Cameron: Who’s excited for yet another meeting that could’ve been an email?
Mel: I’m arming myself with extra snacks to share.
Ivy: It’s not even 7am yet. Stop ruining my vibe with reminders about how miserable this workday is going to be.
Mel: We’ll make it up to you with extra coffee from the Bluesy Bean.
Ivy: You’re forgiven.
***
It is a truth universally acknowledged that faculty and staff meetings are soul destroying.
The color in my vision gradually flattened into black and white. I felt the marrow seeping from my very bones, draining away. Soon I would be an empty husk, my insides all withered to the point of blowing away at the slightest puff. The meeting would never end. All of us were destined to die in this conference room.
Yes, it’s melodramatic. It’s also 100 percent true.
At the urge to feel something—anything—I typed my passcode across my phone screen. My Meetings Binder, complete with a printed cover and colored tabs (all of them empty), served two purposes. One, I could look studious to anyone important enough to matter—as long as they didn’t look too closely. Two, with my phone tucked behind my binder, I could discreetly tap on a few apps without goody-two-shoes Clarice ratting me out. Large scrolling motions with my fingers were a dead giveaway, so it was best to only tap, and only occasionally. I wouldn’t want to be called out like Vernon was last week.
The colorful Instagram logo blinked. When the app opened, of course the first image in my feed was a book cover. I swallowed. I should’ve known better. No, I did know better. I just enjoyed the pain. We were all about to die in this conference room anyway. Might as well die for a cause better than Keith’s endless PowerPoint presentation.
BIG REVEAL! Read the Instagram post from Always Cheerful Lisa. So thrilled to be sharing my new book cover with my favorite followers! Love you all so much! Hope you love my new characters as much as I do!
How many heart emojis was that? Eleven? That was too many. Someone needed to make a law to limit how many times the same emoji could be used in one post. If it was wrong to use multiple exclamation points, it was also wrong to use multiples of the same emoji.
My fingertips lingered on the screen. The novel’s cover was beautiful, the light hitting the glossy book jacket just right. Feelings of genuine happiness for Always Cheerful Lisa conflicted with an inner voice reminding me that I hadn’t achieved anything even remotely like she had. I felt jealous, okay? She was yet another of my college classmates publishing a book, or getting married, or having babies, or finding an agent, or winning a writing award, or getting a promotion at work. Okay, so the writing and book successes rankled the most, but still.
How did my fellow English major graduates manage such achievements, anyway? In the same amount of time it took them to find success, all I had done in my twenty-nine years was rent an apartment, buy a car, and keep working as a writing tutor at the university, all while I waited for my own big break in the writing world.
A text notification snagged my gaze.
Cameron: All PowerPoint software across campus will die a slow, agonizing death as soon as this meeting is over. Not that you heard it from me.
I fought my smile. It paid to have an inside source in the IT department. I tapped out my reply as discreetly as possible. Mel: Please tell me you can actually do that.
Cameron: I can. And I will. Even if it means breaking into the dean’s office.
Mel: Tell me again how many studies show that meetings like this make us less productive? A bazillion?
Cameron: Yes. Precisely a bazillion. What an exact statistic. But by the time I’m done, these pointless meetings will also be PowerPointless. Get it?
I twisted my lips to hide another smile and shot a look at Cameron across the table, where his tall body slouched low in an uncomfortable office chair. His ever-present chestnut cowlick stood defiant against his efforts at tidiness, and his face was expressionless—but his blue eyes were gleeful behind the dark frames of his glasses. Behind him, the floor-to-ceiling conference room windows offered a barren view of winter in New England.
Mel: If you have to ask if I got it, it’s not a good joke.
Another text notification popped up, this time from a group thread.
Ivy: You two are being too obvious.
Cameron: Your mom is too obvious.
Ivy: You don’t even make sense.
Cameron: You do realize you just handed me another mom joke on a shiny silver platter, right?
Ivy: NO.
Leaving my two best friends to argue on our thread, I switched over to Facebook. At least Always Cheerful Lisa wouldn’t be posting about her new book cover on there. She was too hip for Facebook. She was too cool for Facebook. Too awesome for—
My attention caught on an article in my News Feed. “Advice for Women Seeking Husbands—in the 1950s.” Perfect. The headline promised countless gems to fuel my righteous anger against everyone pressuring me to date, marry, and make babies. Nothing like the patriarchy in its purest form (the good ol’ 1950s) and modern-day snark (social media comments from modern feminists) to boost my mood. Not much made for better entertainment than an internet showdown.
