My desk calendar was flipped to September and I’d marked a little red heart on the first Sunday, Jon and Catherine’s wedding in Mexico. I’d drawn the red heart months ago, when I’d first found out their date and thought things like colored-in hearts were cute. I knew Dave would arrive in Cabo for the wedding and not get his requested Ocean View Villa, but be stuck with a small Mountain View double room. My stomach tightened thinking of the date he was taking on the trip. Who was she? No one wanted to take me anywhere. I was sure she was someone who could pull off a one-of-a-kind vintage dress with incredible style. All the other women would be drawn to her, asking her where she found such a great dress, and she’d shrug delicate shoulders and reply, “Oh, this? I found this at a thrift shop for twenty dollars.” As for me, I wouldn’t feel good about myself unless I had the new “it dress” mentioned in the pages of some magazine.

So who was Dave dating? If it wasn’t Chloe, maybe it was an actress from one of his shows; maybe it was that blond from Starbucks that Bernie had spotted him with. I knew the clues to discovering her identity were accessible. I knew I could figure it all out if I was just given a little something to work with. This was the shit I did at work on a daily basis. One thing I knew, as the heart on the calendar approached, was that the identity of Dave’s date would be detectable in his house, and even though I’d given him back his key, I knew where he kept the emergency lockout key in his carport.

They were in Mexico now; they’d arrived this afternoon. Everyone in LA kicked out early on a Friday before a holiday weekend. Plus I knew Jon and Catherine had planned a cocktail reception to welcome everyone on Friday night. I smiled, thinking of the male masseur. That would be a turnoff for Dave. They wouldn’t have sex right after a massage from a guy—he’d be too nervous that being able to have an orgasm so soon after a man’s hands had been on him would make him gay.

So that was how I found myself parked on Dave’s street at nine at night on a Friday. If I’d been normal, or at least not crazy, I would have been on a date with someone great right now, on my second glass of Pinot. But here I was, dressed in black, sneaking up to my ex-boyfriend’s house under cover of night.