Page 33 of Swiped
* * *
Rami wasn’t proud of the things he’d been saying into his phone that afternoon. Things like, “Your sister got married? No, come on!” and “Did she have any cute bridesmaids?” and “What about on the groom’s side?”
It had been humiliating. And fruitless.
He sat perched on the end of his bed, drumming a pen against the notepad on his lap. Every name on the list wascrossed out — every cousin, second-cousin, semi-aunt, and old childhood friend searched and found devoid of leads for someone he could date. He even would have asked his little sister, Sana, to set him up with one of her giggly friends — a task that would have thrilled her to no end had she not moved away last year for a fresh start after an epic breakup. He didn’t want to risk opening any old wounds. There was one last name on the list. It read:Amma?
He ripped off the paper, crumpled it, and threw it against the wall with a groan. There were depths to which he would not sink. Yet. Besides, one of his cousins had probably alerted his mom to his little quest by now, anyway. Usually, he was grateful to have grown up in the Bay Area, but there were days he wished he had flown a little farther from the nest.
A sharp knock sounded on his door, and Ian popped his head in. “Sounds like someone needs a little help?”
“Were you just standing right outside my door?”
Ian breezed in. “The shaman sends his own invitation.” He made for Rami’s closet and began rifling through the clothes. “We’re going to start small, little polliwog. If you want to catch a fish, you have to go to the fullest pond.”
Rami frowned. “OK, that is a very mixed metaphor, and I think a frog might be a poor choice given the negative romantic connotations of frogs—”
Ian pulled off the shirt he was wearing and tossed it to Rami. “Wear this. Let’s go.”
Rami watched the massive, coiled snake tattoo on Ian’s back ripple as he walked out of the room. He held up the weird, silvery button-down pooled in his lap. At least Ian’s plan probably wouldn’t involve any more phone calls.
* * *
Ian and Rami pushed their dark green grocery carts through the cavernous produce section of the grocery co-op. Rami could smell the cedar and ylang-ylang notes of Ian’s cologne in his shimmery borrowed shirt. He had to admit it was a nice scent. Ian, himself, was wearing a somber navy-blue hoodie for a reason that had something to do with peacocks. Rami hadn’t tried to understand it.
He leaned his elbows on his cart. “Why would you ever want to meet someone at the grocery store? It’s too much pressure.” He watched the millennials and Gen Xers in yoga pants and fair-trade organic kaftans mill around them, with the occasional aging punk and muscle bro thrown into the mix of urban hippies. “Sometimes you need to buy toilet paper and canned chili, and you can’t impress a girl with that in your cart.”
Ian cocked his head. “Can’t you?”
“Gross.”
Ian placed an enormous bushel of kale into his cart. “Relax, everyone knows the co-op is the hookup store. This food is not for eating.”
“OK, but it is also, like, criminally overpriced,” Rami grumbled and picked up a nearby artichoke. A woman with blonde dreadlocks and a shibori-dyed sarong sauntered toward them holding a towering stalk of Brussels sprouts like it was her wedding bouquet. She glanced at the artichoke and wrinkled her nose. She neared Ian, clocked his kale, and batted her lashes as she stepped behind a pyramid of mangoes.
“What is happening?” said Rami, holding out the artichoke like a vegan Hamlet.
Ian snatched it. “Produce is too advanced for you, polliwog. Too symbolically loaded, like an art form.” He nestled the artichoke delicately back into place on the shelf. “You need to go to the meat market.”
Rami scoffed. “Do they even sell meat here?”
“No, buddy. Bulk foods. If you go there, you’re practically begging for a phone number.” Ian smiled at the dreadlocked woman with the Brussels sprouts. “Everyone knows that,” he said, and patted Rami on the back as he sauntered toward his cruciferous conquest.
Rami watched as she playfully tapped Ian with the stalk. “Everyone knows that,” he muttered, and pushed his cart toward the bulk foods.
* * *
Rami had been watching the “meat market” scene for the length of two Mumford & Sons songs and one Grateful Dead jam on the store speakers. So, for him, an eternity. He’d seen an indie rock girl with bleached bangs and a nose ring fumble to fill a baggie with banana chips, and an indie rock guy with a bright orange bob and pink hoodie, swoop in to hold the bag for her with a winning smile. They’d left together. He’d watched a slight young man in a gray cardigan scoop up a bag of unsalted almonds, twist on the tag and then stand there, pretending to browse, until a tall shopper in a sequined skirt filled their own bag of all-natural fruit juice gummies, and then Unsalted Almonds asked Gummies for the pen to write the SKU number. They’d left together.
It was all really just a lot of pressure. But he was here in this ridiculous, melted-Terminator-looking shirt, and how else was he going to find a date before the BuzzFill deadline? He took a deep breath and waded into the aisle lined with little plastic bins.
“Need any help?” he offered to a freckled redhead in front of the yogurt raisins. She smiled wordlessly and poured a waterfall of raisins into a reusable cloth bag like modeling for a marble fountain of the Platonic ideal produce shopper. “Yeah, OK, you seem good,” he mumbled.
He kept walking, slowly down the aisle. He put his hands behind his back so he felt more like he was strolling and less like he was creeping.
A dark-skinned woman with cropped curls gingerly dropped dried pineapple rings into a bag with plastic tongs. “Don’t want to accidentally get too many!” he said. “Expensive.” She ran her eyes over him, head to toe, then went back to the pineapple.
He was sweating. The flame-out with Lynn shadowed his mind. How could he know if someone was interested in dating a straight, monogamous, cis man without some way of seeing that information spelled out? How could he know their pronouns, availability, or if they believed in some heinous, immoral stance likemeal prepping? It was so much more complicated than looking for a wedding ring.
