My Mom, The Amazingly Good Matchmaker

by Rachel Sklar

I didn’t know that, of course, so when I returned from Palm Springs I called him, and we agreed to meet. He offered to pick me up from my building (classy), where I made him wait in the lobby while I frantically tried on outfits (less classy). Maybe my mom was right, I clearly needed help.

As I rode down in the elevator, I felt that familiar bubble of pre-blind date excitement building, equal parts hope and possibility right before you meet someone, when they could still be anyone, including someone great. But over ten floors, I steeled myself: He seemed nice, sure, but the odds were slim that he’d be cute.

I stepped out of the elevator. There was a guy sitting patiently on the couch, waiting. He stood up and smiled, hand out. I shook it, saying hi, but inside my head I was yelling things like He’s cute! He’s tall! He has hair! After all that, Morty was a babe!

We stood there, smiles a bit more genuine, possibly out of relief. “I was thinking we could go to the Hudson,” he said as we walked out, sounding faintly pleased with himself. The Hudson Hotel had opened less than two months before, and it was the current hotspot du jour, complete with the obligatory celebrities and models. Great date place—if you were a celebrity or a model.

“Don’t you think we’ll have trouble getting in?” I asked, brow a-furrow. Morty looked at me with faint annoyance.

“I think it’ll be fine,” he said, with the air of someone who had been many times. Our first power struggle. Fine, get kicked out of your fancy bar, hotshot, I thought. Sometimes I am competitive.

We walked over and sure enough, there was a line, and the snippy guy with the clipboard told us that they were “at capacity.” I willed my face not to look smug; the look on his face suggested that I did not quite succeed. And so we were left with a slightly strained silence and the awkwardness of finding somewhere else to go. First dates should never include travel time.