The Cupid Room–a match not made in heaven

Carson blinked. His legs weren’t where they were supposed to be. Instead, a glittery, white flowing robe covered his body. A second ago, he’d been riding in a convertible with his best friend Dillon, barreling down Main Street while pounding back PBRs and screaming the lyrics to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself. Now he had no idea where he was.

A man approached, gliding more than walking. He looked to be about Carson’s age, with close-cropped black hair and vibrant blue eyes. He, too, wore a robe, and his whole being seemed to shimmer.

The man held out his hand in greeting. “I’m Benedict. I’ll be your guide.”

“Where am I, exactly?” Carson asked.

“Heaven, obviously.” Benedict stated it in such a matter-of-fact way that he couldn’t think of a response. How many beers had he and Dillon had, exactly?

Benedict motioned for him to follow and began to explain the work expectations in heaven. 

“Of course, we place a lot of importance on work/afterlife balance,” Benedict emphasized. “We think you’ll find that once you climb through the ranks and make it to your True Calling station, the lines between work and afterlife are blurred. In a good way,” Benedict added, with way too much cheer for Carson’s taste.

Carson only half listened as Benedict rattled off a list of his duties. He was too intent on taking in his surroundings, searching for something, anything, that remotely resembled home. The expansive hallways that led to cavernous rooms branching to yet more hallways and rooms made him dizzy. All of it set amidst a silvery landscape that reminded him of the mercury he and his classmates had experimented with as they learned about the elements in 10th-grade Chemistry class.

But he was a long way from high school. 

Benedict was moving at a brisk pace, and he struggled to keep up. He kept trying to walk but didn’t seem to have the legs to do it. He leaned forward to mimic Benedict and his gliding function revved up. This he could learn to enjoy.

Benedict explained the function of each room as they passed it. “This station processes college admissions,” he said as they passed an especially cavernous space with complex, three-dimensional spreadsheets listing colleges and universities. Another set of spreadsheets listed names and qualifications of the student applicants. All that information was largely ignored as robe-clad beings gleefully performed the heavenly equivalent of coin tosses to determine which student went to which university. 

The next room on the tour was even larger. It was a joyful place, with hundreds of beings, all wearing the same flowing white robes, hooting and hollering as they threw footballs and basketballs, wiffle balls and softballs in long arcs across the space. “The angels working here make decisions on all sports-related outcomes,” Benedict explained before hurrying on.

Angels? What the hell? This was some crazy prank Dillon was pulling on him. 

Benedict kept moving until they arrived at yet another cavernous room and indicated he should enter. Carson took a tentative step in. Individual workstations with screens towered multiple stories above row after row of desks. Each screen was peppered with colorful dots and squiggles that pulsating a unique color and were in constant motion. It looked like a cross between an air traffic control system and an LSD trip.

“As you can see, we’re all kept pretty busy here in heaven,” Benedict said. “But no place is as busy as this section. This is your post. The Cupid Room.”

The Cupid Room? Carson repeated the words to himself.  He, a man who had proudly made it through most of his twenties without any romantic relationship extending beyond a fourth date—now he would be stationed at The Cupid Room? Couldn’t he be assigned to the Sports Room—a topic he knew something about? This was either a sick joke, or this wasn’t heaven at all.

* * *

Pegeen’s shoulders slid down from around her ears as she walked up the steps to the Warren Public Library. Ever since her breakup with Ross, this white clapboard building next to the Congregational Church on Main Street had become her refuge. She relished the rapport she was developing with the librarians, the quiet in the cozy reading nooks, and the security of knowing that as long as she had a book in her hands, she would never be lonely on a Saturday night.

“Excuse me, do you have—” 

“I’m looking for—” 

“Go ahead,” Pegeen said to the man who came up behind her.

“No, you go,” he insisted.

She hesitated before turning her attention back to the woman seated at the desk. “Can you tell me where I can find that new Grisham novel?” 

The librarian punched keys on her computer. “Aisle two, about halfway down. It should be on your right, mid-shelf. You’re lucky it’s here—that one has been popular.”

