Beyond him, a distinct shut-in smell greets her. A fusion aroma of Kleenex and orange juice. Sheets that could use some freshening.

Graham looks way too startled when she puts her head into his doorway and says, “Hey. Beaucoup d’Amazon for you. Some in the hall, some downstairs. I couldn’t get all of them up at once. What’s up in here?” Here meaning his room, also the internet, also his mind. He plays Nine Inch Nails’s “The Hand That Feeds,” to cover their conversation. He points to the walls, then to his ears. When his phone buzzes and skitters around on the desk to announce a text coming in, he takes a look at the message, which appears to be a map.

“Lucille Rae. She’s found a likely data storage hub out in the desert in Nevada. She spends a lot of time on Google Earth. It’s beginning to pay off. We need to get a jump on things before January. Before move-in day at the White House.”

“Do you think he’s going to bring all that gold dictator furniture with him? And why aren’t you Skyping with her?”

“We have to be more careful now. We use something else now. It’s encrypted. And it disappears. What I’d like is for you to use it, too.”

“Why do I need to message you? We live together. You’re here all the time.”

“Just do this. Please. It may come in handy. I want to be able to reach you in case the shit hits the fan. Give me your phone. I’ll set you up.”

She wishes he was in here looking at porn like a normal recently separated guy. He’s in his fifties now; the thing of being a decade older than Cate seemed hip when she started up with him. She was in her early twenties, wandering around in an inchoate sexual half-sleep where she only knew she didn’t want any of the guys who were interested in her. She wanted something different, but what? So she ran through a few guys of various nationalities and ethnicities, then a couple of Jesuits. Finally, when she did sets for one of his plays, she found Graham. He was so compelling, she thought older must be what she’d been looking for.

They were together almost five years. And then she met a woman—a terrible woman, as it turned out, but with a lot of power and ramped-up pheromones—and Cate couldn’t fit her own response into a small box. What happened was nothing like a crush.