Odd that just yesterday I wrote about my sadness over losing Pauline’s friendship and then today she showed up at the warehouse! Her smile seemed sheepish, and I guess she felt embarrassed about letting our friendship fall to the wayside. She’d brought along a small box of ginger cookies and she set them on the table where I keep the paints. I think the cookies were a peace offering. Then she stood back to look at the mural. She said, “Why, it’s a masterpiece!” which ordinarily would have pleased me, but I didn’t want her to study it too closely. I stood in front of the Tea Party ladies where the motorcycle cut through their dresses, masking it from her eyes. Jesse’d told me I was playing with fire, leaving the motorcycle in the painting, and in that moment, I realized how right he was and how foolish I’d been. I’m not as sane as I thought.

I swept forward, slipping my arm through Pauline’s as though we are still great and intimate pals, and steered her away from the mural. I asked about how she was fixing up her house for the baby, which I know is her favorite topic, and I could hear my nervousness as I spoke and my fake enthusiasm. I wondered if my question sounded as false to her ears as it did to mine.

I sat her down in the chair by Jesse’s easel and moved the other chair—the one I still thought of as Peter’s—close to her, picking up the box of cookies along the way. She said nothing, but simply obeyed me by taking a seat.

I told her how much I missed spending time with her, and my fingers shook as I struggled with the string on the cardboard box. My heart pounded with the lie about missing her. How could I miss a woman who had almost certainly spread a rumor about Jesse and me to her husband?

She claimed to miss me, too, but I thought her smile, too, seemed insincere.

We chatted for a bit, but it was nothing like the early days of our friendship when she shared confidences and her deepest feelings. I thought we both knew we were now playing a game.

After eating a cookie and filling the air with a mundane recitation of the curtains she was now making for her living room windows, Pauline got to her feet and began strolling idly through the area of the warehouse where I work. Her belly protrudes somewhat. She is a couple of months ahead of me, I think. Looking at her, I wonder how long I’ll be able to mask my own pregnancy.

She asked me what it’s been like, painting in the warehouse.