“I think most everyone else who’s single was already using dating apps?” Meena’s going somewhere with this; none of us know exactly where.
“You know that’s right,” Carlotta says.
“On occasion,” Nancy replies with a knowing smile.
Wesley nods. Phoebe grimaces.
“Yeah, turns out it’s a mixed bag of an experience.” Meena looks around the circle. “I . . . want to apologize for making it sound like it’s all sunshine and roses.” She drops her eyes for a moment, then meets our gazes again. “I was matched up with a man named Frank who seemed perfect for me. Remember, I told you we spent that week together on the Mayan Riviera?” She swallows. “Then he wanted to be exclusive, and in the end I figured, Why not? But as soon as I agreed to that, he started talking about living together. He wanted to move in with me.”
All eyes are on Meena as she hesitates once again. “When I told him I just wasn’t ready for that, he ghosted me.”
“What does that mean,” Annell asks. “Ghosting?”
“It means disappearing without a trace,” Wesley says.
“It sucks,” Phoebe adds. “Especially when someone’s been really responsive and then they’re just . . . gone.”
“Yes,” Meena says slowly. “It hurt a lot. Plus, I felt so stupid, you know. Because if he’d really cared about me, he wouldn’t have disappeared the minute I said I wasn’t ready for that.” Her face is filled with regret. Her cheeks flush with embarrassment. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know. It just seemed like so much fun that despite the book’s disclaimers, I didn’t give any real thought to how easy it is to get hurt. Or how you open yourself up to people you don’t really know.”
“Lots of people out there got an angle,” Carlotta says. “Or they’re lookin’ for something they’re keeping to themselves.”
My heart thuds in my chest. I’ve finally found the courage to try to move on and change my life. But what am I opening myself up to?
“There are people who target divorced women or widows of a certain age,” Chaz adds. “They’ll put on a show so they look super successful. Then they flatter and act like they want to build a relationship. They tell you that they’re swept off their feet. That you’re ‘the one.’ Scammers that are focused solely on getting money out of a mark tend to operate from a distance over a longer period of time. They may live in another country and use someone else’s photo for their profile shot, often a man in uniform because that inspires trust.”
We have all fallen silent.
“But then there are the scammers in our own backyard who don’t waste any time wanting to meet. Sometimes moving in and mooching off someone can be the goal, though that’s almost never stated. They want to charm you into asking them. If you have other assets, that’s just icing on the cake,” Chaz says.
“How do you know so much about this?” Meena asks in a whisper.
“Because I have friends in law enforcement. And . . .” He hesitates. “Because last week I caught a 911 call at a woman’s house who’d been a victim of a guy like that.”
We wait. It’s clear the ending to this story is not going to be pretty.
“He lived off her for a year. Took pretty much everything she had. Distanced her from friends and family. When there was nothing left, he moved on. She was so humiliated when she realized how she’d been played, and so heartbroken that he’d never really loved her, that she slit her wrists.” Chaz’s warm French vibe is long gone. “She bled out just before we got there.”
There’s a hush. Every last bit of fun has fled. If there were a drop of champagne left, I’d be drinking it.
“She’d documented the whole thing on her computer,” Chaz says quietly.
Without a word passing between them, Wesley and Phoebe pull laptops out of matching messenger bags, set them on their laps, and tilt open their screens so that we can see.
“Your Frank may just be a bozo without feelings. But it couldn’t hurt to do a search on his name and his email. That’ll lead to an IP address, which will tell us the exact computer his emails came from,” Wesley explains.
“We can also do reverse email and image searches and check for aliases,” Phoebe adds.
“Aliases?” Nancy Flaherty shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Is it really that easy?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t have aliases,” Meena says, not sounding sure at all.
I can tell she’s already sorry she brought this up. But we are all leaning in and listening intently. This is that car wreck you can’t quite look away from.
“If that was Frank’s game, Meena, you’re well rid of him,” Chaz says. Either way, in today’s world, these are steps everyone should probably take before going out with someone they don’t know. I’m only sorry I didn’t think to suggest it when we had our online dating class.”
“What’s his name?” Wesley asks as both twins’ fingers fly over their keyboards.
“Frank Vincent,” Meena answers almost reluctantly. “FrankieV at gmail.com.”
A few more keystrokes. Some scrolling. Photos pop up on both screens. The face is attractive and clean-shaven. Dark hair threaded with gray. The eyes are a brilliant blue, their expression trustworthy. The square chin has a comma-shaped cleft in it. He looks to be in his mid-sixties.
“That’s Frank’s profile photo from match.com. But he already took it down,” Meena says.
“You can take a photo down; that doesn’t make it disappear,” Phoebe explains as their fingers continue to fly. More photos pop up. I see the shot of him Meena took on the beach in Mexico. The group photo at dinner. “There are quite a few different email accounts using the same computer,” Wesley says.
The carriage house is completely quiet except for the sound of the twins’ fingers tapping on their laptop keyboards. No one makes a move to leave. Even Erin, who’s probably far more computer savvy than most of us, is spellbound. I may have stopped breathing.
Other photos of what looks like a completely different man pop up. This one has iron-gray hair, an equally gray mustache. Mossy-green eyes are partially hidden behind a pair of rectangular tortoiseshell glasses.
“Oh my God!” Dorothy gasps. “That’s Dean, Dean Francis. The man I met on SilverSingles.”
Sara looks over her mother-in-law’s shoulder at Phoebe’s computer screen where the new photos line up next to those of Frank Vincent. “The chin is the same, but if you didn’t see these photos together and weren’t looking for it, you’d never know it was the same man,” Sara observes. “He looks early seventies like he told you.”