“And how can I help you,” she asked as she turned toward the young man, but he was already gone, following Pegeen to aisle two.

Pegeen sensed the man right behind her and turned to address him. “Am I in your way?” The aisles were narrow, and she thought he might need to pass.

“No,” he smiled. “I’m going right where you’re going. I came in for the same book. I’m hoping there might be a second one on the shelf. Sometimes they double up on the popular titles.”

Pegeen pulled down her prize. “Nope. Sorry. Just this one.”

Seeing the crestfallen look on the man’s face, she added: “Put your name on the waiting list. I’m a quick reader.  I’m Pegeen,” she said.

“Ryan,” he answered and gave a warm smile and a thumbs up before turning on his heels and walking away. Pegeen stood still for a moment, watching him leave. She clutched the book to her chest and tried to make sense of the warmth spreading through her body. Was she really this starved for human interaction? She reminded herself that warm, tingly feelings had not served her well in her last two relationships. Nope. She’d vowed to fall in love with books, not people. Books wouldn’t leave her abruptly after a three-year committed relationship for someone “edgier,” whatever that was supposed to mean. 

* * *

Could this really be heaven? The place certainly was pleasant, and the gliding was a neat trick now that he’d mastered it. But to be assigned to The Cupid Room seemed like gross unfairness. 

“What about that sports section we passed,” he asked Benedict. “Couldn’t I be assigned there?”

“I’m afraid that’s not the way things work up here,” Benedict said. “Everyone starts out in The Cupid Room.”

In response to Carson’s obvious disappointment, he offered: “Do a good job here and then you can transfer wherever you want. But you’ve got to put in time in The Cupid Room. Everyone does. It’s the only way we can handle the overwhelming demand.”

On the face of it, his job was simple enough. He was to monitor the movement of people across four massive screens that towered over his workstation. Each person appeared on the screen as a digital image. Benedict called them couplets. Carson’s job was to find the matching couplet, motion with his hands to bring them together on the screen, and then voila—a Perfect Match—literally made in heaven. 

“It’s how all love matches are made,” Benedict explained. “Or at least, most of them.” But he didn’t elaborate. “Here’s where I leave you,” Benedict said before gliding off.

Carson stood and observed the activity before settling in at his station. There were no chairs, but the angels around him were bent at the waist and hovering in front of their desks. Gingerly, he bent as though to sit and was relieved when some invisible support caught and held him firm. 

Now what?

The other angels made the job look easy. All around him, shimmering beings were clapping and congratulating each other on the matches they made. When each Perfect Match culminated in an exchange of wedding vows, trumpets sounded, and fireworks shot colorful hearts and stars above the matchmaker’s station. 

He tried to make sense of the thousands of images in constant motion across his screens. Benedict had assured him that he’d get the knack of things. 

At the moment, his screen was chaos. He sat. Maybe some sort of order would reveal itself. It didn’t. A nagging worry teased around his heart, like a robin pecking on a window—insistent and annoying. He had not been the most productive and responsible human during his time on earth. He’d had to suffer the indignity of watching his kid brother excel at everything from sports to mock trials to math Olympics. The more Michael excelled, the more he gave up trying. He’d been a flawed human, for sure. By anyone’s standards, he’d failed at life on earth. But shouldn’t heaven be a place for a do-over? Was he going to suffer the same indignity of incompetence in heaven as he had on earth? He tried to assuage his panic by attempting to bring together couplets at random. He’d grab onto a green squiggle on one screen and try to pair it with a similar-looking shape on another screen, to no avail. The closer he brought the two images, the more resistance there was, like two repelling magnets.

“What are you doing?” a senior guide asked as he passed behind his station. “What is it about these two couplets that make you think they’d be a Perfect Match?” 

“They’re both green?” Carson offered. But now that he looked more closely, he could see that one couplet was curvy and the other was more of a squiggle. They weren’t a match at all. 

“You know there’s a Perfect Match right in front of you,” the guide said, gesturing loosely at the screen closest to Carson’s desk. He scanned the screen but couldn’t see it, and the guide wasn’t allowed to show him. He had to learn to make the matches on his own.

