She guessed Otis’s new diet, which included only nutrient-rich whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, had gone a long way toward alleviating some of his body-image issues as well. Adriana purchased a bulk supply of highly nutritious quinoa and supplemented it with organic berries, carrots, and – for calcium’s sake – twice-weekly servings of Greek yogurt. Once Adriana discovered that Otis preferred the taste of Fiji artesian water to both Evian and Poland Spring, she replenished his bottle three times daily to ensure he was flushing out all his toxins. A trip to the avian groomer for a bath, a conditioning mist, and a toenail clip had completed his rejuvenation regimen.
What a difference a little indulgence made! Adriana made a mental note of this, should she ever doubt the importance of pampering herself (however unlikely that was). Otis was like a new bird. He sang, he chirped, he bopped his head in rhythm to the bossa nova music constantly playing in the apartment. In just one week he’d graduated from aggressive beast banished to the bathroom to sweet-natured playmate who liked curling up on the couch. This morning he had demonstrated just how far he’d come when, finally, he responded correctly to Adriana’s relentless coaching.
‘Okay, Otis, now try to focus, querido,’ she cooed as she pulled a hand mirror out from her night table. They walked into the living room and sat together on the floor, where Otis happily pecked a carrot and Adriana coached him on his new vocab words.
‘Now, I’m going to show you the mirror, and you’re going to tell me who you see, okay? Remember, you’re a smart, beautiful bird who has nothing to be ashamed of. Are you ready?’
Otis continued to munch.
Adriana moved the mirror in front of his face and held her breath. They were close, she could feel it, but so far Otis hadn’t been able to move beyond screaming ‘Fatty!’ at the sight of his own reflection. She held the mirror very still and waited, willing him to say the right words.
He was clearly entranced with himself – a good sign if there ever was one – as his wing feathers puffed up a bit and his beak parted ever so slightly. He appeared to be pleased with what he saw, although of course there was no way to tell. C’mon, Adriana willed, you can do it! And then, sure enough, with his head cocked and his eyes gleaming, Otis cawed, ‘Pretty girl!’
Adriana almost fainted with excitement. ‘Oh, now that’s a good boy!’ she said in enthusiastic baby talk. ‘What a good boy you are! Does the good boy want a treat?’
She’d decided to give Otis a little leeway on his gender confusion – for now, at least. There was time enough for everything, and it was his crushing lack of self-esteem that had had her most worried.
‘Grape!’ Otis cawed, clearly delighted. ‘Pretty girl! Grape! Pretty girl! Grape!’ He shimmied up and down Adriana’s calf as he called out the words.
‘One pesticide-free grape, coming right up for … for who? Who gets the grape? The pretty boy gets the grape!’ Adriana hoisted him onto the couch arm and headed toward the kitchen. She was just reaching inside the fridge for the bowl when the phone rang.
‘Hello?’ Adriana said with a twinge of irritation at the interruption. She wedged the portable between her shoulder and chin while arranging a few grapes on an appetizer plate.
‘Adriana?’ a breathless female voice asked through the handset.
Callers who refused to identify themselves before demanding to know your name were a pet peeve of Adriana’s, but she willed herself to be polite. ‘This is she. Who, may I ask, is calling?’
‘Adriana, it’s Mackenzie. Hi, sweetheart! Listen, I have some phenomenal news. Are you sitting down?’
Phenomenal news sounds good, Adriana thought with anticipation. Phenomenal news sounded like Elaine had decided to post one (or maybe more!) of her essays on the Marie Claire Web site. Phenomenal news might even mean that Elaine had adored Adriana so much that she planned to feature her as a regular monthly contributor on the site, complete with a splashy link on the home page and (naturally) a tastefully posed headshot of the author herself. Author! Who would’ve ever imagined that she, Adriana de Souza, was about to embark on a career … as an author! And one who would surely garner thousands, if not millions, of hits every day. Girls would be forwarding her column link to all their friends, attaching to it little notes that read, ‘Check this out’ and ‘so true’ and ‘how funny is this,’ while men would stealthily visit the site to gaze adoringly at Adriana’s author photo and perhaps pick up a pointer or two from the enemy camp. It was almost too fabulous to fathom.
