Our entrées arrived; the meal proceeded with almost undetectable discomfort; but coffee and dessert were declined by all (most vociferously, of course, by Donald). Clearly, it was time to part company.

Once out on the street, Adrienne went to the right to get her car and head up Connecticut; we went to the left to walk the few blocks home down Connecticut in complete and utter silence. But when he put the key in the door and stormed through the house toward the kitchen, he let me have it.

“I can’t believe you did that! I can’t believe you told her something I considered extremely personal and private, and which you knew was extremely personal and private.”

I nodded miserably. “I know. I know. And I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” he said. “That was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Adrienne knowing about the liposuction. Anyone knowing about the liposuction. You were the only person in the world I felt close enough to tell, the only person in the world I trusted enough to tell, and you betrayed that trust. I should be able to rely on you to protect me, to not compromise me in any way, to stand by me and be completely and absolutely loyal. I deserve at least that much. I mean, Jesus, Elise! We’re getting married in three months!”

I nodded again and again.

“What were you thinking?” he asked, confounded, mystified. “How could you have done that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. And truly, I didn’t. “It was an accident.”

Dr. Frond, however, would have dismissed my explanation instantly. “Saying ‘I have done something by accident’ is just a self-protective psychological euphemism for saying ‘I did it on purpose,’ ” she would have pronounced in her mysterious, unidentifiable Eastern European accent. “No one wants to believe they are capable of immoral, unethical behavior; of indiscretion, deceit, betrayal. No one wants to believe they are capable of hurting people they love. And so they blame it on ‘an accident.’ Perhaps you are not acting consciously when you commit these breaches of trust, but your psyche is.”

Is that what had happened?

Had I betrayed Donald “accidentally on purpose” because I was angry at him for wanting to have a relationship with Adrienne?

Had I so wanted Adrienne to like me that I gave her something I should never have given her? Something so hilarious and ridiculous about Donald that it would instantly bring us together, make us bond at his expense? Had I believed that by bonding with Adrienne, I could neutralize her? Disarm her? Stop her from coming between Donald and me, if that’s what she had come to Washington to do?

Was I still so insecure, so mistrustful, so full of Gloom and Doom about Donald and the future of our union, that I had to sabotage our relationship? End it before it ended me?