Rachel looked at the food while she cooked, glancing up now and then at Ruby, perched awkwardly on a stool at the kitchen counter.

“I dreamed about you,” Rachel announced, bringing the pasta to a boil. “The last few weeks I was with Scott, he was dreaming about you so much that I started dreaming about you too.”

Ruby, coming back to life, couldn’t begin to fathom an appropriate response. “I guess you get that kind of closeness when you’ve been with someone as long as you two had.”

“Yes, you do. But he was in love with you.”

“How unfortunate for him,” snorted Ruby.

“It was unfortunate for him. And for me.”

Ruby stared at her shoes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I don’t think it’s your fault. Do you like your pasta al dente?”

“Yes.”

As she ate her meal she started to cry.

“Why are you crying?” asked Rachel. She did not sound kind. She did not sound unkind. She sounded disinterested.

“Because I am sad.” She wiped away a rivulet of tears. “You don’t understand how hard my job is.”

“Ha!” spat Rachel. “Acting’s not hard!”

“No, not acting. That’s what I do to make money, but it isn’t my job. My real job is to make men realize that the hot young girl isn’t worth it. That the hot young girl is nowhere near as good in bed as his own girlfriend is. The hot young girl isn’t just a handful, she is actually fucking irritating. I’m the last affair, the sordid, nasty, futile fling, before the guy decides he never wants to stoop that low again and gets married. I am,” she laughed nastily through her tears, “the Madonna to other women’s Annette Bening. I just got the timing wrong with you. Sorry.”

“Well even Madonna settled down eventually, didn’t she? She had two babies.”

“But that’s terrible! Now she can’t be the baby!”

“She’s in her forties!”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“Let me get this straight. So what you’re saying is that God put you on this planet as some self-sacrificing whore of Christ to prove to straying men that monogamous relationships are more rewarding than infidelity?”

“I think so, yes,” smiled Ruby, wanly.

“Bullshit! You do it because you want to.” Rachel stood straight in front of her, squaring up for an imaginary playground fight. “You don’t want the responsibility of a real relationship. You’re afraid of needing someone. Of missing them.”

“I have needed people. I need them like crazy. I’ve missed them, too. You don’t know about my mother. You don’t know about Liev.”

“That’s true. I know nothing about either of them. The only person I know that you know is my ex-husband.”