The Twelve-Day Round-Up
By Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk
This was probably a dumb move, I told myself. It’s a lousy way to meet someone and probably a hundred-to-one chance that I’d be chosen. I wasn’t even sure why I was doing this. Maybe I was just bored.
“You excited?” asked the woman beside me.
“Not yet,” I admitted. “More nervous than anything.”
“No need to be nervous. This is a great two weeks. I’ve done it twice before.”
“And you were never chosen?”
“Almost. Once. But it wasn’t who I wanted. I couldn’t see spending the next year with someone who wasn’t quite right. I mean, just because she thought I was the one, didn’t mean that I had to think she was the one.”
I suppose that’s the way it should go.
Every year, the club I belonged to held what they called a Round-Up. Twelve days,
