Chapter 13: THE HONEST CONVERSATION
Janet Reyes sat in my client chair like she was waiting for a verdict.
I'd arranged this meeting two hours after her phone call, clearing my schedule of the imaginary appointments I'd pretended to have. The truth was, I'd been sitting in my apartment, staring at my notes on Rachel Kim, trying to figure out how to have a conversation I'd never expected to have.
"You said you had thoughts," Janet said. Her lawyer voice was on—controlled, measured, ready to cross-examine.
"I do." I sat across from her, the card table between us like a barrier neither of us had asked for. "I found someone who matches well with you. Really well, actually. Seventy-eight percent compatibility, which is the highest I've seen since I started this business."
"That's good. That sounds good."
"It is good. But there's something you should know first—"
Janet held up a hand. The gesture was calm, almost gentle.
"It's a woman, isn't it."
Not a question. A statement.
I felt the words I'd prepared evaporate. All the careful phrasing, the sensitivity training I'd given myself on the subway ride home, the scripts for every possible reaction—none of it mattered. Because Janet already knew.
"Yes," I said. "Her name is Rachel."
Janet exhaled. The sound carried years of weight—decisions unmade, truths unspoken, a life lived slightly to the left of where it should have been.
"I've known for years," she said quietly. "Since college, maybe earlier. I just... my family is traditional. Cuban Catholic. My mother still asks when I'm going to find a nice man and settle down." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I thought if I hired a matchmaker, a real matchmaker, and you found me a man—I could convince myself. I could finally be the person they wanted me to be."
Her eyes were wet. I realized, too late, that I didn't have tissues. I'd set up this apartment as an office, bought the folding chairs and the card table, and I hadn't thought to stock tissues.
"But you couldn't find me a man," Janet continued. "Could you?"
"I found you the right person." The words came out steadier than I felt. "That's what you hired me for."
She stared at me for a long moment. Then the tears came—not the quiet, dignified tears of a divorce lawyer maintaining composure, but the messy, ugly tears of someone finally letting go of something they'd been carrying too long.
I grabbed the only cloth I could find—a dish towel from the kitchen, decorated with cartoon lobsters. I offered it to her.
Janet looked at the towel. Looked at me. And started laughing through the tears.
"Very professional."
"I'm working on it."
She dabbed at her eyes with a lobster-covered towel, and something in the room shifted. The barrier between client and consultant dissolved into something more honest.
"Tell me about her," Janet said finally. "Tell me about Rachel."
I pulled up my notes, though I'd memorized most of them by now. "Rachel Kim. Thirty-two. Runs a literacy nonprofit in Harlem—started it herself five years ago. She's passionate about education access, works sixty-hour weeks, and somehow still finds time to hike on weekends."
"Hike?" Janet's nose wrinkled. "I don't hike."
"You might start."
"What else?"
"She has two dogs. A golden retriever named Pancake and some kind of terrier mix named Chaos."
Janet's face fell. "I'm allergic to dogs."
"I know. We'll work around it."
"How do you know I'm allergic to dogs?"
"You mentioned it in your intake questionnaire. Under 'lifestyle factors that might affect compatibility.'"
She stared at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "You actually read those?"
"Every word."
Janet was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded, slowly, like she was agreeing to something larger than a date.
"Okay. Set it up. Whatever you need to do."
"You're sure?"
"No." She laughed again, steadier this time. "But I've been sure for thirty-four years, and look where that got me. Divorced, alone, crying into a lobster towel in some guy's apartment. Maybe it's time to try being unsure."
[Client Consultation Complete]
[Outcome: Client Janet Reyes accepted same-sex match recommendation]
[+100 EXP | +25 Karma]
[Honesty Bonus Applied]
I walked Janet to the door. She paused at the threshold, towel still clutched in her hand.
"Thank you," she said. "For not making it weird. For just... treating it like any other match."
"It is like any other match. Love is love. The strings don't care about demographics."
She gave me a strange look. "The strings?"
Shit. I'd gotten too comfortable. "Figure of speech. Industry jargon."
"Weird industry." But she was smiling. "I'll return your towel after I buy you a box of tissues. The good kind, with lotion."
"I'd appreciate that."
She left. The door closed behind her.
I stood in my empty apartment, listening to the silence settle. Through the thin walls, I could hear voices from 4A—Lily and Marshall, discussing something in the comfortable rhythm of people who had been talking to each other for nine years.
"Marshall, do you think that matchmaker guy is actually good at his job?"
"Karen's dating a bookstore guy. Sarah's dating a firefighter. I think he might actually know something."
I smiled at nothing.
Yeah, I thought. Maybe I do.
My phone buzzed. Mike Donovan.
"Been two weeks bro. What's the update."
The smile faded.
Mike's match was Brittany Torres—the yoga headstand woman who yelled about Mercury retrograde and forgot to pay for coffee. Sixty-one percent compatibility. High passion, high conflict.
I typed back: "Still working on it. Update soon."
His response came immediately: "You said that last week."
I set the phone down without answering.
Janet's match had been complicated but ultimately simple—the right person, just unexpected. Mike's match was something else entirely. I wasn't sure what would happen when I put those two people in a room together.
But I was going to find out.
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