“—but she knew I did, so that was a waste of breath. So, I just let her talk.”

“I bet that was fun.”

“Actually, it was interesting.”

“Janis?”

“What she said. I thought she was going to give me both barrels, and she started out that way, like she was about to scream at me and call me a whore, but then she just went calm.”

“‘Went calm’?” asked Todd.

“Yes,” said Sara. “She went calm. Her voice changed and then she said:

*  *  *

“I’m not going to warn you off or any nonsense like that. I’m just going to ask you to do me one favor.”

“What?” said Sara, anticipating a Go fuck yourself. Maybe not that: Janis never swore. Go screw yourself, then.

“I don’t see why I should be the one who has to do all the work. I want you to call the house and tell Todd I’m leaving him.”

“You want me to—”

“Yes,” said Janis. “I figure you owe me that at least. Can you do that, Sara? It’s not much to ask after what you did. Call Todd up and tell him I’m leaving.”

“I can do that.”

“Great. Oh, and Sara? When you’ve done that—”

“Yes?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

*  *  *

“Janis said that?” Todd repeated, amazed. “Janis told you to go fuck yourself?”

“She did,” Sara replied. “But I think she mostly wanted me to convey to you the fact that she is leaving you.”

“Because of us? You and me?”

“No, Todd,” said Sara. “Because of you.” And she rang off.

*  *  *

Todd sat in front of the TV with a beer. There was nothing on TV but afternoon soaps and even Todd couldn’t make a case for afternoon soaps having stories or characters that any writer could learn from (although one episode of As The World Turns contained more ideas, plot and character development than all of Todd’s unpublished work to date). So Todd sat there, suckling at his beer like a baby, waiting for someone to do something.

Todd liked to tell the gang that there were two kinds of people in the world, those who do and those who don’t. Todd was a do-er and they were don’t-ers. The fact that Joe was a high school teacher, the fact that Mike had two jobs because his mother was in an expensive nursing home, and the fact that Billy was the only one of the gang who’d ever had anything published—these things were irrelevant. There were do-ers and don’t-ers, and Todd was a do-er.