"Ready."

I took a deep breath and peered past the hostess's station. I spotted Larry and Sally immediately. They sat next to each other, holding hands on the table. Sally was very attractive, tall and thin, her neck laden with interesting jewelry. It was so strange to see Larry so intimate with another woman. She wasn't a patient or a friend's wife. This was his girlfriend.

As the hostess led us over to the table for four, Larry stood. "h.e.l.lo! Amelia, it's so good to see you. Hi, Lucy. Sally, I'd like to introduce you to my lovely daughter, Amelia, and this is her mother, Lucy."

Her mother, Lucy...

"Sally's an interior decorator," Larry said. "That means she decorates houses," he added to Amelia. "She's even in the running for her own home-decorating show on a cable network. Isn't that amazing? She'll be the new Martha Stewart!"

I suddenly felt as though I'd been kicked in the stomach. It all made sense now. The obsession with using "tacky" paper plates for Thanksgiving. The plastic cups. The big deal about cloth napkins. Interior decorating was actually about exteriors. Like my crumbling looks and bad place settings.

It had never been bad-carb withdrawal. It had simply been Lucy withdrawal. Our life withdrawal.

He didn't love me anymore. And it didn't hurt anymore. Not the way it had. Larry was an empty sh.e.l.l, decorated by a twenty-pound weight loss and some sharper clothes.

Amelia was looking from Sally to me, from me to Sally. "You two could be twins," she said. She was beaming at her father.

"We do have similar hair," Sally said with a tight smile.

Amelia ignored Sally. "Dad, don't you notice anything different about Mom?"

Larry looked at me. "She's wearing makeup, right?"

Amelia frowned. "I mean, doesn't she look amazing?"

"You know what looks amazing?" Larry trilled. "Everything on this menu! I don't know what to choose. Amelia, what are you thinking of ordering?"

She stared at him, clearly confused. Clearly hurt. She glanced at her menu for exactly one second. "Dad, Mom looks just like her now. So can't you just come home?"

Larry, the girlfriend and I turned beet-red.

"Amelia, honey," Larry said, but stopped there. "Where's the waiter?" he askedloudly. "I'm starving! I called ahead, and they'll serve anything on the menu to your specifications. No sauce, no problem."

I stared at him for a moment, then at the girlfriend, then I turned to Amelia. "Sweetheart, why don't I try to answer your questions at home."

Her eyes filled with tears and she ran to the door.

Larry looked perplexed.

The girlfriend feigned concern and touched his arm. "She's only twelve," she said. "She'll come around."

"That's right, Larry," I said as I stood up and fished in my purse for the coat-check tickets. "She's only twelve. So whether you like it or not you're going to have put some effort into getting her through this." I turned to leave. "Oh, and by the way, we won't be staying for dinner."

He seemed about to respond, but a waiter was pa.s.sing by, and Larry flagged him down. "I can get the salmon without the b.u.t.ter sauce, right?" Larry asked.

I rolled my eyes. "He's all yours," I said to Sally with a smile.

Chapter fourteen.

Miranda Instead of sipping wine in low-lit cafes with interesting new men, I was having odd telephone conversations with the weirdos who responded to my personal ad.

"Hullo?"

"Hi, this is Miranda! You responded to my ad in the New York Natterer."

"Um, yeah, which one were you?"

Which one? How many had he responded to?

"I was the blonde in publishing," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Um, let me look it up in the paper." I heard rustling. "The lawyer?"

"No."

"The bombsh.e.l.l?

"Um, yeah." Why had I let Roxy write that?

"Oh great! Hi! I'm so glad you called me back. Do you want to know what I'm doing right now?"

Talking on the telephone to a stranger?

"Sure," I said.

"I'm lying naked on my bed, fantasizing about your measurements. Thirty-six, twenty-six, thirty-six?"

"Way off," I said. "Thirty, forty, forty-two."

Silence. "Wait. That's not bombsh.e.l.l. That's fatand flat chested!"

"Buh-bye!"

Next up in my Respondees to Call Back notebook was Paul.

After the "Hi, this is so weird, where are you from," came, "So you mentioned in your greeting that you're in publishing. I just got a rejection letter from the New Yorker on my short story. Can I read it to you?"

"The story or the rejection letter?"

"Both," he said.

"Um, can I call you back?"

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" he asked.

"No, I"

"Look," he snapped, "I don't have time to waste, okay?" Click.

The next two calls were equally awful. There was Steve, who worked in television as an editor of doc.u.mentaries. He answered every question with either a yes or no. Then there was Phillip, an attorney, who barked questions at me as though he were cross-examining me.

And then there was Seth, who sounded remarkably like my former roommate in the message he left on my voice mail. I dialed his number.

"h.e.l.lo?" he said.

"Seth?"

"Miranda?"

I rolled my eyes. "Do you know why I'm calling you? Because you responded to my personal ad in the New York Natterer. Didn't you recognize my voice in my greeting?"

"Ooh, busted! Nope, I didn't. Tell you the truth, I don't really listen too closely to greetings. I'm more focused on what I'm going to say so the woman will call me back."

Unbelievable. "But aren't you living with your girlfriend? Don't tell me she broke up with you again?"

"No, things are going really great," he said. "I just thought I should date a little for backup. She's totally high-strung. She could kick me out at any time. It's so much easier to date when you don't need a girlfriend, you know."

No, I really didn't know.

I was giving this dating thing one more shot. And then I was retiring. Today's guy was Jonathan. We made it past the phone call, mostly because I kept it very short and sweet. We were meeting for coffee at a Starbucks near the Pottery Barn where I was meeting Lucy and Amelia later to buy Grannie Ellie a birthday present.

