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"  Emily liked to be told what to do only when fully clothed. Her choice to grant me veto power over her suitors came after several weeks of negotiating the terms of our breakup. She wanted me to stop showing up at her apartment with sugar-free chocolates and I didn&amp;#039;t want her to replace me with a cornball. Dude spent the first five minutes of the date telling me about his installation project. Something about a loft in Williamsburg full of electronic homosexual mastodons set on the Lower East Side in the late 1970&amp;#039;s. His idea: Mastodon meat was a food source for early human beings, which parallels how conservatives feasted off the panic caused by the onset of the New York AIDS epidemic to sway voters. Dude whined about how the project drained his savings. But I could tell by how he held his knife and fork that his pedigree was wealthy New England (I googled him after I found out his name. His father owned a candle company). Plus, I&amp;#039;d seen his mighty mouse t-shirt at a vintage shop for forty bucks. Dude was no Oliver Twist. Emily offered ideas on how the mastodons should move. Maybe stuff buckles and bends to illustrate the corruption of New York politicians. Maybe graceful bows and slides to represent how easily the electorate can be manipulated. Poor Emily was so convinced that I wouldn&amp;#039;t veto Dude that she held his hand while proposing suggestions. Hand-holding was a first. There&amp;#039;d been tap-kisses and back-rubs on previous dates. But never a hand-hold. I think she liked Dude because of how broke he pretended to be. That&amp;#039;s why she initially liked me. I met her outside of a concert while collecting cigarette butts out of the gutter. My bobble-head doll company had gone bust. Emily told me the next morning that broke guys made great lovers. Only broke people know how to give. Dude would really never own the fact that he had money. He&amp;#039;d never give. He&amp;#039;d continue to complain about limited cash-flow and he&amp;#039;d drive Emily and me insane. So when she grabbed Dude&amp;#039;s hand I knew I&amp;#039;d veto him at dinner instead of waiting the decided 24-hour grace period. Didn&amp;#039;t want Emily to get too attached.  The problem with Emily&amp;#039;s suitors is that they always exaggerated their personalities. They didn&amp;#039;t mind being tropes. All I wanted for Emily was a man unafraid of his own complexity. Someone who&amp;#039;d admit to coming from candle company money then admitting that he&amp;#039;d spent the dough making political art. I stared at their latched hands then jerked my head away from the table. Emily let go of Dude&amp;#039;s plaster-covered fingers. &amp;quot;I have to veto you, Dude,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;Sorry for the inconvenience.&amp;quot; Dude stared at Emily to see if she&amp;#039;d override. Emily stared down at the grilled chicken salad I&amp;#039;d ordered for her. &amp;quot;What happened to the 24-hour grace period?&amp;quot; Dude asked. &amp;quot;I saw your t-shirt for $40.&amp;quot; I patted Emily on the back. &amp;quot;You probably have a trust fund.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That money,&amp;quot; Dude said, &amp;quot;is an investment in my children&amp;#039;s future.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He never touches his savings,&amp;quot; Emily said. &amp;quot;No contradictions, Emily.&amp;quot; I removed our post breakup contract from my briefcase. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s rule number 16.&amp;quot;  Emily whispered something in Dude&amp;#039;s ear. He kissed her on the cheek and walked away from the table. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t have veto power anymore.&amp;quot; She took the contract from my hands. Ripped it slowly in half. &amp;quot;Stop that,&amp;quot; I said before Emily got up and left the restaurant. Standing in front of the restaurant, I stood with my eyes fixed on the ground. Partly because I couldn&amp;#039;t bear to look at Emily but also because I needed a smoke. &amp;quot;I LOVE YOU,&amp;quot; I finally said. Neither of us had ever said it before. Emily laughed. Took a step toward me. I thought she&amp;#039;d hug me and tell me to tell her what to do again. Instead she patted me on the back. Then Dude pulled up on his Vespa and drove Emily away.  A teenager wearing a t-shirt down to his knees and a baseball cap twice the size of his head walked past me. I asked if I could bum the smoke tucked behind his ear. He nodded. After he lit the smoke for me he asked, &amp;quot;Whaddya say?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Huh?&amp;quot; I asked. &amp;quot;Whaddya say when someone gives you something?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Thank you,&amp;quot; I said.  He adjusted the collar of my shirt and handed me a crumpled dollar bill.  Juan Martinez is a freelance writer and a MFA fiction candidate at Columbia University. He is working on a novel. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a4196/juan-martinez-napkin-fiction/>