I’m glad I’m not a shrink. And I’m equally glad I don’t have to pretend to need one anymore. There’s nothing wrong with this noggin that a little revenge can’t fix.

I feel better already.

24

4:00 p.m.

Sam can tell I’m in a mood, and doesn’t try to chat with me. It’s nice, this understanding we have. This is a comfortable, respectful silence. The deferential employee, employer relationship I love.

I look out the window and up at the steep faces of the rugged mountains surrounding our beautiful beach community, walling us in from the real world, sheltering us from the big cities beyond. Trapping us when fires rage, luring us to the edge when we think there is no other choice. It’s a romantic and dramatic life we live on the California coast. This is the perfect setting for the little drama playing out in my household these days. All we need is a big bank of fog to roll in, drop the temperatures and give everyone the chills. Setting is everything, don’t you think?

I think of my husband and what he believes will be his new Port Street setting. Such a shame. He used to be completely under control. In our relationship, until recently, I was the maestro. From the beginning I’d told him I don’t sleep with men on the first date. A lie. By the time our third date rolled around, he was desperate.

“Hey, gorgeous, what are you doing today?” he’d asked when I answered the phone after three rings.

“Oh my goodness, is this really you?” Of course, I knew it was. I covered the mouthpiece and threatened Bobby with a death stare and a finger held to my lips. Quiet. He was so lame. A means to an end.

David picked me up an hour later in his black BMW convertible (of course), at the address I’d given him. I stood outside of “my” condo building. David drove us to Geoffrey’s, a restaurant nestled on the edge of the sea off PCH in Malibu. I knew at the time he was still holding on to pouty lips sorority girlfriend, making sure his about-to-be ex-girlfriend was spending the weekend at home in the Palisades. (You always need to hedge your bets, David tells our girls. And he certainly does, as you now know.)

The date was perfect. We exchanged stories, told each other about our families (sort of) and our lives (not completely). We shared a bottle of expensive champagne. And then another. He didn’t seem tipsy, he’d just been a frat boy, so his liver was in shape, but I pretended I was. And that’s when I told him, with a tear rolling down my cheek, that he was the best thing that ever happened to me.