Read Steamed for Free Online

scrawled on a sheet of paper.
    I logged in, and, yes, I had indeed posted myself on Back Bay Dates. Shit. Maybe I could delete my information before anything horrendous happened. I navigated around the page and was just about to cancel my account when I noticed that one message was waiting for me.
    No, no, no! I’d been so bleary eyed last night I couldn’t even remember whom I’d written to or what I’d said. I clicked on my mailbox and was terrified to see a message from someone called DinnerDude who had apparently read my message that morning. I groaned and shut my eyes in the superstitious hope that the message would evaporate. I opened my eyes.
    Damn. DinnerDude’s message was still there. He thought our foodie user names were pretty funny, a comment that completely ticked me off since I couldn’t stand people who referred to themselves as foodies. He’d read in my profile that I was a “culinary whore,” a phrase he thought was hysterical. I couldn’t have written that , could I? The ill-chosen term implied that plied with the right risotto, I might just rip off my clothes and sprawl across the dinnerware to show my gratitude. My prospective date went on to write that he was thinking of investing in a new restaurant, Essence, and was going there this evening to check it out again and to speak with the owner and the chef. Because I was so into food, would I like to meet him there tonight?
    Suddenly, the man sounded interesting! And he apparently had money to fling about in investments. Perhaps what had doomed my previous romantic escapades had been food incompatibility! My relationship failures hadn’t been failures at all, but Mother Nature’s way of preventing the propagation of culinarily challenged people, natural selection aimed at eliminating poor palates from the gene pool. All along, I d been meant for a man who shared my love of wonderful food. This DinnerDude had great possibilities. We could become the new hot Boston couple who invested together in zillions of spectacular restaurants and were written up in Boston Magazine as the premiere patrons of local eateries. With unusual confidence and positive thinking, I wrote an e-mail agreeing to meet DinnerDude at Essence. I then sent Heather a message saying she ought to start organizing my wedding.
    The day planned itself. I had to clean myself up and find something sexy and yet appropriate to wear to dinner. My face was puffy from all of yesterday’s crying and late-night computer activities, and I generally looked pretty disgusting. I called Adrianna and left another pleading message, this time yelling incoherently about e-mail and restaurant dates. Okay, what would my fashionable friend tell me to do first? The solution leaped out at me: free makeover, of course!
    I tossed on jeans and a fitted V-neck T-shirt, raced down the fire escape, didn’t even glance at Noah’s window, hopped in the Saturn, and sped down Route 9 to the Chestnut Hill Mall and charged toward the Lancôme counter.
    A woman named Dana greeted me and listened while I explained yesterday’s mess in excruciating detail, ending with the heinous reality that I would have to see Noah the Jerk again, and probably soon, and that under no circumstances was he to be allowed to witness me looking so gross. And that I had this blind date tonight and better look damn good. Forty-five minutes later, I left the mall with a bag full of gorgeous products and words of encouragement from Dana.
    I arrived home to find a gigantic bag outside my side door. I d never left anything at Noah’s, so it couldn’t be the traditional returning of items belonging to an ex. I read the card taped to the bag: “Chloe, I’m not sure what is going on, but I can tell you’re having a wild weekend. Sorry I haven’t been able to call. I’m working the rest of today, but we’ll talk tomorrow. Thought you might need something special to wear... for an Internet date?!? Love, Adrianna.”
    I took the bag