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She raised her eyebrows, mildly surprised that Mel had actually hit send, but impressed nonetheless.

“I will literally camp here and mace him myself if I have to,” she said, pointing to the pepper spray attached to her keychain. She was sending a text herself on her own phone as she said it, fingers moving with rapidity.

And then, oddly, she held up her phone in one hand, and a “wait” finger on the other.

Seconds later, apparently having been summoned, it rang, and she put it on speaker with another “wait” gesture of her finger as if she was a science teacher delivering an important lesson over the lab table.

“Ma’am?” Said a male voice.

“What would you do if I told you to lose my number and never call or text me again?” She asked briskly, giving Mel a withering look as if to say: watch and learn.

“Never call or text you again,” the voice answered promptly. “Also maybe cry. Like, a lot of -”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you'd be really desperate.”

“So desperate,” came the answer, with an enthusiasm that did, indeed, sort of vibrate with pathetic desperation. “I’d beg, if you let me. I'd -”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Lots of pleading. But if I didn't let you or if you didn't beg good enough, what then?”

“Never again,” said the voice promptly.

“Why? No games. Step out of the bit for me, baby, I'm making an example out of you.”

There was a pause. The enthusiastic pleading became puzzled deference instead. “Because… you told me so and I respect you?”

“Good. And if it was any other woman for any other reason?”

Another pause. “The same? Because it would be harassing her otherwise?” He hazarded.

“And would she owe you an explanation?”

“I mean, I'd like one,” he said, still bewildered. “But no.”

“Very, very good.” She said this with a certain indulgent, purring tone, in sharp contrast to her businesslike briskness both before and in the following sentence. “Now hang up.”

And accordingly he did, immediately and without another word. She lofted the phone demonstratively.

“That guy’s a surgeon and owns a boat. He's probably going to spend the next three hours in agony wondering if I'm ever gonna call him again, and I won't get a single text. What's the bacterium’s excuse?”

“So stop indulging him,” she snapped simply, reaching down to throw a toy for the waiting dogs again. “That's it. Full stop. It's not complicated. Just stop. You're hot, you're blonde, you're smart, you've got a banging body. Why are you settling for a guy who has no respect for you?” She said this with a certain naked disgust, in full lecture mode. “You could walk into any bar in the city and have your pick. I went to a fun singles mixer a few weeks ago and I didn't get any dates out of it, but I could have, so I'm damn sure you'd have no problem. They're probably doing another one soon. Or hell, just be single. Gotta be better than all this drama. There's no excuse. Stop indulging him,” she repeated. “Peace is better than whatever that nonsense is. Take it from someone who's embraced the single life.”

Which didn't exactly explain the phone call, but maybe having men on call was something a single woman could also manage to do.

“Meeting him to begin with was bad luck. Everything after that wasn't luck, it was your own bad choices,” she said primly, reining in the fire and brimstone a bit as Mel seemed appropriately ashamed of herself. “If he shows back up, text me. I'll come over here and run him out myself.”

She said this, however, with an inner foreboding that Mel would do no such thing. Ah, well. It wasn't her cross to bear. Other people's shitty decisions were their own. She abruptly remembered the existence of her tea, returning to it with a final withering stare.

“If you get back into the dating pool,” she said coolly, “go for older men. How old is the bacterium? Texts like a boy,” she said contemptuously. “I support the staying single resolution, but if you change your mind, don't waste time on boys. Especially pretty boys. Is he pretty? Don't answer that. Date men. Older men, who are like - two steps too ugly to think they can date you. The pretty ones are just for looking at and maybe making out with behind the bar,” she finished, somewhat grandly. “Not for remembering their names.”

“Well,” she said, with smug self-satisfaction as she reached for another cookie, settling down more comfortably and finally turning her eyes to the dogs, “there are worse brains to pick, that's for sure.”