EXTRACT FOR
Anonymous
(Giselle Renarde)

Hannah stood before the coffee maker and willed it to brew.  Didn't work, of course.  She opened the top and tossed out yesterday's grounds before reaching into the cupboard for a new filter.  



She sang, "What shall I do today?  What shall I do today?" as she set the coffee to brew, and then headed to the bedroom to get dressed.



"See?" she said to nobody.  "If we had a puppy, I'd have someone to talk to right now.  Instead I have to talk to myself like a crazy lady."  



Rather than putting on clothes, Hannah jumped into a pair of pyjamas.  



When she stepped into the kitchen and spotted a solitary peach slice clinging to the side of the fridge, everything about last night came screaming to her the front of her mind: the hot sex, the heated argument, the cold soup.



And the plan.



Or had she dreamed that part?  No, it was real.  The peach splattered on the fridge told her so.  Oh, great??"now she was talking to herself and getting messages from a peach.  That's not at all crazy!



"We'll hire a hooker," she said to the peach as she pried it off the fridge.  "We'll book a hotel room, call up some agency, and rent ourselves a man."



She poured a cup of coffee in such a daze she couldn't even recall how the cream got into her cup.  The computer beckoned.  Most mornings, Hannah rushed to check her email on the off-chance some early-to-rise employer had written before she woke up.  Today she was all about finding a man.  



Or, to be perfectly accurate, she was all about finding a man for her husband.