Voncile Vass Facebook ad: “I Found Him on Page 41 of My Own Yearbook”

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My high school yearbook is lying face down on a flatbed scanner on my kitchen table, and it has been for a month, because I can't stand to close it. Page 41. A skinny 18-year-old boy with jug ears and a mole high on his left cheek. I'd paid a psychic to draw my soulmate and called the face a bald old stranger. Take the hair off the boy on page 41, add 45 years, and it's the same face, line for line. His initials had been at the bottom of my email all spring. I'm Jeannie. I'm 63. I've decorated cakes in the bakery at our grocery store for 26 years, in a farm town in South Dakota with one stoplight and 2 churches. Birthdays, weddings, graduations, the retirement party at the co-op. I've written other people's names in frosting maybe 10,000 times. I'm telling you that up front so you understand I'm not a woman who gets carried away. I pipe borders for a living. Everything I do has to be level. My granddaughter Addie says I'll tell this wrong if I skip around, so I'm going in order. My husband has been gone 8 years. Heart, in the barn, on a Tuesday. I'm not going to make you sad about it; we had 31 good years and I'd take every one of them again. But 8 years is long enough for the quiet in a house to get its own chair. I eat supper at 5 with the radio on for company. I go to church, I go to work, I watch Addie's softball games from the top row of the bleachers. And every so often somebody at church pats my arm and tells me I've had my great love and I should be grateful. I am grateful. That doesn't mean I'm done. Back in February I got roped into the 45th reunion committee. Our class was 38 kids, and 29 of us are still living. There are 5 of us on the committee, and we plan the whole thing by email, because 2 of us live out of state and one of us won't drive at night. My job was the cake, obviously, and the pictures. Somebody has to scan the old photos and the yearbook so they can play on the TV in the corner of the hall. I don't know how to work a scanner. Addie does. The emails, I should tell you about. There were 5 of us on them, and one was Darrell Rausch, who signed every message D.R. and nothing else. I hadn't laid eyes on Darrell since the week after graduation, when he left for the Army. In my head he was still 18, skinny, with a head of hair like a haystack. He'd moved back to his folks' old place 9 miles out of town the year before, after his wife passed, but he goes to the other church, and our paths hadn't crossed. He offered to haul the tables and chairs from the church basement. He found us a man with a sound system. And every time I asked the committee a question about the cake, whether chocolate or white, whether the school colors or something softer, D.R. answered first, and always the same thing: "Whatever you think is best, Jeannie." I read that maybe 40 times between February and June. I thought he was being polite. I thought he just didn't care about cake. So one Sunday evening Addie is at my kitchen table with the scanner, a shoebox of pictures, and my senior yearbook, and she's scrolling her phone between pages, and she stops and turns the screen around. It was an artist who pencils the face of your soulmate and adds a page on when and where you'll find him. "Grandma," she says. "You're doing this." I told her I was 63 years old. She told me that wasn't an answer. I told her I'd already had mine. She said, "OK, but what if there's a second one and you just never asked?" She's 16. They say things like that like it's nothing. So at 7:40 on a Sunday night, with the yearbook sitting on the scanner glass, I got my own card out of my purse and typed the numbers in myself, one finger at a time, while Addie leaned over my shoulder and counted digits with me. My card, my money, my finger on every button. Then she read me the questions out loud, and I answered, and I typed. Not a single one was about him, which surprised me. One of them asked when I last felt picked. Not loved. Picked. Addie read it twice and looked at me, and I didn't have an answer that night, and I thought about that question all week. It came the next day at 12:40, 17 hours later. Addie saw it first, on her phone, at school, and texted me the word GRANDMA with 9 exclamation points. I looked at it standing in the walk-in cooler at work, between 2 wedding cakes. A bald old man. Ears like jug handles. A long neck with a big Adam's apple, a mole high on his left cheekbone, and a crooked grin, like he knew something you didn't and wasn't going to be rude about it. Nice enough eyes, I'll give him that. But I'd been hoping, if I'm honest, for somebody who looked like he'd been in a movie once. This man looked like he sold hail insurance. I stood between 2 wedding cakes and announced to nobody that I had paid good money for somebody's grandpa. I'll tell you what I noticed anyway, because I do this