every time a car drove by, he smiled at the thought of how he must look. He didn’t usually care what other people thought of him, but maybe that was because he wasn’t usually seen hanging around with two gorgeous women. This is gonna be a great weekend.

***

“So, your boyfriend decided not to come after all,” Ollie finally said. They’d been on the road now for at least a couple of hours, and he had been fanning the flames of his courage to bring it up, though it was more a statement of the painfully obvious than anything else.

“That guy,” Joy said as she shook her head. “That guy...”

“That guy…” Ollie said, making a face and trying to be funny. It didn’t work.

“Why is it some guys make you say it?” Joy asked. “Why couldn’t he just take the hint?”

“What? About the trip?” Ollie asked, trying to recover.

“About everything!” she said. “I mean, it was obvious I didn’t want him to come. I think it’s been pretty clear I don’t feel the same way about him anymore. Still, he wouldn’t take the hint. He kept trying to get me to say he could come.”

“Well… maybe,” Ollie said, “he was just scared to lose something he really didn’t want to let go of. Maybe he knew you were something special and couldn’t bear to let that slip away—”

“I wasn’t returning his phone calls,” Joy said, conversationally running him over. “I wasn’t popping in to see him at his work anymore. I was even leaving early for school so I could avoid walking with him to class. Is he stupid?”

Ollie had let his words fly into the air, full of ignorance and a lover’s optimism, calling her “something special,” hoping she would be flattered, but instead she pumped a shell into the chamber and let fly the buckshot of her response, blasting his compliment right out of the sky. Like a bird. Like some poor dumb ignorant bird, too stupid to understand that women carried shotguns with them everywhere; shotguns that kill birdwords. He thought about scrambling for another flattering word, but his brain had sequestered them all for their own safety.

“Well, girls aren’t much better,” Lynn said from the back. “The last relationship I was in, he was trying to break up with me, only I got the hint and asked him why. Still, he kept steering away from my question and I kept asking him until he finally said, ‘What do you want me to say, Lynn? Do you want me to point out all your faults or something so you can resent me? Or even worse, resent yourself?’ That really made me think.”

Ollie and Joy sat quietly. He wasn’t sure how to respond. “So,” he said brightly, “what’s everybody studying in school?”

“Psychology,” Lynn answered. “I’m studying for a career helping people with special needs.”

Oh, crap. Ollie knew there was no use trying to dodge the inevitable: he was practically standing on top of one of those strings Sparks had attached to his help. “Oh, so do you, uh… already work with mentally disabled people?” he asked sheepishly. “Or are you just studying for it?”

“Ya know what, I’ve never liked that term,” Lynn said. “I mean, what’s wrong with saying retarded? Why aren’t people allowed to use that word anymore?”

Ollie shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “What do you mean?” Man, maybe I shoulda just stayed home. “I just thought that’s the correct term; you know, the respectful one. I thought people didn’t like the word retarded.”

“That’s what I mean,” Lynn said. “Who gets to decide which terms are proper? Someone, somewhere, at some point in time decided that the word ‘retarded’ has a negative connotation to it. And somehow the word ‘disabled’ doesn’t. To me, it should be the other way around. To say people are disabled makes them sound broken, like they don’t have any ability to do anything at all.”

“And retarded just means slowed down,” Joy added.

“Right,” Lynn said. “See? That’s right. They’re not broken, they’re just slowed down a little bit. And I’d say pretty much all of them are superior to me in one way or another. Each person has their own strengths. Every one of the people I work with is exceptional in some unique way.”

Ollie felt like he needed to apologize. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “I just—”

“Relax,” Lynn said. “I wasn’t trying to put you on the spot. Actually, when I’m talking to other people, I often use the word disabled too, just because that’s what other people prefer to hear.”

Wait, what? That’s even more confusing. And this new conversation was even more uncomfortable than the last. “So, um… are you working in that field already?” Ollie repeated his initial question.

“Yeah. I work with a company called Ascend,” Lynn said.

Ollie was officially nervous about the situation now. He could feel his life slipping away from him; he felt trapped. He didn’t know anything about that type of work. “Is it a big hospital-type building or something?”

“No,” Lynn said. “The company has a bunch of apartments all around the area. The residents live just like the rest of us do. I go there when they’re home and help them with whatever they need. Some of them hardly need help with anything, so we’re only there a few hours out of the day. Others need help with almost everything, so they have people with them 24 hours a day.”

“And you work one day with one person and then the next you’re with someone else?” Joy asked.

“No,” Lynn said. “I only work with one girl. She lives alone and I just love her. I’m the manager there, so I’ve got a few people who work under me.”

“How many?” Ollie asked, realizing as the words came out of his mouth that he had just opened the doors to the invitation he was hoping wouldn’t come.

“Normally I have five,” Lynn answered, “but right now I’m short one. Are you interested in a job?”

“Uhhh,” Ollie said.

“Oh, I promise you, you’d love it,” Lynn said.

Do I really want Sparks’ help this badly? Maybe he could take the reins from here with Joy. Then again, if he were to do something like that, Sparks would have probably foreseen it. If that were the case, what would Sparks do if he refused? Would he just take off? Or worse, would he send him down the wrong path, chasing after the wrong girl to teach him a lesson?

“It’s hard for me to find good people,” Lynn said. “Especially the guys—they usually get snatched up by the other apartments; the ones with residents more prone to violence. Only males are allowed to work in those apartments, you know, for safety reasons. But I know my girl would love some attention from a guy like you.”

Ollie was truly frightened. “What would I need to do, then?” Ollie asked. He looked over at Joy to see if he was scoring any points for considering the job.

“How about you come in to the main office on Monday and fill out an application,” Lynn said. “I’ll let the human resources guy know ahead of time that you’ll be coming in so that nobody else can snatch you up.”

He couldn’t believe he was saying it, but he said, “Okay.” He tried to concentrate on the road and not on his heart palpitations. “You’re just hiring one person?” Ollie was hoping that the job would somehow bring him closer to Joy. With only one spot available for hire, he certainly wouldn’t be working alongside her though, and she didn’t seem interested in working there anyway.

“If that one person is a good fit, yes.”

“Okay, then,” Ollie said. “I guess we’ll talk more on Monday.” Why do I feel like I’m going to die?