IS HE OR ISN'T HE? BY BENJAMINA FRANKLIN Ever heard the phrase "They don't buy the cow if they can get the milk for free"? Let's be honest: You give the milk away on a regular basis. But the problem with an enlightened approach to sex is you're probably sleeping with a guy and have no idea if he's your boyfriend. You can't ask. He doesn't say. Here, a Filly quiz to help you find out if you're getting the girlfriend vibe. 1. You 're at his house. The phone rings. He: a. Answers it, explains that he's busy with you right now, then hangs up and says, "Spike and Sofia say hi." b. Smugly lets it ring. He already signed up for voicemail so you won't over-hear messages from other girls. c. Asks you to get it. He's busy making you a mix tape of your favorite Belle & Sebastian songs. 2. You tell him you suspect one of your "friends" thinks you're a slut. He says: a. "How could she think you're a slut? We've been together for two whole months." b. "Why doesn't that smug 'ho just let you date and have fun?" c. "Now that you mention it, I was wondering why, on our first date, you let me wear your panties as a hat." 3. You're at a party by the pool of your local scenester boutique hotel. When one of his friends approaches he: a. Doesn't introduce you, mumbling something about how he wants to go check out the modern furniture in the lobby. Alone. b. Doesn't say much because his friends see you so often they refer to you as "the permanent piece." c. Makes an introduction and you all make plans to go to punk-rock karaoke next Saturday night. 4. When you tell him you'd like to go for a weekend vacation together, his face most resembles: 5. The last time he saw you without makeup on was: a. Last night. You were only renting movies anyway. b. When you woke up the morning after your first date. If you'd known you were sleeping over, you would have brought your cosmetics bag. c. Yeah, right. 6. When you go to Blockbuster, you: a. Get in a flirty, faux argument about which movie to rent. b. Notice that the new-release section includes the movie you saw with him the last time you two actually left the house for a real date. c. Proceed directly to the porn. THE FILLY ANSWER KEY In which we refuse to call up so-called experts who write cheesy books for the self-help section but instead just tell you what we think. Give yourself points as indicated: 1. a=2 b=1 c=3 2. a=3 b=2 c=1 3. a=1 b=3 c=2 4. a=3 b=2 c=1 5. a=3 b=2 c=1 6. a=1 b=3 c=2 6 to 9: He couldn't be your boyfriend less. Your relationship is purely surface, and you're always trying to put your best foot (or, since you're always made up when you two hang out, your best face) forward. The good news: You're in crush mode, the best part of any relationship—you get dressed up, get taken out to dinner, have lots of sex. The bad news: You could be destined to become FWF (friends who fornicate). Our (Possibly Bad) Advice: Keep dating. He probably is. 10 to 14: You're in relationship limbo. He'll spend a weekend with you out of town; maybe you've met a sibling or two. But will he become your boyfriend? Or will you run into him at a rock show and find some indie chick sitting on his lap with her tongue in his ear? Our (Possibly Bad) Advice: Initiate The Talk. But be aware: If you tell him you want a commitment, he could run screaming out the door, move to Botswana, and you'll never hear from him again. 15 to 18: Congratulations.You have a boyfriend. How do we know? Because it's not so romantic anymore. Sometimes you can't be bothered to put on the good panties before he comes over; he rarely picks up the check. Then again, giving up the trappings of dating is the small price you pay for intimacy. At least, that's what your therapist would say. Our (Possibly Bad) Advice: You don't need advice, you're in love. It sucks, right?

Each fall, Fill y—the fashion magazine of choice for women who prefer sociopathic men and maxed-out credit cards—has a huge bash to celebrate the fashion issue. We hold the event as a thank-you to our advertisers. Of course, thanks to them, nobody actually reads the fashion issue—it's so full of ads you can't find the articles and the magazine weighs about four hundred pounds. The party's usually held in New York. Last year Kiki and I got to fly out there for free, stay at the Mercer, and treat ourselves to expensed dinners at Da Silvano. But this year the party was being held at the Farmer's Daughter Motel on Fairfax. The choice of a campy seventy-five-dollar-a-night dive was meant to be old school, but whatever. At least it was closer to home. Filly did this eight-page spread in the issue using Hollywood actresses as models. The actresses were supposed to come to the party, which would then get party pictures in other magazines, which would then make Filly even more successful than it already was. Or something.

