How to Meet Cute Boys Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, corporate entities, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 Deanna Kizis

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: July 2004

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55642-2

  CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  ACCLAIM FOR

  HOW TO MEET CUTE BOYS

  “Entertaining…Ben is a smart and funny heroine who wisecracks with the best of them. Particular highlights are the Filly magazine pieces written by Benjamina herself. A very enjoyable book that will give a boost to the intelligence quotient of the entire genre. Recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “Light and funny.…Kizis cleverly parodies the shallow magazine world.”

  —Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine

  “Elle recommends HOW TO MEET CUTE BOYS…a late-summer breeze of a novel.”

  —Elle

  “Sharpen your eyebrow pencil and take those funny quizzes.…Kizis deftly skewers L.A. celebrities and the publicity party scene, throwing in some priceless one-liners about the perils of modern dating to boot.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A blast to read.…Kizis pulls it all off with great style. Think of this novel as the Lucky magazine of dating.”

  —Dany Levy, founder/chairman of DailyCandy, Inc.

  “Witty…engaging…an impressive debut from one of America’s top young writers.”

  —Roberta Myers, editor in chief, Elle

  “Hysterical…an excellent, funny novel.…The author definitely has a witty sense of humor.”

  —BookReviewCafe.com

  “Hilarious…thoroughly entertaining!…It’s perfect.”

  —Bestsellersworld.com

  “Wonderful…hilariously accurate.…Compulsively readable, Ben’s observations on life, friends, and lovers are honest and amusing.”

  —TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

  “Very entertaining and fast-paced.…Kizis does a great job at creating a realistic novel.”

  —MostlyFiction.com

  “Laugh-out-loud funny.…Kizis has her finger on the pulse of the world of fashion, magazines, and relationships of the heart.”

  —BookReporter.com

  “A delightfully realistic portrayal of twenty-something single women living in L.A.…Benjamina is witty, intelligent, and successful. Pick up this delightful novel and see the world through Ben Franklin’s eyes!”

  —Bookloons.com

  “A fresh, honest, and witty look at the dating scene for a woman in her late twenties.…The format is very catchy…I had such a hard time walking away from this book. Rush out and get a copy of HOW TO MEET CUTE BOYS.…I hope Kizis will pick up the novel where it ended. I am dying to spend more time with Ben and her friends!”

  —Roundtablereviews.com

  For Eve,

  who constantly reminds me that

  it’s good to have friends, even in hell

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Gregory McKnight, Mike Sheresky, Ian Kleinert, and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, for agenting it; Karen Kosztolnyik, for editing it; Ed Brogna, for illustrating it; Christian Ablang, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Eve Epstein, Drew Fellman, Elizabeth Flanagan, Harriet Friedman, Gayle Forman, Ali Goldstein, Bernice Hart, Bea Ilumin, Susan Kittenplan, George Kizis, Makenzie Kizis, Jeanne Fay Manfredi, Chris Weitz, Lindsey Wilkes, and all the wonderful women at Elle magazine, for supporting it. And a special thanks to all you heartbreakers out there, for inspiring it.

  PROLOGUE

  We’ve all heard the story of Peter Pan by now. You know, Pan’s flying around, doing his thing, when he becomes obsessed with this girl Wendy, and starts showing up at her house at all hours and taking her out on fancy adventures. Until, one day, Wendy wants him to act like a man. She wants him to be accountable. So what does Peter Pan do? He flies off with Tinker Bell in tow to continue his life as another immature male and Wendy gets left in the dust. Of course, Pan’s story is pretty easy to figure out: Boy meets girl. Girl becomes woman. Woman wants boy to grow up. He can’t handle the pressure and bails. The Peter Pan syndrome—that’s pretty much every guy I’ve ever met. But what gets me, what I’ve been wondering about ever since I first heard this horrifying tale, is this: What was Wendy thinking? Why did she allow herself to be interrupted, distracted, seduced by some guy in green tights with a sparkle in his eye? Couldn’t she tell that he was just a boy?

  CHAPTER

  1

  “Oh no! You look so much cuter than me.”

  Kiki had just let herself into my apartment and stormed into my tiny bathroom, where I was putting on my makeup. She scared me half to death, as I was blasting the stereo and didn’t hear her knock. Good thing she hasn’t lost her key, I thought. Yet.

  “I do not,” I said, doing a quick appraisal. Kiki looked like sex on toast, as usual. Her blond hair was down, jeans were snug in all the right places, lips were berry red. Of course, she was wearing another black sweater, which toned her natural vampiness down a bit. (Kiki thinks black sweaters camouflage her boobage.) And, okay, her eyes were slightly puffy, but I only noticed that because I already knew what was going on. Overall, I have to say, she looked hot. I looked at myself in the mirror for comparison. Not exactly Kiki, I’m what people call “cute.” As in, even if I were wearing nipple clamps, crotchless panties, and holding a whip, they’d say, “That’s so cute!”

