The Hypothetical Girl Read Online Free Page B

sections.”
    “Kiss of death, babe.”
    “Apparently.”
    At this point Lenore shared the Rules for Poetry When Dating Online. Clever, short iambic pentameter poems with no more than two verses are okay before the first date, as are haiku, limericks, and tanka. No sonnets, villanelle, or pantoums until at least three dates have gone by successfully. As for free verse love poems, save those for a one-year anniversary, she said.
    “Is this like a credo?” Myra asked.
    “It’s a doctrine,” Lenore wrote back.
    Myra had killed her flirtation with Louis with sectioned free verse. It was sad and because it was sad she had to appropriately mourn it. To do so she spent a weekin bed eating Häagen-Dazs Rum Raisin ice cream, after which she switched to Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.
    About a year went by and Myra’s affection for Louis cooled. In fact, it had gone extinct, like the woolly mammoths, receding to a small set of bones buried somewhere deep down inside her. Over drinks in Manhattan with Lenore, Myra said yes, she had truly learned her lesson this time.
    “The Love Poetry Doctrine is not to be messed with,” Lenore said.
    “I get it. Anyway he was a liar. He said he was going backpacking in Senegal. Remember? That was a lie.”
    “Wait,” said Lenore. “Senegal?”
    “Yes, Senegal …”
    One year earlier, Myra had finally Googled “travel” and “Senegal” to learn that:
    This advice has been reviewed and reissued with an amendment to the Travel Summary and the Safety and Security—Terrorism section (there is an underlying threat from terrorism). The overall level of the advice has not changed; we continue to advise against road travel in the Casmance region to the west of Kolda.
    “I think I read something about some guy traveling in Senegal who was abducted last year, near Kolda,” Lenore said.
    “You are joking,” said Myra. “Tell me you don’t think that’s funny.”
    “What if it’s your limerick guy?”
    The question settled in Myra’s gut like a stone. What if? Myra thought about this possibility all the way back to Connecticut on the train.
    The woolly mammoth fossilized in her heart had been awakened and was trumpeting around. It was smashing things. It was making a big mess.
    For the entire next week, she couldn’t sleep. What if Louis was rotting in some Senegalese terror camp? She had to know. She couldn’t sleep. In fact, she had stooped to the level of nightly Excedrin PMs. It was a problem. She tried to switch to valerian root tea, but the stuff didn’t even touch her insomnia.
    Finally, she decided to write to Louis. It wouldn’t be stalker-y if she wrote to him one last time (he need never know about the screen saver thing, which had long been replaced by a stock photo of a sunset). This is what she wrote:
    Dear Louis
,
    I am not trying to bother you. You disappeared and it was your right to do so. But I am a bit worried about you. I understand if my poem was upsetting and you decided to ditch me for the crime of sucky poetry. I even approve. But if you are in trouble somewhere (like, say, Senegal, which is where you were goingwhen last we communicated), or need something or if there is some other reason you never wrote me back after I sent my poem, please let me know. As a courtesy. I don’t like to think about you rotting in some hole in Senegal
.
    Sincerely
,
    Myra
    Two weeks later, she did hear back from Louis. It was the last time she heard from him.
    There once was a young divorcé

Who liked to eat chicken satay

After travel in Senegal

With his very best pal

He realized, in fact, he was gay
.

People Who Live Far, Far Away
    M iko was an Icelandic yak farmer who was thirty-one years old and in possession of a small fortune.
    Misty was twenty-three, an aspiring poet and model who lived in New York City and Beverly Hills, who’d had a small part as an extra in
Dude, Where’s My Car?
You may recall her as the girl with the long blonde hair, long blonde