Shelby understands abandonment and loneliness. Her desire to do right for these creatures is what fuels her. She works odd hours, fills in when other people go on vacation, is willing to deal with the vicious, the mistrustful, the beaten, the desperate. At night, she cuddles up with the General and Blinkie. They both snore, but she wouldn’t think of tossing them out of bed. She thinks of Ben, and how she didn’t value him when she had him. Some nights she dreams of Helene, and when she wakes she’s crying. She hasn’t gotten a postcard in some time, and what she misses most is someone knowing she’s alive.

People like Shelby don’t beg for human companionship. They don’t sign up at dating services, or write profiles, or wait in a Chinese restaurant with sweaty palms wearing a black dress. They don’t even wear dresses, but there she is on a Thursday night ordering a Tsingtao beer as she waits for the stranger she met online to appear. She blames Maravelle for convincing her she should get back into the dating world after the mess with Harper. Likely she’s here because loneliness can drive even the most alienated person to attempt to make contact with another soul, even when it’s via a soulless medium. Loneliness is something Shelby thought she could overcome. She told herself being alone was what she wanted, but lately she finds herself looking at couples and hating them just because they’re happy. She blames herself for her situation. She ditched a true-blue boyfriend for a married man. She never asked the right questions, like Why are you still living with your wife if you’re so crazy about me? or What do you do every other night of the week? Now a year has passed since the breakup with Harper. Would she even remember how to have sex? Does she still have a heart left to break? She watches movies she would have had contempt for in the past, sappy romantic comedies, and she actually cries when star-crossed lovers find their way back to each other. She’s sat through Bridget Jones’s Diary fifteen times. Sometimes the only person she speaks to during an entire weekend is one of the delivery guys from Hunan Kitchen. The sad guy has disappeared, and now there’s a new person every time. Shelby has the feeling all of the delivery guys refer to her as the crazy girl who can’t shut up. They probably draw straws to see who’s the unlucky one to bring her General Tso’s chicken and steamed rice.

It took two weeks for Shelby to complete her dating profile. She’d written term papers in less time. She couldn’t seem to get it right. She had no desire to look inside her soul and analyze her needs. She couldn’t write down the truth, which is simply that she needs someone to remind her she’s alive.

Twenty-five-year-old woman who carries around guilt, sorrow, and strange desires looking for a man between the ages 20 and 35 who knows how to laugh. I would rather run through the park with a bulldog than have a diamond ring. I don’t care what you look like and I hope you don’t care about that either. I’m so pale some people assume I’m a vampire. I’m not afraid of a fight. I don’t drive or wear lipstick.

Turn-ons: Chinese food, New York City, fire escapes, lost souls.

Turn-offs: people, the past, men who are liars.

When she sent her profile in, someone from the dating service named Mandy Cohen phoned to suggest she make certain changes before posting. “This is pretty harsh,” Mandy told her. So now her profile is simplified.

Unusual woman looking for interesting man.

Loves Chinese food, long walks, New York City.

Shelby insisted on tagging on a line. She needed a statement of purpose, otherwise she would seem like an empty shell.

Hopes to save a small part of the world.

She can’t understand why, but she’s had over fifty responses. Totally unexpected. A landslide of possible dating material. As it turns out, she appeals to a hell of a lot more people than she would have ever imagined. Maybe they picture her as a modern-day Joan of Arc, a fighter with a heart of gold who likes to take long walks and is great in bed. Unfortunately, most of the guys who write to her seem like jerks. One who might have been a possibility wrote that he, too, always wanted to save the world and they were clearly kindred spirits. He had been to Africa with the Peace Corps and now worked for a church group. When Shelby called him he was so serious and kindhearted she rescued him by hanging up on him. She wasn’t the girl for him. She’d only make him miserable.

There was only one other respondent who appealed to Shelby, and she didn’t ruin it by talking to him on the phone. His email had made her laugh, so they’d arranged to have dinner. But now the time has come for reality, and Shelby finds herself hoping he won’t show. They use code names at this service. She is Darklady, a totally stupid name chosen on a sleepless night. What was she thinking? Was she supposed to sound sexy? Exotic? Like a sci-fi fan? It’s a persona her seventeen-year-old self would have chosen. Her date is Youonlylivetwice, moronic but nonthreatening. They’d messaged back and forth—only a line or two at a time. He’d written, Don’t think I’m a James Bond fan. I forgot that was a Bond title when I picked my handle. That’s when she’d started liking him.

Who says handle? she’d written back. What are you, a teapot?

Let’s not discuss drugs via the internet, he’d quipped. Tea. Pot. Seems like you have a one-track mind.

She was smoking weed when she read his response, and for a moment she felt like she’d actually found her soul mate and he could somehow intuit her true essence, as if things like that ever happened. Still, there was something about this one that made her feel he was a possibility. His turn of a phrase. His love of the New York Mets, which meant a penchant for losers. His low expectations. I just want to be happy, he told her.

Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend? she wrote when she felt she knew him well enough to ask a personal question.

Never would. Never could.

Everyone has a bottom line, and this is Shelby’s. She’d cheated on someone and she’d been cheated on, and she didn’t know which was worse.

I don’t believe in cheating, he’d written. It would be like shooting Bambi. Who can shoot Bambi and feel okay with himself?

Bambi is a story, she’d written back, moved by the reference.

Bambi is a cultural signpost for morality.

What do you believe in?

Live and let die, he’d written. Somehow the code name didn’t seem as moronic.

Do we or don’t we? she’d typed when the time came for them to meet. A month had passed since their initial contact.