“I’m not pouting. I’m just trying to—”

“Look, I’m sorry I snapped, but surveillance is a high-pressure high-stakes game, Gayle. It’s an inexact science. Your eyes play tricks on you. Vision, under extreme stress like this, is highly subjective; sometimes deceiving.” I had no idea what I was saying, jabbering on like that, like Bill Kurtis on Investigative Reports or American Justice . But I was so overwrought that nothing made sense: I wasn’t sure who, if anyone, was in Adrienne’s living room, the living room I’d helped set up by shelving all those stupid books of hers. Readjusting my rearview and side mirrors didn’t help. I could only see Donald’s car, not Adrienne’s house.

There was only one solution.

“We’re going to have to drive by again,” I pronounced.

I careened yet again around the block; whizzed by the house. Afterwards, I parked under the same big oak tree; shut the car off.

“Did you get a better look?” she asked.

I closed my eyes, tried to process the scene I’d just seen. “No. I did not.” In fact, this time, I didn’t think I saw anyone at all. Which made me even more curious. Had they (Donald and Adrienne, presumably) indeed been in the living room together (standing; talking; planning for their future)? And had they just moved into a different part of the house (upstairs); into a different room (bedroom)? Just as I was considering yet another drive-by, Gayle poked me in the arm.

“Start the car,” she ordered. “We’re leaving.”

I turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I said start the car. We’re leaving right now.”

“We most certainly are not leaving. We’re sitting here until Donald comes out—if he ever comes out. And then I’m going to confront him. Get it all out into the open.”

“Get what out into the open?”

I stared at her, completely stupefied. “Their affair, of course!”

“That is the most farfetched unsubstantiated accusation I have ever heard in my whole life. You have absolutely no proof that Adrienne is after Donald. And you have absolutely no proof that Donald is after Adrienne.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“What do you have?” she said, and poked again. “Tell me every last bit of evidence you have that Donald and Adrienne are conspiring against you; that they’re seeing each other romantically.” Then she sat back against the car door, satisfied that she’d show me, finally, that I had nothing.

“Okay, for starters,” I started, “there was the night she came to dinner and they flirted shamelessly all night long.”

“I was there,” Gayle countered, “and they did no such thing.”

“Yes they did. You were just too busy wolfing down your poached pears and choking on them to notice.”