“I didn’t choke on the pear because I was eating too much or too quickly. I choked because I simply swallowed what I was eating the wrong way.”

That’s right. Adrienne’s Einstein’s brain story had gotten in the way.

“There was the time I called Donald from the shuttle to New York and he thought I was Adrienne,” I continued. “And then how he sounded weird and nervous and solicitous right afterwards.”

“Well of course he sounded weird and nervous and solicitous—he’d just answered the phone thinking it was Adrienne and he knew you’d be furious. Which you were.”

“Which I was. And which I had a right to be.”

“What else?”

“The whole wedding dress fiasco. How Adrienne interfered. Which was her way of controlling me; her way of living vicariously through me, since she wishes she were the one marrying Donald.”

“What else?”

“How bothered he’s been about Terrance and Adrienne dating—having to hear about it every day at school—how jealous it’s obviously making him, his ex-fiancée dating his close friend.” I paused a minute, came up for air. “Not to mention the fight we had today—him telling me that Adrienne is a force to be resisted. That she can be very seductive. Not to mention right now, this very minute. He’s in her house, Gayle, as we speak, doing God knows what.”

“My point exactly!” she said. “You don’t know what he’s doing in there. Maybe he’s changing a light bulb. Fixing her sink. Hanging a picture. Maybe she called him and begged him to come over and help her because there was a huge bug in her bathtub and she was afraid to kill it herself. Maybe she called him because she was starving, hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days, and begged him to bring over some provisions.”

“Or, maybe, she begged him to come over because she’s incredibly lonely and still in love with him and she thought she’d make her move now while there was still plenty of time to break us up before the wedding.”

I could tell Gayle was almost at the end of her rope: her eyes darted around the car as if she were literally looking for a way out, for a way to leave me alone with my madness. But she was far too loyal a friend to abandon me in my hour of need.

And also, far too hungry. It was way past lunchtime, after all, and I knew she thought there might be a way to salvage the disastrous day by tucking into a good meal.

“Listen, perhaps we could—”

“No,” I said, stopping her dead in her tracks. “We’re not having lunch. I’m not hungry. And the last thing I feel like doing is watching you stuff yourself at a time like this.”