He glared at me, reliving the moment of horror, humiliation. “Two thirty-three. I told her that that was impossible. That their scale was incorrect.”

“But they insisted that their scale was accurate, because they were using one of those doctor’s scales with the weights. Apparently, they’re never wrong.”

“Never say never,” he said.

They both paused for a second or two, trying to figure out which one of them should continue. I sensed there was more to the story. Which of course there was.

“Donald had kind of a meltdown,” Adrienne said.

“I went crazy.”

I knew instantly what was coming.

“He pulled his pants down.”

He nodded proudly, as if he had performed a grand act of civil disobedience.

“Not only did I pull my pants down,” he said. “But I—”

“He got down on all fours.”

My God.

“Yes! I did! In protest! I got down on all fours and I said: ‘This is an injustice! I will not accept this! I will not allow an incorrect weight to be recorded in my medical file!’ ”

I blinked, wondering what I was getting myself into. Was he insane?

“So they changed it,” he said.

I wasn’t surprised. “To what?” I asked.

“Two twenty-two. Which is what I’m sure I was.”

We all took a breath; collected ourselves; tried to move on and resume a less mad course of conversation.

“Anyway,” he said, turning back to Adrienne. “How long has it been?”

She sighed wistfully. “A long time,” she said. “Too long.”

Not long enough.

“Was it two years ago?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Yes. I think so.”

“In New York. Right before I moved here.”

“I remember now.” She paused nostalgically. “You had some books of mine.”

“All your Proust. And all those goddamn Russians.”

She smiled smugly. “It was just a few volumes.”

“Are you kidding? It was an entire library! I think you’ve read every Dostoyevsky translation there is.”

“Well, not every.”

“Most, then.”

She lowered her eyes demurely.

“Anyway, there were, for several months after you moved out, two huge boxes left in the back of my closet. I had no room for my shoes!”

“Maybe if you didn’t have so many shoes you’d have had room for them.”

“I am kind of a clotheshorse,” he said. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

He was the only teacher at Sidwell who wore Brooks Brothers jackets, Zegna ties; Barneys shoes; perfect rimless eyeglasses expertly selected and hand-fitted by Jamie at Robert Marc on Madison Avenue. All wardrobe leftovers from his past life in finance.

“And so are you!” Donald said to Adrienne.

She looked down at her outfit, then shrugged helplessly. A victim of literature and fashion.

“And then,” he continued, “there were the photographs.”

Photographs?

I stopped cold.

Of what? Whom? When? Where?

Were they more summer-vacation beach pictures?

Happy-relationship pictures?

And though I couldn’t imagine Donald engaging in anything of the sort, I still had to ask myself the unthinkable:

Were they erotic pictures?