Lauren made a face. “You never let Dave take any nude pictures of you, right?”

“Of course not! Would you ever let Michael take nudie pictures of you?”

Lauren mysteriously smiled. “I’ll never tell.” We laughed.

Suddenly growing serious, she fingered her empty wineglass. “Things are just good for me right now—with the new house, with Michael, and with work. Everything I’ve been striving for is finally happening.” She pulled out a small brown gift bag from her purse. “But enough about all this crazy stuff. I brought you a little present.”

“Oh, really?” I was so thrilled that as I took the bag my eyes almost welled up with tears. No one had given me a present or done anything sweet like this for me for such a long time. Dave was always giving me presents, just a note or something funny, but when all those little things stopped I realized how much I missed the little stuff, too.

Carefully opening the inner tissue, I discovered two red candles. “Wow, thanks!” I exclaimed. Secretly, I thought they were an odd choice, because I didn’t have any red in my house.

“They’re for feng shui,” Lauren explained. “Do you know where the southwest corner of your place is? You’re supposed to light them in that corner and they will bring romance and passion into your life.”

“Really?” I asked suspiciously. “Does this stuff work?”

“Absolutely. Paula Abdul attributes her success on American Idol to feng shui. She says she had someone come in and do her whole house, and right after that was when everything took off.”

“But we agree Paula Abdul seems totally whacked, right?” I raised an eyebrow.

“She’s totally crazy. But feng shui works, I swear.”

“Okay. I’ll go home and burn them tonight. Maybe Grant will pick up on the love vibe.”

Now Lauren got animated. “Okay, tell me about what’s going on with the guy.”

I gave her a quick report, cutting out a few bits here and there to make me seem a little less desperate.

But Lauren was staring at me as if I were a total nut job. “You broke into his e-mail?”

“That’s beside the point. He was two-timing me.”

“Wouldn’t you actually have to be together . . . you know . . . actually be boyfriend-slash-girlfriend to be two-timed?”

“You know what I’m talking about. He took me out on a Wednesday, kissed me at the valet, and told me he would phone, and then he called a lesbian.”

“All guys are into the lesbian thing.”

“But he finds that more interesting than me. I’m just someone who wore a twinset on our first date.”

“A lesbian somehow has promise for guys. It’s a fantasy for them, like having sex with twins. All guys want twins,” Lauren said with authority.