Outside was a disaster. Photographers were clamoring to get shots of Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson. Entertainment Tonight was pulling celebrities out of the crowd for the usual "What a great night!" chatting. And then there were all the people who weren't actually invited but were trying to get in anyway. Kiki and I fought our way through the throng, because we certainly didn't want to be confused with what a publicist friend of mine from New York called ham-and-eggers, as in party crashers who wanted more than what they were entitled to (the ham and the eggs).

"Name?" asked the bouncer when we got to the front.

"Benjamina Franklin."

As the story goes, my parents came up with it while smoking dope. No wonder they ended up divorced—family life wasn't exactly their thing.

"I don't have time for this," the bouncer said.

"Yeah, but ...my name is Ben Franklin."

He looked at the list, said I wasn't on it, and turned his face away so he could listen to an urgent call coming through his headset. ("We're running out of chicken satay in section three! Again, chicken satay needed in section three!")

I looked at Kiki, flustered.

"Did you tell him who you are?" she asked.

"You're the West Coast editor, you tell him who you are."

"Can't." She shook her head from side to side. "Can't take rejection now of any kind."

I tried to get the bouncer's attention by grabbing a complimentary issue of the magazine and waving it in his face. He couldn't have been ignoring me more.

"What do you mean I'm not on it?" I said. "See this?" I opened Filly and pointed to my last article, "How to Meet Cute Boys." "I wrote that."

His eyes arrested briefly on the magazine, then moved back into the void over my head. I felt a door-anxiety panic attack coming on. Am I seriously not going to get into my own party? I wondered. Am I a loser? Unsuitable for admittance? Does he hate me? And then, as a kind of coup de gr?ce, the bouncer said, "If you're not on the list you can't come in," and gently but firmly pushed me aside.

Mother. Fucker.

Fortunately, at this moment Hilary Swank arrived wearing a see-through dress and the paparazzi went nuts. ("Didn't she already work that shit at the Oscars?" Kiki muttered in my ear.) Everyone took this opportunity to rush the door, and we were swept up into a wave of unstoppable, fabulously dressed humanity, shoving past the now screaming guards. And just as quickly as we were out ...we were in.

Kiki and I walked through the courtyard toward the bar, and my eyes turned skyward to hundreds of people making their way up and down the motel's outdoor walkways. It was an "Around the World" party—each room in the motel had a theme. At a glance, I could see a massage parlor, a keg party, and a tiki lounge, all going on at once. I squinted at faces to see if I actually knew anyone, but found myself staring at the same familiar-looking strangers I always see at events like this. We had our well-heeled Westsiders wearing wrap dresses, the hipsters in thrift-shop corduroy, a coterie of agents who'd dashed straight from work and still had on suits and ties. The publicists were in the house, talking on their cell phones and giving dirty looks to everyone who wasn't a potential client, along with Filly writers like myself, all of whom were getting bombed. There were the actors, of course, who came hoping to be noticed yet, the minute you noticed them, pretended they didn't want the extra attention. And then there was ...everybody else. Whoever they were.

I imagine we all had that same desperate look in our eyes. The one that says, Entertain me. Show me. Seduce me. Shock me. Do something, anything that will make tonight more than just another excuse to leave the house. But I predicted that everyone, including me, would be let down. There are so many premieres, so many art shows, so many boutique openings, restaurant openings, record-release parties ...you could go out every night of the week but know deep down inside that you weren't actually doing anything. It was depressing when I stopped and thought about it, which I tried not to do. Maybe Jack was right. All these people come to L.A. because they just want to get famous. Or get next to the famous. They want to get on the list. But inside the list there's another list, an A-list. And inside the party there's another party, the VIP room. So then people try to get on that list, in that room. And what they find is the same sorry, bored-out-of-their-minds fuckers as the ones they were so desperate to elevate themselves above in the first place.

