Dark Redemption Read online

  The following morning, I get up early, go on a run despite the wind chilland the gusts that make me practically airborne like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

  After three miles of pure torture, I surrender and run the other two miles on a treadmill in the comfort of a temperature-controlled gym. Sufficiently drenched in sweat, I head upstairs and jump into the shower. Again, Jacqueline pops into my head: the smoothness of her skin, the voluptuousness of her hips, the perkiness of her breasts. I lose myself in the memories of her curves.

  I arrive to the appointment on time. I say hello to the security staff downstairs, show them my ID, ride up the elevator and introduce myself to the receptionist.

  She shows me to another long conference room with a view of a huge skyline and the lake and offers me a cup of coffee, which I accept. A few minutes later, a petite woman with a tailored suit comes in holding a laptop.

  "I'm Meredith Gains," she says, extending her hand.

  "Hi, nice to meet you,” I say, genuinely surprised by how young she looks.

  "Thanks for taking the time to come."

  She has a pleasant smile and shiny lustrous blonde hair. After a little bit of chitchat about the weather and my trip to Chicago, Meredith dives right into the numbers.

  She pulls them up on a big screen and walks through her presentation deck.

  “I started the company five years ago when I was having trouble finding suitable men,” she says. "I found the entire online dating experience to be like a cattle call.”

  Intrigued, I open my notebook.

  “Everyone was out there to hook up, but I was looking for someone like me, who was my age, in my income bracket who was looking for a long-term relationship. I wanted to have children, but not right away. I wanted to travel. I wanted someone who had an interesting job and who was passionate about his career. And I also wanted to be the one in control of deciding whether I wanted them to see my picture or not.”

  “Sounds like a tall order for a lot of men,” I say.

  “It’s a tall order only for boys, not men,” Meredith corrects me and I can’t help but chuckle.

  “When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I decided to build it myself.”

  "I really like the interface,” I say, going through the app on my phone.

  "It's easy to scroll through, but instead of a profile picture, the first focus is on who the person is,” Meredith explains. “Each person is offered a space for a tagline that you can infuse a little bit of humor in or not. A place for accomplishments, such as degrees and career aspirations, goals, interests.”

  I nod, scrolling through the profiles.

  “With pictures, it’s all about looks,” Meredith says. “But in long-term relationships, it’s about friendship and love and passion. But people get so hung up on looks that they ignore the other things that can make their life very fulfilling.”

  That’s quite a conclusion to draw for someone who is so good looking, I think to myself.

  “This way there could be a little bit more forgiveness for people who do not look like supermodels or Hollywood actors, which I think tends to be the case with almost everyone."

  "I couldn't agree more.” I nod with approval.

  "We have over ten million daily users already and we're growing everyday. People are just finding out about us. We're focused in the Midwest, but we have had a number of big marketing campaigns in Seattle, New York, LA, Miami, and we'd love to expand to smaller cities as well. People want to date people who are in their geographic area, so it's very important that we enroll as many people as possible."

  "And what is your payment structure?"

  "Well, the site is initially free to use, but in order to contact anyone, you do have to sign up. There's a free trial and after that it is $19.99 a month."

  "Wow, that seems a little steep,” I say, hearing something that gives me pause for the first time in this presentation.

  "That's on purpose. We really only want to enroll people who are serious about finding someone,” Meredith says.

  "And what happens when they do…find someone? Don't they leave?"

  "Yes, they do, but that's why we're expanding all the time. We've been through several rounds of investment and we’re growing."

  "And what's your end play here?” I ask.

  "Well, as with any startup, the eventual goal is to sell to a larger company, but I don't want to do that."

  I sit back in my chair. I'm a little bit surprised.

  * * *

  She’s right. We do not like to hear CEOs saying that they will never sell because the whole point of investing is that the company sells to a bigger player in the market and we all cash out big.

  "Okay, I can see by the expression on your face that you're clearly concerned," Meredith says, "but hear me out."

  She sits down in the chair right next to me.

  "There's a lot of great and not so great dating apps out there and I'm sure that if we get big enough, we'll get an offer. But ideally, we can provide enough returns to the investors that we won’t have to sell."

  "And how's that?” I ask. “I mean, the monthly fee is only going to cover so much."

  "With a platform set up the way it is, there's a lot of opportunities to expand."

  “How’s that?”

  "The aim of the app is to help people into happy relationships long term, so we really want to continue that relationship going forward. If they meet on our site, maybe they'll use our recommendations for wedding venues or maybe even expand into advertising certain services for the wedding industry and beyond, babies, that kind of thing. Digital advertising can be very effective as you know in certain market segments."

  "Actually, I'd argue that digital advertising is effective in all market segments,” I say.

  "Yes, but what I mean is that we have this very focused and involved community,” Meredith continues with unwavering enthusiasm. “People who meet on our app become huge fans and recommend it to their friends. We have a very big mailing list of everyone who's a subscriber and that's where the digital advertising arm would come in."

