Chapter 1

How to Meet Cute Boys
by Deanna Kizis

"Oh no! You look so much cuter than me."

Kiki had just let herself into my apartment and stormed into my tiny bathroom, where I was putting on my makeup. She scared me half to death, as I was blasting the stereo and didn't hear her knock. Good thing she hasn't lost her key, I thought. Yet.

"I do not," I said, doing a quick appraisal. Kiki looked like sex on toast, as usual. Her blond hair was down, jeans were snug in all the right places, lips were berry red. Of course, she was wearing another black sweater, which toned her natural vampiness down a bit. (Kiki thinks black sweaters camouflage her boobage.) And, okay, her eyes were slightly puffy, but I only noticed that because I already knew what was going on. Overall, I have to say, she looked hot. I looked at myself in the mirror for comparison. Not exactly Kiki, I'm what people call "cute." As in, even if I were wearing nipple clamps, crotchless panties, and holding a whip, they'd say, "That's so cute!"

I was going to need more mascara.

"Ben, you know you look amazing," Kiki said, watching me apply another coat.

"I really don't."

"Oh my God, fuck you, you do." She spun out of the bathroom and headed toward my bedroom in a huff.

A couple of days before, Kiki had broken up with her boyfriend, Edward. Actually, make that, she broke up with Edward, her rental unit. Renting, as opposed to leasing (or, heaven forbid, actually ownin g), is a common affliction among us over twenty-fives today. You end up dating this guy for months and you're not seeing anybody else, and he's not seeing anybody else (at least, you think he's not seeing anybody else), but you don't actually call him your boyfriend because he doesn't actually call you his girlfriend. Then you get in a fight over some dumb thing, like maybe he didn't call all weekend until Sunday, and when you tell him you're upset, he says something like, "Since when is Sunday not the weekend?"

The next thing you know, you're having the I-Think-We-Need-to-Talk Talk (always prefaced with those six crushingly familiar words), and he's broken up with you when you weren't sure you were even going out in the first place. Which is how you end up mourning something you never knew you had, asking yourself questions- Should I have done this differently? Not said that at all? - that you didn't even know were serious at the time. The whole thing becomes a downward spiral of regret and second-guessing, something Kiki and I are extremely familiar with. After all, I write the articles about how shitty men can be, she edits the articles about how shitty men can be, Filly the magazine where we both work-publishes the articles about how shitty men can be, and a million-plus women read our articles about how shitty men can be. And yet, we're all still surprised at how shitty men can be. It's a clear-cut case of the blind leading the blind.

Anyway, after six weeks of heavy dating, Kiki's rental unit had initiated The Talk. They'd spent a weekend together doing couple stuff (making seared ahi tuna for dinner, picking out sweaters at Barneys, et cetera). He said things were getting too serious, and she hadn't heard from him since.

I heard the closet door bang open, followed by rummaging. Hangers whisked about; shoes clunked onto the floor. I pictured Kiki standing half naked in front of my full-length mirror, probably trying on one of my tops, possibly with two different shoes crammed onto her size eight feet to see which looked better.

"I look fat," she said over the music.

"Yeah, you're a real cow," I hollered back.

I headed into the kitchen to make her a drink. A strong drink. I grabbed the supersized bottle of Absolut Kiki had brought over after I finally broke up with Jack-there was a bit left. (I'd been nursing it alone, I admit it.) I peered into the fridge for a decent mixer, but the only thing I had was diet Coke. But that was okay, I decided, swirling the concoction around in a glass. The vodka would elevate Kiki's mood, the caffeine would keep her awake.

From the bedroom I heard, "I look like a complete loser!" A crash of plastic and glass hit the floor, which meant she was into the product samples from publicists that were piled every which way on top of my vanity.

"You're a bombshell, Kiki. Get over it."

"I loathe what I'm wearing!"

I entered the bedroom, and she'd exchanged her black sweater for one of my black sweaters. She was stretching it out.

"Well, now you're wearing my clothes, so go easy."

I handed her the drink.

She sighed, "Look at you. I wish I was a brunette."

"Well, brunette is the new blond."

"I'm too tall."

"Short is the new statuesque." I pirouetted around my room, looking for the various things I'd need for the evening and cramming them into my purse.

"Seriously!" she wailed. "You've got that fantastic starving-refugee thing going on-I look like a goddamn giraffe."

Only Kiki could make being five foot eight with 34Ds sound like such a nightmare. She's almost managed to convince me being short isn't all bad-insists everything's more appealing when it's smaller, be it a cell phone, an evening bag, a snack food, or Sarah Jessica Parker.

"Famine is the new fashion!" I declared. " We pronounce it, fa-meen."

She still didn't smile. So I said, "

Okay, have it your way: You've got a giraffe thing going on, but you've got bigger tits."

Kiki finally laughed. Downed the drink in a couple of gulps. Chewed an ice cube. Made a face. Her green eyes took on the look of someone determined. Someone who had a job to do, and was going to do it, damn it, even if it was the end of her.

We took her Jetta, because it was parked closer than my Jetta. Before I could sit, I had to clear away a pile of her old bank statements, a ratty brassiere, several diet Coke cans, the calendar section of the LA Times, and a half-eaten bag of McDonald's fries, now hard as plastic.

Kiki watched me trying to organize the mess. "Ben, give it a rest wouldja?" she said. " You know you can just throw that stuff in the backseat."

It's the same every time.

About the Author

DEANNA KIZIS is a West Coast editor at Elle magazine. Her work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Entertainment Weekly, People, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Details, Premiere, and Variety, among other publications. Ms. Kizis lives in Los Angeles. You can visit the author at www.howtomeetcuteboys.com.