It was one of those picture perfect days in Southern California, the kind of day that makes people back East kiss their storm windows goodbye and move out here, only to find themselves stuck in freeway traffic for the rest of their lives.

Heidi and I were strolling along, eating our frozen yogurts and counting the anorexics on Rodeo Drive, when Heidi said, “It wasn’t really a business appointment.”

“Huh?” I murmured, my attention momentarily distracted by a quatrillion-dollar emerald ring in Tiffany’s window.

“SueEllen didn’t really have a business appointment. She’s probably meeting Eduardo.”

“Eduardo?”

“Her lover. He lives out in Venice. Calls himself an artist. Paints the most putrid stuff.” She ran her plastic spoon along the swirls of her yogurt. “SueEllen is his sponsor. If by ‘sponsor’ you mean someone who boinks his brains out on a regular basis.”

“How do you know for sure they’re having an affair?”

“Brad caught them doing it out by the pool house. And you should see them when he comes to the house for dinner. They play footsies under the table. It’s disgusting.”

She took a spoonful of yogurt and shuddered.

“Does your father know?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I think Daddy’s having an affair, too. With Larkspur.”

SueEllen and Hal were quite the couple, weren’t they? They reminded me of the joke about the guy whose wife had been cheating on him for years, and didn’t find out about it until his mistress finally told him.

“I hope Daddy divorces SueEllen and marries Larkspur. She’s a ditz, but at least she’s nicer than SueEllen.”

Hell, Attila the Hun would be nicer than SueEllen.

“I knew SueEllen was trouble the first time we met. She and Daddy took us to Disneyland. She spent the whole ride down to Anaheim rubbing Daddy’s thigh. Brad and I could see it from the backseat of the car, and she knew we could see it. It was like she was telling us, he’s mine and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

She paused to eat another spoonful of her yogurt. I’d long since finished mine and was scraping the dish for the soupy stuff.

“Daddy knew we didn’t like her, so he married her while Brad and I were away at summer camp. We never even knew about it until we came home. There she was, standing at the front door, smiling that bitchy smile of hers. And then, when I went upstairs and saw what she did to my room, I hated her more than ever.”

“What did she do?”

She shook her head, still miserable at the memory of what happened.

“You see, the thing is, I really loved my room. The ceiling was sky blue with clouds painted all over it. My mom painted it, before I was born. After my mom died, I’d lay in bed at night and look up at the ceiling, and it was like my mom was there in the room with me. It was the one thing I had left of her. And SueEllen took it away. While I was gone, she’d painted over it. A hideous hot pink. She said she saw a picture of a room just like it in Vogue.”