“But, Jane,” Ms. Taylor says. “We have to teach them to code, too, or where will you be next year when George and Emma are off at college?” George looks at me, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am, that college feels so far away still, and I haven’t finished my applications yet, and how can they all already be thinking about a time when we’re gone? It feels so far away, and so frighteningly close, too.
“We can do both,” Sam volunteers, and Hannah agrees.
We all look to Robert, and he’s so quiet and barely speaks up at these meetings, but then he surprises us all when he says, “I’ll track data. And...also, I still really want a match, too.”
* * *
I wait to start on the matches until later that night, once I’m home, by myself. At the meeting we started designing app screens and figuring out where the animations will go. But now, all alone in my bed with my laptop, I can enter names in my app simulator and get people’s matches.
I work on the girls’ cross-country team first. Maybe unsurprisingly, given our new higher weight on common interests, Mara matches with Liz, the other senior co-captain of the team. Helen Brimley, who sits across from me in calc, matches to Dave Redstone, who is also in our calc class, and when I look, I see they’re both also in their church choirs. The other six girls are underclassman who I don’t know, but I put their matches in, feeling confident this is working now. I type all the matches into a spreadsheet where we can keep track of their progress, and then send the information in a text to Mara.
Omg, she quickly texts back. I match Liz?
I’m not sure if she’s confused or upset or surprised, so I clarify and text back, Yes, 98%.
This is so cool! she texts back. So, she’s definitely not upset.
I do Robert’s match next, and he matches Ben Parker, a sophomore. They are both in chess club and in marching band together, and in a tidbit picked up from Jane’s social media skim, they are both huge Star Wars fans. I don’t know Ben, but I look him up in the yearbook, and he has a sort of nice lopsided smile, and dark curly hair.
I decide I’ll do Hannah next, and save Sam for last. I don’t want a match of my own, or a boyfriend as Izzy suggested before she left me in August, what feels like so long ago now. My senior year is supposed to be all about numbers, and coding, and getting into Stanford. I don’t have time for anything else.
But what if Sam and I do match? I couldn’t ignore the algorithm in that case, could I?
I think about that morning when Sam sat on my old blue couch, close enough to me that I could almost feel his lips on mine. Sam is kind and smart, and if I had to date someone, say, to set an example with our app, maybe I’d want it to be him? But I push the thought away, and type Hannah in first to see her match.
George Knightley flashes up on my screen.
Wait...George?
I delete it and try again. Maybe I hit the wrong key? But nope, it comes back the same way the second time. Hannah Smith and George Knightley. I look in the database—they have coding club in common, of course. Hannah swims on the school team, and George swims on a club team in the summer. George’s favorite book is The Hobbit, and...so is Hannah’s. And they both love baseball and anime.
I pick up my phone and text George. You want to hear something funny? I ran Hannah’s match and you match her.
What?
You and Hannah are a 96.3% match.
Red-haired Hannah...in coding club?
Yeah...what other Hannah would I mean?
...
The three dots come up, then disappear. Then come and disappear again.
Do you want me to take you out of the database and rerun her match? I finally type. I’m thinking he will. George doesn’t want a girlfriend. He doesn’t have time to date. And anyway, George is so...George. How could he possibly date Hannah?
No, he types back quickly.
No?
What kind of example would that set for the club? If I match her, then I match her. Your math isn’t wrong, right?
It is basically the same argument I just made in my own head for how I would feel if I happen to match Sam. So I can’t argue with him. Though I also have this weird feeling rising in my chest. Annoyance, I think. Or...dread? I like Hannah. And George is my friend. But together they will be something altogether different. Something I might not like at all. And that bothers me.
But like George says, the math isn’t wrong, so I sigh and move on.
I run Sam’s match. And again, he matches Laura. Stupid choir. When I check the database, there’s also the fact that they are both bilingual...and I didn’t realize before, but she also plays volleyball, just like he does.
For some reason, I’m unreasonably angry, and I slam my laptop lid shut, done with matches for the night. I go downstairs, and even though it is late, after nine, I’m the only one home. Dad is working late, again. The kitchen is dark. But I don’t turn on the lights.
I find a pint of mint chocolate chip in the freezer and I don’t even get a bowl. I sit at the kitchen table in the dark and eat it right out of the carton with a spoon.
Chapter 17
“I think something’s still off with my algorithm,” I say to George in the car the next week on the way to school. After a few days of thinking on it, that’s the only possible explanation for how George and Hannah somehow match. And how Sam still matches Laura. She’s started sitting with us at lunch now, and she’s nice enough, but every day this week I’ve been thinking how she and Sam just don’t seem like they should be dating. Something feels off.
“I don’t think so,” George says as I park and we both get out of the car to walk toward school. “You know Liz, cross-country co-captain?” I shake my head. I know of her, know she matched Mara, but I don’t know her. “She found me at lunch yesterday and she is so happy that she matches Mara. She’s wanted to ask Mara out for two years, but was worried Mara didn’t feel the same way. Except apparently Mara does feel the same way, has for a while, and she was too scared to say anything to Liz, too.” I guess that’s what Mara was saying when she texted me Omg!
“All right, well, that’s one. I’m not saying the algorithm is completely wrong. Maybe it just needs to be tweaked.”
“Robert and Ben are going to a movie on Friday,” George says. And now it’s just annoying that he knows all this stuff I don’t. I sigh as we walk into the school. I guess it should have occurred to me to follow up with everyone this week, but my mind was still on perfecting the math, the algorithm itself. Of course it occurred to George, though. “And Hannah and I are going out to dinner on Friday night,” he says.