And yet. Well, there is that moment. You go to a premiere, you walk down the red carpet, you see all the people standing on the other side of the velvet rope clutching their autograph books, and you think to yourself, I may be just another hanger-on, a plus-one, a ham-and-egger, but I'm here. And here is always better than there.

Speaking of which, I spotted Collin, a wannabe celebrity stylist friend who wears a lot of ironic eighties fashions and thinks The Strokes were the Second Coming of Christ.

"Ladies, how's your lifestyle?" he said.

"Excellent," I said.

"Crappy," Kiki said.

"Pretty good party." He nodded, eyes darting this way and that. "Strictly A-list."

(Total bullshit—there were more people at this party than there were on the Titanic .)

"Oh fuck," Collin added, "there's Winona Ryder."

Kiki and I didn't look.

"Damn, she's hot," he said. "Damn, damn, damn. Hey—do you think there's a chance?"

"Didn't she date Beck?" I composed my face in a way that would imply that if she weren't into rock stars, she might be interested.

"So," he said. "I met Beck once and he was a really great guy."

"Oh yeah?"

"He was eating with a friend of mine at Ammo. We talked for, like, ten minutes."

Collin always gets annoyed if you question his celebrity bragging rights. It's fun. So I said, "And he was nice, huh?"

"Hey Ben? Go die. There are lots of people here I want to meet, and I already know you two, so—later!" Collin dived back into the throng.

Kiki was primed for another drink, so we fought our way to the bar. Souza was sponsoring the party, which meant unfortunately there were only free tequila martinis on hand. Everything else we'd have to pay for, which was out of the question since we hadn't brought any cash. (Nobody in this city ever carries more than just a few singles, which, naturally, are for the valet.)

Kiki and I got two free drinks and she chugged hers while I winced my way through mine. We decided to do a lap. We hit the massage room first, where Kiki got a five-minute neck rub. Opted against the tattoo parlor, which was being patronized by the Gwen Stefani/Orange County/wallet-chain crowd, and headed to the next floor. If there was one good thing to say about the party, it's that there were boys, boys, and more boys. Not that I intended to actually try to talk to any of them. My secret hope was that a cute guy would try to talk to me.

We grabbed another tequila martini from a nearby cocktail waitress and made for the fortune-telling room. I usually avoided fortune-tellers. What if they tell you you're going to die in a terrible boating tragedy or go bankrupt or something? But I was curious to see if she thought I'd ever meet The One. The One I go to places like this looking for. Now, I that a huge, impersonal party can't really be the right place to find true love. Nevertheless, I keep RSVPing, hoping that, one night, yes, maybe tonight, I'll have RSVP'd my way right into an earth-shattering romance.

I got in line. Jack would give me so much shit for this, I thought. He didn't believe in fortune-telling—would have hated this party, too. Of course, he was a financial planner.

As of two months ago, Jack and I were still living together. It was like being married—except not. Because we didn't want to have kids (not yet, anyway), and we still liked to meet friends out at a bar and get bombed now and then. On the other hand, it was generally assumed we'd get married eventually, and the sex had a predictable but comfortable bent. On the surface, everything was great. Jack was making a pretty good living; I'd left the local freebie I was writing for and gotten a new gig as a Filly writer. Jack asked me to move in and I did. But every time I wanted to go out with my friends alone, he would make these annoying little remarks. Like, "Have fun hanging out with the other fashionistas, dahling."

"I work at a fashion magazine now, Jack," I'd say. "Besides, it's just a party, like any other party. The only one who takes it seriously is you."

But then I'd always feel bad and invite him to come along. He'd throw it in my face, saying, "No, just go. Have a fabulous time."

I finally did just go. From his Santa Monica duplex—which I always felt was like living in the land of the multiplying baby strollers anyway—all the way to Silver Lake, which is forty-five minutes and a million light-years away. To Jack, it was the ultimate betrayal. I invited him out to see my new apartment, hoping we could at least be friends, but he refused. When I gave him my address so he could forward my mail, he said, "Oh, aren't you so cool ."