I was to look for the tall guy with blond hair. He'd be carrying a copy of The Fountainhead, a book he should have gotten over in college.

I spotted him immediately and headed over. The minute he saw me, he looked like he was going to cry.

"You got your coat in Banana Republic, right?" he asked, eyeing my snazzy pale yellow coat that Lucy had bought me for my birthday. "Leigh had that exact one." Tears came to his eyes. "Oh G.o.d. Why am I talking about my ex-girlfriend on a date with a brand-new person who probably thinks I'm a big loser now."

I smiled. "Au contraire," I said, and sat down. "Tell me all about it."

Poor Jonathan really had it bad. He'd cried so much during the past month that he'd gotten fired from his job, since he was a customer-service manager. At least I was never that bad. I might have cried at work, but always in a bathroom stall!

I was fine. I would be fine. My personal ad experience had been a huge bust, but I was fine. I would persevere. I would keep my chin up, per Brianna. I would work on Tip Number Four for Getting Over Him and Getting on with Your Life: Volunteer for a cause you believe in. I was skipping over Tip Number Three, since I didn't want to do it. Get rid of those photographs and letters. You can keep two photographs for your alb.u.mbut the shrine of memoriesthe mementos and cards and matchbooks from restaurants you ate in togetherhas got to go! It wasn't like my memory box was sitting on my bedside table. I wasn't staring at Gabriel's picture on a nightly basis anymore. But I did know that all things Gabriel were in a box under my bed. I didn't want to throw away any of it.

My cell phone rang on the way to meet Lucy and Amelia. Lucy had a.s.sured me she'd be all rightand in fact, she was keeping half her new look, finding a happy medium that suited her. But Amelia was down in the dumps. She understood why her dad wasn't coming home, but she was angry. Better to be dealing than in denial.

It was Emmalee on the phone. Which was what voice mail was for.

"Hi, Miranda! I wanted you to know that I'm inviting you to my wedding with a date now. That seems only fair, even though you're not serious with anyone, and it's serious-only. I'm making an exception in your case. Let me know no later than next Monday if you're bringing someone. Bye, hon!"

I was beginning to truly hate Emmalee.

I looked all over Pottery Barn for Lucy and Amelia, but they must not be here yet or I kept missing them. I found the perfect present for Grannie Ellie in every aisle. Grannie was easy to please. I was almost settled on a gorgeous six-foot-high mini grandfather clock when I heard that voice.

"Ooh, Gabriel, this is the one!"

Yes. It was that voice. That voice that had sneered into my answering machine.

I panicked and backed up until I found myself between two huge hanging rugs. Kilims.

"Whatever you like is fine with me," I heard Gabriel say.

"Gabriel, c'mon," his fiancee said. "You promised to get into the registry. Which one do you like?"

"Sweetheart, I love you. If you love this one or that one, that's all I need to know. China doesn't matter to me, you do."

And they started making out, s...o...b..ring all over each other in front of a bunch of forks.

When I was sure they weren't coming up for air, I ran.

Tip Number Three: Dump those pictures and letters and mementos. There is no reason on earth why you should hold on to them. And if you think there is, just imagine how you'd feel if you found a pile of photographs and letters from your new boyfriend's ex-girlfriend...

He was getting married. He was registering for china. For silverware.

I reached under my bed for my Gabriel box. Everything that had anything to do with our relationship was in that box. Pictures. Postcards (only one, actually, when he went to London with friends). The matches from restaurants we'd been to. Mementos from every stupid thing we ever did.

I took out my favorite picture, one of Gabriel close up, all dimples. I thought of Chapter Seven of Beau and Bri's book, where Lucy listed Bri's Surefire Tips.

Sometimes we're holding on to the safety of the relationship, of what we wished the relationship could have been. Sometimes, if we really looked into our own hearts, we'd see we weren't so madly in love either.... If you're spending so much time loving someone you can't have, you're not loving yourselfthe key to happiness.

Self-help was so annoying.

I didn't even know how I felt anymore. I just felt numb. Did I really have to throw away everything? Wasn't that extreme? These were my memories. Wasn't I ent.i.tled to them?

Sure, Miss Havisham. Hang on to those memories forever.

I put on my coat, grabbed my memory box and headed downstairs to the garbage cans in front of my building. There are three kinds of apartment buildings in Manhattan. Little tenement dumps like mine, brownstones or nice buildings with or without doormen. Dumps like mine kept their garbage cans right in front of the building.

I lifted up the lid. Ew. Smelly. In you go, box of memories.

I dumped the box upside down. Pictures, matches, mementos in the garbage. That was what my relationship with Gabriel had come to. A year of loving him, six more months of waiting for him, and my memories were worth nothing but the garbage can on the street?

Noooooo! I thought, lunging for my favorite picture. Hadn't Bri said I could keep two photos for my alb.u.m? But the garbage can was full of c.r.a.p. White plastic bags and loose trash. Instead of finding my favorite picture of Gabriel, I had a half-eaten slice of pizza in my hand.

"Are you hungry?" asked a guy who was pa.s.sing by. "Uh, you can have a slice of my pizza. It's half pepperoni."

I glanced at the box he held out to me and was either so taken by his generosity or so embarra.s.sed that I burst into tears.

"My boyfriend broke up with me," I said, sobbing. "I threw out our pictures and mementos of our relationship and now I'm trying to find them again."

"Well, they're probably covered with all sorts of gross c.r.a.p," he said.

I nodded and realized I was still holding a half-eaten slice of someone else's gross pizza. I chucked it with a shudder. "Probably."