CHAPTER ONE EXCERPT FROM THE YEAR OF YES...

AS I MADE MY WAY INTO THE KITCHEN, ZAK RAISED HIS ENORMOUS COFFEE MUG to me in weary salute, then sighed heavily and put his head down. Clearly, the night had not been kind to him either.

“Too much vodka,” he muttered. “I tripped over my arm and rolled down a flight of stairs, in front of Brittany and all her friends.”

He turned his head to display a rugburn on his cheek.

“How exactly did you trip over your arm?” Not that I was surprised. Zak and I were both left-handed, and we theorized that the difficulties of living in a right-handed world had made us prone to bizarre injury. We were thinking of investing our meager funds in Band-Aid stock.

“Caveman lapse. Thought I was upright. Wasn’t. Massive humiliation.”

“Are you okay?”

“Severe emotional damage,” he said.

“I know what you mean,” I replied. “I just got an offer to make out to NPR.”

“I told you to stop answering the phone. You complain about every guy who calls.”

I collapsed dramatically onto the third-hand coffee table we pretended was a couch.

“I’m changing my ways,” I informed him. “The intellectuals aren’t doing it for me, and I’ve rejected everyone else. I’m gonna start saying yes, to everyone. Who am I to judge who’s appropriate? Just because a guy might be sleeping in a cardboard box doesn’t mean he isn’t worthy of me.”

“It might,” said Zak.

 “I’m sleeping in a cardboard box,” I said, and pointed at my hut.

“What’re you talking about?” Vic asked, plucking the headphones off, and giving me the look that said she’d interrupted deep thoughts in order to tend to my perennially tortured love life.

 “The men I meet are emotionally crippled, arrogant, scumsucking lowlifes, pretending to be evolved. I can’t deal with them anymore,” I said.

“Some were hot, though,” said Vic. She pointed at a photo above the stove, which depicted one of the good-looking, vapid ones. I kept it there to remind me not to be deceived by beauty.

“For the next year, I’m going out with every man who asks me. Like on the subway, on the street, whatever. I’ve been too picky, and it’s making my life suck. I’m going to stop saying no.”

Somewhere, a gong was rung. Somewhere, lightning struck. In our kitchen, Vic and Zak were rendered speechless. “No” had been my theme song, my mantra, my favorite word. A year without No?

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

“Whoa,” said Zak. “I so wish all girls were like you.”

“Where do you think we live?” said Vic. “You’re going to date dog walkers.”

“If a man is good with animals, he might be good with me.”

Zak eyed me, clearly considering some sort of comeback, then thought better of it and went back to his caffeine.

“I’m going to leave that alone,” he said. “Say thank you. You owe me.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind,” I said.

 “Dog walkers from New Jersey,” said Vic.

“Parts of New Jersey are attractive.”

“Dog walkers from New Jersey who keep severed heads in their freezers.”

“Not all serial killers are from Jersey,” I told her. Many were from the Northwest, where I was from. I felt safer in New York, frankly.

 “I could be missing really cool people, just because I don’t think they’re cool enough for me,” I continued. “Maybe I’m meant to be with a taxi driver.”

Vic looked skeptical.

“You’ll only date the hot ones. And you’ll end up with the same guys you always date. Actors. Writers. It’s your destiny. They like you, you like them. Stop complaining.”

“I cannot fucking wait to see what you bring home,” said Zak. “IF you really do this,” he added. “Because, you won’t.”

“I will,” I said.

“Swear,” he said.

“On my future happiness, on all matters of the heart, on true love and on satisfaction. If I don’t say yes, let me die alone,” I said, and stuck out my hand. Zak nodded in approval of my melodrama. We shook.

“OH MY GOD,” said Zak. “This is fucking great.”

“Big fun,” said Vic, “Just don’t give our number to any more weirdoes.”

She had a point. In the past, I’d been somewhat too generous with our phone number. Victoria had tried to tutor me in the brush-off, but it did no good. I’d end up cringing in the corner, as Vic answered the phone and told whoever was on the other end that I had food poisoning/schizophrenia/moved back to Idaho/died tragically.

“I won’t give anyone our number,” I said, suspecting that I was lying already.

“And are you planning to sleep with all of them?” Vic made no bones about the fact that she believed that if a girl slept with more than nine guys total, she was automatically a slut. She called this the “Double-Digit Rule.” By her definition, I might as well have invested in a few pairs of platform vinyl boots, and some lycra hotpants, because I was past the point of no return. I, on the other hand, believed in dividing the number of men by the number of years on the market. Looked at that way, my number was miniscule.

“Obviously not,” I said.

“Really,” said Zak, raising one eyebrow.

“Why would I sleep with someone I didn’t like?” Never mind that I’d done it before. Hadn’t everyone? Sometimes you just didn’t know you didn’t like someone, until it was too late.

“Antonio, Judah…” Vic started to count on her fingers. “Martyrman for two years!” I headed her off.

 “Yes to conversation, yes to dinner, yes maybe to a movie, yes to a bar. That’s it. No other guaranteed affirmatives.” Big White Cat nipped my ankle. He liked to sit in strange men’s laps. So did I. It was a problem. Obviously, though, sleeping with everyone I went out with would be a colossally dumb thing to do.

Vic and Zak were still looking skeptical, but I was resolved.

I felt intrepid, like an explorer setting forth into the frozen wilderness with a few snorting sled dogs, a parka, and some pemmican. Revise. No pemmican. Unless there was such a thing as vegetarian pemmican. Revise again. Dating was supposed to be the opposite of Arctic. My adventurer’s uniform, then, would include a push-up bra, a pair of stiletto heels, and some lipstick. Not too difficult. This was my usual uniform anyway. I couldn’t help it. I liked being a girl. And provisions? I turned to Zak.

“Where’s my hardtack?”

Zak looked at me, blankly.

“I so have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“For my adventure.” Zak hadn’t read as much Jack London as I had, apparently, but I would have thought he’d have read some Joseph Conrad. I decided not to think about Conrad. Heart of Darkness was an inappropriate reference for this, my Year of Yes.

Zak grinned in understanding, and handed me a pen.

“Eat your words,” he said. “Live on love.”

“Funny,” I said. “Woman cannot live on love alone.”

“If anyone could,” he said, “it’d be you.”

I was excited. I was ready. I was going to force open my heart and make myself willing. It wasn’t that I was lowering my standards. Just the opposite. I was expanding my faith in humanity. I was going to say yes, not just to a different kind of man, but to a different kind of life.

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