A comrade in confusion, Sophie is always worried. For you, about you, without you. Go ahead, list off your busy-ness, run your impossible schedule by her. If it's sympathy you're looking for, Sophie complies.

She's high strung, though, and her zealous support soon sends you over the edge.  It's reverse therapy--before you know it, you're comforting HER, relating the worst-case scenario, pacifying the poor panicky thing. In the process, you convince yourself, and realize that she's done it again; you are calm, confident, and on your way.

When things really do go wrong, the kinds of things we can't tell even our best friends, Sophie never thinks it's silly. She can relate. To things like mis-setting your alarm clock on the other side of a time zone; to blanking out on the client's name, to bungling well-rehearsed first lines; to discovering at the hotel desk that your credit card is dead;  to forgetting your hosiery, your ticket, your passport--to forgetting the whole thing.

But just look at her. You can't let her worry like that. Chewing her fingers, crossing her toes, wrinkling her little brown brow, spinning her eyes. Go ahead, take her into your arms, and tell her the truth: everything's going to be all right.

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