Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner Page A

version of the sportswriter story. “And by the time I figured out what a nifkin was, it was too late. I tried calling him Nifty … and Napkin … and Ripken … and, like, everything else I could think of. But he won’t respond to anything but Nifkin.”
    â€œThat is rough,” said the guy, laughing. “I’m Steve,” he said.
    â€œI’m Cannie. What’s your dog’s name?”
    â€œSunny,” he said. Nifkin and Sunny sniffed each other tentatively as Steve and I shook hands.
    â€œI just moved here, from New York,” he said. “I’m an engineer. …”
    â€œFamily in town?”
    â€œNope. The single guy.” He had nice legs. Tanned, slightly furry.And those dumb Velcro-strapped sandals that everyone was wearing that summer. Khaki shorts, a gray T-shirt. Cute.
    â€œWould you like to have a beer maybe sometime?” he asked.
    Cute, and evidently not averse to the sweaty queen-size woman.
    â€œSure. That’d be great.”
    He smiled at me from under his baseball cap. I gave him my number, trying not to get my hopes up, but feeling pleased with myself nonetheless.
    Back home, I gave Nifkin a cup of Small Bites kibble, ate my Special K, then gargled, flossed, and took deep, calming breaths, preparing for my interview with Jane Sloan, lady director extraordinaire whom I’d be profiling for next Sunday’s paper. In deference to her fame, and because we’d be lunching at the
très chic
Four Seasons, I took extra care with my clothes, struggling into both a panty girdle and control-top pantyhose. Once my midsection was secured, I pulled on my ice-blue skirt, ice-blue jacket with funky star-shaped buttons, and the requisite chunky black loafers, uniform shoe of twentysome-thing would-be hipsters. I prayed for strength and composure, and for Bruce’s fingers to be broken in some bizarre industrial accident guaranteeing that he’d never write again. Then I called a cab, grabbed my notebook, and headed to the Four Seasons for lunch.
    I cover Hollywood for the
Philadelphia Examiner
. This is not as easy as you’d think, because Hollywood is in California, and I, alas, am not.
    Still, I persist. I write about trends, about gossip, the mating habits of stars and starlets. I do reviews, and even the occasional interview with the handful of celebrities who deign to stop by the East Coast on their promotional juggernauts.
    I wandered into journalism after graduating from college with an English degree and no real plans. I wanted to write. Newspapers were one of the few places I could locate that would pay me to do it. So, the September after graduation, I was hired at a very small newspaper in central Pennsylvania. The average age of a reporter was twenty-two. Our combined years of professional experience were less than two years, and boy, did it show.
    At the
Central Valley Times
, I covered five school districts, plus assorted fires, car crashes, and whatever features I could find time to churn out. For this I was paid the princely sum of $300 a week—enough to live on, just barely, if nothing went wrong. And of course, something was always going wrong.
    Then there were the wedding announcements. The
CVT
was one of the last newspapers in the country that still ran, free of charge, lengthy descriptions of weddings—and, woe to me, of wedding dresses. Princess seams, alençon lace, French embroidery, illusion veils, beaded headpieces, gathered bustles … all of these were terms I found myself typing so often that I put them on a save-get key. Just one keystroke, and out would pop complete phrases:
freshwater pearl embroidery
, or
ivory taffeta pouf
.
    One day I was wearily typing the wedding announcements and musing on the injustice of it all when I came across a word I couldn’t read. Many of our brides filled their forms in by hand. This particular bride had written in looping cursive, in purple ink, a word