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that’s the worst approach. I would just urge you to spend a little time alone. Focus on yourself—do what you want, when you want, without having to consider anyone else’s agenda.”
    “If you even start on that bullshit about two halves not making a whole or something, I’m going to puke.”
    “You know I’m right. Take some time just for you. Re-center your notion of self. Rediscover who you are.”
    “In other words, be single.” Easy for her to advise from the arms of her loving husband , Emmy thought.
    “Does it really sound so dreadful? You’ve had back-to-back relationships since you were eighteen.” What she didn’t say was obvious: And that hasn’t exactly worked out.
    Emmy sighed and glanced at the clock. “I know, I know. I appreciate the advice, Izzie, really I do, but I’ve got to run. Leigh and Adriana are taking me out for the big you’re-better-off-without-him dinner tonight and I have to get ready. Talk to you tomorrow?”
    “I’ll call your cell later tonight from the hospital, sometime after midnight when things slow down. Have a few drinks tonight, okay? Go clubbing. Kiss a stranger. Just please don’t meet your next boyfriend.”
    “I’ll try,” Emmy promised. Just then, Otis screeched the same word four times in a row.
    “What’s he saying?” Izzie asked.
    “ Panties . He keeps saying panties .”
    “Should I even ask?”
    “No, you most definitely should not.”
     

    For the very first time since Leigh had moved into her building, Adriana beat Leigh to the lobby. She did so out of necessity: Adriana had returned from a relaxing day at the salon—date with the hot stranger arranged for the following weekend—to discover that her parents had all but taken over her apartment. Technically speaking it was their apartment, but considering they only stopped by for a few weeks a year, she felt justified in thinking of it as exclusively her home, where they were guests. Impossible, dreaded guests. If they didn’t like the authentic African zebra skins she had selected to replace their boring Oriental rugs or the way she’d arranged for all the lights, shades, and electronic equipment to work by remote control, well, that wasn’t her problem. And no one, not even her parents, could claim they actually preferred their hand-chiseled, specially imported Italian marble shower and hot tub to the ultramodern rainfall shower, sauna, and steam room she’d replaced them with in the master bath. No sane person, at least. Which is precisely why Adriana had to dress and flee as quickly as possible: In four short hours, her sleek sanctuary had become a strife-ridden ring of hell.
    Not that she didn’t love them, of course. Her papa was getting older and, at this point in his life, much more mellow than he’d been when Adriana was growing up. He seemed content to let his wife call the shots, and rarely insisted on anything beyond his nightly Cuban and the tradition that each and every one of his children—three from his first wife, three from his second, and Adriana with his current, and hopefully last, wife—reunite at the Rio de Janeiro compound for the weeks before and after Christmas. The opposite had proven true for her mother. Although Mrs. de Souza had been relaxed and accepting of Adriana’s teen years and all her sex-and-drug experimentation, her liberal attitude did not extend to unmarried twenty-nine-year-old daughters—especially those whose predilection for sex and drugs could no longer be called “experimental.” It wasn’t that she didn’t understand good living; she was Brazilian, after all. Eating (low-fat, low-cal), drinking (bottle after bottle of expensive white wine), loving (when one can’t conceivably feign yet another headache)—these were the very essences of life. To be conducted, of course, under the proper circumstances: as a carefree young girl and then not again until after one had found and claimed an appropriate husband. She had traveled and