“… work something out? Or …” He tries to hold her gaze but can’t. If he wasn’t wearing his Tommy Hilfiger swim trunks he might have a fighting chance, but standing there in this moist orange suit it’s just not possible. He looks away and out a window, catching a hint of the gray Cape Cod next door. Their place. The neighbors’.

“You think we should work it out, do you? Is that what you think?”

“I think we could try.”

“Try what, talking? Just, like, talking, you and me?

“We could, yes. That would be …”

“What about therapy?” she challenges back. “Or how about just sharing, the two of us and the two of them? The four of us could swing on various nights, try new positions. How’s that sound?” She studies him a moment, but he can’t meet her eyes. “Probably great, doesn’t it? I mean, if you’re not too possessive, that is. And then once we’ve paired up the kids we’ll all be just one big, happy family!”

“If we can’t talk about this like adults, then we might as well …”

“Adults? Oh, you wanna talk like ad-ults, is that what you’d like?”

“It’s why I came back over here, yes.”

“No, you came back over because this is your house, OK, this is your home. Where you live!” She throws a handful of perfumes in on top of her blouses, the bottles clinking dully together in the sea of fabric. The sound itself is not very impressive, not as resounding as she’d hoped for, but she’d needed to pack them anyway. “What’d you think, you could just live in the pool house there, set up a little place for yourselves or something?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then what?”

“Look, I don’t know what you think you saw …”

“Oh, please, come on …”

“No, seriously, what? We weren’t …”

“Your trunks were down, all right?”

“They weren’t …” He doesn’t finish this because she moves toward him now. Quickly across the room to challenge what he’ll say next. “OK, whatever. You know what you know.”

“No, not whatever. I saw you, very clearly, your Tommy suit around your knees and your big white ass pointed right at me. Your back was toward the door and your thing was … do you really wanna hear more?”

“… no.”

“I saw it out. I did.”

“Not out, no, it was just caught in my …” He tries to mime an explanation but a wagging finger from her stops him cold.

“When you turned, surprised by the door and turning quickly, I know I saw your … thing … out of your suit. It got tangled in your mesh, there in the white mesh when you tried to hide it away. I know what I’m saying …”

“But … we knew each other in New York …”