BY V. J. HAMILTON

Copyright is held by the author.

I FINISH washing up — one cup, one plate, one fork — when I hear voices. The words are muffled, but the tones are unmistakable. I fetch my trusted ear-cone and press it against the door.

“What are you doing here?” Rhiannon’s voice carries clear as a bell.

“One last chance, babe. Hear me out.” Eddy’s voice is half-favourite sweater, half-existential longing.

“Isn’t Jordan expecting you for dinner?” she says sardonically. I can picture Rhiannon tossing her head in that see-if-I-care way she has.

Eddy rumbles, “It’s not that Jordan. We broke up ages ago. The name you saw is my work Jordan — a guy.”

“A likely story.” Her keys jangle against the door. “Hit the road, Jack.”

“I could ask,” he says delicately, “why were you snooping on my phone?”

“Why haven’t you deleted old Jordan’s number?” she asks.

Verrrry interesting. Rhiannon tells him to leave but keeps asking him questions as if wanting to prolong the dialogue.

Time to unlock my door. I step out, my pink fur-covered mules venturing onto the nubbly grey carpet, craning my head toward the laundry room. “Oh hi,” I say casually. “That guy’s still using the washer, is he?”

“Evening, Mrs. Mulligan,” says Eddy, dipping his head respectfully. “Yes, I saw him go in there ‘bout an hour ago.”

“An hour ago?” Rhiannon says. “How long have you —? Oh, never mind.” Enveloped in a cloud of Givenchy Irresistible perfume, she is wearing an ooh-la-la red clingy dress with low-cut neckline. Her outfit screams “date.” But her eyes are reddened and devoid of makeup, as if she’s just washed her face.

“I thought I’d catch you right after work,” Eddy confesses. He’s still in his work clothes, dirty with sawdust and paint smears, his plaid shirt half-open and showing a tight white T-shirt underneath. I detect a whiff of sweat mixed with Irish Spring soap. The pockets of Eddy’s pants have tool handles sticking out here and there. He has tightened the bolts in my cupboard door. Unjammed a bent curtain slide. And even installed a new light fixture with a fan. All because he’s the neighbourly type. OK, maybe my grey hair had something to do with it too.

Rhiannon arches an eyebrow. “And you were here outside my door the whole time?”

“I didn’t mean to be. I came to pick up my book . . . OK, and I came to see you. Then my sister wanted to FaceTime, so I took the call over there.” He points to the alcove at the end of the hall. “That’s how come I was hanging around so long.”

“And how is your sister?” I jump in. Unlike the busy-busy types all over the city, Eddy will stop to lend an ear. When you are blue like I was just after John died, Eddy spared the time to chat.

“She’s recovering,” he says, wincing, “but still can’t walk.” His sister was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when a gust of wind blew down a big plywood Chick E. Delight sign.

Rhiannon looks concerned.

Eddy turns to her. “By the way, she says to say hi and thank you for the donation to her GoFundMe page.”

A door opens down the hall and a face pokes out. “Hey! no hall parties,” he shouts. Mr. Giesbrucht, a retired school principal, scowls at us from down the hall.

Rhiannon mutters, “Wait here, I’ll get your damn book.” She’s blushing. Perhaps she is recalling what usually happens after Eddy crosses her threshold.

I know I am blushing — these apartments have thin walls. Too thin to conceal a headboard rhythmically knocking against the wall and muffled noises in the bedroom. She fumbles her keys, drops them, and Eddy hands them back to her, blinking his puppy-dog eyes.

“I can’t invite you in because some of us have to work tomorrow,” she snaps.

Eddy looks chastened. Irregular work is a given when you’re a carpenter in the theatre district.

“Ahem!” Down the hall, Mr. Giesbrucht glowers at us. We all nod sheepishly.

I tug at their sleeves. “Come inside for a minute. I need some sharp eyes. I dropped a box of pins on the carpet, and I don’t think I got them all.” I lead the way in my pink fur-covered mules.

I admit, it’s a made-up excuse. I’m a dating doula, you see. It’s similar to a birth doula or a death doula, two professions that people turn to when they encounter the complicated phases of life. A dating doula helps people navigate the rocky coastline of commitment.

In my heyday, friends often turned to me for my eagle’s-eye view of where their relationships were headed. I’ve witnessed my share of disasters in the area: people with expectations too high, who gave up on each other without realizing the one cardinal rule: no love-match is perfect. In retrospect, I wish I’d said something. I wish I’d nudged the partners — just a little bit.