  I was going to need more mascara.

  “Ben, you know you look amazing,” Kiki said, watching me apply another coat.

  “I really don’t.”

  “Oh my God, fuck you, you do.” She spun out of the bathroom and headed toward my bedroom in a huff.

  A couple of days before, Kiki had broken up with her boyfriend, Edward. Actually, make that, she broke up with Edward, her rental unit. Renting, as opposed to leasing (or, heaven forbid, actually owning), is a common affliction among us over twenty-fives today. You end up dating this guy for months and you’re not seeing anybody else, and he’s not seeing anybody else (at least, you think he’s not seeing anybody else), but you don’t actually call him your boyfriend because he doesn’t actually call you his girlfriend. Then you get in a fight over some dumb thing, like maybe he didn’t call all weekend until Sunday, and when you tell him you’re upset, he says something like, “Since when is Sunday not the weekend?”

  The next thing you know, you’re having the I-Think-We-Need-to-Talk Talk (always prefaced with those six crushingly familiar words), and he’s broken up with you when you weren’t sure you were even going out in the first place. Which is how you end up mourning something you never knew you had, asking yourself questions—Should I have done this differently? Not said that at all?—that you didn’t even know were serious at the time. The whole thing becomes a downward spiral of regret and second-guessing, something Kiki and I are extremely familiar with. After
all, I write the articles about how shitty men can be, she edits the articles about how shitty men can be, Filly—the magazine where we both work—publishes the articles about how shitty men can be, and a million-plus women read our articles about how shitty men can be. And yet, we’re all still surprised at how shitty men can be. It’s a clear-cut case of the blind leading the blind.

  Anyway, after six weeks of heavy dating, Kiki’s rental unit had initiated The Talk. They’d spent a weekend together doing couple stuff (making seared ahi tuna for dinner, picking out sweaters at Barneys, et cetera). He said things were getting too serious, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

  I heard the closet door bang open, followed by rummaging. Hangers whisked about; shoes clunked onto the floor. I pictured Kiki standing half naked in front of my full-length mirror, probably trying on one of my tops, possibly with two different shoes crammed onto her size eight feet to see which looked better.

  “I look fat,” she said over the music.

  “Yeah, you’re a real cow,” I hollered back.

  I headed into the kitchen to make her a drink. A strong drink. I grabbed the supersized bottle of Absolut Kiki had brought over after I finally broke up with Jack—there was a bit left. (I’d been nursing it alone, I admit it.) I peered into the fridge for a decent mixer, but the only thing I had was diet Coke. But that was okay, I decided, swirling the concoction around in a glass. The vodka would elevate Kiki’s mood, the caffeine would keep her awake.

  From the bedroom I heard, “I look like a complete loser!” A crash of plastic and glass hit the floor, which meant she was into the product samples from publicists that were piled every which way on top of my vanity.

  “You’re a bombshell, Kiki. Get over it.”

  “I loathe what I’m wearing!”

  I entered the bedroom, and she’d exchanged her black sweater for one of my black sweaters. She was stretching it out.

  “Well, now you’re wearing my clothes, so go easy.”

  I handed her the drink.

  She sighed, “Look at you. I wish I was a brunette.”

  “Well, brunette is the new blond.”

  “I’m too tall.”

  “Short is the new statuesque.” I pirouetted around my room, looking for the various things I’d need for the evening and cramming them into my purse.

  “Seriously!” she wailed. “You’ve got that fantastic starving-refugee thing going on—I look like a goddamn giraffe.”

  Only Kiki could make being five foot eight with 34Ds sound like such a nightmare. She’s almost managed to convince me being short isn’t all bad—insists everything’s more appealing when it’s smaller, be it a cell phone, an evening bag, a snack food, or Sarah Jessica Parker.

  “Famine is the new fashion!” I declared. “We pronounce it, fa-meen.”

  She still didn’t smile. So I said, “Okay, have it your way: You’ve got a little bit of a giraffe thing going on, but you’ve got bigger tits.”

  Kiki finally laughed. Downed the drink in a couple of gulps. Chewed an ice cube. Made a face. Her green eyes took on the look of someone determined. Someone who had a job to do, and was going to do it, damn it, even if it was the end of her.

  We took her Jetta, because it was parked closer than my Jetta. Before I could sit, I had to clear away a pile of her old bank statements, a ratty brassiere, several diet Coke cans, the calendar section of the LA Times, and a half-eaten bag of McDonald’s fries, now hard as plastic.

  Kiki watched me trying to organize the mess. “Ben, give it a rest wouldja?” she said. “You know you can just throw that stuff in the backseat.”

  It’s the same every time.

  FILLYQUIZ

  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 overhear 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, Filly—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, than
ks 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!”)