After all the dread, the preparation, the anticipation, the anxiety, I wanted to get this show on the road: I wanted to meet Adrienne already.

And why not?

Having studied that one photograph of her for over a year now, I felt, oddly, as if I knew her intimately—staring, as I had, at every inch of her that was visible (eyebrows; ears, hands, cleavage; bust line; thighs); imagining every inch of her that wasn’t (rear, calves, ankles, feet). I’d even heard her voice (deep, throaty, with that unmistakable Yale accent—equal parts refinement, entitlement, smarty-pantsism, with trace elements of Continental Europe, England, and New England) in conversation.

Women obsessed with women are just as scary as men obsessed with women.

Somewhere along the way, curiosity and obsession had outweighed insecurity, until suddenly, I felt (how stupid was I?) ready for Adrienne.

But when I caught that first glamorous, windblown, just-off-the-shuttle-from-Manhattan-where-I-live-and-you-don’t (anymore) glimpse, all that changed.

We were on the ramp approaching US Airways Shuttle’s passenger pickup area when we saw Adrienne standing there, in profile, waiting.

“Oh, no,” I said. “That’s her.”

“Are you sure?” Gayle asked.

“Yes I’m sure!” I snapped. Of course I was sure. I’d seen the pictures. Which had lied. For she was, impossibly, much more gorgeous in real life than she was on film.

“God, she’s fantastic!” Gayle said aloud, without meaning to, I think.

I turned to her and gave her a look of such hatred and rage that she retracted her statement immediately.

“No, you see what I meant was . . . She’s not fantastic! Her coat is fantastic!”

I knew I should never have let Gayle come along.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, remember?” I said, then swatted at her, but she flinched, so all I got in was an unsatisfying light smack on her upper arm.

“Of course I’m on your side!” she said, and then, when I didn’t respond, she added in desperation: “Look, I’m sorry!” She was still staring out the window when she said that—her nose practically pressed up against the glass—so her apology naturally lost most, if not all, of its intended effect. “But I simply must find out where she got that coat!”

I swerved over to the curb, backed up a few yards to reverse and delay our approach (lest Adrienne see us fighting and arguing about her), then shoved the gear stick into neutral and pulled up on the parking brake. Clearly, we needed a moment to correct a problematic situation: Adrienne wasn’t even in the car yet and Gayle was all over her.

“If you ask her about that fucking coat, Gayle,” I said, very, very slowly, “I’ll never speak to you again.” I gave the threat time to settle in, take root, before finishing it off. “Do you follow?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I follow.”

“Good.” I put my hands back on the steering wheel, grabbed it tightly, took a deep breath. Then I released the parking brake, put the car into first, and lurched a few feet up the curb until I was within spitting distance of Adrienne and her coat (deep olive green, faux pony skin, knee length).