A few feet away, Janis heard the crash and looked out the window to see her future ex-husband trying to clamber to his feet and cover his face as he skulked back to his car.

“Leave him,” said her companion as they watched Todd brush garbage off himself and get back into the Volvo.

Janis, out of pure reflex, was about to defend Todd, but no words came, so she just smiled and shrugged.

“You are so beautiful when you smile,” said her companion, and Janis smiled again.

*  *  *

Todd didn’t even wait until he got home before calling Pete Fenton. He pulled over by the curb and jammed himself into a phone box.

“He’s not here right now,” said Pete’s secretary, Alice. “He’ll be back after lunch.”

“Can I leave a message?” said Todd.

“Sure,” said Alice. “What would you like me to tell him?”

“Tell him my wife’s fucking some other guy.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, then Alice said frostily, “I’ll be sure to pass that on,” and put the phone down.

*  *  *

Todd drove to a bar to think things over. This time, remembering the drunken mess of two nights ago, he stuck to beer and, after even more thought, ordered some peanuts to soak up the booze. The problem as Todd saw it was one of fairness. Janis was divorcing him for—ugly word—adultery. That is, she knew he was fucking Sara, which by her lights was not only an offense, but a good reason for her to take all his money. Todd could understand her anger at the former—maybe if she’d been a little more willing in the bedroom department he might not have had to go elsewhere for his pleasure—but not the latter. Where for example in the Bible did it say that someone who had successfully coveted his neighbor’s wife should pay for it financially? It didn’t make any sense. “Hey, you fucked someone else, you have to give me all your money.” People committed murder and they got to keep their money, didn’t they? It was all wrong.

And what made it even more tits-up topsy-turvy was that this only applied to the man. Todd was a feminist as much as anyone, but surely this was discrimination. The man dips his wick, he gets caught, he has to pay a substantial fine known as alimony. The woman—whatever “dipping her wick” would be for a woman—the woman plays away from home, and what happens? She gets the alimony. The whole thing was like playing heads or tails with a two-headed coin. Whichever way it came down, the man lost. And the man in this case was Todd. Shit, he thought, if I’d known I was going to get screwed this badly, I’d have fucked every woman in this town.