I did, I loved it and because of that, the way it made me feel when I was with him … Tommy … it began to overtake me. Made me willing to do anything … to take risks … risks that no one should ever take—certainly not a teacher of children, a married teacher of children with several service awards under her belt and a respected place in the community … no … there is no reason at all to be doing what I was doing and yet there I was … doing it … things … sneaking around town, meeting up like teenagers in the back of my car and … and … and … no. You know what? That is not at all true. It isn’t. We met up, Tommy and I, through all of those months … in plain sight. We did. Right out there under everybody’s nose … and why is that? Do you know why we were able to do it that way? Hmmm? Do you? You’re looking at it. The reason. “Me.” People saw us together, many times—school and in the parking lot … at a bookstore one time and at lunch even … two towns over—and not once did anyone bat an eye at us, not one single suspicious eyelash … because of me … how people saw me … felt about me. My hair. My clothes. My life. (Imitating someone.) “Them? No way! I mean, no way could there be anything going on between those two. It’s just not possible!” That was the image I projected as a person … a woman … a sexual being. (Beat.) I was married to Eric and that was that … and all that could ever be. That was who I am. (Beat.) And that very thing allowed Tommy and me to carry on … the way we did … in public … out in the open … in broad daylight. I mean, what young man in his right mind would ever want an older woman, an older married woman like me? Hmmmm? WHO? (Smiles.) Who indeed?

Another sip. She carefully replaces the glass and takes a beat again before she continues: