“Was she really dressed like a slutty teenager?”

He sounded a little too interested for my liking.

“I mean, she never looked like that when I knew her,” he said.

“Sure.”

“No, I swear!”

“What, no push-up bras?”

He shook his head.

“No deeply scoop-necked T-shirts?”

He shook his head again.

“No skintight ass-hugging pants?”

“No! She used to wear jeans and overalls! Big sweaters and turtlenecks! She was very—plain.”

I thought of the section of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue where the models wear cotton bras and panties and thongs, instead of silk and satin and lace ones. Plain. My ass.

“Oh, come on, Elise. You’re overreacting. I’m sure of it.” He walked toward me, lowered his voice. “You’re just feeling a little threatened because Adrienne and I were—we used to—”

“Fuck.”

He stared at me, appalled. “Jesus.”

I stared back: Prude.

He shook his head.

“What?” I said. “What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say that Adrienne and I have a past.”

A past. How lovely.

“And what a past it is,” I said.

He glared at me, lips pursed. “Yes, Elise, we have a past. But Adrienne’s not part of my present. Or my future.” He paused, took a breath. “You are my present. You are my future. Not her.”

“Then why did you invite her here?” I said, tears popping out of the corners of my eyes. “Why did you ask her to have dinner with us? Why did you offer to cook for her when you never cook for me?”

“Because she’s moving here and doesn’t know anyone except for me. Because she doesn’t make friends easily. Because she just broke up with her boyfriend. Because she wanted to see the dog. Because I felt sorry for her.”

It seemed ridiculous, unimaginable, to feel sorry for a woman as gorgeous and enviable as Adrienne was. Weren’t there far worthier, needier candidates for sympathy? Like me?

“Looks aren’t everything, you know. She’s not as confident as she seems.”

Unlike me. The most confident woman in the world. Snooping and spying and rooting around in every drawer, pocket, and crevice.

“Is that why you two split up? Because she was too needy?”

“It was never going to work with Adrienne and me,” he said. “For a lot of reasons.”

“Like what?”

“She was a slob. Which I couldn’t stand. There were always clothes everywhere.”

Lame.

“What else?”

He thought for a moment, then added: “And she was terrible with money. Absolutely terrible. Indulgent. She deprived herself—and me at the time, actually—of nothing.”

Better.

“What else?”

“She was very manipulative. She was always finding a way to get her way. Whether it was lying and saying she knew the chef at a particular restaurant so that we’d go where she wanted to go, or completely falling apart into an emotional collapse the few times I put my foot down about something—friends of hers I hated and refused to socialize with; getting to spend at least some holidays with my family, too, instead of just with hers—I could never let my guard down. She was always, always up to something.”