ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      With many, many, many thanks to the people who helped me not become that-girl-who-always-blabbed-about-one-day-maybe-in-the-far-distant-future-writing-a-book: Sam Bell for being the nicest editor a North American girl could hope for and for showing me how to make it “spot on” (I think that means just right in British-talk). Merjane Schoueri for being a marketer extraordinaire and for literally giving me the shirt off her back. Margie Miller and Tara Kelly for the perfect cover. Randall Toye, Kathrin Menge, Natasa Hatsios, Susan Pezzack, Julie Haroutunian and Louisa Weiss for being bottomless pools of encouragement. My dad for being proud of me and for trying really, really hard to salvage chapter ten after I dropped my laptop again. Laura Morris for her one-liners. Bev Craig for the initial inspiration. Robin Glube for being my Boston tour guide and personal copywriter. Shoshana Riff for her Back Bay road trip. Kate Henderson and Michael Hilliard for helping me with those legal issues. TOR Retail for their constant support and for letting me hog the printer while I printed out, um, reports. Bonnie Altro, Rebecca Sohmer, Jessica Davidman, Lisa Karachinsky, Ronit Avni, Jess Braun and Judy Batalion for being my personal focus group, fabulous friends and for letting me talk about my book ad nauseam. Aviva June for giving me stuff to write about. And of course, Todd Swidler, because without him this book would not exist. And yes, Mom, thanks again.

      Contents

      1 Jerk

      2 No, I’m Not a Hooker But I Sometimes Like to Look Like One

      3 Orgasming

      4 Why Bother Getting Up?

      5 Run Your Fingers Through Your Own Damn Hair

      6 Surge Your Manhood Somewhere Else

      7 More Beef

      8 Ball of Crap

      9 But I Want to Be a Princess!

      10 Fifty Bucks to a Whole New You

      11 Oh, Brother

      12 Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, Week 1, Monday

      13 The Quasi Girlfriend Sighed

      14 Why is there a Worm in My Big Apple?

      15 The Milkrun—Literally

      16 Why Can’t I Just Turn into a Pumpkin?

      17 Happy New Year!

      18 Can I Be Jo-Jo?

      19 Happily Ever After—Kind Of

      1

      Jerk

      JERK. JERK, JERK, jerk.

      I can’t believe what a complete jerk he is.

      I am constantly debating whether or not I have a reason worthy of aggravating my boss by making a personal long distance call to Wendy in New York. All minor emergencies merit phone calls to Natalie right here in Boston: tension with a coworker, plans for the evening, boredom…But this—this complete and utter humiliation at the hands of a male, this travesty, definitely merits an emergency-Wendy phone call.

      I minimize my e-mail screen in case my boss, the copyediting coordinator, walks by. Instead of seeing Jeremy’s random act of devastation in the form of an e-mail from Thailand, Shauna will see Millionaire Cowboy Dad, the manuscript I’m supposed to be copyediting. I dial Wendy’s number at work.

      “Wendy speaking,” she says in her investment-banker-don’t-mess-with-me voice.

      I hate him. I really hate him. “It’s me,” I say.

      “I must be psychic. I wasn’t going to pick up, but I thought it might be you.”

      No time for small talk right now. “Did you also have a premonition that the jerk would meet someone in Thailand and then write me to tell me about it?” I will never speak to him again. If he e-mails I will press delete. If he calls I will hang up. If he realizes he cannot live without me, jumps on the first available flight to Boston, and comes straight to my house with a diamond ring worth five months of his salary, that is, if his salary weren’t nonexistent, I will slam the door in his face. (Okay…I’ll probably get married. I’m not that crazy.)

      “Shit,” she says. “Who is she?”

      “Don’t know. Some girl he met while he was busy ‘finding himself.’ I don’t hear from him for what, three weeks? Then he writes to tell me hi, how are you, I’m good and I’m in love.”

      “He actually said the L word?”

      Jeremy has never even written the L word, let alone said it aloud. I think his hands and lips are genetically programmed to be incapable of combining the letters L-O-V-E.

      I really, really hate him.

      “No. He said he just wants me to know that he’s seeing someone.”

      “But you did tell him he could see other people, right?”

      “Well, yeah. But I never believed he would actually do it.”

      Unfortunately, I constantly imagine him doing it. I dream about him having orgies with groups of naked and frolicking Thai women. Instead of working on Millionaire, I find myself picturing him having wild, drug-induced sex with a six-foot Dutch goddess who looks like Claudia Schiffer and backpacks in stiletto heels and capri pants. But up to now I believed that these self-inflicted tortures were manifestations of my overzealous why-would-he-want-to-travel-without-me-if-he-really-loved-me paranoia. Jeremy was supposed to come home after one month and tell me that, while he was away finding himself, he realized how much he truly loved me and that he wanted to spend the rest of his adult life ravishing my naked body with kisses, using the L word over and over.

      Of course he had to go and ruin everything.

      “Jackie, he’s been backpacking through Asia for over two months. He’s probably slept with half of Thailand by now. Let me hear the e-mail.”

      Will my computer malfunction if I throw up all over it?

      “I can’t read it out loud at work. I’ll forward it to you. Hold on…one second…did you get it?” Millionaire returns to my screen.

      “Call waiting, hold on.” She puts me on hold and an elevator rendition of Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration” plays in my ear.

      Oh, God.

      I