‘I’m sitting, I’m sitting,’ she said, trying to keep the squeal out of her voice.
‘Well, I just got out of a meeting with Elaine.’ Pause. ‘She was very impressed with you.’
‘She was?’
‘Very. I’ve worked here for almost nine years, and I don’t think I’ve seen her this on board with a pitch, ever.’
‘Really? So that means she’s going to publish one of the columns on the Web site?’ Clearly it was true, but Adriana needed to hear the actual words. She was already thinking ahead to whom she would tell first. The girls? Toby? Her mother?
There was another pause, just long enough to pique Adriana’s anxiety before Mackenzie said, ‘Um, actually, that’s not what she was thinking.’
Not what she was thinking? But she loved it! Adriana wanted to scream. You said so yourself! How could I have so misjudged the situation? she wondered as she rejoined Otis on the couch and balanced the grape plate between her knees. She stroked his back as he joyfully attacked the fruit. Then she began deconstructing the whole stupid idea. American women were never going to change – hell, they’d been on this empowered-female kick for decades now – so what was the point, anyway? Besides, who needed that kind of exposure? Publicity was one thing, but Web-based exposure, what with all those tacky Web site designs and undesirable lurkers … yuck. It made her skin crawl just thinking of it. It was time to put an end to this silliness once and for all.
‘Oh, no? How unfortunate,’ her voice oozed with insincerity. ‘Well, I do appreciate your calling to—’
‘Adriana! Just shut up for a second and listen. It’s true that Elaine isn’t interested in the Web site articles, but that’s only because – are you ready for this? – she wants to make you a regularly featured columnist! Can you believe it?’
‘A what?’
‘A regularly featured columnist.’
‘Columnist?’ Adriana asked again. Her brain was refusing to process the word.
‘Yes! In the print magazine.’
‘Which one did she choose?’
‘Adriana, I’m not sure you’re understanding me. She chose all of them! I think she wants to start with ‘I Was Just Being Friendly,’ but we’re going to run them all eventually.’
‘All of them?’
‘One a month. Every month. Depending on reader reaction, which she and I both think will be fantastic, we’re going to make it a regular feature each and every month. We’re going to call it ‘The Brazilian Girl’s Guide to Man Handling.’’
‘Ohmigod. Oh. My. God.’ Adriana had completely abandoned all attempts at coolness, but she didn’t care.
‘I know! It’s phenomenal. Listen, I’ve got to run to a meeting, but I’m going to have my assistant call you to make all the arrangements for your photo shoot. We’re closing the March issue in two weeks, so it’s going to be a rush, but timing-wise it’s nothing we haven’t done before. Sound good?’
‘Perfect,’ Adriana murmured.
‘Oh, and Adriana? Jack called last night to ask me out for this weekend, and—’
This snapped Adriana out of her reverie. ‘Last night? A Thursday? Who does he think you are? Some loser who just sits around and waits for him to call? You absolutely cannot—’
Mackenzie laughed. ‘Can you just shut up for a minute? I told him I was completely booked all weekend even though the only thing on my entire schedule is lunch with my mother on Saturday, and’ – she paused here and took a breath – ‘he said he wasn’t hangin
g up until I gave him a night next week that worked. We’re going out Tuesday. He already made reservations.’
‘Querida! I’m so proud of you. You’re ready to write the column yourself!’ Adriana was genuinely pleased at this development. Not only did it speak volumes to her own skills and advice, but from what little she knew about Mackenzie, it seemed like she was a woman deserving of a solid, adoring man. This was all good news.
Mackenzie laughed, sounding so happy and excited that Adriana was almost a teensy bit jealous. She remembered what it was like to get that excited over a new guy.