  "I like that idea," I say, nodding, "and I like your financials and your plans for the future.”

  “But?” She winces.

  “No, buts. This has been one of the best presentations I've seen in a long time."

  "Thank you.” Meredith smiles. She cracks her knuckles and I realize that she has actually been nervous this whole time.

  "I know that I'm not supposed to make suggestions,” I say. “But I actually was thinking that one area you might want to consider expanding into is finding friends.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “I don't know if you know, but it's kind of hard to make friends as you get older. If you don't have friends from your parents, school, or from work, it might be nice to be able to connect with couples and others and find people who are looking for meaningful friendships.”

  "Yeah, I like that idea." Her face lights up. "That seems like such a natural progression for what we're doing now."

  We shake hands and I promise that I'll be in touch. Leaving the meeting, I feel uplifted. I was kind of dreading coming here and I wasn't sure who I would meet or if any of it would even make sense financially, but Meredith has really put all the numbers in perspective.

  She's detail-oriented, she didn't need to check with her accountant or CFO once, and she clearly knows every part of the business inside and out.

  That's what I, and my investors, like to see in the CEO.

  When I get downstairs and turn my phone off from silent, I see that I have two text messages. I click on the screen to read, an incoming call comes in. It’s her.

  5

  Jacqueline

  Now it's his turn to not answer my calls. I don't know if I'm getting through or not but every time I call or text, Dante doesn't respond.

  He's probably mad at me for being mad at him. It's a vicious cycle that I don't know how to get out of.


  A few days later, Mom is feeling well enough to leave the hospital. I help her into a wheelchair and we get onto the next flight to Newark Airport. A late spring snowfall begins to fall, welcoming us home.

  I help Mom off the airplane and load everything onto a trolley to take a cab. Of course, Mom keeps trying to help out, carry something in some way and that seems to make the whole process even more complicated.

  "Look, I can handle it, so quit trying to be helpful," I insist.

  After a little bit of an argument, she finally gives in and lets me take care of it. For the next couple of days, I keep waiting for her to get worse. It's almost as if I can't believe the good luck that we've encountered after so much bad luck.

  Can she just be better like that all of a sudden?

  Could this really be it?

  While I go out to do a quick grocery shopping, I drive past the cemetery where Michael is buried. My thoughts return to the shadow of the person that I’ve become after his death.

  Everything turned gray and sad, and I wasn't sure that I was ever going to feel all right again. I'm not saying that my mother's surgery made any of that better, but it forced me to care about someone other than myself.

  I have decided to go back to school and finish my degree. I'm almost done with my masters in journalism, one semester left. While I complete the thesis and the coursework that I dropped, I also have time to get a job. I feel like I've been pedaling water for so long and now suddenly, there's a reason to make my life something good again.

  For the next few weeks, I call Dante over and over again and I leave him a few messages. I don’t leave one every time I call, but enough to get through.

  I apologize for getting upset, but I also tell him that I'd like to talk about it; this isn't over, I need to figure this out.

  I wait for him to call me back.

  When I call him again, I thank him for all the money that he gave me and my mother and I tell him that I'll never forget it even if we never speak again.

  I leave this message a month after we’ve left Minnesota. Again, I still hear nothing.

  I know that I should probably leave it alone. He’s angry with me. I have to let him go, but for some reason, I can’t.

  Something within me forces me to keep trying. It can't be over just like that, right? I mean, he's going to forgive me, right?

  He paid all this money. Yes, I got mad at him, but there were extenuating circumstances.

  Why won't he answer my calls?

  Why won't he at least talk to me?

  Another month passes. Allison keeps telling me to forget about him, he’s not worth it, but I can’t.

  I try of course.

  I bury myself in schoolwork and in my thesis and try to enjoy the long summer evenings in the city.

  I've gone on a few dates since I started school again, and even went out with a guy that Allison set me up with at work. He works in the marketing department as well, but on another project management team. The guy was nice enough, friendly, attractive, but the spark wasn't there. It's probably unfair to compare him to Dante, but for some reason, I'm now comparing everyone to Dante.

  Then another idea pops into my head.

  What if something happened?

  What if he needs my help?

  To try to clear my head, I let Allison convince me to go back to The Redemption. They're having their Midsummer's Eve Party, a large extravaganza out in a Hamptons mansion.

  “This is where all the debauchery and craziness is going to happen,” she promises.

  I roll my eyes.

  "You have to go to this party with an open mind," Allison says. "We're going to have a little fun, meet some people, get down."

  Maybe, I raise my eyebrow.

  "I'm making no promises," I say.

  “C’mon, you can't go to an event like this and not meet a few people.”

  I shake my head no.

  When Allison walks away from me, her long flowing dress bounces off the parquet floors of her pre-war apartment with enormous windows looking out onto West 86th street. She got a raise at work and is now making over $75,000 a year, and actually paid off her loans.

