Engaging Men

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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR LYNDA CURNYN’S DEBUT NOVEL,
CONFESSIONS OFAN EX-GIRLFRIEND:

“First-time novelist Curnyn pens an easy, breezy first novel that’s part
Sex and the City
with more heart and part Bridget Jones with less booze.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A diverse cast of engaging, occasionally offbeat characters, the hilarious sayings attributed to them, and a fast-paced style facilitated by Emma’s pithy sound-bite ‘confessions’ add to the fun in a lively Manhattan-set story…”

—
Library Journal

“Readers will eagerly turn the pages…”

-Booklist

“Fabulous fun. The perfect antidote for the break-up blues.”

—Sarah Mlynowski, author of
Milkrun

“…absolutely hilarious secondary characters. They alone are worth the cover price.”

—
Romantic Times

“Lynda Curnyn has written a novel featuring a heroine that most people will enjoy reading about and even sympathize with her intense angst.
Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend
is part comedy, but mostly a serious, delightful look at people at a painful point in their lives.”

—Bookbrowser.com

“Well written, with catchy dialogue and heartfelt sincerity.”

—
Rendezvous

For Alexandra and Samantha Dream big, little girls!

A
big
thank-you to all who inspired and supported me during the writing of this book:

My family, especially my wise and beautiful mother, who always knows what to say, just when I need to hear it.

My wonderful editor, Joan Marlow Golan, for her insightful editorial expertise, her amazing support and most of all, her TLC.

All the talented people behind Red Dress Ink, especially Margaret Marbury, senior editor extraordinaire and dear friend. Laura Morris, Margie Miller, Tara Kelly and RDI’s own engaging man, Craig Swinwood.

All my wonderful friends, especially Linda Guidi, for
always
listening (even when I don’t…). Stacey Kamel, for bringing on the laughter. Julie Ann Coney, for that fab photo of me and the facts on adoptive search. Anne Canadeo, for the Tight-Lid Theory that inspired this book, and her sage writing advice. Jennifer Bernstein, Lisa Sklar and Farrin Jacobs, for keeping me from wigging out. Sarah Mlynowski, for always telling me how fabulous I am and for, umm, lending me her boyfriend (it’s not what you think…).

Elizabeth Irene, who told me just what it takes to make it as an actor in this town. Michael Scotto di Carlo (aka Motorcycle) and Katrina Lome for the cool Web site. Pam Spengler-Jaffee, for sharing her PR savvy, as well as margaritas and the post-book Elton and Billy serenade.

And let us not forget all the ex-boyfriends (you know who you are…) who inadvertently inspired me to write this book, by sheer virtue of the fact that none of them ever actually got around to proposing.

Tight lids and other theories of male behavior.

It started with a message on my answering machine.

“Guess who’s getting married?” came a voice I knew all too well.

It was Josh. My ex-boyfriend. Turned someone else’s fiance. Not that I’d ever wanted to marry Josh, who suffered from an aversion to dental floss. “Did prehistoric man floss?” he would argue.“Is prehistoric man still around?” I argued back.We lasted only six months, then I told him I couldn’t see myself at sixty-five, making sure he took his teeth out at bedtime every night. “Okay, okay. I’ll floss,” he’d replied. But it was too late. The romance was gone.

Now he was getting married.To someone he’d met not three months after we had broken up four years ago. And he wasn’t the first ex-boyfriend to go this route. Randy, the boyfriend before Josh, was whistling “The Wedding March” a mere six weeks after we had tearfully said our goodbyes. Then there was Vincent, my first love—he’d been married for nearly a decade. According to my mother—who lived within shouting distance of his mother in Marine Park, Brooklyn, and never failed to keep me updated—Vincent and his wife were already on their third kid.

One ex gets married, a girl can laugh it off.Two begins a nervous twitter. But three? Three?

A girl starts to take it personally. I mean, what was it about me that didn’t incite men to plunk down large sums of money in the name of eternal love?

“It’s the tight-lid dilemma,” my friend Michelle said when I expressed my despair at sending another man to the altar without me.

“Tight lid?” I asked, awaiting some pearl of wisdom that might turn my world upright again. After all, in the time it had taken me to get a four-year degree in business administration that I no longer made use of, Michelle, who’d grown up three blocks away from me in Marine Park, had gotten a husband, a house and a diamond the size of New Jersey.

“You know the scenario,” she continued. “You struggle for a good while trying to open a jar and the lid won’t budge. But sure enough, the next person you hand that jar to pops the lid off, no problem. I mean, you don’t really think Jennifer Aniston, cute haircut aside, would have landed Brad Pitt without the Gwyneth factor, do you? Then there’s me and Frankie, of course,” she continued, referring to her husband of seven years, whom she had snagged soon after his devastating breakup with Rosanna Cuzio, the prom queen of our high school.

I couldn’t deny the pattern, once Michelle had laid it out so neatly before me. Clearly I had been instrumental in warming Josh, Randy and Vincent up for the next girl to come along and slap with a wedding vow. Gosh, I should have at least been maid of honor for my efforts.

Instead, I was nothing but the ex-girlfriend who might or might not get invited to the wedding, depending on how secure the bride felt about her future husband.

Suddenly I looked at Kirk, my current boyfriend, with new eyes. We had been together a year and eight months, by far the record for me since my three-year stint with Randy.We had become quite a cozy little couple, Kirk and 1.1 even got party invitations addressed to both of us—that’s how serious everyone thought we were. The question was: Would Kirk be inviting me to his wedding someday or…?

“Kirk…sweetie,” I said, as we lay in bed together that night, a flickering blue screen before us and the prospect of sex lingering like an unasked question in the air.

“Uh-huh,”he said, not removing his gaze from the cop show that apparently had him enraptured.

“Your last girlfriend…Susan?”

“Yeah?” he said, glancing at me with trepidation. Clearly he saw in the making one of those “relationship talks” men dread.

“You guys went out a long time, right? What was it, two years?”

“Three and a half,” he said with a shudder that made me swallow with fear. Apparently I was heading for rough waters.

Still I plunged on. “And you guys never talked, um, about…marriage?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding me? That’s what broke us up. She gave me the old ultimatum—we get married or we’re through.” He snorted. “Needless to say, I chose door number two.”

Aha. Relief filled me and I snuggled closer to Kirk, allowing him to sink back into his vegetative state as the cops on TV slapped cuffs on some unsuspecting first offender.

If Susan was the lid loosener, that could mean only one thing: I could pop this guy wide open. Hell, I could be married within the year.