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categorization of men. There was big game; there was fishing; there were game birds; and there were wild animals.
    “You want big-game hunting, he’s the biggest in town,” I said, slicing slowly through my pile of mushrooms and onions.
    “Really? That’s it? There used to be lots of interesting men around.”
    “I think he’s pretty much it, unless you want to go professional athlete.”
    She rolled her eyes at this. “You mean become one of Grady’s Ladies?”
    “Grady Sizemore is adorable,” I said.
    “He’s a baby, and I’m still a good decade away from cougar-dom.”
    “Over forty, that’s the def.”
    “I’m not there yet.” She sat pensive for a moment. “I hate that word.”
    “Like the older woman is always the predator,” I said. “What about the mougar?”
    She laughed so hard smoke came out of her nose. “The man cougar?”
    “Yeah, like George Clooney.”
    “No one uses that word.”
    “I think Sizemore is like twenty-seven, too old for a cougar anyway. Plus he got caught sexting someone.”
    She raised an eyebrow at that.
    “Naked pictures,” I said, putting a pile of mushrooms in a bowl and turning back to my recipe for what felt like the hundredth time.
    “Well that’s more like it,” she said, smiling. “Brady Quinn is not bad looking,” she offered.
    I started picking some thyme. “Definitely cute, but he was traded away.”
    “That’s your flavor, isn’t it?” she said.
    I blushed.
    “Jim kind of looks like him,” she said. “Definitely your flavor.”
    She drew out another cigarette, which annoyed me. “Seriously, what happened to all the interesting men in the Midwest?” she asked, and then lit her smoke.
    “They all moved to New York, or Miami—LeBron, you know.”
    “I’m not going back to New York,” she said, exhaling. “Seriously, what happened to Cinco Van Alstyne?”
    Cinco was the nickname of Henry Pryce Van Alstyne V. His El Salvadorian nanny had coined the nickname when he was an infant. It’d stuck all through grade school, high school, college, and law school. Now, in a white-shoe downtown law firm where he was a promising associate, he went by Cinco to everyone but the courts.
    Calm and reliable, he’d been my first kiss in the sandbox, and we’d remained friends. The Van Alstynes were a founding family of Cleveland. At one point Cinco’s great-great-grandfather had been the richest man in Ohio with a huge mansion downtown, long since sold to the state and now a museum. My family has known their family forever. Some called Cinco snobbish, others arrogant, but I knew he was merely shy.
    “Married,” I said. “Don’t you remember the wedding a few years ago? He’s just moved back and is living out on that dilapidated country estate. The wife’s from New York. You should know her.”
    I had yet to run into them.
    Ellie ran through a list that we’d discussed many times consisting of our ex-boyfriends and the eligible men we’d grown up with. They were all married, married, married with children, and married. One had bought a winery in Napa and was now bankrupt.
    “Huh.” She ashed her cigarette out the window. “I thought it’d be easier here.”
    I snorted. “Everyone’s settled down here. I’d think it would be easier to find a single man in Manhattan. New York is huge.”
    I was done prepping my ingredients. It was time to start cooking, and I needed to focus.
    “My New York is small,” she said, shaking her head. “Alex got the friends in the divorce settlement. Along with all the money.” She laughed at the joke, but I frowned, rummaging in the refrigerator for the chicken.
    “Oh, they were never my friends anyway. And it was never my money. Ironclad prenup—so my lawyers tell me. Do you know the correct term is ‘antenuptial agreement’? I should have known. Anyway, most of his friends bored the hell out of me.” She shrugged. “They all think I’m an addict and a cheating whore, which is really unfair