I wanted to know where she was going. I wanted to know who she was seeing. I’d crossed some line myself here, from following her to make sure she was okay, to following her to find out what she was up to. Because, at some level, I was scared about the choices she might be making, and that if they were choices I didn’t approve of, scared by how little influence I might have to stop them.

She guided the Camry into our old neighborhood. And then Angie was turning down our old street. I hung way back, not wanting to get caught in the act by her a second time. It was starting to look, and this didn’t make any sense to me at all, as though she was going to turn into the driveway of our old house.

But then she drove past it, slowed, and turned into the driveway two doors down.

She was parking the car at Trixie’s house.

Angie was making a stop at the home of the friendly neighborhood dominatrix. During office hours.

Angie got out of the car, locked it, knocked on Trixie’s door, and a moment later, was admitted and disappeared.

Chapter 16

16

I had a good friend once, Sarah and I would hang out with him and his wife every once in a while, and we’d always have a good time. We’d do dinner, maybe a movie, sometimes just go to each other’s houses and have a few drinks. And one night he phoned me, late, after Sarah had gone to bed, and told me he’d been seeing someone else, for more than a year, and that he wasn’t sure, but he might be in love with her, and I thought: Why did you tell me this? Did I really need to know?

I was his friend, and he needed to talk, but the honest-to-God truth was, I’d have been much happier being kept in the dark. I didn’t want to know that he was cheating on his wife. It shattered some illusions, first of all. I thought everyone was as happy as Sarah and I. (This was, of course, before she became saddled with me as an underling at work.) I dreaded the next time we’d all get together, the four of us, and have to pretend, when I engaged in small talk with his wife, that I did not know what I knew. Because the knowledge seemed to carry with it the burden of responsibility. Should I tell his wife? No, of course not, I told myself. Don’t get involved. But knowing something that she did not know, something that intimately affected her, overshadowed every moment of conversation. Part of me resented my friend after that. He’d implicated me in his indiscretion. He’d made me a part of his deception.