“My ex-husband, and his wife,” I said tersely, and then turned to my successor. I had to be polite for the children's sake, or maybe for Roger's. “Hello, Helena.” She gave me a nervous smile, and then told Roger she was going to powder her nose. She disappeared into the crowd in a cloud of white fur, as Roger grinned at the man he thought was Peter. He would have really had a rough time with it if he knew Paul was a Klone.

“The children have told me about you,” Roger said vaguely, as Paul nodded, and then told me he was going to see about getting us a table, and the next thing I knew Roger and I were alone, for the first time in ages. “I can't believe you'd go out with a guy who looks like that,” he said bluntly.

“At least I didn't marry little Miss Santa. I thought you were allergic to fur.” Or maybe he was just allergic to my flannel nightgowns and the fur on my legs.

“That's uncalled for,” he said bluntly. “She's the mother of your children's half-brother or sister,” he said coldly, looking just like the man I had come to hate in the end.

“Being married to you and getting pregnant doesn't make her respectable, Roger. It just makes her as dumb as I was. For now at least. What do you two talk about anyway, or do you bother to talk to her at all?”

“What do you do with him in that suit? Sing ‘Deck the Halls’?”

“He's nice to our kids. That counts for a lot,” and it was more than I could say for Helena, but I didn't say it to him. There was no point, but the children still reported every time they saw them that she never even talked to them, and she could hardly wait for them to leave on Sunday afternoon. I knew Roger had to know it too, and I wondered how he felt about it, and how much worse it would get after their own baby was born. But that was another matter, and not something that could be resolved at Elaine's. I was sorry we had come there, and had seen them. Roger didn't look any better than he had when he left me two years before. In fact, he looked a lot more tired, and a little older, and extremely bored. Helena was no brain-trust, but I had to admit she was striking and sexy, and her cleavage was pretty impressive, whether or not it was draped in rabbit fur. It wasn't too obvious yet that she was pregnant, but I suspected her boobs had grown even larger than the last time I'd seen them.

“Are you okay?” he asked suddenly, with a wistful look, and I hated him for it. I didn't want him to be human, and more than anything I didn't want him to feel sorry for me because I was out with a Klone covered in blinking lights and Christmas balls.

“I'm fine, Roger,” I said quietly. But as I said it, I wasn't so sure that I was. I was in love with a most unusual man who was in California doing odd scientific things I didn't understand, and who had no desire to get married, and in his absence, I was sleeping with his Klone. It was not only tough to explain to Roger, but a little hard to come to terms with myself. As I thought about it, Paul returned from wherever he had been.

“We got a table,” he said proudly, reaching for my glass of wine, but all I wanted to do was go home. I could see Helena approaching, preceded by a small cloud of flying fur.

“It was nice to see you,” I said to Roger politely. “Merry Christmas,” and with that, I set down my wine, and left the bar with Paul. We passed Helena on the way, and I could smell her perfume. It was one I had worn ten years before, and I knew Roger had bought it for her, because it was one he really loved. He was hers now, and they had their own life. They were having a baby, and whatever mess I had made with my own life, it was not his problem, and maybe not even Peter's or Paul's.

I told Paul that I wanted to leave then, and he looked disappointed about the table, but he could see in my eyes that something was wrong. He followed me outside, and looked at me in the freezing night air as I took a deep breath, as much to free myself of the familiar sight and scent of Roger as of Helena's perfume and her fur.

“What happened?”

“I don't know,” I said, shaking in the December air it had just started to snow. “I didn't expect to see them … she's such a bimbo, and he's crazy about her. It was like a reminder of everything I felt when he left me. He left me for her.” I felt vulnerable and naked, and the cheesy dress and brassy hair were no consolation. The truth was he hadn't loved me. And for now at least, he loved her. I didn't want him anymore, that wasn't the point, and I wouldn't have taken him back if he'd asked me, but it still rubbed all my broken dreams in my face again.

“Don't feel bad, Steph,” Paul said kindly. “She's a giant zero. Her boobs aren't even real … and Christ, that awful dress! You're ten times better-looking than she is. Believe me. And who wants a woman with that kind of taste?” As he said it, his pants were twinkling brightly, and the Christmas balls on his jacket were dancing in the breeze, but somehow the look in his eyes touched me deeply, and he put one arm around me, hailed a cab with the other, and as we got into the taxi, he gently wiped away my tears.