The one-bedroom I took was small, but it had hardwood floors and a view of the hills. I tossed the Pottery Barn crap Jack insisted I take half of, bought a couple of Eames chairs from a used-furniture store, and got a nice minimalist vibe going. The neighborhood had coffee shops you could walk to, art galleries, independent bookstores, and quirky bars on practically every corner. There were things to do.

But then, well, sure, a little bit of fear started to creep in. I couldn't figure out what people who weren't in a relationship did with their spare time. Watching television alone was an excruciating experience—I started turning down the sound real low so the neighbors wouldn't hear it and feel sorry for me. It occurred to me that Jack was like this piece of driftwood—a small, resentful piece, fine—but he'd kept me afloat. Without him, I was just bobbing along, getting tossed this way and that, not sinking, but not really swimming, either.

I was almost at the front of the line for the fortune-telling lady. I turned to ask Kiki what she thought about fortune-tellers. Charlatans? Clairvoyant? But she was preoccupied with people-watching—scanning the crowd looking for Edward. Probably terrified that he was there, yet somehow downtrodden by the fact that he didn't seem to be. Kiki caught me staring at her and mouthed the words, "Kill me now."

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

FILLY TIPS AVOID SPERMY How to get the perfect eyebrow in six steps, courtesy of a Beverly Hills star plucker.—B.F. • 1 Determine your face shape. If your mug is a big circle, you want a brow that doesn't go too far across. A small pointy face needs a thin arch. A long, oval face wants wide, thin brows. • 2 Take a pencil and hold it against your nose, then align it with the inside corner of your eye. Where the pencil hits the brow line is where your eyebrows should start. Now hold it from the end of your nose to the end of your eyelid. This is where your brows should end. • 3 With a makeup brush, cover the hairs you want to tweeze with concealer. • 4 If tweezing hurts, numb the area with an ice cube first. • 5 Tweeze the tiny hairs that grow underneath your arch—they make the area around your eyes look wrinkled. Who needs that? • 6 Brush the inside hair of your brows upward with a toothbrush, then trim them with scissors to make them even. Otherwise you could get what star pluckers call the dreaded "spermy brow," which is shaped like a, uh, you know.

"HEY YOU GUYS OH MY GOD IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU WHAT'S UP DO YOU HAVE A LIGHT I CAN'T FIND MY FUCKING LIGHTER THOSE PEARLS ARE GENIUS!" It was Steph, Fill y's publicist, a stick-thin party thrower/socialite, who, because she spent most of her evenings at events where music was blasting and chitchat was rampant, did her own brand of yell talk and could never focus on one topic. Jack used to call her "Minnie Mouth."

"Hey, Steph. I'm good. Take these matches. Thank you," I said.

"DID YOU GUYS HAVE ANY TROUBLE AT THE DOOR THE LIST IS ALL FUCKED UP CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW MANY CUTE GUYS THERE ARE HERE OH MY GOD I SAW THIS GUY WHO I AM SO IN LOVE WITH HE'S AN ACTOR BUT MY FRIEND SAYS HE'S ALSO A DRUG DEALER AND I CAN'T DECIDE IF THAT'S BAD WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

I let Kiki take this one. "It was hectic, but we got in," she said. "If you really like him then it's probably okay." She shot me a he's-a-drug-dealer? look. "But you should probably find out if he's, you know, the right guy for you."

"TOTALLY I SO HEAR YOU WAIT OH MY GOD J'AI IS HERE SHE'S SUCH A FUCKING GENIUS I HAVE TO TALK TO HER AND SEE IF I CAN GET AN APPOINTMENT MY EYEBROWS ARE A DISASTER BYE-BYE DAHLINGS!"

We watched Steph cut her way expertly down the stairwell and thrust herself in the path of an eyebrow shaper who, thanks to journalists like myself, is now a celebrity complete with first-name-only recognition. Like Madonna.

It was my turn. I walked into the dimly lit motel room, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the candlelight. I made out the fortune-teller waving me toward an empty upholstered chair. I sat at the table, which was covered with glittery scarves, but the presence of two double beds with green and blue comforters and a cheap-looking nightstand sort of detracted from the gypsy ambience. Not to mention that my fortune-teller, who introduced herself as Olivia, looked bored out of her turban. She told me to shuffle the tarot cards; then she laid them out on the table, the bangles on her arms making a fake-gold clinking sound.

