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gulped big breaths of air, as if I could somehow load up on normal before stepping into a bizarro world of unexplained and unsolicited matchmaking.
    I cautiously reached between the preselected cookbooks and snagged the leather-bound volume with my index finger and thumb. Hotfooting it back to the kitchen, I dropped my catch on the table and sat down to face the situation head-on—whatever that might entail. With a burst of courage, I flipped back the cover. The journal’s little doorknob thwacked loudly against the table, unleashing a new wave of nerves. So much for all my carefully built-up calm ... there was no going back now.
    Seeing the first page still intact, complete with rewritten journal entry and underlined words, gave me a fleeting moment of confidence—just enough to catch my breath. These words, at least, hadn’t disappeared.
    Spurred on by my thunderous heartbeat, I cautiously turned the page—and saw only white. Until the few remaining words came clearly into focus. At which point the curse words were falling off my tongue like an avalanche as I started to panic.
    I really hadn’t expected a second message. One could have been written off as a fluke or ... something . But two was a definite situation. Particularly with Leslie off the hook with her airtight alibi.
    Willing myself to pull it together, I read the remaining words.

    cleavage
is
as cleavage
does

    Every bit of tension suddenly came crashing down in the face of sheer ridiculousness. Oh, I was still panicked all right, but at that moment I was simply bowled over by the unpredictability of the situation. There I was, dealing with someone who had the mind-boggling ability to send private messages by erasing selected words in a seemingly unremarkable journal, and he / she chose to use this power to spout off on cleavage and issue a call to romance? It was like I was dealing with a teenage techie with a crush. Although I had to admit, the element of ridiculousness made things feel a little less threatening and more just odd . Number one, I had no cleavage worth discussing, and number two, I’d learned long ago that it was impossible to strong-arm a romance because romance was like dandelion fluff, floating out there, everywhere. And while we all chased it, grabbed hold of it, and hated to let it go, it was fickle and flighty—and impervious to even the most careful planning.
    The little dandelion analogy had come to me during a particularly loopy marshmallow-crème-by-the-jar sugar high right after the demise of my only really serious relationship. I met Ethan my first year in the MBA program. Like me, he was an engineer with big dreams, but unlike me, he had no plans on how to reach them—zero. I suppose you could say the detailed nature of my Plan (and his inclusion in it) freaked him out a little. As did my “freakish obsession” with Jane Austen—his words. So he’d dumped me, and truly, I’d been a little relieved to be dumped—saved me the trouble of dumping him. I didn’t want a guy with no plans—I wanted a guy who had big dreams and the motivation to go after them. After that, romance had gotten postponed indefinitely. And Pushing Daisies had taught me that a to-do list wasn’t nearly enough. The man I wanted would come with the schematics and tools to hotwire a Norwegian RV. I’d been content to wait.
    But clearly someone—or something—wasn’t. Someone besides Leslie.
    I shivered, both from the chill in the air and the realization that, like it or not, I had a problem ... a Big Problem.
    I stared into the darkness of the living room, my imagination casting me in the starring role of a B-movie thriller. Who knew what was lurking, waiting ... watching ... ready to comment.
    I stood quickly, the backs of my knees pushing my chair back in a loud screech. I lunged toward the light switch, flipping on the overhead light before tussling with the lamp beside the sofa. Right now I needed lights on and voices of reason. I glanced