She wiped at the dust on the dashboard. “Well. I see.” Her feelings were hurt. And why wouldn’t they be? Here she was, trying to make a bad situation better. The least I could do was feed her.

I checked the rearview and side mirrors: no change in the status of Donald’s car. “All right,” I said, “I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll stay here until Donald leaves—however long that is—and afterwards, we’ll eat.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s sounds like a good deal.”

“It is.”

“But when do you think that might be?”

“When what might be?”

“The payoff, as it were. When we might eat?”

Just as I was about to read her the riot act, something caught my eye in the left-side mirror:

Donald walking to his car.

With Adrienne.

I grabbed the steering wheel, unsure of what to do. Then I grabbed Gayle.

“Down!” I yelled, as if we were in a foxhole. “Get down!”

Slumped low in my seat, I somehow managed to keep a constant eye on the mirror.

Donald and Adrienne talked for a few minutes next to the car, expressionless, emotionless, a (fairly) safe distance apart.

She nodded, then he nodded, as if they’d just arranged something, and he stepped away.

She smiled, then patted him on the arm, then reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

He leaned over, awkwardly, and kissed her on the cheek. Then he unlocked his door, slid in, started the engine, and pulled out slowly into the street and toward us.

Knowing there was nowhere to hide, I prayed he would not notice my car (let alone, me and Gayle in it). A second or two clicked by. His 740 passed right by my (thankfully ubiquitous) black Jetta, then made a right at the end of the street. I knew he was going to make a half-box, back out onto Connecticut, and probably go home.

I started the ignition.

“Are we going to have lunch now?” Gayle asked. I shot her another scathing look and, knowing what was good for her, she immediately changed the subject. “Shall we follow him? Or do you think he’s just going home?”

I wasn’t sure. Keeping a safe distance, I pulled out into the street, made a right and another right, and saw Donald’s car heading south on Connecticut. Figuring he was indeed headed home, and figuring, too, that there was nowhere more incriminating that he could possibly be headed than where he’d just come from, I decided I would give up the search. For now. I crossed Connecticut and drove straight down Livingston Street to Reno Road and stopped at the light, which had just turned red.