How to Meet Cute Boys by Deanna Kizis, Ed Brogna

hold.”
    I waited an unbelievably long period of time, which allowed me to ponder possible consequences. As in, maybe I should get
     the salad and skip the pizza since the new guy I was dating was four and probably didn’t want to see my fat, tired twenty-seven-year-old
     flesh … He came back.
    “So, you want a free salad with that or not?”
    “Um, okay, yeah. Make it a salad and a pizza.”
    I’ll just eat the salad,
I thought.
    “What—you’re going to go on a diet now?” Kiki said when I hung up. “Look, everything’s going to be fine. No, better than fine.
     Here’s the thing. So he’s a little younger than we thought. That’s not so bad. It’s
society
.”
    “Oh
come on
.” I rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to get my muscles to relax, and my spine made a loud crack. “You’re
     not seriously going to turn this into a political issue.”
    “No, listen, if you were a male VP at Sony and he were some hot d-girl nobody would even care. They’d give you a fucking
promotion
. Look, I’ve always believed that the right guy is just the right guy. Like if he worked at Kinko’s, but you liked him, his
     blue apron wouldn’t matter. Or if he didn’t make a decent living and lived in a shack, you’d just accept it. Remember, there’s
always
something we have to overlook. Back hair, bad parenting, drug problem, weird moles, passive aggression, poor fashion, stamp
     collection … I think you should count your blessings. Max is
cute,
okay? He has a good job. He’s got good hair. He might be younger, but what about Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn? They go
     out with younger men and they’re
celebrities
. The
fact
remains, Max could be perfect for you. Or not. I don’t think age is the issue. Whether or not he’s boyfriend material is
     the issue.”
    I tried to get Kiki’s words to make an imprint on my brain. Then I thought,
When Max is thirty-three, I’ll be forty
.
    “Have you talked to Good Morning Vietnam?” I asked, opening another beer and hoping a change of subject would do me good.
    “Edward? Nooo. But, in a moment of weakness, I called him.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “Can you believe? Left the most embarrassing message, too—said I had this T-shirt of his and wanted to know if he wanted it
     back. Total hell.”
    “
Total
hell. And?”
    “He didn’t call me back. In fact”—she paused for dramatic effect—“I give up.”
    “Oh, come on. You don’t mean that.”
    She said she did. No more men, no more dates. I found this hard to believe—Kiki dated more than the Mother, which was saying
     a lot. She claimed she yearned for solitude.
    “Nobody wants solitude,” I said.
    “I do,” she said. “I
fantasize
about it.”
    “Knowing that if you do it too long you’ll miss your peak years and end up childless?”
    “Oh, I don’t believe that backlash shit.” Kiki shook her hand in front of her face. “From now on it’s work and home. Then
     work, then home. I just bought a new DVD player, and I have a gazillion movies on the way from Amazon, so … That’s it. If
     I’m meant to meet someone, I will. Frankly, I think the universe will reward me for my restraint.”
    “You can’t act aloof so the universe will get interested,” I said. “The universe isn’t a guy.” I paused. “Now who’s going
     to go out with me and meet cute boys?”
    “Nobody.” She smiled. “Because you already
have
a cute boy.”
    After Kiki left, I puttered around, pretending to tidy up. That whole never-leaving-the-house-again thing—she sounded like
     she could actually be serious. Then again, only a few months ago she’d said she was going to quit her job, become a Buddhist,
     and renounce material goods in order to achieve a higher level of spiritual awareness. Started showing up at my house with
     trash bags full of jewelry, black cashmere sweaters, and designer shoes that seemed too dressy for her pilgrimage to nirvana.
     I stashed it all in the closet and gave it