“Forget them. We'll go home and light some candles, and I'll give you a massage.” And for once, it sounded like just what the doctor ordered. I was quiet in the cab, still shaken by the encounter, and Paul was gentle and understanding when we went upstairs.

I paid the sitter and was relieved to find that both kids had gone to bed early and were asleep. And that night, it was surprisingly soothing to let Paul massage me, and eventually to let myself be transported by his gentle passion, and a very modest double flip.

I felt closer to Paul after that, he had gotten me through a tough moment, seeing Roger with Helena, and had restored a little of my self-esteem. We went to see the Nutcracker with the children that week. Paul went dressed as Turkish Coffee. He did an exotic dance in the aisle and tried to get me to do it with him. And then we took Sam to see Santa, and Paul sat on Santa's lap after Sam did. He also picked out beautiful gifts for both Charlotte and Sam. In his own way, he did a lot of things right. And being with him reminded me of all the things Peter wasn't. It was as though someone had programmed Paul to do all the things Peter didn't do for me. The gifts, the time he spent with me, his childlike spirit when he played with Charlotte and Sam. The endless tenderness he showed me. He was impossible to resist, harder still not to love. And beneath all the absurdities and inappropriate behavior, he was a very good man. Or should I say, good Klone. Peter had done an extraordinarily fine job when he designed him.

Peter was calling me from California two and three times a day. And he couldn't help asking about Paul. He wanted to know what we were doing, what Paul was saying, what he was charging to him, and if he was driving the Jaguar. I wasn't going to tell him that he was, but in the end I had to, when he had another accident with it on the FDR Drive. It was snowing that afternoon, and the road was icy. And when he told me about it, I was just glad I had forbidden the children to go in the car with him. He had been singing to himself and listening to Peter's CD's, most of which he hated, but he liked the Whitney Houston CD I'd given him, and while he was singing, he sneezed apparently, and drove the car right off the road and onto the snow piled to one side. The car sat poised there for an interminable instant, while Whitney kept singing, and then it slid slowly down the other side and into the shallow water at the edge of the East River. It sat there half-submerged while Paul waited for the AAA for nearly two hours. He said it had been rough on the upholstery and the rugs were soaked when they finally pulled it out. He was afraid it might need a new engine, and hoped that Peter wouldn't mind too much.

I called Peter and told him, and he just groaned, and then whimpered pitifully when I told him what it would cost him to repair it.

“Just don't let him repaint it again,” was all Peter said before he hung up.

“How was he?” Paul asked, looking worried, when I told him what Peter had said about the Jaguar.

“Cranky,” I explained, but I was worried about Paul. After his little dip in the East River, he was catching a terrible cold. “He'll be all right,” I said gently. And then I told him the bad news. “He's coming back tomorrow.”

“So soon? That's two days early.” Paul looked crushed. He'd been planning to spend the rest of the week with me, before Peter got back from California.

“He says he has a board meeting he has to be at.” But I suspected it was more than that, and not just the car either, I had the feeling that he didn't want Paul staying with me anymore. And I could see Paul was upset about it.

We spent a quiet night that night, I wrapped him in blankets for his cold, and served him hot toddies, and every time I kissed him he sneezed, and his nose was red. But as sick as he was about to be, I knew the Jaguar looked much worse. And then, as I climbed into bed with him, he turned to me with an unusually serious air. He looked as though he had a lot on his mind, and he seemed uncharacteristically unhappy.

“What would happen if I stayed here?” he asked, looking worried, and I smiled. Maybe he had hit his head in the Jaguar.

“I seem to recall that you are, or have you forgotten?” I kissed him gently and he set down his glass on the table next to the bed, and then looked at me with concern.

“I mean after Peter gets back. What would happen if we told him I'm staying, and I'm not going back to the shop?” It was the first time he had ever said anything like that.

“Could you do that? Would they let you?” Just looking at the tenderness in his eyes, I was stunned, and a little worried.