‘No, I’ll still leave that up to the professional. But it might make a good introduction for your first column: a little true-story vignette about how your magic works on even the most embittered, stubbornly single magazine editor in all of Manhattan.’
‘Previously embittered, soon-to-be-not-single magazine editor,’ Adriana reminded her.
‘Fair enough. Okay, I’m running. Talk later?’
‘Sounds good. Thank you soooo much, querida. Ciao!’
Adriana collapsed into the couch and motioned for Otis to join her. He gave an obliging little chirp and hopped to Adriana’s lap. He nudged her hand for a grape, but Adriana was already dialing again.
‘Leigh Eisner’s office,’ her bored-sounding assistant said.
‘Hi, Annette, it’s Adriana. Can you put Leigh on for me, please?’
‘I don’t have her right now. Can I have her return?’
Adriana was not in the mood to deal with the assistant’s lingo.
‘Well, my dear, you’ll have to get her. It’s an emergency.’
‘Hold, please,’ Annette said curtly.
Leigh’s exasperated voice came on the line a moment later. ‘An emergency?’ she asked. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re calling because everywhere is sold out of your favorite Molton Brown body wash again. Wasn’t that last week’s “emergency”?’
‘You are not going to believe this,’ Adriana sang, ignoring Leigh entirely. ‘You are really not going to believe this.’
‘Ohmigod! Are they all out of their scented candles, too? What’s a girl to do?’ she squealed.
‘Would you please shut up? I am calling you as a friend, not a frustrated shopper. Silly me figured you might be interested to hear that I might be featured in the March issue of Marie Claire.’
Leigh yawned audibly on the other end. ‘Mmm, really? Congratulations. This will make it, what, like the eleven hundredth time they pick up one of your modeling shots? Or do you mean the party pages? In that case, it must be the eleven thousandth time.’
‘You’re being a bitch,’ Adriana stated. ‘If you would just stop talking, I’d tell you that it has nothing to do with headshots or party pictures. I’m going to be a columnist.’
Leigh stopped giving whispered instructions to her assistant midsentence and was absolutely quiet for a full twenty seconds. ‘You’re what?’ she finally asked.
‘You heard me. I’m going to be a columnist. A regularly featured columnist, in the print edition. It’s going to be called ‘The Brazilian Girl’s Guide to Man Handling,’ and it’s going to give advice on how to deal with men.’
‘You mean seduce them.’
‘Yes, of course I mean seduce them! What else do women want to know? It’s not going to be easy, and I, for one, don’t think they could’ve found a better person for the job.’
‘Me, neither,’ Leigh murmured. She sounded not just sincere but impressed, and Adriana couldn’t keep from smiling. ‘Adriana, honey, I don’t think it’s too soon to say it, and I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life: A star has been born.’
Emmy sighed deeply as she turned the faucet off with her foot and closed her eyes, allowing her chest and legs to submerge completely. She’d been in the hotel tub for thirty minutes already, alternately dozing and reading under a relaxing stream of hot water that she drained and refreshed every few minutes. She didn’t care that her hands were pruning, or that the sheen of sweat on her forehead had begun to run down the sides of her face, or that she was being quite irresponsible, environmentally speaking. What did any of that matter when she could lie there on New Year’s Day after a long, wonderful night of drinking and lovemaking, and feel this peaceful and relaxed?
His name was Rafi something or other, and he was a dream. Emmy had been shocked to see how many things had changed in the fifteen years since she’d been to Israel, but thankfully the magnificence of their men wasn’t one of them. If anything, they were even more adorable now, all the young strapping soldiers in uniform and their handsome older brothers who seemed in far better shape at thirty or even forty than their American counterparts. Everywhere she turned, she was met with olive-skinned, dark-haired, beautifully muscled specimens, and among this embarrassment of riches, Rafi was one of the finest.
