“Wait,” I said. I ran over to the kitchen sink and grabbed the kitchen sink sprayer.

“Good thinking,” Joe said. “Fewer stitches that way.”

John pulled Horatio out of the way. I turned the water on full blast and sprayed.

All four of Polly’s suitors sputtered and rolled away from one another. They sat on the floor, shaking the water off like dogs who’d just finished a swim in the ocean.

John disappeared. He came back with four beach towels from the linen closet and passed them out.

“Is that my wine?” John said as he came over to stand beside me.

“Sorry,” I said. “We’ll hide it better next time.”

John pointed. “Who’s that guy?”

“Galen,” I said. “Polly’s ex.”

Galen waved. John waved back. John and I looked at each other, looked away.

“So,” I said to Polly. “Galen and I are going to have a little chat in the other room. How about you read your other three admirers the riot act while we’re gone.”

“Done,” Polly said.

Chapter Thirty

Galen sat on a living room armchair and retied his fancy red-soled shoe. When he wrapped his beach towel around his neck, he managed to make it look almost like an ascot. Carly Simon immediately started singing “You’re So Vain” to me in one of my favorite auditory hallucinations. I botched the lyrics I heard as I always did, substituting your scarf it was an ascot for your scarf it was apricot. Carly’s version was more colorful, but I thought mine held up pretty well.

I took a moment to look around for signs of Hamburger before I sat on the couch across from Polly’s ex.

Galen smiled his radioactive smile, focused in on me with his technicolor eyes. He was seductive, charismatic, almost likable even though I knew better. If he ran for office, he’d win in a heartbeat.

“Beautiful home you’ve got,” he said. “The period details are incredible. Must be what, early 1900s?”

“1890,” I said.

He had the kind of smile that lights up sad, lonely hearts. His attention was riveted on me, as if I were about to say something absolutely fascinating. And whatever came out of my mouth, he’d make me feel sexy and maybe almost beautiful by hanging on every word.

If I’d run into Polly’s ex after my long empty marriage had finally disintegrated completely, once my family had pushed me, kicking and screaming, back out into the dating world, I would have been ripe for the picking. I would have fallen for him. Hook, line and sinker. The flatter. The flirt. The thrill of the hunt. It would have been all fun and games until I opened up my long-buried heart. And he stomped it.