Starting from Square Two by Caren Lissner

forward. “I’ll be out of your hair in one second,” she told the guard, “but can you please give him this?”
    It was the girl’s business card, and she’d written on it, “Roddy—Love the book! Call me.”
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” Erika said to Gert and Hallie. “He’s not worth this kind of trouble.”
    Â 
    At Kafé Krunch, the girls sat in the back room in a dark corner on a pair of orange couches, waving marshmallows over a flaming Sterno can. They had bought the “s’more-gasbord” from the counter, and in order to make it worth the eleven dollar price, they had snuck in their own extra ingredients from the Food Emporium—an extra Hershey bar, marshmallows, graham crackers—and planned to stay an hour.
    Hallie stared into the flame, which was the only bright thing in the back room. She poked a half-melted Hershey bar into the fire and drew it out.
    â€œWho needs men when you can have chocolate?” Hallie said.
    â€œYeah, right,” Erika said, bringing her knees to her chin. She sucked at the singed husk of a marshmallow. The small flame made her face glow, but it also made it look a little contorted.
    Gert relaxed on the soft couch. She enjoyed the quiet back rooms of New York dessert cafés. They were definitely better than bars. There were comfy chairs, enough darkness for anonymity, and plenty of slackers trying to figure out what to do later. She stared at the ceiling. There was a pencil sticking out of it. She didn’t know if it was a prank or decoration.
    Erika was facing Gert and Hallie. Her makeup was on perfect, but it hadn’t helped her get to her target, Roddy.
    â€œWhy do I do it?” she asked, putting her face in her hands. “Why did all 700 women at the event have the same exact idea I had? Why aren’t there any decent men left who don’t have a fan club a mile wide?”
    Hallie shook her head, poking a piece of Hershey bar into the flame. “I know,” she said.
    â€œIn high school, hardly anyone talked to Roddy Brown,”Erika said, her face glowing orange and yellow. “He was a geek. I bet he never kissed a girl until he was twenty-one.”
    â€œYou should have gone for him then, ” Hallie said.
    â€œWho you tellin’?” Erika said. “I thought he’d be happy to see me tonight. But any remotely normal guy in this city ends up with a line of girls waiting to meet him that’s longer than the one for Space Mountain. They were leaving him their business cards. And I was almost just as bad.”
    â€œI’ll bet if I self-published a book, there wouldn’t be a crowd of guys at a reading waiting for me, ” Hallie said.
    â€œDamn straight,” Erika said. “We need to fix the criteria. How can we make guys pursue women for their literary aspirations, and women only pick men after the men spend three hours on their appearance?”
    â€œI know what to do,” Hallie said. “We’ll pay half the single women here to move to Alaska. Then the rest of us might start being treated with respect.”
    â€œI know who I’d pay to go to Alaska,” Erika said. “Challa.”
    Next topic, Gert thought. Erika’s obsession with Challa was really worrying her.
    â€œCheck this out,” Erika said, becoming visibly excited. “I’ve been writing messages to her as Vicki Vale. Challa’s too stupid to recognize the reference. Ben loves Batman. I can just see Challa running into their bedroom, wailing, ‘Ben, this bitch Vicki Vale keeps leaving messages on my Web site!’”
    Hallie laughed a little, and steamed skim milk issued from her mouth.
    â€œBen’s so creative,” Erika said. “I know him. I can’t imagine he’s truly happy with their dull life. Sooner or later he’s going to get tired of it, and I have to know what the right time is so that I can be