"This one," Olivia said, taking a swig of bottled water, "says you are a creative person whose strengths lie in the arts."

Flattering, but not exactly what I had in mind.

"This one says there will be a big change for someone close to you. Maybe family."

Unlikely—my mother dated so often that a new guy could hardly constitute a big change, and Audrey was in a perma relationship with the Commando.

"This one"—she pointed to another—"says you recently had your heart broken, but you're starting to realize that it's all for the best."

No kidding.

"Is there a question you want to ask?" Olivia looked at me and yawned.

Suddenly I realized how pathetic my question really was: Would I ever fall madly in love? Would I ever want to give someone everything I had? Would I ever want to share everything, want him to touch every-thing, want to tell him everything? They were probably the same questions everyone asked. What the fortune-teller should do was start taking down everybody's phone number and become a matchmaker instead. I shook my head. "No, no questions. Thank you, though."

Olivia was too tired to put up a fight, so she just shrugged, giving me an incriminating, it's-not-my-fault-you-didn't-come-prepared look. I felt like I'd wasted her valuable psychic energy, so I put four dollars in the tip jar—my valet money—and met Kiki outside.

"How was it?" she said.

"I'm good at the arts, I've had my heart broken, blah blah blah. Are you going in?"

Kiki peered into the gloom at Olivia lighting a cigarette off a candle and hesitated. "No, forget it. I can't face the future," she said. "Let's go get another drink and obliterate it instead."

With our territory staked out at the bar so we wouldn't have to wait in line for refills, Kiki finally went there. "I'm never going to meet anyone again," she said.

"Of course you are," I said.

"I don't think so. Seriously. I don't even have the energy to try anymore. Edward took the will right out of me."

"Kiki, you can't give up because of Mrs. Doubtfire."

She raised her eyebrows at me, like, Quoi?

"He was so hairy he looked like Robin Williams on Rogaine."

"Good one," she said. But it wasn't the direct hit I was hoping for.

"Look, meeting cute boys is easy." I bobbed my head up and down like one of those little nodding dolls. "All you have to do is find someone you might be into, and put yourself in his way. If he's into you, too, you'll strike up a conversation."

"Really." She raised an eyebrow. "Quoting our own articles, are we?"

"A, it was your idea. And, B, you edited it, so supposedly you agreed with it."

"All right, then." She took a look around the courtyard. "Show me."

"What, now?"

"Yeah!" She gave me a playful shove toward the masses. "Do it now!"

"You can't be serious."

"Ben, lemme ask you something." Kiki leaned back in her chair and studied me. "Why do you think I keep assigning you those dating stories?"

"I give up. Why?"

"Because if I didn't, you'd never go out on a date ."

"Bullshit."

"Bull true. You broke up with Jack, but instead of getting busy you just go to parties and watch me and Nina flirt with everyone. So I figured, you're a good reporter, if I give you an assignment, I know you'll do it. And you do. But then you sit at home, right, type type typing away. Never do this; always do that . . ."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She was dissing my stuff.

"What?" she said. "I'm not saying I don't love your articles. Look, think of this as fact checking. You claim the techniques in your article work, so show me. Go meet a cute guy."

Okay, so I was just saying that stuff to make her feel better. And I was a little peeved that she'd called me on it but . . . Well, I figured, maybe if I humiliate myself it will cheer her up. And in terms of my not trying, I don't know. I mean, I've picked up guys post-Jack. Ashton, for one. In a way.

"Ben?" Kiki said. "Are you going?"

"Yes," I snapped. "Jesus, Kiki. You're being really pushy, you know that?"

She just smiled and waved me on.