This faculty and staff meeting just became tolerable.
I scrolled through the article, glimpsing a few goodies: Stand in a corner at a party and cry quietly. Take a class about making toupees. Paint or draw or knit outside an engineering building. Sunburn your skin to stand out.
I forwarded the article to our group thread. Cameron and Ivy would appreciate it. Mel: Enjoy the laughs, my friends. Enjoy.
Fair-skinned Ivy replied almost immediately, exactly with the response I expected. Ivy: Get a sunburn?! Yeah, that’ll get a man’s attention all right. Because I’ll look like a tomato and then die of skin cancer. Ooh la la.
I was typing my reply when Cameron’s message came through.
Cameron: Turning to the fifties for dating advice…feeling desperate, Mel?
My fingers paused. Was I feeling desperate? My inner feminist cried a valiant “Never!” My inner fan of Masterpiece romances sobbed into an embroidered pillow.
But husband hunting wasn’t the point. The point was not that I had only dated four people in my life and had Instagram and Facebook to thank for some serious comparisonitis. The point was not that even my Facebook account was trying to give me dating advice. No. The point was that the list was archaic and ridiculous and stupid. The point was the humor.
This called for deflection Cameron-style.
Mel: Your mom is desperate.
Ivy: BURN.
Cameron: And so the student becomes the master. Well done, my young Padawan.
***
We didn’t die in the meeting after all. We escaped the valley of the shadow of collegiate death—barely. The three of us—Cameron, Ivy, and I—agreed to meet for an early lunch. It would take us a little while to recuperate from Keith’s Presentation: Edition Infinity, so why not eat our feelings through the recovery process?
Ivy and I plunked our cafeteria trays on a table, easing into the humming background of student life. Unlike the uncomfortably quiet faculty and staff lounges, the cafeteria was the hub for the same youthful, academic energy that kept me at my job. I already felt a little better.
“Thanks for sending us that list of sexist dating advice, because it’s the only thing that got me through the meeting,” Ivy said, her chair screeching across the floor as she pulled it closer to the table. She tucked a wayward blond strand back into her messy bun. “Our grandparents were alive then. Or maybe even our parents. I’m not sure. I can’t math.”
“We never would’ve survived the fifties,” I agreed.
“The same way Keith would never survive a meeting if he didn’t have his precious PowerPoint?”
“Have no fear,” Cameron said from above us. “There won’t be a PowerPoint next time.”
“Hiya, Cam.” I pulled out a chair for him.
He returned our standard greeting. “Hiya, Mel.” Tucking his messenger bag under the table, he sat and stabbed his fork into the cafeteria food. “I’m serious though. My cousin just outlawed PowerPoint presentations at his business because they make meetings last so much longer. Why can’t we?”
Ivy frowned. “You’re going to outlaw PowerPoint? You don’t run this college yet, Cam. You’re an adjunct computer science professor who unofficially leads the IT minions. You have no sway in administrative decisions.” She stopped him when he opened his mouth to speak. “Do not make another mom joke. I’ve had it.”
He smirked and shrugged without making eye contact. It was a distinctly Cameron gesture that he pulled off with a quiet, laid-back confidence that left me guessing every time.
“I agree,” I mumbled around my sandwich. “The mom jokes aren’t that funny, so you can stop those. But the puns? If you stop making puns, I will be genuinely worried about you.”
Cameron grinned and muttered about his talents finally being appreciated, but Ivy feigned a glare. “Don’t encourage him.”
She looked back to the napkin and pen she was using to sketch an outline of the people sitting two tables away. It never failed—every free moment, Ivy would find a receipt, gum wrapper, anything at all, and whip out a pen to start doodling. Or that’s what she called it. Her doodles were better than any masterpiece I could draw.
As they bickered, I watched Ivy doodle and mentally congratulated myself for bringing together such wonderful people. Being the glue in our three-way friendship was my favorite role. I gained the benefits of friendship with two coworkers who were also extraordinary human beings and who jokingly argued about mundane nonsense. They were equal parts inspiring and entertaining. My lunch hours couldn’t get much better than this.
