I jammed the stick shift into first and pulled out after them, trying my best to keep a safe distance so they wouldn’t see me. Up they went past Neiman’s, then a right onto Western Avenue, straight through to Chevy Chase Circle and down two blocks, to the left-turn lane at Morrison Street. The morning rush-hour traffic had long since thinned; only the nannies were out now, pushing strollers through the tree-lined neighborhood. I pulled over again, let them make their turn, then made my way to the turn and went slowly down Morrison, too, stopping well before Adrienne’s house. Crawling down the right shoulder of her street, I pulled up behind a line of parked cars where I knew they couldn’t see me. Donald had parked in front of the house; he and Adrienne were walking slowly across the lawn, up the stairs, then inside.

The door closed behind them.

My eyes checked the dashboard clock: eleven forty-five. Donald should have been in school (in between his ninth-grade English section and his tenth-grade section). Adrienne should have been at work.

I thought and thought, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Clearly, Donald had lied to me—twice now—about seeing Adrienne on the sly. But if this were a romantic tryst, why a Friday morning? And what was over on that part of Wisconsin Avenue?

Without taking my eyes off her house, I rooted around in my bag for my phone. When I found it I flipped it open and speed-dialed Gayle at Congressional Quarterly. Voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message. I tried to think of whom else to call, but the obvious choices seemed like bad ones. Fran would say I was an asswipe, tell me she’d told me so; Anne would wash her hands of me once and for all and never give me any more work.

I glanced at the clock again: five past twelve.

Suddenly, the front door opened, Donald walked quickly to his car, got behind the wheel, drove down Morrison to make a half-box via Livingston Street out to Connecticut. Instead of following him, I made a U-turn, then headed back toward Connecticut, just in time to see his car edging out into traffic. He crossed over, headed further down Livingston toward Reno Road. Following him there and then over to Wisconsin, I knew he was going back to school. From across the street I watched him pull into the Sidwell teachers’ lot, park, then run across the pavement— the wind blowing his navy-blue blazer open and his tie over his shoulder—up the lawn to the door of the Upper School.

I returned home, sat in the living room, did nothing. The rest of the day was shot.