“Now look what you made me do,” Virginia cries, rushing past him and putting the pan under the faucet.

“Me? Get serious!”

“I am serious, Jim McPherson. You don’t have a real job and you don’t have a real future. Your little jobs are just part-time excuses for work. You laze around all day writing stupid poems, while I work and make the money we use to go out, when you can be dragged away from your friends to go!”

Part of Jim is thinking, Fine, if that’s what you think then leave, quit bothering me. This alliance is over anyway! Another part is remembering the good times they’ve had, with their friends, out together, talking, in bed. And that part hurts.

Jim shakes his head. “Let me make some breakfast,” he says. Why does she even bother, he thinks, if she feels this way about him? Why did she come by? Why doesn’t she make it easy for him and leave for good? He doesn’t have the courage to tell her to leave him alone; she would crucify him with how cruel he was being to her. Besides, is he sure that’s what he wants? She’s smart, beautiful, rich—everything he desires in an ally, in theory. When she sloshes across the jacuzzi with everyone watching her, to sit on his lap with that perfect rounded bottom, he thinks that it’s worth all the fights, right? That’s right. Jim likes that. He wants that.

Ach. Just another tricky day with Virginia Novello. How long have they been doing this? One month, two? Three? And it’s been like this from the start. It’s gotten so he can cook and eat and carry on a fight and at the same time be considering what else he should read before tackling his next poem. Sure, why not? Everyone can run parallel programs these days.

But this time he really loses his temper. They aren’t allies anymore, they’re ex-allies, there’s no reason he has to stand for this kind of thing! He tells her that in a near shout and then storms out the front door.

Oops. He’s on his street; he’s just stormed out of his own ap. Bit of a mistake. He had thought, momentarily, that he was at Virginia’s. Now he’s in kind of an embarrassing position, isn’t he. What to do?

He drives around the block, returns, looks in his window surreptitiously. Yes, she’s gone. Whew. Got to remember where he is a little more securely.

Well, enough of that. The day can begin.