Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
I hate to break it to you but so will 90% of the profiles out there. Most people are doing all this on their phones
Millie Morris
I am so old.
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
Maybe you should write them for us.
Millie Morris
Uh, PARDON?
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
You’re good at this shit and you obviously care more that they’re well written.
Reid Campbell
Ed. Cells. NOW.
Millie Morris
I am not being the organized, well-spoken woman to your male chaos.
[Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio has left the chat]
Reid Campbell
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he has a point.
Millie Morris
UGGGGGGH
Reid Campbell
Please Mills? I’ll buy you lunch.
Millie Morris
You owe me lunch anyway.
Reid Campbell
Two lunches then. You can wear your elastic waist pants tomorrow.
Millie Morris
No
Alex Ramirez
Please Millie
Millie Morris
No
Alex Ramirez
It’s a good idea Mills
Millie Morris
No
I sense that victory is near—Millie is just about to break—but I’m called away from pressuring her when my phone rings. My smile fades at the picture of my mom lighting up the screen. In the photo, she’s standing on the wide front porch of my childhood home, wearing her worn denim shirt and rubber boots up to the knees of her khaki pants. Her long gray hair is tied back with ribbon. We’ve always had an easy relationship, my parents, Rayme, and I. But three months ago, at Christmas, Mom and I took a long walk through the family vineyards behind the house and—whether out of some strange mood or the impulsive decision that I was an adult and therefore ready to also be a confidant—she told me about nearly all of her marital woes. Not only did I have to hear her frustration that my parents barely have sex, and how Dad never tells her she’s pretty anymore, but I had to talk her off the ledge of panic when she started speculating that Dad was having an affair with the woman down the street, a forty-year-old artist named Marla who creates sculptures out of only things found in her yard: twigs, leaves . . . rodents.
So these days, unfortunately, a call from my mother triggers mild nausea.
“Hey, Mom.”
She doesn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk. “What night are you arriving for the party?”
I take a few moments to figure out what she’s referring to, vaguely staring at the still-scrolling chat screen on my computer. Finally: “What?”
“Your birthday,” she says. “I assume we’re celebrating it here?”
“I assumed I’d just have drinks out with friends, or whatever.”
“It may be just a go-out-for-drinks birthday for you, but thirty-two years ago,” my mother says, voice thin with emotion, “I pushed out the most—”
“Okay, Mom.”
“—beautiful baby boy—”
“Yup. Okay.”
“It took twenty-seven hours of hard labor,” she reminds me. “You were nine pounds, fourteen ounces! Do you have any idea how big that is? Oh, how I tore.”
I rub my temples. “Thank you for enduring that.”
“So, if you think you’re celebrating this day anywhere but with me?” She pauses, and when I don’t reply she says simply, “Think again.”
“Okay, let me check my calendar.” I minimize the chat window, catching only a gif Millie sent of Kristen Bell pretending her middle finger is a tube of lipstick, and peek at my calendar. “April second is a Monday,” I say.
“Come the weekend before. Bring Chris. And Millie.”
Her words snag the last shred of hope I see to avoid this. “But if I bring Chris and Millie, I have to bring Alex and Ed.” My mom gently tolerates Alex, who, among other things, somehow managed to turn half of her guest towels green, and Ed, whom my mom has accidentally seen naked on three separate occasions.
Mom sighs. “Fine. Just this time, no nude races in the vineyards.”
Exhaling slowly, I give in. “I’ll do what I can, but you know they’re hard to control.”
I think that’s all I’ll have to endure for today, until she says, “Hopefully your father has gotten his head out of his ass by then.”
At a loss, I can manage only an “Oh?”
“I bought new lingerie, but he still—”
My internal organs tangle and the words burst out of me. “Oh, crap, I’m late to a meeting, Mom.”
Untroubled by my abrupt departure, she kisses me through the phone. “Love you, Reidey.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I do have a meeting . . . fifteen minutes after I end the call with my mom. Which affords me enough time to hit the coffee kiosk and swing by my lab to grab Ed.
He meets me in the hall, deliberately ignoring my pointed look as I catch him tossing his lab coat over the chair closest to the door.
“Shaylene all set?” I ask.
He nods. “They’re fucking HEK cells, Reid, and Shaylene is super smart. She didn’t really need help.”
She may be “super smart,” but Shaylene is a first-year graduate student in my lab, with minimal hands-on bench work experience under her belt. As someone who claims to aspire to be a career postdoc in my lab, Ed has taken on the role of mentoring the new graduate students. But he sometimes forgets that we aren’t all born knowing molecular biology.
“Besides,” he says, “I’ve got to work on this essay for Millie.”
It takes me a beat to get his meaning. “The dating profile?”
He runs a harried hand through his wild curls. I catch a glimpse of sweat forming right at his hairline. “Yeah.”
“Ed, I think you might be taking this a bit seriously.”
He stops near the water fountain and bends, slurping. Coming up, he swipes at the water running down his chin. “Chris has me all stressed out, man. And look at you guys! What if it’s just me who doesn’t get a date? It’s Chris—Mr. Deep-Voiced Chemist, and you—Mr. Lifeguard-Body Neuro-Geek, and Alex—the hot Latin lover who bangs women in that darkroom every fucking day. Then there’s me. Seth Rogen but Somehow Even Pastier.”
I start to reply that I think he’s actually more Zach Galifianakis but do a double take as we pass the darkroom in question, noting the IN USE sign lit up on the outside. “Wait, what did you say about Alex?”
“Dude, everyone knows that’s where he gets laid, like, all the fucking time.” Ed waves me off and stops me outside the department conference room. “But what if I agreed to this, and you all end up with dates for the banquet, and those dates turn into more, and where does that leave me?”
I have a flash of realization that this really matters to Ed, that deep down, this chubby science nerd really does want to meet someone and build something lasting. But since I don’t think he’d appreciate the condescending vibe of this new awareness of mine, I clap a reassuring hand on his shoulder and go for glib: “You’ll find someone. And if not, you’ve always got Cheetos and Madden NFL 18.”
“Man, fuck you.”
Thankfully, only one other person has arrived already to overhear this. Unfortunately, it’s the neurobiology department chair, Scott Ilian. He looks up, but noting that it’s just Ed, blinks back down to the journal article in front of him. “Gentlemen.”