Ha, he was just good and I said I was great. We exchanged incredibly civil banter about what was going on at work. I had seen an episode of Law and Order SVU he had directed and he had seen an episode of Flesh and Bone recently and noticed I’d gotten sole writing credit again. I was not sure why this conversation was going on so civilly. I didn’t feel like being civil. What was behind all this?

“I was wondering if you could meet me for coffee?” he asked.

Coffee? “You don’t drink coffee.”

“I do now.”

I processed that. I felt like there was an ambush coming.

Rolling over to lie on the couch, I held the phone tight to my ear. I hope my voice didn’t give away that I was horizontal. “Why do you want to have coffee?”

“I just felt like there was some stuff we should talk about.”

What could we talk about? We were over, although I still thought about him every hour on the hour. We’d given back each other’s stuff. He’d changed his passwords and hidden his house key in a new place.

I felt like a cross-examining defense attorney when I fired back, “What do you feel like you have to tell me in person, face-to-face? Do you have some sort of terminal illness, or are you going to break it to me that you’re getting married or something?”

Silence . . . and then more silence. My heart started beating faster with each passing second.

“Well,” Dave said, “I didn’t want you to find out this way, but yeah, I am getting married.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and I felt my arms flush with goose bumps. Suddenly I was freezing and felt like I was going to throw up. This was more than the aftereffects of Chez Jay.

“Anyone I know?” It took a heroic effort to keep my voice steady. I couldn’t believe he was doing this over the phone.

“I’m marrying Madison. You know, Madison Jasper.”

I definitely knew Madison Jasper.

In an instant I flashed through everything I remembered about her. Madison was the youngest daughter of the famous Hollywood producer Morgan Jasper. He was that guy who made a fortune in the ’80s and ’90s making all those TV shows with shoulder pads and bad hair. I remember an In Style magazine at home pictorial of the family estate high above Sunset in Beverly Hills. The three Jasper daughters wore matching white dresses and Madison was glued tightly to her father’s side, his arm protectively around her.

Just last month, I’d read an article in Glamour magazine about Madison that said she was now focusing on being an “independent film producer” and was turning several of her father’s old TV series into feature films. The title of the article was “Hollywood Princess.”