Lauren never talked about how much money she made, but I knew that even though she worked on cable, she had to be earning pretty good money to buy a place in this neighborhood. I’d been a little offended that she never asked me to check the place out during her escrow. Didn’t she understand that real estate was my cardio?

Obviously she wasn’t interested in my input. Normally, I would have gone behind her back to find out the address and drive by, but I’d been so consumed with everything with Dave, I’d even slacked on that.

“Wow,” I said from the driveway. The place really was amazing. Midcentury modern set on a bluff. The grounds were perfect. Lauren had bought it from a gay couple relocating to New York. That was striking the mother lode in real estate. The gays always redid everything with great taste and style.

Lauren was waiting at the front door.

“It’s stunning. I’m overwhelmed,” I gushed.

“I know—can you believe it’s mine?”

“Show me!”

Lauren began giving me the professional tour, starting in the living room with its original, walnut floors and walls of glass that drew the eye to the breathtaking view of Hollywood below.

“Oh, man. I never even saw this place in the open houses,” I told Lauren.

“I know. It wasn’t even on the market. My Realtor had a heads-up and showed me the place before the listing went out, and I made an offer and got it.”

“It’s so special,” I said, sincerely. With every room I envied her more: the bathrooms with their terrazzo floors, the master bedroom with its wood-burning fireplace. The flow was great. It was a house you wanted to come home to, a place you wanted to have friends over for a barbecue. It was a purely California house, something you’d find only in Hollywood. Lauren’s tour ended in the kitchen, in front of the clear glass door on her Sub-Zero refrigerator.

“I saw this on one of those kitchen design shows,” I exclaimed, peering inside. I winced slightly. “I guess you have to keep a neat fridge.”

“You sound like your mother,” Lauren remarked.

“Great.”

“Dani, it means a lot that you love it. I know how you are about houses,” Lauren said. “Now, about you. Are you okay?”

Rubbing my hands against the caramel countertops, I let my fingers follow the veined marble. I tried to distance myself from Lauren’s all-seeing eyes. “Yeah, I am. I am sad. I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want him to be happy with Chloe or anything.”

“Are you doing any stalking?”