The Vibe Manager

Chapter 1 - Love Always Wins

Have I ever told you my story about how I became notorious?

[keyboard clicking....]

Not to humblebrag, but — my mother's matchmaking business? I was her only hope.

Online dating was smashing it.

The most popular "word" in the world that year was the heart emoji. It wasn't a time of epic romance, it was a time of digital hieroglyphics.

I tried to sharpen Madre's game. I laid out the problems with her web interface (cheezy), her music (a Classical hangover from my father), her lack of a mobile platform....

There were a lot of reasons for me to be hacking into her computer right then, while she was away in Germany meeting a new client.

Behind the desk at her agency in New York, it took me less than a minute to crack her password. (I'm an only child — of course it was my name!)

B-R-U-N-O

"What the —?"

brunopaz

C'mon dude —you're like Wikileaks! You're a master hacker of Mamma Paz—

BrunoPAZBRUNOpaz

Ohhh.....the Techhie clients.... Seriously, you think telling her to add numbers to her password is gonna make it secure? You think I don't know her life? She's been my mother for twenty-nine years. I know her life...

Right, then. So it's just—

BRUNO1

Boom!

Welcome to Madre's cave of romantical riches — the client data, her ancient email program, and nothing else except her digital solitaire....

Over in Germany it was already morning, and Madre — Nina Pazienza to everyone else — was shuffling into the Senate Lounge in Frankfurt's Terminal 1 like a resort guest who'd arrived in the wrong season.

Jet-lagged, hearing-impaired, she studied the flight information on the digital boards as daylight rose and spread across a lace of ice covering the windows.

Her new client's flight was late.

She took a seat, obsessed with a single thought: Three matches to get to Paradise.

It was the first she'd ever heard of this Celestial Policy, and now she couldn't get the idea out of her head.

Three.

Matches.

She needed one more.

Until that trip, she'd considered her years as a professional matchmaker to have been a success, but the chatty lady next to her on the flight over had shattered this illusion in one breath. 

Hearing how Madre made her living, the seatmate shared her solemn belief that anyone who contributes to three true love matches in this lifetime is guaranteed a place in Heaven.

Her conviction was so persuasive that instead of comforting Madre, it filled her with doubt. 

Had all the couples she'd brought together been true love matches? And how could she know for sure?

The rest of the flight was a mashup of self-questioning and professional flashbacks.

She'd matched hundreds of couples in the years since she'd founded her agency. Sadly, not all of the unions lasted — she'd heard of at least a few splits when the partners came back to try again....

But even when people stayed together, were they truly matched in love?

Waiting in the airport lounge that morning, she could name two couples whose bonds she believed were unquestionable, going back to her early days in the business.

But the third match? The one that would guarantee her a place in Eternal Paradise?

No one had ever set a sales goal for her before.

She resolved to complete the third true match as the digital boards flashed with an update. The flight carrying her new client, Rafael D., had just landed.