for a living: the lines were hand work. You could see where she'd drawn that mole, erased it, and then put it right back in the same spot, darker, like she'd argued with herself about it and lost. I can tell when somebody fixes a border and then decides the first one was right. I noticed it, and I decided it didn't matter. That night I wrote her for my money back. Addie wouldn't help with that part. "I'm not spelling that for you, Grandma," she said, so I pecked it out myself with one finger, and it took me 20 minutes. "Dear Tina, I'm sure you work hard. But you sent me an old bald stranger, and I can get one of those at church for free. Please put the money back on my card. Sincerely, Jeannie." The answer came before I went to bed, 2 lines. If I wanted my money, I'd get it from the payment processor directly, and nothing she did could slow it. And: "Faces change more than people do. Try looking at him younger." I didn't know what that meant. I didn't take the refund either, mostly because I'd have had to peck out another email. Then I read the pages, which Addie made me do. Page 2 was him. "He left young, and came back." "He remembers where you sat." Page 3: within 5 weeks. "In a room where you've danced before." And his initials, which is something she puts in when she can, Addie told me: D.R. I knew exactly one D.R., and I laughed out loud. Darrell Rausch had a head of hair like a haystack and ears he hadn't grown into, and he was 18 the last time I saw him. The man in the drawing was as bald as a doorknob and looked old enough to be his father. Half the state has those initials, I told Addie. She didn't say anything, which is how I knew she'd be back. Day 3. Addie had a softball game that night, so I did the scanning by myself for the first time, one page at a time, the way she'd shown me. Lid up, page down, lid shut, button. At about 10 o'clock I turned to page 41 and stopped with my hand on the lid. The senior pictures. Third row down. Darrell Rausch, 18. A skinny boy with jug ears, a long neck with a big Adam's apple, a mole high on his left cheek, and that crooked grin. Take off the haystack, add 45 years, and it was the drawing, line for line. I had been remembering his hair and forgetting his face. He sat behind me in typing class for a whole year, and I don't believe I said 20 words to him. But sitting there, one thing came back. In typing class, when the bell rang and everybody bolted, the boy behind me always waited until I'd put the cover back on my typewriter before he got up. I thought he was slow. He remembers where you sat. I turned to the back of the book, to the signing pages, which I had not read in 45 years, and went through them with my finger like a phone book. And there it was, in blue ballpoint, in a boy's handwriting: "Jeannie, don't ever quit laughing like that. D.R." I sat down. Then I got my phone out and opened the committee emails, all 4 months of them, and there he was at the bottom of every one: D.R. 40 times I'd read those 2 letters and pictured a boy with a haystack. I called Addie at 10:20 at night, which I have never done, and she answered from the parking lot after her game, and I said, "Page 41," and the line went so quiet I thought the call had dropped. Then she said, "Grandma. Read me what he wrote." So I read it to her twice. He left young, and came back. He remembers where you sat. Faces change more than people do. Whatever you think is best, Jeannie, 40 times. I didn't write him. What would I say? Addie wanted me to. I told her I'd see him at the reunion like everybody else, and she said, "Grandma, that's what you said in 12th grade," which is not something a 16-year-old could possibly know, and was also true. I'll tell you what those 3 weeks were like, because I think a lot of women skip this part when they tell it. I didn't sleep right. I made the reunion cakes 3 times in my head. I opened the committee emails and read his 2 letters and closed them again without answering anything. I went back through the yearbook myself, late, with my glasses on, and found him in 4 more pictures, always at the edge, always looking a little to the left of the camera. Addie pointed out that in 3 of them, to the left of the camera was me. Day 27. The 45th reunion, in the Legion hall, the same hall where we had our senior prom, with the same wood floor and the same little stage with the same red curtain. A room where you've danced before. I was behind the cake table cutting squares. Addie was running the pictures on the TV in the corner, and I'll tell you right now, page 41 came up on that screen more times than it should have. A tall bald man came in carrying 2 folding chairs under each arm, set them down, and walked straight over to my table. Jug ears. Long neck. The mole, high on the left cheek. And the crooked grin. "I've been emailing you about folding tables since February," he said. "I was working up to it." I put down the cake knife. Across the room, Addie put