“Right,” I say. First eight years, now ten years. I must deal with her, get rid of her. “But it ain’t none of my business. Let me explain something to you. When I go out on the weekend, all I’m looking for is to have a good time. All right? I mean I don’t think I have to go to bed with every girl I meet. I’ve been married. Not as long as you, but I’ve been married. I know what it’s like.” I’m not saying what I mean to say. “You just act too damn strange for me, okay? You get depressed, and I don’t need to be around somebody that’s depressed all the time. It gets me depressed, too. Now that’s all it is. If you still love your husband, fine. You need to try to work everything out with him. That’s between you and him. I don’t have anything to do with it. I just don’t want you to call me anymore.”

That should do it. That should make her mad enough to where she’ll say something, then hang up on me. She doesn’t. “Oh, Gary. Don’t be mad. I’ve been thinking over everything today. Listen. I called my husband and you know what I told him?”

“What?” I don’t want to hear this shit.

“I told him I wanted a divorce. I told him I was going to try to get eight hundred dollars a month out of him. He started talking sweet then. He wants us to get back together now. What you think about that?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t care,” I say. I open the icebox and find a beer. Then I look a little longer and find the schnapps.

“I told him I saw him last night. At that motel. But anyway, that ain’t what I called you about. I called you about something else.”

“What?”

“I got us a room tonight. Just you and me. At the Holiday Inn. I already got it. I got the key right here.”

I don’t really believe that. “I don’t really believe that,” I say.

“Listen, Gary. I know I ain’t acted right. I don’t blame you for being disgusted with me. But it was just all that stuff with my ex. He’s been going out on me for the longest. Friday night was the first time I’d ever been out without him. In ten years. Honest.”

“Is that right?” I say. She’s probably lying. She’s probably just telling me all this so she can get me off again and drive me some more nuts telling me some more about it.

“I swear. Gary, I swear to God. May God strike me dead if I ain’t telling the truth.”