Cameron turned to me. “So, you’re planning on snagging a man 1950s-style, huh?”
Ivy frowned. “Don’t even joke about that. It’s horrifying.”
“Not true.” He pointed at himself with his fork. “I, for one, would love to walk outside the computer science building and see an eligible damsel knitting. It would be comforting, I think, to know I would always be warm thanks to her cozy knitting.”
Ivy’s frown hadn’t left. “Laugh all you want, but I feel bad for the real-life women who actually tried some of those things. How sad and desperate do you have to be to make wigs as a way to find a man?”
I grinned at their reactions. “It’s not like I’m actually going to follow the advice. I thought it was funny. Don’t you think it’s funny?”
Cameron shrugged. “It’s horrifying, and funny, and sad, sure, but I do know some people who would be desperate—no, lonely enough to try some of those suggestions. Because that’s what it really comes down to. Loneliness.”
I nodded. “Right. It’s about loneliness. You just get tired of living alone and watching everyone else look like they’re having a great time, you know?”
My eyes drifted over Ivy’s shoulder to settle on a couple clearly smitten with one another. She was petite and beautiful, and he was tall, with glasses and an oversized, ugly sweater. They sat as close together as possible, his arm draped over the back of her chair, their heads close together as they talked.
Yep. They were definitely having a great time.
Cameron cocked his head at an angle. “It makes you wonder whether advice like that would work today. How much has society really changed? Is love life advice really outdated, or is it timeless, like the original Jurassic Park?”
“Of course it’s outdated!” Ivy scoffed at him. “We live in the twenty-first century. I certainly hope I’m seen as more than a potential housewife or a baby-making machine.”
“I’m just saying,” Cameron continued, “playing devil’s advocate here, if love is timeless, then wouldn’t the basic principles of finding love also be timeless, no matter the century?”
I tuned out their chatter, my mind stuck on an inkling. It was a whisper of an idea, hovering at the edge of my mind. But it might be interesting. And it might be fun. And it might change my life.
Cameron and Ivy stared at me.
I frowned. “What?”
“You sat up straight,” Cameron said. “You always slouch when you eat, but when you have an idea, you sit up straight like you’re afraid the thoughts might fall out of your head if you move the wrong way.”
“No, it’s because you have that look.” Ivy gestured at my face with her fork. “You’re thinking about something crazy. Like that time we filled the campus fountains with soap.”
Cameron laughed. “That was you two?” He grinned and then shook his head. “Never mind.”
“No, just hear me out.” An irrational fear filled me that if I listened to any more conversation, my idea would float away—or fall out of my head, as Cameron so eloquently put it. “Cam’s right.”
“Thank you very much.” He preened at Ivy and then turned to me. “I just love being right about…?”
“What if someone used 1950s dating advice in our modern dating world and then wrote a book about the experience? Like the pros and cons, ups and downs, goods and bads. Dating today is a nightmare. Nobody can deny that. All this swiping right or left and texting, sexting, ghosting—it’s a mess. We act like we know so much more about being men and women today than they did then. But do we? What if some of the 1950s dating advice is still applicable?”
Ivy stared at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“I said some of the 1950s dating advice.” Excitement bubbled up in my voice now. “Because if love really is timeless, then the basic principles of pursuing that love should be timeless, too, right?”
“So that’s what I was right about,” Cameron muttered, sounding less than enthusiastic.
Ivy pointed her fork at me accusingly. “So this someone is going to take advice from the 1950s into our twenty-first century dating world. Get a sunburn in New England. Cry in a corner at a club full of gyrating twenty-year-olds. Learn how to make a wig in a world that has Rogaine. Pose with a flat tire when roadside assistance is a cell phone call away.”
I nodded. This idea was priceless. I knew it.
“And who’s this ‘someone’ going to be, huh?”
Her question stopped me. I hadn’t written anything of my own, in earnest, in a long, long while. None of my projects had ever taken off like my college classmates’ had. I’d never be able to write an entire book about dating using tips from the 1950s. Would I?
My phone vibrated on the cafeteria table. I imagined yet another notification about yet another post from Always Cheerful Lisa, marketing the glossy, professional cover for her new book.
I swallowed. I took a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”
That’s when Cameron spewed his mouthful of coffee across the table, and Ivy dodged away from the spewage with a shriek, and this chaos solidified the statement in my mind. I could do this.