Carson stared at his screens, willing the random digital couplets to reveal some type of pattern. He overlooked a Perfect Match right in front of him: Pegeen’s squiggle-shaped couplet playing with her rescue Lab at the Warren Dog Park while Ryan’s zig-zag couplet was in Waitsfield picking up groceries. He stared for what could have been hours or eons. Time was fluid in heaven, he’d learned. He pushed away from his desk, exasperated.

“Sorry, I can’t see anything that remotely resembles a match,” he said to the guide. His frustration was high and his energy low. His shimmer had gone dull.

“You need a boost,” the guide said. “Try a Stardust.” He handed him a clear cup filled with silver glitter. Carson took a tentative sip, and then another, and the beverage worked its magic. His shimmer returned, and with it, his determination. He turned back to his screens and redoubled his efforts to make sense of the images floating across them.

* * *

Pegeen turned on her car’s fog lights hoping they would improve her visibility. There’d been something on VT Public that morning about a storm coming in, but she hadn’t paid close attention. Was this one of those weird microbursts or something more serious? She cursed herself for not springing for new snow tires when the tech at Hap’s Garage told her it was time. One more season, she had implored, and relished the $1000 she’d saved. That seemed like short money now as the sleet intensified and began to coat the road with a slick glaze. The sky continued to darken. Was this a storm or the apocalypse? Just then, there were two loud pops. The car shuddered and it was all Pegeen could do to control the steering wheel. Could a tire have blown? Maybe two? Easing her foot off the gas, she pulled onto the shoulder of Route 100, switched on the hazard lights, and took deep breaths to get her heart rate under control.

* * *

Ryan’s wiper blades were on high, their rhythmic sounds beating time to the staccato of sleet pinging off the car’s hood and windshield. The plan had been to pick up a few items at Mehuron’s Supermarket and then drive to Burlington to meet yet another blind date. But in this weather, no way. And frankly, he was grateful for the excuse. Enough with the blind dates already. Now that most of his friends were married, and some had already started having children, they had been relentless about trying to set him up. He appreciated their good intentions, but each date was exhausting. At this point in his life, he’d either meet someone or he wouldn’t. At the moment, he had more important issues to consider, such as whether he’d be able to make it home to Moretown in this crazy storm.

He slowed when he saw flashers up ahead and had the fleeting thought that this was a tough time to be stranded. As he passed, he caught a glimpse of a woman in the driver’s seat, seemingly alone. He hoped she had someone to call.

* * *

Damn. No cell service. Pegeen cursed the Valley and its notoriously bad cell reception. Using the SOS feature was always an option, but that seemed extreme. She’d just wait out the storm and, once it passed, walk ahead to the Waitsfield shops to get some help. Hap’s Garage would come to her rescue, she was sure.

* * *

How is he not seeing this? One of the many Cupid Room guides glided past Carson’s station and marveled at the two bright couplets practically bursting through the screen. The Perfect Match was right there, begging to be brought together. But Carson merely sat there staring at the screen and randomly trying to match pairs that any fool could see were ill-suited. If Carson was going to advance to his true calling station, he’d have to first master The Cupid Room.

* * *

Ryan pulled his car into the turnaround just past Kenyon’s Hardware. He had no time for this and was going to get soaked through to the bone, but something was compelling him to turn around. Something about the woman stranded on the roadside tugged at his heart. If his sister ever got stranded, he’d want someone to help her. Extreme weather conditions be damned, he’d go back and do what he could. At a minimum, he could give her a ride to Hap’s. If he was lucky, the whole detour would take no more than 30 minutes out of his day.

* * *

One year later.

Pegeen and Ryan walked arm-in-arm up the stairs to the Warren Public Library. He had a satchel filled with books to return; she carried a notebook. Megan, the librarian on duty that day, offered a warm welcome. 

“The new Philbrick just came in. It’s yours if you want it,” she said to Ryan with a wink. “But sorry, Pegeen, you haven’t moved much on the waitlist for that new Kristin Hannah novel.”

