For a long stretch, her career strategy was simply attaching herself to Adam Pryor. They had interlocking artistic views. The plays he directed got serious attention, which brought her sets the same sort of respect. And then he was walking on Wabash one day a year ago, at three in the afternoon, when an elderly woman mistakenly wearing her reading instead of her distance glasses, jumped the curb and killed him instantly. This was devastating to Cate personally; they had an intricate friendship, a matched sense of what was important, what was ridiculous. More prosaically, in terms of work, she was suddenly unemployed. Doing the sets for a play as dismal as At Ease is the kind of thing she thought she was beyond. And yet here she is.

Maureen is saying, “My sister is coming for a visit. I’d like you to meet her.”

“Sure, great. I always envy people who have sisters. Especially when they’re close.”

Maureen hesitates, then says, “Yes. We are close.” She suddenly looks uncomfortable. Probably from the goose liver. She pushes her fingers into her big hair, not in a coy way, more maniacal. Like Mr. Hyde rousing himself from sleep in Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. “What I’m trying to say is, there was a time when we were even closer.”

“When you were kids.”

“No. After we were both out of school and on our own. For a while then we were, you know, involved.”

“Oh.” Something slippery and cold flushes through Cate, the eel-like sensation that accompanies unwelcome information. As she searches for a response, she focuses on the remains of her egg as it is taken away by a silent waitperson, replaced by a teaspoon’s worth of pale green shavings of something frozen and glistening. The server explains the palate cleanser. Cate can’t listen.

Once the server has walked away, Maureen says, “I just don’t want there to be any secrets between us.” At exactly this instant Cate is thinking everyone should really hold on to their secrets, edit the worst lines from their personal résumés. This piece about Maureen and her sister, for example, would have been an excellent edit. Now, though, the cat’s out of the bag. Now the cat is hopping all over the place, demanding attention.

“How did that happen anyway?” Cate tries for a neutral tone, as though she’s asking about a tour of the French countryside on which Maureen and her sister took the optional side trip to see the cave paintings.

“Oh, she was coming off a divorce and she was needy. And of course, this was California. Also the nineties. You know.”

Clinginess or historical period or seaside locale don’t really seem extenuating enough circumstances.

“Were you in love? Was it that sort of thing?” She doesn’t even know why she’s asking. Would it be better or worse if they were or weren’t?