The more she talked about her house, the more I thought about her marriage. I wondered if she knew about her husband. Maybe she was just another one of those smiling wives who put up with untold betrayals and disappointments. Maybe she knew that the real reason Philip was letting her redecorate was so he could carry on with someone else, or many others.

But she seemed so positive about everything, I couldn’t tell what she knew. So I pressed and asked if it was hard to be married to such an important man.

“What are you talking about? You’re married to an important man.”

“What I mean is, Philip’s a public figure.”

“Big deal.”

“Well, that can make things complicated. You see, I was once with a famous man. Before Tim. So I have some idea what you must be facing.” I lowered my voice and said, “I hate it when people name-drop. But I used to be lovers with Jeff Slade.”

Anna didn’t say anything.

“It was very passionate, purely physical, but somehow raw in that end-of-the-world way.”

(Hopefully, I wasn’t this ridiculous, but this is the conversation as I remember it. Maybe I knew that you don’t get something unless you give it. So I came prepared to sacrifice, to open up in hopes that she would follow. But clearly, I tried too hard to make her feel comfortable, to impress her. How else do I explain the series of weak segues that led from “How have you been?” to a frank recounting of my Jeff Slade experience, in which I neglected to mention that I had dated him twelve years before he became famous, so my intimation that what we had in common was powerful, famous men was a complete and utter lie.)

“Jeff Slade? Should I know him?”

Nothing worse than having to explain the name you just dropped.

“You’d recognize him. He’s on TV all the time.”

“I don’t watch TV,” Anna said sweetly.

“Oh, well, neither do I.”

From that point on, our conversation went off track. Something I said sounded like a criticism of Tim. I had mistakenly thought it would encourage Anna to open up about Philip. Instead, she came to Tim’s defense, arguing that he was a unique and special man.

“Look,” I said, “I think you idealize him. Us. Our marriage.”

“I think you’re a lucky woman.”

“I don’t know if you see us in the right way. We have our troubles.”

“Well, are you worried about him?”

“Am I worried, what? That Tim would cheat?”

She nodded.

“No, I’m not. The truth is, I’d be much more concerned about me.”

“How so?”

Understand I was realizing these things as I was saying them. “There is someone else that I think about from time to time . . .”