Dabney then carried the dessert dishes to the kitchen and popped out to the patio one more time to replenish their Shiraz. Box and Miranda were deep in conversation about Milton Friedman, a particularly favorite topic, as the famous economist was the subject of Miranda’s thesis. Dabney didn’t think either of them had noticed her. Their glasses might have been magically filled by fairies.

This was a good thing, she thought. This was, very possibly, the solution to all her problems.

And yet, of course, it was perturbing. Was Dabney really just going to pass off her husband of twenty-four years? Miranda was emitting a glow like a peony in full bloom—pinker than pink: she was in love with Box, besotted, and Dabney felt that he deserved this. Dabney had adored Box and respected him and even desired him, but had she ever been besotted?

Dabney watched them from the kitchen window as she rinsed dishes and felt a pang—not of jealousy over Box, per se, though it was a feeling that could not be ignored. She had been having a lot of these lately—urges, she supposed. Lovesick.

She texted Clen. Now?

By the time she had the dishes in the rack, there was a response. Yes, please get here five minutes ago.

Dabney exhaled. Could she leave the house undetected? She thought she could. She would say she was going up to bed. Box and Miranda might stay awake for another hour or two talking about Friedman, then Tobin, then Larry Summers. Once they got to talking about Larry Summers, there would be no stopping them. Dabney would go see Clen for five minutes and scoot right home.

She poked her head out the back door. “I’m going up. Do you need anything else?”

Box emptied the contents of the bottle of wine into Miranda’s glass and held it up for Dabney. “Do we have another?”

“We do!” she said brightly. Box’s cheeks were florid the way they tended to get after a couple of glasses of wine, but he was not emitting an aura. Probably because Dabney was there. Of course! She had to leave them alone. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she steadied herself against the counter. She was not only engaging in awful, illicit behavior, she was hoping that other people would engage in it as well, so that she might feel less guilty.

Dabney hurried to open another bottle of the Shiraz.

Her escape was almost too easy. She slipped out the front door and into the Impala.

As Dabney headed around the rotary, she spotted Agnes’s Prius a quarter circle away. Had Agnes seen her? The damn Impala was impossible to miss. Agnes had been so suspicious lately, Dabney could imagine her zipping around the rotary in hot pursuit of her mother. She would have to abort her mission.

But Agnes must have been daydreaming, or on the phone with CJ, because she exited the rotary and headed toward home. Dabney stepped on it.

“I had a date with Elizabeth Jennings,” Clen said.

Dabney felt a stabbing pain in her gut. Her internal organs felt like they were being sliced up by sharp, shining knives.

“A date?”

“She asked me for dinner. I assumed there would be other people, but it was just the two of us.”

Dabney and Clen were lying on top of his expensive sheets, naked. The long kiss Dabney had come for had gotten away from them both, even though Dabney had told Clen she didn’t have much time.

Had Agnes seen her? Dabney wondered. Would Agnes barge in on Box and Miranda at an inopportune moment and say, I just saw Mom driving around the rotary. Where was she going?

This worry was diminished by the thought of Clen and Elizabeth Jennings alone at dinner.

“So how was it?” Dabney croaked.

“She served me a steak,” Clen said. “And I couldn’t cut it.”

Dabney winced. “Ouch,” she said. “How was the conversation?”

“There was some reminiscing about the good old days of fish sauce and Asian toilets. She asked about my arm.”

“Did you tell her the truth?”

“Yes.”

Dabney exhaled through her nose. The pain in her gut was enough to make her cry out. She pictured ten Japanese hibachi chefs fileting her.

“That’s pretty intimate,” Dabney said. “Did it get any more intimate than that?”

“She tried to kiss me,” Clen said.

Oh, God, no. Dabney emitted a moan and curled up in the fetal position, which served only to intensify her pain. She started to cry. She was going to lose everybody and everything. She recalled thirty years earlier, seeing Clen with Jocelyn at the Yale-Harvard tailgate, Jocelyn’s hands buried deep in Clen’s thick hair.

Clen wrapped his arm around her. “Don’t cry, Cupe. I didn’t kiss her back. I was very rude, pushed her away and left.” He nuzzled the back of Dabney’s neck. “I have to live with the thought of you sleeping next to the economist every night, you know.”

“I know,” Dabney bleated.

“But there isn’t another woman in the world for me,” Clen said. “There just isn’t. I only see you.”

The house was dark when Dabney pulled up, and she was filled with relief. She hadn’t wanted to leave Clen, especially after hearing about the date with Elizabeth Jennings. Anyone but Elizabeth Jennings, Dabney thought. She wasn’t sure why the aversion; Elizabeth was silly and harmless—but then Dabney admitted that Elizabeth was neither silly nor harmless. She was strong-willed and opinionated at the Chamber meetings; of all the board members, Elizabeth was the only one Dabney felt she had to impress. It was her money, maybe, or her pedigree. And Elizabeth and Clen shared memories of a different world, one Dabney couldn’t even begin to imagine. Elizabeth would lasso Clen, move him to Washington, introduce him to people. He would end up writing for the Post. He would escort Elizabeth to the Kennedy Center and inaugural balls; he would teach a class at Georgetown and drink at the National Press Club. He would be changed.