“Not to worry. I’m here to do research,” Pegeen said as she waggled her notebook. “Specifically, do you have any books on wedding planning?”

Meg opened her arms and pulled her in for a tight embrace. 

* * *

While Carson had no idea how long he’d been at this post, it did seem like a lot of angels had cycled through, waving a cheery farewell after they’d completed their Cupid Room assignment and moved on to their True Calling, leaving Carson stuck at his desk, staring at images that refused to make sense. As he toiled away, he had to cope with a near-constant blare of celebratory trumpets ricocheting across the room in celebration of all the Perfect Matches being made.

As his failure rate climbed, he grew more aggressive in his matchmaking attempts, each more desperate than the next: the squiggly couplet of a monk in Sri Lanka looked like a close enough match to the zig-zag shape of a wrestling coach in New Jersey. The pulsing yellow sphere of a firefighter in Florida seemed like it might pair with a dental tech’s yellow-orange oval glimmering away in Oregon. But each time Carson tried to drag two couplets together, there was resistance. Try as he might, he couldn’t make them stick. 

On Ryan and Pegeen’s wedding day, celebratory trumpets sounded above his head and fireworks lit up his workstation. He rocketed out of his station, startled by the noise and confetti raining down on his head. As congratulations poured in from his co-workers, all of them seemingly relieved that he’d finally managed to make a Perfect Match, he had to tell them the truth.

“Not me,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. 

“But the match was on your screen,” the angel at a nearby workstation exclaimed. “Dude, I could see the couplets from across the aisle.”

Another angel sidled up to him. “Take the credit,” he whispered. “You need the win, and no one will know.”

“Nope. Not me,” Carson said, swallowing his shame. He had no idea why he was getting credit for a match he hadn’t made. Was it possible that even heaven wrestled with IT challenges?  

The trumpets ceased and his colleagues floated away. Carson pulled himself together and refocused on his screens. Would he ever be able to make even one match?

“Come with me, Carson,” Benedict said, gliding up so silently the interruption made him jump yet again. 

He looked around to gather his things before remembering that there was nothing to gather. Anything he needed or desired appeared automatically. It was a definite perk of heaven.

“Where to?” he asked.

Benedict merely smiled and beckoned him to follow.

They glided along in silence. As they neared the Sports Station, Carson’s entire being pulsed with light and shimmer. Here’s where the angels addressed every wish and fervent prayer, from Little League victories to Superbowl championships, that bubbled up from earth in an endless stream.  

“Here you go. Welcome to your new post.” 

“So, I’m no longer a Cupid?” he asked, confused.

Benedict laughed. “I’m not sure you ever were. That one match we all thought you made turns out wasn’t even yours. But no matter. Welcome to Sports Heaven. You’re now a Referee, with all the power that entails. Jocelyn here will explain your new duties.”

He ventured inside and peered over the shoulder of one angel and took in the layers of screens, each showing a game in progress. Everything made perfect sense. Without understanding how, he knew that the third grader at bat on a sandlot in Ohio deserved to make a homerun, while the NFL quarterback getting a little too cocky for his own good deserved the fumble that was about to happen. Pure well-being tingled through him. Now he truly had arrived in heaven. But how? He didn’t want to jinx his luck, but he had to ask.

“I thought I couldn’t move on from being a Cupid until I’d mastered matchmaking.”

“A fair question,” Benedict said. “It’s the fact that you were honest and didn’t take credit for Pegeen and Ryan. You could have, you know. It’s not like we get audited or anything.”

More proof that this is heaven.

“I’m still not sure I understand. If I didn’t make the match, then who did?”

Benedict smiled and drew him over to the far reaches of the stadium. “We don’t make a big show of this—it’s kind of bad for our reputation,” he said in a hushed voice. “But every now and then, humans make a match all on their own.”

With a broad wave of his hand, he swept aside the sports screens to reveal a giant scoreboard. Bright white lights revealed the stats: Cupids 325,021,765,000,000, Humans: 51. The moment Pegeen and Ryan uttered their “I dos,” the number changed to 52.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️