  The Redemption club has become something of an addiction for her. She goes there to hook up with couples. She likes to be the guest star as she calls it. But if they want to pursue something more serious like a polyamorous relationship, she usually shoots them down. For her, the whole experience seems more about the attention than anything else.

  "Are you going to go on a run with me or not?" I ask.

  ”Right now? Do you know how sticky it is out there?" Allison says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  She descends into the luxurious chaise lounge in the corner, next to the enormous fica plant and motions for me to sit in a pink mid-century style chair with pins for legs.

  I grab my mug of coffee and plop down. Somehow, I have managed to gain almost twelve pounds ever since my mother's surgery.

  I wasn't particularly thin before, but this is the heaviest I've ever been.

  "Look, I know that you're a little embarrassed because you have gained some weight, but don't worry about that. You'll look beautiful, glowing,” Allison says when I bring it up.

  I stare at her defined and slim arms and suddenly feel incredibly ugly. She's not trying to make me feel bad, quite the opposite, but sometimes these emotions just take over.

  “Nope, I’m going to go on a run,” I say. I'm pointing to my yoga pants and the loose fitting shirt. “I'm not just wearing all this to look cute.”

  She smiles out of the corner of her lips.

  I make one final offer, but she refuses again and I promise to be back in forty-five minutes.

  I definitely can’t run that long, but it will be good to get forty-five minutes of some kind of exercise nevertheless.

  I've been trying to get onto a diet or some sort of sensible eating plan for quite a while now. Going back to school, taking classes, and being relieved that my mom is actually okay, has had a strange effect on me. It forced me to relax and put my guard down and fill myself up with junk food.

  The day is uncanny in its beauty: bright blue skies, warm, with just a little bit of breeze. Central Park is full of children and people exercising, running, playing Frisbee, or just hanging out on the green grass, enjoying themselves after many months of being cooped up in the New York winter.

  When I enter through the gates, I pick up my pace. It’s a light jog, nothing too strenuous, but I still get a stitch in my side. Drenched in sweat, I take a five minute break, turning off my podcast. As I walk, I see a group of crows crowd around bread crumbs taking turns on the feast.

  The break seems to have the opposite effect. When I try to run again, I'm more tired and exhausted.

  Keep going, I say to myself. You can do it.

  A young woman, barely out of her teens, struggles to get her new puppy to walk on a leash in front of her. I smile and wave to the puppy who bounces up and down with newfound exuberance.

  Picking up my feet and taking faster steps, I try to breathe through my nose and exhale through my mouth just like I've been taught in order to not get those cramps in my side.

  I follow the path into a narrow but short tunnel. There’s a boulder right outside as I turn up the trail, blocking my view and I run straight into someone.

  "Oh my God, I'm so sorry," I say, jumping back, realizing that I had knocked her down to the ground.

  "Are you okay?" A familiar voice extends his hand to her and helps her back onto her feet. It belongs to Dante.

  His eyes have not met mine yet. He's still helping up the statuesque woman in a beautiful summer dress. When she moves slightly to face me, I see that she's pregnant.

  My mouth drops open and I want to disappear into the ground.

  6

  Jacqueline

  When Dante's eyes meet mine, he recognizes me immediately. My world feels like it's going to collapse.

  "I'm really sorry," I
mumble. "I'm so sorry.”

  She stands next to him looking at me.

  She has big wide eyes and she cradles her stomach in a way to protect it from me. I look at her and I look at him and all of the time a century seems to pass.

  "I have to go," I say, turning on my heels and rubbing sweat off my brow.

  Touching a cheek, I feel the heat coming off it and I know that it’s bright red.

  Of course, Dante found someone else, I say to myself over and over again. How could I be so stupid?

  I begin to run. Somewhere in the distance, I hear him yell after me, but I don't stop and he doesn't catch up.

  I'm afraid to go back to the tunnel, so I go around the long way, not running so much after a while, but walking, crying behind my sunglasses and wiping my tears.

  When I finally get back to Allison's apartment and call up for her to open the downstairs door, she sees me on the intercom, immediately concerned.

  “Let me in!” I cry.

  A few minutes later, I'm sitting on her sixties-style sofa with no padding with her arms around me as I sob into her shoulder.

  "That was him," I say, when I come up for air.

  "How do you know that she was with him?” she asks.

  "Because they were together.” I shrug. "I don't know how else to put it. She was pregnant, like visibly pregnant. And I knocked her over and I watched him pull her up and the way she just stood next to him, I just ... Of course, it's his girlfriend or new wife or whatever."

  "What if they were already married before he met you?"

  I swallow hard. The thought had not crossed my mind.

  "I don't know," I say. "It's very possible, but then I'm even more of a fool, an idiot."

  "You're not an idiot for putting yourself out there."

  "Don't you see?" I say, pulling away from her and wiping the tears from my eyes.

  "Don't pull on your skin like that, you're going to get wrinkles," Allison instructs, "just pat."

  I don't listen and instead wipe the rest of my eyes with the back of my hand, purposely being as rough as possible.