“Stupid eff-ing blast lists! Joyce was in a fan group for Batman toys. They send out a dozen e-mails a day.” Stan stabbed at his keyboard with both index fingers, as if he were playing Asteroids. “They’re all like her. Unemployed.”

“Joyce was into Batman?” Joel loved Batman. The first movie had opened on his birthday. He saw it with a group, two girls and two guys from school, all crammed into his Chevy Cavalier, and afterward they went to a Jack-In-The-Box and then a party with a keg. That was a good night.

Joel peeked at Stan’s computer screen. Stan had Joyce’s inbox as part of his Outlook mail tree. Also in the list were …. Daniel, Melissa, Jose, Gary, Lucille, Cindy, Bud, Brock … the inboxes of departed coworkers stretched down the screen.

Management had fired Bud nine months ago. He was a drunk, they said. Joel wondered, what would he find if he searched for “vodka” in Bud’s inbox? Lucille had red hair and wore a track suit to work one day. Brock had worked for one week. Maybe less? He had a long surname, with a j, a k, an h, and an i all strung together, and Joel had practiced its pronunciation all week, only to never use it. Brock’s e-mail was probably nothing more than paperwork, health-insurance forms, W-2, dress code. Messages that weren’t supposed to last longer than him.

“She has an e-mail from this site, imarriedbatman.com. Check this out.” Stan waved Joel closer. A window popped up on the screen, with Joyce, in a white dress, standing next to a thick man in a molded Batman outfit. She was holding a bouquet of plastic flowers. Her smile showed her teeth, stained from years of smoking, glowing yellow from the center of her silky veil. The Batman did not smile. Shadows hid his eyes.

“Crazy girl, huh?” Stan said. When Joel didn’t respond, Stan clicked on the picture. It flipped to another photo, a different bride with black hair and a quiet face. Each click brought up a new picture, another bride, sometimes a groom, holding the same flowers, standing next to the same brooding Batman, in front of the same misty canvas with the yellow Bat Signal shining in the top-left corner.

After clicking through a few pictures, Stan said, “Heck, the guy’s a zillionaire. Huge house. I’d do him, if it would get me in the mansion.”

Joel watched the flipping pictures. They could have been taken on the same day, like school pictures, with dozens of dressed-up betrothed waiting in line to exchange Bat nuptials.

“She wasn’t happy here,” Stan said. “Read it in her mail. Bosses were right to lose her. Saved time for everyone.”

Joel went back to his desk but avoided his computer. He sorted paper invoices, making several uncharacteristic mistakes in alphabetization. He was thinking about Joyce. She had worked for six months, and in that time, she had walked the hall past his desk four times each day, going to the parking garage for a smoke. He could have stopped her at any point, asked about her favorite Batman movie, her favorite Bat villain, her favorite Bat gadget. If only he had known.

Joel had to use his computer to look up an address. He rolled over to his monitor, launched the customer database, and after a peek over his shoulder, popped open his browser and searched for “Batman Toy Lists.” There were many. He found the same list from Stan’s PC, Batman and the Toy Wonder, and clicked to join.

Membership required you to upload and share your toy list. The system would link it to other members with similar lists, so you could connect with people who had the same toys.

Joel started to think of the toys he’d had as a kid. Building blocks. LEGOs. G.I. Joe. Nothing with Batman. Nothing to connect with Joyce.

He could send her an e-mail. Everyone swapped addresses with departing employees, and they promised things that never happened – they would stay in touch, meet over a weekend, maybe go to a baseball game. How would Joel start his message? “I heard you like Batman…” “I saw a mugging and thought about you…” “Do you ever worry about the amount of guano in the Bat Cave…?” He would start several versions, then it would be the next day and the day after and his introduction would get longer and longer, until he was opening with an apology for not sending his message sooner.

It would be better to marry Batman. Go to the next photo session. Get his picture on the site. He tried to imagine Joyce's surprise. Joel. Former coworker. In a tuxedo. Standing next to Batman, grinning just like her.
After that, she would have to e-mail him. But how long would it take her to see Joel on the site? Would she spot him among all those other Bat wedding pictures?

He went to imarriedbatman.com. There was a schedule in a side column – the next photo session was in two weeks at the triannual Sci-Fi and Toy Expo. In the main matrimonial frame was a tall redheaded bride, taller than Batman, with a proud, round face. She didn’t smile but tilted her head back, as if to impose some austerity on the ceremony. Joel started clicking through the pictures. After twenty-three clicks, he saw the same picture of the redhead. The site shuffled its picture display, pulling at random from its pool of photos. Joel put a paper next to his keyboard and started a count of each new face, marking each with an f or an m and taking care not to double-count Bat spouses when their pictures repeated. He saw Joyce after ten minutes, capitalized her F on the sheet, and kept clicking. The office closed at six o’clock, and Joel was still clicking, writing. When he had clicked for 30 minutes without seeing a new face, he stopped and counted the letters. 413 total. Only 57 were men. He liked those odds.