Welcome to Gaia! ::

One thing she would not do, everything else be damned, was let a near-miss at the end of the world and her own growing angst about the Garde derail the life that was not Joy's, but Elaine's.

She kept the two people separate in her head in a way that was possibly not entirely healthy, stubbornly refusing to let one overrule the other. She had not yet seen The Substance. Maybe, if she had, she would have had some uncomfortable thoughts.

Blessedly free from them, however, what she had was an invitation to Mel to join her in her apartment - with or without Lulu - and partake of wine, Indian takeout, and the first farmer's market strawberries of the season. And also, to hear what Elaine had managed to scrounge up in terms of dating prospects.

She had been busy - too busy - but the things keeping her busy were largely things that were keeping Joy busy. If she was going to lose sleep, she might as well be losing it for Elaine's sake.

So she waited for Mel's knock, in sweatpants on the sofa, the sliding door to the porch open with the Petitcru-protection babygate across it to let in the night air, and shuffled papers before her. It was probably overkill. But most things worth doing well, Elaine considered, were worth overdoing.

Elaine opened the door with a beaming smile, which was only slightly forced. Petitcru, behind her, was having a quiet breakdown of overpowering excitement at the unexpected joy of Lulu being at the door, and continued her frantic, sneezing wriggling as Elaine nudged her gently away with a foot to show Mel inside and close the door behind her.

"Something smells good," she said, with an exaggerated sniffing as she gestured towards the bar for her to deposit her non-Lulu loot, encompassing in the sweep of her arm the takeout containers and forks and pitcher of tea.

"Oh, bless," she said, with genuine admiration. The usual chaos of greeting zoomies unfolded in the background as Elaine bent over to inhale. "Smells like my childhood, only better, because it doesn't have a whiff of trailer park." She straightened to move towards the freezer.

"This needs ice cream," she said, as she procured a pint of it and plunked it down on the bar before going off to retrieve spoons and bowls. "But I hope you're not planning on using it as an excuse to avoid business." She wagged the spoon at her in a lecturey sort of way as she said it, giving her a serious look. "I've been putting s**t together."

She looked up from the process of filling up a bowl for Mel, pointing the spoon at her again, this time in a somewhat more accusatory fashion before pushing it and the ice cream towards her.

"I am not going to bully you into saying yes to anyone. This isn't, like, Say Yes to the Dress, or whatever. I just have a field of candidates." And then, proceeding to fill her own bowl and then licking the spoon, giving her a pointedly casual look over it: "How many times has the bacterium been by?"

"You've got a really generous definition of a hint," she said drily, but there was no point in revisiting contempt that Mel was already aware of. And no need of it, given that she was imbuing every word she spoke and even every bite she took, somehow, with an obvious and unveiled disgust. "But good work for not opening the door, I guess. Baby steps. Next time don't answer him through the Ring, either."

She waved a hand as if to dismiss the topic, returning to her cobbler with more positive feelings.

"Anyway. I made sure to throw in a couple of guys who could beat the s**t out of him for you, if you like."

"I mean, I didn't really have a plan of attack. I just sent out a bunch of texts to people I knew weren't actually assholes and collected responses. Maybe I'd make a good matchmaker," she added, with a sudden brightness of the variety that she nearly always displayed at the idea of some harebrained side hustle that might net her some extra cash. The idea that she might in fact be a bad matchmaker apparently did not occur to her. "Do those still exist in the age of Tinder, or is it all just digital dating coaches? I could probably do that too. Anyway. I'm gonna be honest, there's not that many that could beat up - like - much. But I am guessing the Bacterium is a weak little watery s**t. The stalker types always are."

Work accordingly commenced, but it was obvious that, as she had said, this was a bit of a slipshod operation. She'd compiled what could only be called the world's most inadequate dossiers - some of them with question marks under things as simple as what their profession was - but despite her scattershot approach, it was clear that she had a good memory for some things. This unfortunately meant that each bachelor proposed had a definite "tractability" rating, as if these were potentially dangerous animals who required a certain sort of handling.

And, well, maybe they were, in Elaine's eyes. Look at what Mel was dealing with. Certainly the Bacterium would score a solid 0 on the tractability metric.

What she also had in each case was a photo - generally looking like it was from Instagram, although in a few cases they were selfies that looked as if they may have been obediently sent in response to "send me a photo, then." In deference to Mel's preferences she had tried to select for conventional beauty, but she had not been able to resist throwing in a few of her favorites: older, somewhat ugly men. These she championed as one might champion an "acquired taste" sort of wine at a dinner party, particularly if they were of a physical variety that might be intimidating to a somewhat tall and somewhat thin Bacterium who could not take no for an answer.

"Anyway," she said, as they got to the end of her brief list, which she had considerably padded out with explanations of what she remembered or could share, "all of them are single and ready to mingle, I asked. This is why I'd make a good matchmaker."

It did not apparently occur to her that they were ready to mingle because she had selected for men with a high tractability score, and then asked them to do something.

"And all of them deal well with rejection, or I wouldn't still have their numbers. So if you like any of them you let me know and I'll give you their number. Or I can give them yours if you think you don't wanna make the first move," she added with a disappointed primness.

She began to shuffle her pages back together with a secretarial briskness, and shot Mel a look over them that expressed skepticism.

"And if the Bacterium shows up in the meantime," she prompted, "you will do - what?"