“Hello, love. Can I get you anything?” and she finally looks up at me with an expression that is hard to read. It lingers somewhere between forced attention to the book in her lap and a question, probably about what the hell is going on with me.

“No, Tim, I’m fine. Well, not fine. But here I am, which is more than I can say for you lately.”

“I know, baby. What are you reading?”

“Jesus, Tim, who cares?”

“What’s the matter, love? Is something bothering you?”

“Hell, yes, something’s bothering me. Everything’s bothering me. Lately I’m with you like six hours a day, all of it after dark and most of it sound asleep. Or trying to be. That’s no life. At least not the life we planned on. Or I hoped for.

“And now another murder is all over the news. Another one—connected to your office! Did you know this woman?”

“I know, it’s terrible. Well, she was in our first CrawDaddy Super Bowl commercial, and I was on the shoot. So sure, I knew her from that, a long time ago.

“I know it’s been a little crazy these days, for us. I didn’t plan on it being this way, either. The advertising business is crazy. And where Marterelli is right now is even crazier. Especially with these murders.”

“To say the least,” she says.

“Plus, we need new clients, big time, and that’s on me. So I have to put in these insane hours to try to help give us a shot. To make shit happen—for myself, and for us, too. Which is what I told Linda Kaplan in our interview the other day.

“It’s a great job at Kaplan-Thaler, by the way, one that I really want. One that…we really need.”

“Define need,” she says.

“Fair enough,” I answer, and take another sip of my wine. “Look, my days at Marterelli are numbered. I’m done there. Paul knows I’m looking. It’s time to move on. And this job offers huge financial upside, which is always a good thing.…”

“Of course it is,” she says.

“Yeah, but there’s more to it than that. Which is what I mean about the need thing. So let’s be honest—we need the money. This house is a huge financial burden. And, well, our credit cards are maxed, too. Property taxes are due just around the corner.”

“So is our income tax.…”

“All of it’s piling up, making me nuts, and it’s about to bury us.”

“Define bury us.”

“Oh, baby. I’m just saying that with our debt, and taxes, if I can’t generate some more income, well, worst-case scenario, we might even have to…move…to a less expensive location. And trust me, I don’t want that to happen any more than you do.”

“My God, Tim. I had some sense of all this, but not to this degree. You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

“All I’m saying is we need the higher income this new job will get us. Then we’ll be fine. I want you to count on me, just like always,” I say, which I know by now is wishful thinking.