She shrugged and made a dismissive pout as she jerked her chin up impatiently. “I know men. I can read them. Just like you can read those books in your office. They’re all dogs. He didn’t love Cathy.”

“He just spreads his charm around for fun?” I argued, smoothing my skirt down.

“It don’t mean nothin’. It’s to grease the wheel. He’s like a pimp.”

“How would you know?”

Instead of answering me, she stared off in the direction of a rococo carved cross above one of the graves. A frown flashed quickly across her dark face, telling me she felt she had said too much already and that she was angry at herself.

“How do you know?” What was she hiding from me? A searing fear told me the thing was ugly and that she’d lied to me from the very beginning.

She slowed the car even more, refusing to look at me.

“Answer me. How do you know?” I grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her violently. Almost immediately I was stunned by what I had done and drew back my hand, horrified that it was part of me. Until the last few days I had never known I had so much anger and rage in me.

Lupe pulled aside the right strap of her halter top. A raised scar ran near her clavicle. I had noticed it at the motel when she lay down next to me, and I’d asked about it.

“I thought you told me you were in a car accident,” I said foolishly and in confusion.

She let go of the material so that the scar was once again hidden from view. “Pimp named Harold James cut me ‘cause he thought I was holding out on him.”

“You told me you never had a pimp. That you’d only been doing this for a little while.”

“I lied.”

I punched the dash of the car. I had confided in her and told her things about myself I’d never told anyone else. I had thought I could trust her.

Lupe, a stony look on her face, pressed the accelerator again, and the Fiat jumped forward.

The road wound around a group of marble angels poised and hovering above a tombstone polished like a black mirror. I didn’t see any cars up ahead under the clump of weeping willows. I had never seen a weeping willow in Southern California except at Disneyland.

Lupe drove to the far east end of the trees, pulled off the road behind a small mausoleum and turned off the engine.