Oh, they sent flowers, they came by, they each pounded on my door three times a day, making jokes out there: “How is our defrocked Miss America unlike the Titanic?” Saying the usual adorables, they knew not to slide any more of their good reviews or glamour shots under the door. They never roused me. They each had a key and could have come right in and found me naked, a pillow to my mouth, for dignity and silence that seemed my one defense, if not much of a refuge.

For a second, I considered flying to my parents’ place in Florida. Overt death wish, or what? And, of course, what mainly filled my vision was the spot on Robert. It was always a bad time to find out, but now, after finding them, doing that, and factoring the spot in, too …

He had left town just after the concert, I hadn’t wanted to bring him down right then, and then he stayed gone so long, and the very second he got back, this …

It’d been the sight of them like that, like two sneaky boys, or far worse, yes, much, like, yeah, some long-married couple … and if it had been going on all along, with the game of my wanting him and her seeming torture from the same desire and his professed indifference to us both.

If it had been just a ruse that whole time of my life, I could not bear it. But, considering the spot, what might it mean to them and me now? We knew so little. It was too early in. Either way, for either one, I still felt something. Therefore, I felt needed. They might not know it. Not yet. But, even if I had to play the Sancho Panza role for both of them forever, well, I’d imagine how Spencer Tracy would create his Sancho; with maybe Kate as Quixote; I’d be the scar-sided plump peasant leading the burro; hell, I’d play the burro—Best Actor in a Supporting Role with saddlebags. I knew I’d play. I’d play along. What other game was there?

There must still be some use for all this love left souring (mousetrap food) in me.

So I got up.

I walked half-dressed into Ossorio’s around two o’clock the afternoon of the eleventh day after it. They were there, okay, she lost in smoke, and everybody gathered around, seeming somewhat mopey, mooning, with no good talk going on. I was glad to see repentance or that they missed me, if that’s what it was. But maybe I just arrived at twenty after or twenty till when the silence-spreading angel passes overhead.

They all looked up, shocked. Like I had died, but had stumbled back in here for my caffeine allotment anyway. I guessed I looked like hell. That, at our age, was becoming more appropriate, far easier. Part of it today was inevitable, part an effect I’d planned.