The tears spilled over and trickled down Lindsay’s cheeks. Less than five weeks before, Penny had been sitting on their deck knocking back Sierra Nevada amber ale and bemoaning the end of her relationship with Meredith Miller, the woman she’d been seeing for the previous five years. It had been a shocking conversation. If anyone had asked Lindsay who were the couple most likely to make it work, she’d have answered without hesitation, “Meredith and Penny.” They’d always seemed entirely compatible, a marriage of equals. Even Penny’s need to remain in the closet because of her huge market among teenagers in middle America hadn’t been a bone of contention; it was matched by Meredith’s own requirements. A computer scientist with a defense contractor, she had top-secret clearance, a grading she’d lose immediately her sexuality became known to her professionally paranoid bosses.

The two women had shared a tall Victorian house that had been divided into a duplex; Meredith lived in the two lower floors, Penny above. But the terraced garden at the back was common, allowing them to move freely from one section of the house to the other without being overlooked. So they’d effectively lived together, while maintaining the fiction of being nothing more than friends. In San Francisco, Lindsay had realized a long time ago, it wasn’t always easy to tell who were lovers and who merely friends. It was so easy to be out that everyone assumed anyone who wasn’t had to be straight and sadly lacking a partner.

Although it had been clear from the tone of the conversation that it had been Penny who had given Meredith her marching orders, she had spoken with deep regret about the ending of the relationship. “She left me with no choice,” she’d said sadly, head leaning against Sophie’s shoulder as Lindsay tended the barbecue. “Right from the start, we always had borderlines, you know? We had common concepts of what was acceptable in a relationship and what wasn’t. Fidelity was an absolute. She must have known she was leaving me no option, doing what she did.” She took another pull on her beer and stared into the sunset.

“Maybe she was testing you,” Lindsay had tried.

“I don’t think so,” Penny said. “I think she was in self-destruct mode. And you can’t stop somebody who’s that determined.”

“No, but you don’t have to give them a shove in the wrong direction,” Lindsay muttered, knowing she wouldn’t be heard over the hissing of the marinade she’d just used to baste the salmon.

By the end of the evening, Penny had had enough bottles of the dark golden ale for Sophie to insist she stayed the night and Lindsay had had enough of Penny’s grief to slip away on the excuse of checking her e-mail. “Tactless toerag,” Sophie had muttered as she’d slid into bed beside her later.

“How can I be tactless from my study?” Lindsay asked plaintively.

“Have you forgotten who taught you to be computer literate? Who showed you how to surf the Internet?”