Michael Chin

PAIRENT

          Mom’s Name: Allison Kim 

          What’s The First Thing People Notice About Her? She’s very nice. 

          What Does Your Mom Like? Honey Oat Cluster Cereal, Reading,                                                                   Mountain Climbing 

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          Alison was as skeptical about Pairent as she was about Geoff’s spelling skills. How had he already learned about the double-L spelling of Allison that had haunted her since her own school days? And what of the boy’s observational skills? When had he ever seen her do anything that resembled mountain climbing? She could explain reading, at least, because she insisted on reading books with him every night. And she did love Honey Oat Clusters. 

          Pairent had grown popular enough to break through Alison’s focus on work and her son, and her insistence on otherwise doing nothing but watching old episodes of Friends on Netflix while she ate Honey Oat Clusters—comfort foods, the show and the cereal alike. But Pairent had become the subject of conversation at her work at the Keurig, first for the outlandish concept, then for how cute their image of a father-son pair was on the ads at the margins of Facebook. Then there was the CNN story, and then one of the accountant’s neighbors started using it. All of this, before one of the middle-aged women with thick glasses and hair dyed two different shades of brown asked Alison why she didn’t give it a try. 

          The concept was simple enough. Single parents asked their children to complete questionnaires about themselves and submitted them to the Pairent online dating platform. The site advised that children make selections, too, but Alison was immediately wary of Geoff picking someone not in spite of, but because of, his goofy looks, or someone who was cute but listed Ayn Rand as his favorite author. 

          She decided they’d try Pairent. The injection of kids in the mix seemed to stem the tide of guys sending unsolicited dick pics or calling you a bitch if you didn’t respond to their private messages. And then there was the reality. For all of Alison’s jokes about how Geoff was her surrogate boyfriend, anyway—she cooked and cleaned for him and spent all her time with him and obsessed over photographs of him—there was some truth in the idea that he may know her better than anyone else. Maybe, even at seven years of age, he could see through layers of what might make her attractive to someone else, or maybe he could see through the superficial red flags she’d spot, to someone’s good core. 

          It would be nice to have someone. 

          The first date was a disaster. She thought the point of online dating was to build a life outside of the house. She got a sitter, put on makeup and skinny jeans she’d bought for the occasion, a blouse she used to wear on dates. She drove to the address of a place called Pizza Palisades, which sounded a little informal, but wasn’t informal more practical anyway? Casual, no pressure. No worries about wasting money if the date went poorly, besides which she wouldn’t get drunk at some bar and need to leave her car and figure out how to get back to it with Geoff in tow the next day. 

          Except Phil—her date—brought his daughter Clara. 

          Clara was eleven—no, twelve, she corrected him with a roll of her eyes, the first time Alison saw her eyes leave her cell phone. When Alison explained that she didn’t know they were bringing kids, he gave a fumbled response that he’d thought that was standard, but it was his first Pairent date, too, and his daughter said that she’d told him so. 

          The place sold pizza by the slice from a glass counter. Pizza with red sauce, garlic pizza, pizza with onion and jalapeno, pizza cut to child-size square pieces. All of it was certain to make a mess or leave her with bad breath, but she was also so hungry. She made note of this being a good place to bring Geoff sometime.  

          Phil paid for everything—a slice for each of them and two for Alison, who mostly just ate the toppings. Three sodas that he insisted on carrying himself, including the Coke which he spilled over himself and over Alison, so they finished the date stained and sticky. Clara didn’t bother to hide a cruel smile as Alison peeled the fabric of her blouse from her chest where it had stuck to her flesh at an odd angle. Alison didn’t apologize for taking Clara’s napkin to clean up. 

          Phil didn’t call and Alison couldn’t say she was disappointed. Notifications showed up on her phone of other supposed Pairings, but she ignored them, and when she logged into her email to find them in message form, she decided it was time to unsubscribe altogether. She suspended her account, though didn’t delete it. Not yet. 

          One night Geoff piled his toys high in the middle of the living room floor, all except for a little doll of a black-haired woman that Alison didn’t remember buying for him, and thus immediately worried he’d stolen from another child at school. He compelled the woman to climb the mound of toys in slow steps, often losing her footing and sliding downward, but never giving up despite what looked like incalculable odds. She tried to access his imagination and see not an untidy pile of playthings, but a misty, maybe snow-capped mountain. To see not a doll but a woman. 

          Alison watched the scene play out in the middle of the living room floor. She stretched across the couch, eating Honey Oat Clusters dry from the box and not worrying when some tumbled loose from her fingers, into the couch. Between her and Geoff, who knew how many crumbs and scattered remains hid behind cushions and in crevices? Who knew what they might find later?