They’d met two days earlier, a Thursday, at a Tel Aviv restaurant called Yotvata. It was an institution in Israel, a casual, happy place right on the city’s beachfront promenade that specialized in massive, creative salads and delicious fruit-and-yogurt smoothies. All of the restaurant’s ingredients came directly from its namesake kibbutz on the Jordan-Israel border in the Aravah Valley.
Emmy hadn’t needed to think twice when Chef Massey requested she submit a list of lesser-known areas and cuisines that might serve as inspiration for the new upscale lunch place he was opening in London. She hadn’t eaten at Yotvata since the last time she’d been in Israel – at age thirteen for her own bat mitzvah, and then two years later for Izzie’s – but she still remembered it as some of the freshest, tastiest food she’d ever had. She outlined the restaurant’s dairy focus and the chef’s insistence on using only those fruits and vegetables grown organically.
Chef Massey loved it and asked her to accompany him on a scouting trip to Israel, where they would concentrate on expanding all of his current salad menu selections beyond the usual Caesar/Greek/mixed green in balsamic vinaigrette trifecta, and also explore different kinds of Middle Eastern cuisine. As far as Emmy was concerned, anything that got her out of New York City on New Year’s Eve was fine, and if her destination was Israel, it was a huge bonus. What she hadn’t counted on was Chef Massey bailing on their trip at the last moment, claiming he needed to be with his family when everyone really knew he was meeting his Pakistani model girlfriend in St. Barths. Emmy had feared her own trip was in jeopardy, but he’d sent her anyway.
Emmy had walked into the restaurant, expecting to endure a late lunch with the Israeli version of a typical American PR girl: well dressed, fast-talking, irritatingly upbeat. Instead she was escorted to a window table where she was joined by a Josh Duhamel clone with green eyes and the sexy swagger common among Israeli men. It took Emmy three seconds to notice that he was not wearing a wedding ring – a mandatory check but indicative of nothing – and another five minutes to establish that he didn’t have a girlfriend.
‘No girlfriend?’ Emmy had cooed, aware but not caring that she sounded positively cougar-like. ‘There must be so many pretty young things running around the kibbutz.’
Rafi laughed, and Emmy knew she would sleep with him.
Which she had, that night, and the morning after that, and the evening after that. They’d had sex exactly six times in the past day and a half, so often and enthusiastically that Emmy insisted on seeing Rafi’s driver’s license for herself.
‘My god, you’re not kidding. Nineteen-seventy-eight. I have never in my life met a man over twenty-one with that kind of stamina.’
He laughed again and kissed her belly. ‘It is a special skill,’ he said in an accent straight out of a movie.
‘I’ll say so,’ Emmy said, stretching out like a satisfied puppy atop the fluffy duvet, blissfully unselfconscious despite their nakedness. ‘Want to order breakfast in bed? I’m on an expense account.’
He feigned horror and wagged his finger in reprimand. ‘The Dan Hotel is good for many things … carpets, pillows, a beautiful pool, yes?
But it’s a crime to order breakfast from their kitchen when Yotvata is only steps away.’
‘I know, but those steps require me to shower and get dressed and go out in public.’ Emmy stuck out her bottom lip and widened her eyes in the most dramatic pout she could manage. ‘Do you want me to get out of bed?’
‘No, no. Just wait here.’ He disappeared into the bathroom.
Emmy heard the water running and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that he hadn’t invited her to join him. She had just lifted the phone to order room service when Rafi reappeared.
He held open a fluffy hotel robe and wrapped it around her with a huge hug before leading her to the bathroom.
‘For you, madam,’ he said, waving expansively. The tub was filled to capacity with steaming water and vanilla-scented bubbles; a half-dozen lit votives encircled the marble perimeter.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Emmy allowed her robe to drop from her shoulders to the floor and climbed into the tub. She let her feet acclimate and then crouched slowly until she was sitting. When she was finally able to submerge her entire body in the hot water, she closed her eyes and groaned with pleasure. ‘This feels amazing. Come keep me company.’