“What a shit-bag!” said Marianne. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got this. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet,” said Annie. Her heart began to pound as she realized she had no plan beyond the next two days she had booked at the hotel. “Can you remind Max to feed Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle?” Annie asked. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle was her cat.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Marianne.

“Don’t I sound okay?” said Annie.

“Well, yes,” said Marianne. “You sound a bit too okay. A bit manic. Like you’ve taken speed or something.”

Annie laughed. The sound was high-pitched. “I’m fine!” Annie said, a little too brightly. “Really! Absolutely fine!”

She looked around her hotel room, knowing that every room in the building would be identical; generic “modern art” canvas above the bed, satin silver bed runner to break the expanse of white linen, a brown faux leather chair in one corner, and walls painted in a pale gray, which would no doubt be called something ridiculous like Husky Shimmer. There was a desk along one wall with a hair dryer, a travel kettle, and two cups on a plastic tray, and above it a flat-screen TV. It was the traveling salesman’s home away from home, the hen-party haven, and now, a wronged wife’s bolt-hole.

“Do you want me to come over?” asked Marianne.

“No, no. Don’t be silly. Somebody’s got to run the kitchen.”

And then, almost as if her voice were speaking without her brain’s permission, she found herself saying: “They were on table nine, you see. I chose that sofa. I picked the color out of a book of swatches. And the weird thing is, when I caught them, I kept thinking, What about the velvet? Semen is a hell of stain to get out. That’s mad, isn’t it? What kind of a woman worries about stains when she walks in on her husband screwing another woman?”

There was a silence on the line for a moment.

“Your silence suggests you think I’m bonkers,” said Annie.

“Sorry,” said Marianne. “I got sidetracked there. I was trying to remember which supermarket sells a product that claims to remove semen.”

“From velvet?” asked Annie.

“From anything, I think,” said Marianne.

“Good lord!” said Annie.

“And if it doesn’t work, we can always get it reupholstered.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at table nine without feeling completely humiliated,” said Annie.

“Then we’ll skip reupholstering and go straight to burning!” said Marianne. “We’ll have a ceremonial burning of table nine in the courtyard.”

“I’m not sure burning sofas is very environmentally friendly,” said Annie.

“We could build effigies of Max and Ellie and burn them along with it. Like the ultimate closure!”