I consider her words. “Thank you,” I say, leaning over for a hug. “I may have been slightly irrational.”
We sit quietly for a few minutes. “You know, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are both Year of the Rat,” Alisha offers, breaking the silence.
“That changes everything,” I joke.
“There’s also something else I wanted to show you,” Alisha says, scrolling through her emails.
“We’re supposed to be disconnected right now. Immersed in nature,” I say.
“The word disconnected is not in my vocabulary. This morning, my friend sent me a link to the latest Dating in La La Land episode. Lunar Love gets a shout-out at eight minutes and twenty seconds.” Alisha looks nervous when she shows me her screen. “It’s the podcast episode with Bennett,” she says. “Do you want to listen?”
My heart starts pounding in my ears. It’s the podcast episode. The one we wagered on. The one that I lost.
Alisha already has the podcast launched on her phone. She slides to the specific time in the episode and hovers her finger over the Play button.
“Play it,” I say, bracing myself. If he has something to say about Lunar Love, I need to know what it is.
My throat tightens when the sound of Bennett’s voice fills the air.
“The only reason I’m on this podcast is because of a silly wager,” Bennett says. “But—”
Marcus’s voice interjects. “That’s episode thirteen, for those who want more context. I’ll link to it in the program notes. Please, continue.”
By the way Bennett clears his throat, I can tell he’s annoyed. “As I was saying, I’m here because of three very important women who paved the way for a business like mine to even exist. And I’m not talking about apps. I mean Chinese zodiac matchmaking. In 1970, a woman named June Huang started Lunar Love, a matchmaking company here in Los Angeles, and she built it up to be one of the most special matchmaking businesses that exists today.”
My nose and eyes sting as I hold back tears.
“Lunar Love is truly one-of-a-kind,” Bennett continues. “I honestly don’t consider ZodiaCupid to be their competition. They’re in a league of their own. June was my inspiration, and I’m lucky to have learned a lot from her. Over the years, one of June’s daughters took over, and now, one of June’s granddaughters, Olivia, is in charge. I consider myself lucky to have also learned a lot from Olivia, too. She was actually supposed to be on this podcast today instead of me. In no way did I win this wager. In fact, I lost pretty badly.”
“How so?” Marcus asks.
There’s a long pause. “I fell in love,” Bennett finally says.
I gasp, my breathing becoming faster. I bite my lip and lean closer to listen.
“So, per the terms of the agreement,” he adds, “Lunar Love should get the social media placement and new clients. They deserve it. I met an amazing woman because of them. I may not be what she’s looking for, but if I’m lucky enough to have a second chance, I won’t mess it up. Someone much smarter than me once told me, if it’s something that you feel and experience, that makes it real. What I feel, it’s real.”
Tears prick my eyes. “You didn’t think you should lead with this?” I ask Alisha.
“I had to let you get there on your own first,” she says. Alisha hits Pause and grabs for my hand. “He really sounds like he misses you. What do you feel?”
“That it’s real,” I say softly.
My phone buzzes with a ZodiaCupid notification with a message from Parker. He’s open to talking, even though he chose to use ZodiaCupid for whatever reason in the first place. He didn’t flat out reject Lunar Love. Maybe he’s even into the zodiac, and at the end of the day, isn’t that the type of excitement we’re trying to instill in our clients?
I look out over Los Angeles as the city starts to wake up for the day. It’s the city where people come to make their dreams come true. Where anything feels possible. The place where anyone can freely reinvent themselves over and over again. The town where competition is fierce, but ambition is fiercer. Competition doesn’t stop people from chasing after what they want. It’s not going to stop me, either.
Even Lunar Love is in its own process of reinvention. Maybe it’s not completely unreasonable to think that the merging of traditional and modern can actually do some good in the world.
“I have to go,” I say, checking the time on my phone. I take off running down the mountain. I have a pitch to get to.
Chapter 21
I arrive at the Pitch IRL venue in downtown LA to find Bennett. The venue is small enough where every angle is considered a good seat. On the large screen behind the stage, I see the ZodiaCupid logo displayed. Perfect. I made it just in time to catch Bennett in the middle of his pitch.
Up on stage, Bennett paces back and forth. He looks nervous. This isn’t what I expected when I envisioned him pitching all his past businesses. As he starts to describe ZodiaCupid, he fumbles over data and statistics. He takes a second to drink water.
I approach the stage looking sweaty and disheveled in my leggings and oversized T-shirt. When Bennett places the cup down and looks up, I’m able to catch his eye. I give him a small wave and mouth the words “From the heart,” pointing to the left side of my chest. He returns the smile and quickly inhales before letting out a long breath.
“People are more than just line items in an Excel spreadsheet,” Bennett says. He stands up straighter, his grip on his notecards relaxing. The confidence that was lacking in his voice before is now present and commanding.
“There’s no algorithm in the world that can capture what it’s like to laugh uncontrollably with the person you love or that feeling when you’re sitting next to someone for the first time at a movie and wondering if they want to hold your hand just like you do,” he says, taking deliberate pauses and steps across the stage. “Or when you bomb so badly on a date but don’t care because every second you spend with them is more important than any second you had without them.”
Just when I think he’s finished, he looks up at me and dives into why he started ZodiaCupid. He shares a condensed version of the story he told me about finding his mother’s journals, and how his parents were mismatched yet perfectly matched, and the importance of discovering your culture no matter what age you are. It’s when he speaks from the heart that I notice the young audience shifting in their seats and focusing on him instead of on their phones.