I didn't seem to have much of a choice, so I insisted we do another lap. I needed time to strategize while I picked out my prey. At first I didn't see anybody. There was this one devastatingly cute boy standing off to the side, over by the motel soda machine. Nothing like Jack. Jack's style was conservative, button-down, premature male pattern baldness. This guy was tall and very thin, pure Hugo Boss. I got a little closer so I could get a better look. His hair was perfectly mussed and just gritty enough to be cool. Kind of a dark blond color. He had huge brown eyes that were wide and looked innocent, but also . . . self-aware, if you know what I mean. And maybe just a little aloof. He was like that sexy, self-possessed high school senior you know you're not supposed to be attracted to but you are. And he had full lips that were just ...Well, I could think of a lot of really dirty things to do with those lips. I mean, those lips could be a novel in and of themselves. He was just standing there, alone, yet perfectly at ease. How does he do it? I wondered. He was beautiful.

Then I looked at his clothes and was shattered. Navy blue nylon jacket, zipped up all the way, a hint of blindingly white T-shirt underneath. Immaculate khakis, with crease. White Converse AllStars, unscuffed. He could have been a skateboarder/Beastie Boys fan/East Coaster, but I was picking up a very different vibe.

"What about him?" I said to Kiki, with a discreet nod in his direction.

"Gay," she said.

Damn, I was just thinking that.

We did another lap, but it was hopeless. I saw one guy who looked good—hair, with product, vintage-rock T-shirt . . .

"Him?" I said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Not the guy for you."

"Why?"

"He's wearing tapered jeans."

"Right." She was right.

Everyone else was either too buff (I hate buff guys), looked like an actor (never, ever date an actor), or had another girl on his arm. The guy with the lips was still in the corner, lighting a cigarette.

"I'm going for the gay guy," I told Kiki.

"Dude! You can't go for a gay guy. That's totally not the point."

But I had a feeling.

I started to sidle. Like I'd said in my article, this must look like a chance encounter. I mean, any guy who sees a girl walking purposefully toward him at a party will probably think she's either desperate or a crazy person. When I got in his immediate vicinity, I tried to look lost. Little girl lost, that's what I was going for. I'm no actress, so I probably looked ridiculous. But it worked. He noticed me, started watching me a little. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scan the crowd. I was surprised, but it looked like he was actually wondering who I was looking for. I took a deep breath and moved in for the kill. I looked in his general direction, let him catch my eye, and said ...

"I think I lost my friends."

He frowned like he wasn't really sure I was talking to him. Like I was some insane maniac walking around the party looking lost and muttering to myself, which was basically the case. I started to panic. Abort! Abort! my brain screamed. This was a dumb scheme!

When suddenly I was saved.

"Well," he said, cocking his head to the side and giving me a little smile. "What do your friends look like?"

Now, I could have started lying my ass off, giving fake descriptions and seeing if he offered to help me find them. Or I could have said something vague like, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe they left," and tried to keep the conversation going. Or I could have tried the full-on flirt. Very risky.

But then I thought to myself, You know what? I can do this.

"Actually, they look a lot like you," I said, and grimaced in something I hoped looked like a captivating smile. Now, I know They look a lot like you is a total line. But I was improvising. And I could see Kiki just over his shoulder, watching everything, which was putting me off my game.

"Really?" he said. "Then I guess you and I were meant to be friends."

Success! Success! Success!

The conversation grew from there. He said his name was Max. That he owned a T-shirt company, Super Very Good, thus the crispness of the clothes he was wearing, which were from the new line. (He didn't have a close, personal relationship with the ironing board, as Kiki and I had feared.) He said he traveled a lot between L.A., New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and London. He designed the graphics himself. I was impressed, although, you know, I tried not to act like I was. Still, I had to ask him if he knew Radiohead, because they wear Super Very Good clothes. Max shrugged and said, "Oh yeah, we hang out all the time."

"Really?" I said.

"No. Not really. But one time Heather Graham came in to try on samples for a photo shoot and I got to see her breasts."

Okay. I'm what people call proportional when they're trying to think of something nice to say, so this stumped me. But then he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "They weren't that great."

"Really." I tried to sound all sad for poor bad-breasted Heather Graham. This was style='font-family: AGaramond-Italic;thrilling style='font-family: AGaramond-Regular;information.

"No." He started laughing again. "Not really."

