CHAPTER 9: ACCIDENTAL.

I’m plucking my eyebrows in my rearview mirror. This is a proven method for burning time in stop-and-go I-10 traffic. I’m trying to get home from another long meeting in San Bernardino County, and I’m stuck in an uncomfortable corporate suit.

But I’m thinking about Mr. Smyth. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about him since our date three nights ago. Right now, in particular, I’m imagining us living together, after he’s said to me: “Hannah, you’re exactly what I’ve been looking for my whole life. I can’t imagine spending another day without you. Move in with me.”

CHAPTER 8: FALLING IN LOVE.
     
My boss rounds the corner into my office and proclaims he has the perfect man for me. I look up from my latest suburban layout sketch and smile pleasantly.
     
Taking this as an invitation, my boss launches into a long soliloquy about the single, attractive young doctor he once again had the pleasure of conversing with at a picnic organized by his church. I furrow my forehead.
     
He says he told the doctor about me: how I am recently single and looking for love. I raise an eyebrow.

CHAPTER 7: FRIDAY NIGHT CUTS.
     
It’s Friday night, and all over Los Angeles people are getting ready to go out: some, on a hot date; some, to a hot club; others, to Blockbluster. I’m at Chopper’s hair salon about to get my hair cut, hoping it will help inspire a hot date—one of these Friday nights.
     
Ben is washing my hair. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he left the bouquet on my doorstep. “I loved the flowers.”
     
Ben smiles and keeps massaging my head.
     
“We should hang out again sometime.”
     
Ben continues smiling and nods. And then he straddles my reclined body, his hands continuing to rub tingling conditioner into my hair.

CHAPTER 6: VALENTINE’S DAY MARTYRDOM.
     
Saint Valentine was a Roman martyr. Sometime during the third century, the Roman Catholic priest was tortured and beheaded on February fourteenth for marrying soldiers, who were forbidden the tradition by the emperor of the era.
     
Today, Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrating love. A holiday when people express their emotions with flowers, chocolate, stuffed animals, jewelry, and other fashionable trinkets. A holiday filled with anticipation and expectation over what that special someone in your life will do to prove their devotion. It is a holiday for starting new relationships, proposing in old relationships, and repairing teetering relationships. A perfect holiday for romance.

CHAPTER 5: REBOUNDING.
     
Ben is so great. In fact, I think he’s perfect for me. He’s nice. And he has a body I could fixate over for hours. Really, what else do I need?
     
I reach over for the glass of red wine sitting on my toilet seat, and take a sip. It’s Saturday afternoon so I’m partaking in my weekly ritual of sitting in the tub drinking red wine while shaving my legs—and, on this particular Saturday, thinking about my night with Ben.
     
I could definitely date Ben. He goes to some kind of college, so I’m sure he’s smart. And he works: a sure sign of determination. And I’m certain that once we go out on a real date he’ll open up. He’ll probably talk so much I’ll be pining for the days when he didn’t.

CHAPTER 4: MULTIPLE ORGASMS.

It’s seven-thirty in the evening and I’m just now driving home from San Bernardino County. I’m trying to unwind from a meeting with my boss and the developer we’re working with to build another perfectly sterile community. The meeting ran late because they couldn’t decide whether the color scheme for the new neighborhood should be lemon chiffon, lavender pink, and russet brown or cosmic latte white, tea green, and purple taupe. As if one or the other will improve anyone’s ability to find their house. I finally suggest we speckle the neighborhood with a little of both. They think I’m brilliant. This is why I get paid the big bucks.
     
It’s raining and all of Southern California is in shock—swerving, nervously pumping their brake pedals, and driving so slowly I’ll have another grey hair by the time I get home. One quick blow from a Lake Michigan ice storm is all it would take to wipe out half the population…and then I would never have to deal with the idea of tea-green stucco again. My phone rings, interrupting my twisted yet pleasing thought. It’s Jack.
     
“I’ve got problems.” Jack’s voice is pinched. “The Police Officer wants us to be monogamous.”

CHAPTER 3: THE AGONY OF ECSTASY.
      
I am bent over grabbing one ankle. The Yoga Instructor is coaching us to breathe deeply so that we can form our bodies into perfect triangles. But what we’re all really doing is checking out The Yoga Instructor. The Yoga Instructor has long blond hair, a perfectly chiseled body, and a hip-hugging sarong tied around his waist. He reminds me of the men who adorned the romance novels I used to find in my mother’s bedside table.
     
“If done correctly, this pose will remove tension from your lower back and your mind,” he says, gliding around the room.
     
It may also cause my head to explode from checking out his biceps while inverted.

CHAPTER 2: BREAKING UP WITH BAD HABITS.
     
I’m on my couch, flipping through a “chick mag,” eating Brazilian Acai Berry Sorbet Häagen-Dazs. I’m reading an article about ten things not to do after your boyfriend dumps you. It’s about what so many seriously co-dependent, emotionally unstable women digress to whenever a relationship goes sour: They start eating dessert all day; or drinking their favorite cocktail all night; or having pointless sex with pointless men; or running up credit cards with irrational wardrobe purchases; or chain-smoking; or incessantly calling their ex-boyfriends to try to work things out. Things I would never do.
     
I scoop a spoonful of sorbet out of the pint in my hand.
     
Thank god I have no bad habits, I think, biting at the hangnail on my pinky finger. It starts to bleed. Okay, none that are really bad. Unless I’m under the influence of pissed off. Or totally depressed. Or sometimes bored. And definitely if I’m at some pretentious and superfluous Hollywood party. But seriously-I am in total control of my environment. I shake an aspirin out of the bottle sitting on my coffee table.

CHAPTER 1: NEW YEAR’S EX.
     
I am going to seduce my boyfriend.
     
We’re supposed to go to this glossy New Year’s Eve Party at the Beverly Hills hotel my boyfriend manages. He’s supposed to pick me up at seven. It’s six twenty-three. I’m not planning on getting dressed. I lift my vodka cocktail off the bathroom counter and take a sip.
     
Tensions have been running high in our relationship. This is nothing new. After five and a half years together, no more than five months have ever gone by without some kind of drama, incident, or break-up. But we are going to make it. We’ve been together way too long to not make it. I fidget with my garter belt, trying to figure out what’s supposed to sit left, right, and center.