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know if you’re truly compatible with. How can you find a soul mate when you’re not sure of your own?”
    I adamantly defended myself. “I will use this time to figure out what I want from the rest of my life, but the thing I know for sure is that I want to be Adam’s wife. He’d make a great husband and father, and from what I know of him, he’s exactly the type of man that can give me what I want.”
    “Mona , you need to give yourself the life you want. How exactly are you going to discover who you are when you’re busy trying to find out who this person wants you to be?”
    I smiled sheepishly because Greta knew me well. I can’t even count how many times I wondered if Adam was looking for a pantsuit-wearing intellectual equal a la Katharine Hepburn in Adam’s Rib , a tomb-raiding Lara Croft, a small town girl like Mary Bailey, or a flighty Holly Golightly. Without my even telling her, Greta knew that my life makeover after shot would look a whole heck of a lot like Adam’s dream woman.
    I decided not to give an inch because she has a tendency to take any concession as an invitation for analysis. Despite her claims to the contrary, Greta is always at work. “Greta, looking for love doesn’t mean losing myself.”
    “I hate to be blunt about this, but you’re already quite lost, Mona,” she placed her hand on mine condescendingly. “You’ve had a tough road of it.”
    I withdrew my hand and took a sip of my coffee, which Judy never let go cold. “What’s wrong with my wanting to give my life a makeover? Like you said, I’ve had a tough road of it. What’s wrong with my forging ahead full steam to get what I want? It’s not like I’m hurting anyone.”
    “Changing yourself into who you think someone else wants is hurting yourself. It’s a rejection of who you are, and that’s toxic. You’re committing emotional suicide.”
    I rolled my eyes, wondering if Greta was thinking what I was—that the friendship we once had might not survive our thirties.
    Emotional suicide?! “Listen Greta, I know you’re trying to help, but your terms are a bit much. It’s not like I’m jumping off the Coronado Bridge, or anything.”
    “I stand behind my theory. Emotional suicide is exactly what you’re committing. Suppressing your true self may seem benign, but it slowly kills you.”
    I wondered if our friendship would survive this lunch.
    “How are you so sure that my plan to marry Adam will include morphing myself into Adam’s dream woman?” As soon as these words escaped, I regretted asking the question. I knew I’d provided her with at least a half dozen examples of times I became a chameleon for love.
    “Kenny Schneider,” Greta clipped. “Remember him from the Boys Academy? He loved fishing, so you became Little Miss Bait ’n’ Tackle? Exhibit B: Punk Rock Pete from La Jolla Country Day. Remember when you literally emptied the punk section of Tower Records so you would ‘understand him through his music’? Of course, this turned out to be a fruitless endeavor since you never uttered a single word to him! Shall I go on?”
    I waved my hand and smiled as though her recollections of my teen modus operandi had no bearing on today’s pursuit of Adam Ziegler.
    “Mona, I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but could it be that it’s easier to focus on someone other than yourself?”
    “Why don’t you do all of us a favor and write a self-help book and get all this out of your system? Frankly, it’s boring the life out of me.”
    I looked through a thick wool blanket hanging over a patio screen and noticed that a man in the apartment building next door was turning on his shower. What do people do that they can take showers at nearly noon? I’d soon find out. I smiled. Perhaps Greta had a point. Maybe I should spend this time trying to figure out who I am, instead of who Adam Ziegler might want me to be. But if who I want to be happens to overlap with who Adam wants me to be, then so be it. That