Her fingernails clicked the keyboard as she typed in the first diagnostic command. Time for a trim, she realized, then pouted as she added the To Do to her mental Palm Pilot. As the diagnostic tallied service statistics she expanded on the note in her head.

Dear Self,

Don’t forget to record the presentation code for your commission and trim your nails.While it’s depressing that the nail trim is for the keyboard and not because you’re avoiding giving someone an ouch in bed, there’s no need to whine.This week is a No Whining Zone.

Love, Marissa

As usual, the service stats were fine. She printed the report to silence Ocky’s complaints and went back to her desk where a stack of questionnaires waited to be entered manually. She was going to personally find and dismember the guy who sold them that pieceof-garbage optical scanner. Maybe she could get a temp. Maybe the temp would do it right. Maybe California and Hawaii could become their own country. Right.

She pushed aside last night’s empty take-out salad container and a large pile of accounting reports joined their predecessors on the floor. Ocky had left several yellow squares stuck to her monitor.

Dear Octavia M. Zant,

Put another sticky note on my screen and I will personally bad sector your writing hand.

Love, Marissa

One of these days she’d really tap that message out and send it.

The office had stilled when she finished the last questionnaire. So much for the prestige of being part owner of the fastest growing Internet matchmaking service in California. Her arms were cramped and all she could think about was some dinner and maybe a trip to the gym. A door slammed and she heard a familiar rustle combined with the rhythmic crackle of headphones. Ocky was back.

From a nonchalant pose at Ocky’s office door, she watched her business partner put her notebook back in the slot where it belonged, stow her briefcase and set her phone and Mp3 player on their chargers. She waited until Ocky looked up before saying, “How’d it go?”

“Great. You look tired.”

“Questionnaires. The service guy is here tomorrow morning. There’s nothing wrong with the servers, by the way.” Marissa wished she hadn’t taken off her earrings. “You look tired too.”

“Late night. And not a great one.” Ocky kicked off her sandals and curled back into her desk chair, legs tucked under her. “Tell me one more time why I don’t fill out my own questionnaire and get myself a real lover?”

I could run a thousand miles a day, Marissa thought, and not have her slender, toned legs. “Because you can’t afford to tell the truth should you end up the one-in-four who doesn’t find a good match through our system.” She didn’t want to admit at that very moment that she herself was now a Finders Keepers client. It wasn’t the right time to break that news to Ocky.

“So I’m stuck with mismatch after mismatch using my own hunter-gatherer skills. At least the sex is great. Well, it wasn’t last night but it usually is.”