busted. We were dreaming of them and waking up alone.

Well, not alone alone—remember, I’ve got an alarm clock.

“Dude?”

“Dude.”

This is how Gina and I say our hellos: Dude. Dude? Dude, what the fuck. I don’t know, dude. Duuuuude. Dude, yes! We’ve known each other since back when I was lying about getting my period. I’ve been in love with her—no homo—since the eighth grade. This is my longest and most serious relationship. In fifteen years, she’s never said, “Hey, it’s Gina.” I’d probably hang up if she did.

God, fifteen years makes us sound old as shit, doesn’t it? I know, I know. At twenty-seven and counting, we’re not really old old, but damn it, tell that to our uteruses (uterun, uteri?). Tell it to our mothers, who want grandchildren so badly they can catch a whiff of crappy diapers in the night air. Tell it to our fathers, whose abandonment is finally creeping up our throats with last night’s Corona and grenadine. Tell it to our hearts that are so tired of being broken that they’d rather stay that way than be fixed for a better smashing later. I’m telling you, it’s been rough—sorta.

I mean, we’re not spinsters, quite yet. But still. Our age is measured in accomplishments now, not years. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes? More like five degrees, twenty-five boyfriends, six hundred Manolos. Marriage and babies? Waiter? At first I wanted both after my thirties, which according to Sex and the City were going to totally rock. But then I saw the movie, and those chicks looked wrinkly as hell.

Gina says she wants marriage before her eggs dry up—quote, end quote. The likelihood of her freezing them comes closer with each relationship gone bad. If whoever is acting right, the eggs are safe. Acting up? Then she Googles “cryogenics” plus “embryos” while giving me a lecture on advanced uterine aging. I want to tell her that our eggs and our hearts will be just fine. But I’ve never lied to her (except for that one time in 1994 when I pretended to have cramps).

“I’m on sabbatical from these dudes, man.” She sounds halfway serious this time. “I need a break.”

“Ummm, dude, you already know I feel you on that.” I want to say something cheesy like the white girls do: Some guy is going to realize how awesome and beautiful and wonderful you are and then everything will be great and you’ll have a wedding and a baby and a house and a life and…

“They’re messing my whole life up,” she says again a few weeks later while we’re in a cab on our way back to my new “luxury” apartment. I’ve got doormen—they work across the street, though, in North Face uniform jackets, and take super long breaks whenever the cops come around. When we slide out the cab heels first, they study us from their posts. We ignore the “compliments” they chip in on the dresses meant to entice better men. “Sex-zay,” they sing in canon. One swipe of my security key and we’re safe.

Right now it’s September in Washington, which means the annual legislative conference of the Congressional Black Caucus is in town. The CBC is to single-black-chick Washington as Fleet Week is to single-white-gal New York. Seamen? How ’bout degreed men! “Dude, I will be out there for the menses,” Gina e-mails in advance of flying four hours to spend half as many days scouring the capital city for the new American dream (political husband, professional wife, perfect children). We hurdled one party after another, double-daring ourselves to find someone worth the Spanx.

Really, the whole weekend was an exercise in corporal punishment. The highlights: One guy told me I had “award-winning calves,” then handed me his business card. Sweet but fat. Another asked me what I did for a living, and then before I could answer, he slipped me his card, which read “sartorial artist” in the fancy letters that should be reserved for wedding invites. Dude, he’s a seamstress. Next! Then a friend, who starred in more than a few of my mental pornos, showed up with his jeans tucked into combat boots. He’s gay, right? No! I gave serious googly eyes to a few other prospects who gave me the side eye in return. Gina gave her number to some dude I said was a dork. And? I stared at the back of his egg-shaped head for a few seconds, mentally compelling him to call her on Monday. He didn’t.

The rest