both hands over her mouth and let page 41 sit on the screen for a full minute. He's 63, retired after 26 years in the Army and then 14 driving truck for the rural electric co-op. A widower, 2 years. He told me that night that he'd signed a lot of yearbooks senior year, but only one with a sentence he'd practiced first. He asked me to dance to the second slow song, and he'd asked the man with the sound system for that song ahead of time, because it's the one they played at our prom. I'd told a psychic he was somebody's grandpa. He is. He has 3 grandkids 2 hours east of here, and he danced like a man who'd been working up to it for 45 years. Page 2 did miss one. It said he'd bring me something sweet. I was the one standing behind 3 cakes. He brought 4 folding chairs. I'd call that backwards, and I'm leaving it in, because a drawing that gets everything right would scare me more than this one did. We've had supper every Sunday since. He comes to Addie's softball games now and sits in the top row with me. When she's up to bat, he stands up. One of the girls from our class ordered her own after she heard. She's been a widow 11 years, and her drawing turned out to be the man who's been refereeing her grandson's wrestling meets since the boy was in 3rd grade. She'd sat in those bleachers 4 winters, yelling at him. She says she's still yelling at him, just about different things. I didn't look into the artist until after the reunion, when Addie pulled her up on her phone. Tina Aldea. She's drawn for over 3,000 women across 30 years. Her real website is the only one that's hers; the others are people passing off copies. She puts it at 89% of the women running into him within 30 days of getting their face. Nobody at our church can check a number like that, me included. Here's what I can check: ordered 7:40 on a Sunday, drawing the next day in 17 hours, page 41 on day 3, the Legion hall on day 27. Here's what I'd want another woman my age to hear. She tells people plainly that it's often somebody already in your life. I would have told you there was nobody in my life. There was a man in my email every week, and a boy in the back of my yearbook, and they were the same man. You don't always have to meet somebody new. Sometimes you just have to look at somebody again. For the ladies at church who keep asking how it works: you answer some questions about your own life. One woman does the drawing herself, in pencil, and if you blow it up on the phone you can see every spot she went back and fixed. The pages come with it: what sort of man he is, when, where, and sometimes his initials. The whole thing arrives inside 24 hours. Mine was 17. I pipe frosting. I believe in level and in butter at room temperature, and I'm not about to tell you what else to believe in. But I'll pass along the question the order form asked me, because I still think about it: when did you last feel picked? Addie's mom's friends keep asking her for the address, so Addie told me to write it out plain: https://officialtinaaldea.com/ Don't use the copycat ones. And I'd say it's meant for the women who've been told they already had their turn. The rest of you probably don't need it. EDIT: I didn't expect this to go past our class. The thing everybody asks is whether she's still taking orders. As far as I can tell she's one woman with a pencil, promising 24 hours, and some weeks that's more faces than one hand can do, so she closes until she's caught up. The girl with the wrestling referee had to wait out one of those weeks. When I looked this morning before work, it was open. P.S. The short version, for anybody who scrolled: Tina Aldea pencils your soulmate's face and has it to you inside 24 hours, with a reading of when and where. She's drawn for over 3,000 women in 30 years. I found mine in my own yearbook. Again, her genuine site: https://officialtinaaldea.com/ P.P.S. Picture the face on yours 40 years younger. Then go find your old pictures. P.P.P.S. If you hate yours, you get your money back, any time in 60 days, and the payment processor handles it, not her. She made that offer while I was busy telling her she'd drawn somebody's grandpa. I never took it. The frosting for the reunion cost me more. P.P.P.P.S. That mole on mine was drawn, erased, and put back darker. I called that a mistake. It was the one thing about his face I'd have known anywhere, if I'd ever been looking. That's what hand-drawn means, and it's why the orders close some weeks. P.P.P.P.P.S. The yearbook is still lying on the scanner, open to page 41. If there's a woman in your family who's been told she already had her great love, sit down next to her with your phone and let her read you her card number.

Where the ad sends people

officialtinaaldea.com

I Found Him on Page 41 of My Own Yearbook

Your soulmate's face, drawn by hand for $37 and sent within 24 hours, with a written reading of when and where you'll meet him. 60-day refund through the payment processor.