The Age of Adrienne was now upon us.

“You’re home!” Donald effused, throwing three heavy-handled forged knives into the sink (they were like golf clubs, he always said—he never knew which one to use), wiped his hands on his apron (frilly, flowered, and flagrantly feminine—it had been a gift, as a joke, from me), and flew across the kitchen toward me. He grabbed me by the hand, encircled my waist (such as it was, my obesity hidden under all that expensive Eskandar cashmere) with his arms, and nuzzled my ear. I could tell he felt a dance coming on.

I hung on for dear life.

“I missed you,” he said, kissing me on the forehead. “As soon as you left this morning, I realized what an incredibly stupid thing I’d done—letting you spend the entire day with Adrienne.”

I bet he regretted it. Had he gotten nervous, had second thoughts, about the idea of Adrienne and me getting to know each other? At the prospect (however far-fetched) of Adrienne and me becoming friends? Was he afraid we’d talk about him? Compare notes? Share secrets?

“And I never should have invited her for dinner. I mean, now we have her, and Terrance—”

“And Gayle.” I added.

“And Gayle?” He looked worriedly at the vast amounts of food marinating and ready to grill as if there somehow wouldn’t be enough (he had seen Gayle pack it away many times, so he actually could have been right).

“Adrienne invited her.” I let the sentence hang there in the air, like a little noose, ready to tighten around her attenuated Audrey Hepburn–like neck: Donald was nothing if not a stickler for the strict maintenance of social etiquette.

He rolled his eyes. “So now we have her and Terrance and Gayle coming over and—God,” he whispered sadly, “I hate people. The only person in the world I like is you, and well, you live here. But I guess—well—it’s our first dinner party.”

And maybe our last.

“Look! I’m marinating!” he announced, with heartbreaking pride and excitement, so I went over to pay my respects to the pan of swordfish steaks swimming in olive oil and a white creamy horseradish sauce. I stared into it, as if those thick slabs of raw fish could tell me my fate. But they gave up nothing. Except for a fairly pungent odor. A wave of mild nausea made a beeline for my gullet.

“Smells—”

“Good?” Donald looked at me expectantly.

“No. Fishy.”

“Fishy?”

I nodded.

“Oh. Bad-fishy or good-fishy?”

“There is no good-fishy.”

“There isn’t?”

“No.”

He nodded. Of course there wasn’t. He stared into the pan, now, too, and sniffed loudly. “Are you sure it smells fishy?”

As of today, I was sure of nothing.

“Because I don’t smell anything.”

Of course he didn’t smell anything. He was a guy. And guys could never distinguish between edible food and rotten food; good women and highly manipulative, troublemaking women.

“Maybe it’s the horseradish.”

No.

He stuck his nose into the pan again and sniffed. “Really, Elise, it smells fine to me. I just bought it this morning from Fresh Fields and they said it was caught yesterday. But, what, you think I should just dump it?”