Page 55 of Experiments in Offline Dating

Bill: Here we go again.

Maya: I love this! Okay, why don’t you set the story straight for us, Orla?

Orla: Well. It all started forty-eight years ago, when I asked Bill to marry me.

Maya: Gasp! You asked him? So brave. I’ll bet not a lot of women did that forty-eight years ago.

Orla: You’re right about that, Maya. That wasn’t really the way of things back then, but I’d just gotten so damn tired of waitin’ for him to pull his thumb out and ask me already that I did it meself.

Bill: Orla is no ordinary woman.

Maya: I can see that, Bill! Sounds like you found yourself a firecracker!

Bill: That I did, Maya.

Orla: So anyway, I asked him one night out at a dance, after over a year of courtin’, and do ye know what he said, Maya?

Maya: What did he say?

Orla: He said no. Can ye believe that?

Maya: Oh no, Bill! You didn’t!

Orla: He did. Said he was too young for it. And there we were, getting older every day.

Bill: Well, now. I just didn’t know what was good for me, did I?

Orla: You most certainly did not. And after I’d worked up the courage and asked him myself, I was dumped for my troubles.

Bill: No, no. Now, I’ll stop ye there, love. I did nothing of the kind. I just said I needed time, that’s all. I never chucked you.

Orla: Same bleedin’ difference. I called him a coward, walked out of that dance hall, and didn’t look back.

Bill: Now, that is true. But after a week or two passed, I realized the mistake I’d made, and I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I asked her to let me buy her dinner, and she told me, “Billy,” she said, “you can take that dinner and shove it right up your hole.” Oh, she had a fiery temper those days. Burn the whole village down, she would.

Orla: It makes me chuckle now to think how bold I was!

Bill: And that went on for a year, now. A year. Wouldn’t give me the time a day.

Orla: I didn’t want to waste any more of my time. I saw some other men and went on a fair few dates, even got a proposal, but not one from anyone I’d liked.

Maya: So how did you get her to listen to you, Bill? And where does Jackie come into this story, if you met on your own?

Bill: Well, now, that’s the question and the answer right there, Maya. I knew that there was a famous matchmaker comin’ into town, and if anyone could help me, ’twould be him. So, when the festival rolled around, I bought him a drink and told him what my trouble was. He said Orla here sounded like a woman who knew her own mind and that he couldn’t make me any promises. But I told him all I needed was some time to talk to her where she would listen. I wanted to propose to her, and I thought if I could only get her to stop and hear me, to apologize good and proper like, I might just be in with a shot.

Orla: So they tricked me.

Bill: We did. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Jackie Kelly isn’t a God’s honest genius.

Orla: So Jackie came up to me and said that there was a mystery man who knew me well but had been too shy to approach me. Jackie asked was I interested in marriage at all, and I said that I was. He said he thought the man was a good match, and would I be willing to let Jackie drive me out of town to have a picnic with this admirer. I gave it some thought, and asked some questions, but Jackie promised that it would be totally safe. He said that if I got out of the car and saw the man and I wanted to turn around and go home, he would drive me back without another word. So I said yes.

Bill: Thank the Lord Almighty for that.

Orla: Well, what else was I going to do with my Saturday? When we got there, Jackie said that the picnic would be in a cave. A cave, if you can believe it! I said I wasn’t interested in that at all—all dark and slimy and cold, and why couldn’t we have the picnic on the beach like normal people? But of course he talked me into giving it a try. Jackie has a dangerous way with words, right enough.

Maya: He sure does! Talked me into this trip before I even knew what was happening!

Orla: Exactly. Well, when I got there, it was lovely. This cave had an opening in the roof, like, that let the sun in, and through that opening was the prettiest little waterfall.