After I retired from sales, my nieces and nephews began coming to me for advice and before long, I could point to a dozen shining successes: happy marriages that I helped put together. Every one of these had small “trouble spots” early on. A date was a half-hour late. A date forgot to call the day after. A date’s eyelash fell off in the soup. People, these are minor things! We hit “Cancel” when we should reflect on the last, wonderful time someone gave us a second chance.

Rhiannon smirks. “Nice try, Mrs. Mulligan,” she says. “But I see right through this.”

I smile sweetly. “Of course you do. You’re a legal beagle. You get to the heart of things. What I’m really doing is offering a ‘third space’ so you don’t have to invite him into your apartment. Eddy here can plead his case without annoying Mr. Giesbrucht — and without making you feel you’ll have to do the horizontal mambo afterwards.”

Her blush deepens.

Uh-huh. My earlier guess was correct. She is thinking about how Eddy makes her feel all hot and bothered.

Meanwhile, Eddy extracts a magnet from his left-leg cargo pocket and is carefully dragging it over my entry-hall carpet.

“You do know that ‘spilled-pins’ story was a ruse, right?” Rhiannon says to him.

Eddy shows us what he’s found. “Three staples, Mrs. Mulligan!” Two are benign paper staples, but the third has sharp, pointy ends.

When we pass into my living room, I have a moment of panic. It looks like a tornado hit a ladies’ wear store. I was sorting my clothes because the season is changing. Sweaters, skirts, and trousers are spread all over the sitting room, even on the three-seater couch to which visitors normally gravitate. Only a love seat and an armchair are free of garments. “Have a seat,” I say, “if you can find one.” I fetch the kitchen step-stool.

“I received a new batch of dandelion wine,” I announce, pouring three cute little glasses before they can object. Lubrication loosens the tongue of love.

Eddy proposes a toast. “To good friends and second chances.”

Rhiannon ignores it. And to appear impartial, I do too. Eddy looks sad.

“How did you two meet, anyway?” I ask. “Carpenter and lawyer. Were you, er, building a case?”

They ignore my pun.

“I needed to snake my drains,” Rhiannon says, swirling her wine. “I went to the hardware store all stressed out about my plumbing situation. Not a clerk to be seen. Then I noticed this guy checking fixtures.”

Eddy’s face lights up. “My God, she looked irresistible. Standing there like an orchid in the desert. But a little squinchy around the eyes, know what I mean? Like she was having a hard day and trying to keep a lid on it.” He tosses back his wine.

Rhiannon finger-combs her bangs. “I’d been watching YouTube videos on how to snake a drain. No way did I want to pay a plumber to unclog it, then lecture me about long hair and how bad it is for drains.”

I blurt, “No, ridiculous! Your hair is gorgeous.”

Eddy mutters, “How rude of him!”

Rhiannon smiles, finger-twirls a lock of hair.

“And I wouldn’t call that long,” I say. “It’s only shoulder length.”

She says, “I couldn’t reach the box containing the last snake and there was no step ladder. I figured this guy,” and here she nods at Eddy, “was deep into family life if he’s checking out low-flow toilets on a Saturday night. Because I didn’t want this to look like a singles’ date-night ploy.”

I nod. “Eddy to the rescue.” It reminds me of when Rhiannon introduced him. My knick-knacks shelf had collapsed two hours before the Thanksgiving feast I’d prepared, and Eddy fixed it.

I love his generosity of spirit. This is a trait Rhiannon should not overlook.

I married a guy who had no generosity of spirit. John was totally Type-A. Driven. An I-won’t-share-the-pie kind of guy. I was young and naïve, and he seemed like a good provider. But he wouldn’t even hold the door for someone with packages. It was downright embarrassing. Whenever we dined out, I had to slip money under the plate because he refused to leave a tip. (Side note: John had a dirt-poor childhood. I loved him despite his austerity.)

I understand where Rhiannon’s coming from. She’s in a line of work, criminal law, where she can’t be a damsel in distress. She’s so attractive she believes she must be constantly proving herself intellectually. I call it the Hedy Lamarr Syndrome, after that Hollywood actress who invented a refinement to radar. Rhiannon prefers to do everything from the ground up rather than let others do the hard work for her.

