47 on Tinder
By Sharron Matthews
This is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
PART ONE - The FUCKENING
Songs are time machines.
The tune, the words, the way they’re sung, can all transport you to a place you’ve been, a place you hope to be OR a place you hope to never be again.
Inspirational. Aspirational.
They can also navigate you through an emotional journey that took years, in just three or four minutes.
Brandi Carlisle’s LETTER TO THE PAST is all three of those things.
It’s the beginning, the middle and hopefully, the end of all this.
It’s too soon to say, though.
NEW BED, WHO DIS?
On Friday morning, at 8:00am, my phone starts madly pinging away on the nightstand.
And pinging.
I try to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the pinging continues AND increases.
What if someone died? What if it’s Frank? What if it’s work?
I’m supposed to be off today. Do I have my days mixed up? Did I read the call sheet wrong?
What if Frank’s dead? Why haven’t I changed my DND feature to 9:00am?
Reaching out of my expensive sheets, I search for my glasses and shove them on.
I grab for my phone and almost drop it as it lights up like a pinball machine in my hand, declaring that I have forty-five text messages.
My friend Ben in Regina is responsible for at least twenty of them.
BEN IN REGINA: Call me.
BEN IN REGINA: Call me now.
BEN IN REGINA: Char call me.
BEN IN REGINA: ARE YOU DEAD…CALL ME.
BEN IN REGINA: Oh my god, now I’m worried that you are dead.
BEN IN REGINA: Call me to let me know you are NOT DEAD.
BEN IN REGINA: CALL ME CHAR.
BEN IN REGINA: CALLLL MMEEEEEEEEEE…I have news!!!!!!!!
BEN IN REGINA: PLEASE DON’T BE DEAD.
I hit his phone number and he picks up on the first ring.
BEN IN REGINA: Oh my god, please be Charlie and not the person who has found her body.
ME: (my voice croaks) Dramatic much? Is everything okay? What the fuck is going on?
BEN IN REGINA: Oh my god, I’m the first person to get to you. You know I’m going to rub this in Devon’s face, this is too good.
ME: WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT?
BEN IN REGINA: Charlie. You were nominated for three O’Brien Awards for your one woman show. Three. For the book, for your performance and the score you wrote with Jay. Three Charlie. Three.
I sit straight up. This makes no sense.
I never get nominated for things.
ME: What?!
BEN IN REGINA: Char-lie. Listen to me. Focus. You got THREE nominations for INDOMINABLE! They just announced it! FUCK FRANK. I hope he’s out there, somewhere…hopefully face down in a gutter, choking on his own tongue. Not that this about him…but still. HIS STUPID CHEATING TONGUE.
Ben and I have a surreal chat and I beg off to read the now one hundred texts, assorted emails, and Facebook messages.
Then I go to the O’Brien Award website to look at the nominations.
Yup. Three. For me.
I’m in shock.
I feel…excited…a feeling so foreign to me at this point, that my heart skips a beat. I put my hand up to my heart and push against it.
My phone keeps pinging but I lay back in bed.
I want to savour this excitement. It tastes sweet.
When I get up to make some celebratory peppermint tea, I stand in the spot I now like to think of as the Romcom Zone.
It’s the spot on which Frank stood when he broke my heart, the same spot where he sat fourteen days later…when I broke his brain…and he slid down off his chair into the fetal position, like a lazily written woman in a romcom.
I’ve started to believe THAT maybe the Romcom Zone has magical powers.
I was also standing there the morning I realized that I just might be okay.
A few times a day, I like to perch there to remind myself how things can change.
While I drink my tea, I look into my bedroom, admiring my new bed in all its unmade splendour.
The only thing Frank and I bought for this apartment, was a bed.
The only thing he’s asked for since we both got lawyers, was that bed we bought together. Who knows why, but he did.
BECAUSE I’m fairly sure he fucked Florida on it while I was away for a month on the east coast…doing a tour of the NOW three times nominated, Indomitable…I don’t really want it anyhow.
Last week, I sat in my trailer, went online and bought a new BEAUTIFUL bed.
I scheduled to have it delivered the day Frank would come back here…to the scene of the fetal position…with one of our LAST mutual friends, to pick up the Florida-stained one.
Thankfully, Frank and I were NOT in a horrid place when we negotiated the bed situation because he’s agreed to give me the house, I’ve agreed to assume our debt AND we’re almost done with our separation agreement.
Awesome Jane has been VERY helpful.
I’ve made a pact with myself…and Awesome Jane…to do my very best to bide my anger, AND BE ALL BUSINESS, till I have my house locked down on paper. I added it to the list of priorities.
CHARLIE’S ONLY PRIORITIES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Eat well
Rest when I can manage it.
Try to stay as stress free as possible
Don’t deal with ANY marriage shit on work days. NO emails, NO texts, NO nothing.
Learn my lines
When on set, pretend my life didn’t blow up
Go to therapy
Talk to my friends
Do something nice for myself every day
Breathe
BE ALL BUSINESS WITH F TILL HOUSE IS MINE
Frank promised me he would help me put my new bed together, so I would have something to sleep on that night, like some kind of deceitful white knight.
I wanted to say no, but I also didn’t want to wreck our present flow.
But the day before the bed move, Frank found out that another of our friends is mad at him and he called me to pick a fight ABOUT THE HOUSE, a fight during which he said…
FRANK: You know what Charlie? It would be easier to just burn the fucking HOUSE down!!
I couldn’t stop myself from hanging up on him, which goes hard against number eleven on my list of priorities.
Ten minutes later, he sent me a text.
FRANK: I won’t be able to stay and put together your new bed. Sorry.
I sent a thumbs UP emoji and texted Devon and Josh.
ME: Frank bailed, can you help me put up my new bed tomorrow night? I’m sure it’s not a one person job. I will buy you dinner. A REALLY NICE DINNER.
DEVON: OOOH. What time should we be there? Will we order in or go out? Fuck Frank.
Exactly.
The next morning, I go to the pharmacy and buy the first box of condoms I’ve purchased in almost thirty years.
Times have CHANGED.
Back in the tiny apartment, I walk into my bedroom, open up the package, take out four condoms, remove each of them from their wrappers, put aside the actual condoms, scrunch up all four wrappers, and place them under the bed where Frank and will find them when he picks it up.
I even put dust bunnies on them for good measure and threw the condoms in a bag that I walked down to the garbage chute.
If you’re going to do something, do it right.
This action gives me so much joy, I can’t contain it. I laugh so hard I have to lay down on the couch and hold on tight to my divorce stomach. I even peed a little.
I snap a picture of the wrappers sitting under the bed and send it to all my people.
PING PING PING.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.
THUMBS UP.
LAUGHING/CRYING FACES.
Then, I put the rest of the box in my bedside table…to knit for the future.
Written by Sharron Matthews
Toronto, Ontario
August 12th, 2025
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And here is LETTER TO THE PAST performed by Brandi Carlisle.