He's gorgeous, I thought. He's confident. He's making fun of me. I'm in love with him.

Kiki finally joined us, saying, "Oh, there you are! I've been looking for you everywhere!" (Love Kiki.) She did what she could to help me along, laughing at my jokes, acting like we were the most carefree, fun girls in the world even though inside she was aching for that loser Edward. We asked him where he lived. (Silver Lake.) He asked me where I lived. (Silver Lake. Aha!) He asked me what I did. ("I'm a writer. Uh, journalist.") I asked him what he did for fun. ("Nothing. Collect vinyl, I guess.") He asked me what I did for fun. ("Hang out with Kiki.") I asked him why he was at this party. (" No idea.") He asked me what I'd written recently and Kiki flipped open an issue of Filly and pointed to one of my stories. Unfortunately, it was "How to Meet Cute Boys." (Hate Kiki.)

The article clearly laid out my whole game plan, complete with subject headings in bold, large font—The Lap, The Sidle, The Full-On Flirt, The Pickup. I was busted. But I made a vain attempt at sounding casual. Like I wasn't some hussy who trolled parties and picked up guys for a living. So I said, "Look, I'm not some hussy who trolls parties and picks up guys for a living." I stammered about how, well, Kiki was my editor and she'd assigned it to me so, heh heh, I couldn't really say no and ...

"Everybody, time to go home! Make your way to the nearest exit! Now, people!"

Of course. This awkward moment had to be when the fire department would arrive to bust up the party. It wasn't an entirely bad thing—for Filly, that is. If the fire department's called, the party is over capacity, which means the event is a success. But it was woefully ill timed. A helicopter appeared overhead, shining its spotlight down on people. My new crush and I were suddenly smack in the middle of an Oliver Stone movie, and in the blinding glare I became convinced I had a seriously bad lighting situation going. We stood there, frozen, gawking at one another, while I glanced around looking for a friendly shadow, wondering if my mascara was raccooning around my eyes. Men in uniforms with bullhorns were screaming, "Party's over! Go home!" while hipsters scrambled for their cell phones to call people who were only five feet away so they could plan where they were going next.

I didn't know what to do. According to my own article, I was supposed to close. Get his number. Seal the deal. But it was harder in real life than it was when I was telling other people to do it from the safety of my laptop. "Well, can I . . ." I started to say.

"I'd really like to . . ." he started to say.

"Oh, I interrupted you," I said. "Go ahead."

"No, you go."

"Um. You first."

"Well, you're the one who tried to pull off the I'm-looking-for-my-friends strategy," he said. "Very inventive by the way, so I guess it's my turn."

He leaned toward me, and for a split second I thought he was going to kiss me. The really crazy part is I was going to let him. I raised my chin slightly, my lips quivered forward, and then he said, "Ben, can I have your phone number?"

But I didn't lose my cool.

"Of course!" I said, scrambling in my purse for a pen. I couldn't find one. "Kiki— do you have a pen?"

He had one.

"Oh. Thanks." I took it, and I scribbled "Did it work?" with my number on his courtesy copy of the "How to Meet Cute Boys" article. Before we could say anything else, a cop grabbed me by the arm and escorted Kiki and me out the door, past a riot of people fighting for their free Puma gift bags. Steph was standing behind the gift table throwing bags out to the crowd and screaming at the top of her lungs, "IF YOU DON'T FORM A FUCKING LINE YOU DON'T GET A FUCKING GIFT BAG YOU FUCKING CHEAP BASTARDS!"

I kind of wanted a bag, too, but I knew from experience that it would just be filled with a few shampoo samples, a cheesy CD compilation from one of the record companies, and a free Filly T-shirt, so I decided to let it go. I craned my head around to see if I could at least wave good-bye to Max, but he was gone. Not that it mattered. I got what I came for.

"See," I said to Kiki while the cop shoved us out onto the street, where I almost got sideswiped by a departing limousine. I did a little Cabbage Patch victory dance, thumbs up, shoulders swinging back and forth, and yelled, "Meeting cute boys is easy!"

Copyright © 2003 Deanna Kizis and granted permission to use by TWBookmark