I’ve tried to tell her, “Be that way at work but in your personal hours let others do you a good turn.” For example, I once offered to lend her laundry coins, so she didn’t have to make an extra trip all the way to the corner store — but she said no thanks.

“Sometimes others take advantage of you,” Rhiannon says to Eddy. “Like that guy who keeps saying he’ll pay you next month.”

“I know he will,” Eddy says. “I know his dad.”

“OK,” I say, pulling out a bag of pretzels to snack on. “Two different opinions. Is that so wrong?”

“The problem is, I find myself taking advantage of Eddy,” she blurts out. “And it scares me.”

“But you’re not taking advantage,” he says. “I love solving problems. I love to lighten someone’s load, especially if that someone is funny and charming.”

“Like me,” I pipe up.

But they do that couple thing — they talk across to each other, never mind the joke I was trying to make.

“I’ve heard this all before,” he says. “You’re worried you’re going to push me too far?” He digs into another pocket and pulls a small, wacky steampunk-looking gizmo out of his pocket. “This here is a push-O-meter. See, the needle’s in the green part. The yellow part is when you’re asking a little too much of me. Like when you made me drive your friends around all day looking at bridesmaid dresses.” He presses and the needle flickers into the yellow.

There’s a red region. I hold my breath, wondering what would make him press the needle to red, but he doesn’t say.

“But then some morning,” Rhiannon predicts, “you’ll wake up and say, ‘I’m sick of always helping you. I’m out.’”

Boom! I’ve heard this before from Rhiannon. I’m out: that’s what her last boyfriend said. And it’s what her dad said when he left her mom.

I heard the saga that night when Rhiannon broke up with the guy before Eddy — the guy I will call Romeo because that’s what he drove. He had everything she thought she wanted: the looks, the body, the flashy car. Then, after six months of dating, she admitted her period was late, and so that jerk dumped her. “I’m out,” Romeo said.

I found her stumbling about in the lobby downstairs with one shoe off. Perhaps she’d left the other shoe in the Alfa Romeo. She was a little tipsy and her make-up was all streaked. I told her to call her best friend, but she said, “No, she’s a working mother of twins. I can’t ruin her sleep on this.” So although I’m twice her age, I gave her a good shoulder to cry on.

I squint at Eddy and wonder if Rhiannon told him about Romeo. Not yet, I guess.

And now both these dear young folks are ready to give up on each other? I push up the sleeves of my Lululemon tracksuit and give them my sternest grey-haired lady look. “So to summarize, the Jordan-text misunderstanding is all cleared up. Eddy’s sister is on the mend—but needs moral support from you both. There are three relationship problems. One, Rhiannon thinks Eddy is too nice and that she will be in his debt too much. Eddy says that can be solved by the push-O-meter. He will put it on full view in the main hall.”

They are both staring at me.

“Second issue, Rhiannon is afraid of getting too close. The guy will leave her like Dad left Mom. This is an ongoing problem, and it’s taken years of therapy to get this far. Third issue, Rhiannon doesn’t believe her good luck. She doesn’t believe a sexy guy wants to commit fully to her in the long term.” This brings on blushing in both. In fact, my face feels warm, too.

Then I dive right in with my Dating Doula parachute. “Let me bring up something you didn’t mention. Careers. Eddy works with his hands. He’s a carpenter. He works from show to show. You, Rhiannon, are a lawyer. You earn your bread case by case. Isn’t the difference in careers the true elephant in the room? The pachyderm in the pantry that no one is talking about? Isn’t this the big thing you can’t really ignore?”

They’re looking at each other and shaking their heads. “Oh no, Mrs. Mulligan, that’s the best thing about us,” Eddy says, chuckling. “She is Queen of the Virtual World. She can skyrocket around all corners of the Internet with her files and her data.”

Rhiannon is laughing. “And Eddy is the King of Real Life, his hands toughened by lumber, his muscles getting a workout every day, pushing beams into position.”

By now, they’re sitting on the love seat, holding hands. The dandelion wine is all gone. They think they know better than I do — and they do.

That’s part of being a Dating Doula. Stir things up, remind them of their togetherness, and then as the romance kicks in, I slip away.

Or, in this case, we say our goodnights and, in my pink fur-covered mules, I escort Rhiannon and Eddy to the door.

***

V. J. Hamilton has published in The Hong Kong Review, The Antigonish Review, and Litro Online, among others. She won the EVENT Speculative Fiction contest. Most recently, her fiction appears in the Avalon Literary Review.