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WITH DANNY MASTERS.
    I rolled my eyes again. “Man, you do dream big. How ’bout I just meet him and shake his hand? Hell, I’ll settle for holding the door of his taxicab open for him.”
    “Please, Sunny—you think he takes a   cab ?” said Georgie.
    “Whatever. How ’bout we just go out for coffee?”
    “Nope,” said Theo. “You wanna jump his bones and you know it.”
    “I also wanna jump Rob Lowe’s bones, the guy from   White Collar ’s, and all of Duran Duran’s—not all at once, of course. That doesn’t mean I believe it would or could ever happen. Not to mention thatthey’re all married.”
    “Or gay,” Georgie added. “And why not?”
    “Which one is gay?”
    Georgie waved a hand in impatience. “Whatever. Of all the celebrities in the world—”
    “—and who says I have to sleep with a celebrity?”
    “—I’d say Danny Masters is the one you have the best chance to be with.”
    “Who lives on the other side of the country...”
    “So? Get on a plane,” said Theo.
    “And doesn’t know I exist.”
    “You’ll have to work on that without becoming Creepy Stalker Woman,” said Georgie.
    “Why do you think I have the best chance to be with him?” I asked, despite my having made amental list of answers many times over.
    “For starters, you’re both writers—and I don’t care what you say; I hold your stuff up to his anyday of the week and twice on Sunday. You’re both from New York, and the part of New York that counts. You share the same birthday, and you’re only five years apart in age,” said  Theo. She sounded like afictional TV lawyer during opening arguments.
    “Danny Masters also happens to be a recovering alcoholic, a self-described control freak,divorced with a child, and hopelessly in love with Charlene Dumont.”
    “Who might very well be nothing more than a rather convincing drag queen,” said Georgie. “Besides, you’re basing this characterization on, what, the Internet? ’Cause that’s always right.” Hisvoice was laced with sarcasm.
    “I am not going to sleep with Danny Masters within the next forty weeks.”

    “Well, I ain’t crossin’ it off, so you’ll just have to.”
    “You know, I don’t wanna be some fangirl,” I said. “I respect Danny Masters. I respect his writing and I admire his career.”
    “And you find him attractive,” Theo pointed out.
    “I find lots of men attractive.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with you admitting that you like a guy,” she pressed.
    “There’s a big difference between liking a guy and having a crush on someone you’ve only seen on TV or in a magazine or whatever. The first behavior is real. The second is juvenile.”
    I knew whom I was really trying to convince.
    “Thing is, Sunny. I don’t think it’s just a crush for you. Call me crazy, but I think you genuinely like this guy. I don’t think he’s superhuman, and I think if he met you, he’d genuinely like you too.”
    Damn Theo and her sharing of my brain.
    I persisted. “This is someone who has rubbed elbows with everyone from Robert Redford to Paul McCartney  to Barack Obama. He’s made something of his life. He travels the world. He probably spends in a week what I make in a year.” I sneezed before continuing. “And as you so aptly pointed out, anything I’ve learned about him via the Internet and the corporate media is highly suspect. So how can I make any kind of assessment as to whether this is someone I’d actually like to date or could be compatible with?”
    “Sunny, if Danny Masters ever got a look at you, I’m sure he’d want to get to know you, provided you’re wearing the sweater we just bought you and not dressed for work,” said Georgie. “Besides, at one time he was just another fucked-up Long Islander like you and me.”
    I shook my head rapidly, as if trying to shake off the wish for it to be so. “It’s never gonna happen.”
    “Why?” they both asked.
    “Under what circumstances would