The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men by Ernessa T. Carter Page A

themselves in a familiar quandary every December 31st. They loved each other, but they all had rather different versions of what they preferred to do on New Year’s Eve.
    Thursday usually went to a party at someone’s eastside apartment, where she ended up talking all night with her fellow NYU grad school friends, who didn’t dance, didn’t do any drugs heavier than pot, and who wouldn’t even think of throwing a party without plenty of red wine and gourmet cheese on hand.
    Risa, however, would slit her wrists before agreeing to attend some boring grown-up party on New Year’s Eve. She liked to be on stage at midnight, leading the crowd in the countdown before ripping into an electric version of “Auld Lang Syne.”
    Tammy, on the other hand, could most often be found at a sophisticated party on New Year’s Eve. Her sister was married to a jazz club owner, and tonight she would don an evening gown and attend the swanky ball that he threw every year, raising her champagne glass with the rest of the well-heeled crowd at midnight.
    Sharita preferred to stay home on New Year’s Eve. She ordered in from her favorite Italian restaurant, made a list of next year’s goals, and (here was the really fun part) wrote an action plan to achieve those goals. Unlike Risa and Thursday, she didn’t believe that “putting it out there to the Universe” was enough to get the job done. Most nights she went to bed by nine or ten,so if she stayed up long enough to see Ryan Seacrest countdown to the Times Square ball-drop on New Year’s Eve, she considered it a wild enough night.
    Accordingly, the four women had made a tradition of catching lunch and a matinee movie at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve. That year, after watching a matinee of
Tangled,
the only movie they could even partially agree on, they gathered upstairs at the ArcLight’s informal restaurant/bar and ordered champagne for a New Year’s Eve Day toast.
    “You’re Tam Farrell, right?” A tall woman with an asymmetrical bob, dressed all in black, approached their table. Her monochrome clothing choice and direct demeanor screamed New Yorker on vacation.
    Tammy, who had been featured on billboards all over NYC and L.A., her honey-blonde hair happily blowing in the wind while she hailed a cab, confirmed that it was she.
    “Ooh, I love Farrell Cosmetics. That’s all I use. Your family makes the best stuff.”
    Tammy thanked her for the compliment even though technically her family didn’t make the “stuff.” They’d sold the company to a French conglomerate years ago, but the buyout went off so seamlessly that unless one was in the habit of reading the business section, most of Farrell Cosmetic’s customers still didn’t realize that there had been an exchange of ownership.
    “And can I also tell you how pissed I was when they replaced you with Naki Okwelo? I mean, you’re like American royalty. These African models keep taking all the fashion jobs.”
    Tammy, who had been feeling as if a tiara had been ripped off her ever since her brother, James Farrell, the new head of marketing at Farrell Cosmetics, had taken her to dinner three months ago and informed her that they would be going in a different, younger direction and therefore wouldn’t be needing her services anymore, lowered her eyes.
    “Naki is gorgeous, and we’re lucky to have her,” she said with as much demure humility as she could dredge up from her jealous soul.
    The woman thankfully left after a few more awkward exchanges and reassurances that Tammy would always be the face of Farrell Cosmetics in her mind. And when Tammy turned back to the table, she found her three friends staring at her.
    “When the hell did you get fired from Farrell Cosmetics?” Risa asked.
    “August,” Tammy said. “And it’s fine. It was time for me to pursue other things.”
    “Wait,” Risa said. “You got fired in August and you’re just now telling us about it?”
    “Don’t be mad,