“I gather my name's been up in lights again today,” she said, trying to inject a little humor into a dismal situation.

“You could say that. Your friend Leo seems to have a lot to say about you. Have you read it?” he said, sounding really furious and barely able to conceal it from her.

“Jean read it to me. It's all bullshit though. I hope you know that.” She sounded very calm, and very much in control, and very Southern.

“I'm not sure what I know anymore, Tan.”

“What they wrote about me is no worse than the tabloid story on you and the girl you supposedly took to Palm Springs. They even printed a picture of you,” she said, trying to tease him. “And that's not true either. So what's the big deal here?”

There was a long pause, and then he spoke very slowly. “As a matter of fact, it is true. I was going to tell you about it, but I didn't get a chance before you left.” She felt as though he had hit her with a club. He had cheated on her, it was in the tabloids and he was admitting it to her. For a long moment, she was silent. She didn't know what to say.

“That's quite a story. What do you expect me to say now?”

“You have a right to be real pissed off, Tan. I wouldn't blame you at all. I think someone tipped them off. I have no idea how they turned up at the hotel. I figured it would hit the papers.”

“You're a little too old to be that naive, you know that? You've been around Hollywood long enough to know how it works. Who do you think called them? She did. This is a big coup for her, walking off with Tanya Thomas's husband. Big time, Tony. How could she pass up an opportunity like that?” It was a nasty thing to say, but it was probably true, and he knew it. It hadn't even occurred to him when it happened. And at his end of the phone, there was a long, long silence. “You're a celebrity now, Mr. Goldman. How do you like it?”

“There's not much I can say, Tan.”

“No, there isn't. You could have at least been discreet, or taken someone who wouldn't sell out your ass and mine to the tabloids.”

“I don't want to play this game with you, Tanya,” he said, sounding embarrassed and angry. “I'm moving out tomorrow.” There was another long silence, while she nodded and fought back tears.

“Yeah, I figured that,” she said hoarsely.

“I can't live like this anymore, being a constant target for the tabloids.”

“I don't like it either,” she said sadly. “The only difference is you have a choice, I don't.”

“I'm sorry for you then,” but he didn't sound it. He had turned mean suddenly. He'd gotten caught with his pants down, and he didn't like it. He didn't like playing second fiddle to her, he didn't like being sold out and betrayed and made a fool of. He didn't like any of it, and he couldn't wait to get out of her house and her life, and the spotlight he had been forced into while he was married to her. At first he had wanted it, but when they'd turned the heat up too high, he found he didn't like it.

“I'm sorry, Tan… I didn't want to do it over the phone. I was going to tell you tomorrow when you got home.” She nodded, as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and he inquired if she was still there, and she finally answered.

“Yeah, I'm here,” more or less, what was left of her. It was all so damn hard, and so unbearably lonely. She had been through so much for so long, been so used and so exploited and treated so unkindly. She had been robbed blind by the manager she'd married, and now Tony didn't have the balls to stick it out after three years, and he was running off to Palm Springs to fuck starlets. Just what did he think the tabloids would do with that? How could he have been so careless and so stupid?

“I'm sorry,” he said weakly, but by then it didn't matter.

“I know… never mind… I'll see you when I get back,” she said, anxious to get away from him. He had hurt her enough. She didn't have anything else to say. And then she had another thought. “What about Wyoming?”

“Take the kids. It'll be good for them,” he said grandly, relieved to be off the hook himself. He was anxious to be off to Europe, and he was taking the same starlet with him.

“Thanks…” And then, “Tony… I'm sorry too…” She started to sob then, and a moment later she hung up the phone. She was still crying when it rang again. She almost didn't answer it, she was sure it was Tony, calling back to see if she was all right. But it wasn't. It was Mary Stuart, and she could hear instantly how upset Tanya was. And through tears, Tanya managed to explain that Tony had just left her. She told her about the two articles, and that Tony had been cheating on her in Palm Springs. It was all tangled and nearly unintelligible, but Mary Stuart managed to figure out what was happening, and insisted she come over. They had plenty of time before the party, if they even went after all. All Tanya wanted to do was go home, but they weren't sending the plane for her until the next morning.

“I want you to come up here for a cup of tea, or a Kleenex, or a glass of water… come on, you. If you don't come, I'll come and get you,” Mary Stuart insisted, and Tanya was reluctant but touched by the offer.

“I'm okay.” But she sounded anything but convincing while she cried harder.

“No, you're not okay, you liar.” And then, the ultimate threat. “If you don't come, I'll call the tabloids,” Mary Stuart said firmly, and Tanya laughed.

“You're disgusting,” Tanya said, laughing through her tears. “I don't see you for a year, and what do I do, I end up getting divorced in the two days I do finally see you.”

“At least I can be here for you. Now come on over, before I call the Enquirer and the Globe and the Star, and any others I can find. Do you want me to come and get you, Tan?” she asked gently, but Tanya blew her nose again at the other end.

“No, I'm okay. All right… I'll come over. I'll be there in five minutes.” And she was, with uncombed hair, and red eyes and a red nose. But in spite of it all, she still looked gorgeous, as Mary Stuart told her, as she put her arms around her and held her like a child crying in her arms. She had had a lot of practice with Todd and Alyssa, and she was a good mother. She had done a lot of comforting and consoling in twenty-two years. But sadly, not enough for Todd. If she had, things might have been different.

“I can't believe this… it's all fallen apart in about five minutes,” Tanya said about her marriage. Except they both knew that it had actually taken a lot longer. Tony had been steaming for a long time, about all the things that irked him in her life, he just hadn't said so. And she realized now that he had been unhappy for a lot longer than she thought. Looking back, she could see all the signals, but she had missed them as they happened.

Mary Stuart made her a cup of tea, despite the heat outside, and Tanya sat down in the immaculate white kitchen and drank it.

“What do you do in this place anyway?” Tanya asked, as she looked around her. “Order out?”

“No, I cook here,” Mary Stuart said primly, but with a smile at her friend. Tanya looked battered and bruised, but a little bit better for the comfort. “I just like things clean and organized.”

“No,” Tanya corrected her. “You like things perfect, and you know it. But it can't always be perfect, sometimes everything is a mess and that's just the way it is, and you can't change that. Maybe you need to accept that. I keep getting the feeling that you're beating yourself up for what happened.” It was true, and Tanya wanted more than anything to release her friend from the torment she could still see in her eyes.

“Wouldn't you beat yourself up?” Mary Stuart asked softly. “How could I not blame myself? Bill blames me… I know it… he can't even look at me anymore. We live here like strangers. We're not even enemies anymore… at first we were, there's not even that now.”

“Is he coming tonight?” Tanya asked her, feeling sad for both of them. The hands life had dealt them had not been easy. At least not lately.

But Mary Stuart shook her head in answer. “He said he has to work late at the office.”

“He's hiding.” Like most people, she was wise about everyone's life but her own, but Tanya was also smarter than most people. She just picked lousy husbands.

“I know he is,” Mary Stuart said as they wandered to her bedroom. “But I can't find him. I've looked everywhere, and I don't know where he is anymore. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There's a man living here, and he looks like Bill, but I know he isn't. But I have no idea where they've put the real one.”

“Keep looking,” Tanya said, and surprised Mary Stuart with her earnestness. “It's not over till it's over.” Somehow Tanya felt they had something worth saving. They'd been married for nearly twenty-two years. That was a long time to walk out on. On the other hand, people did it, and if Mary Stuart never found him again, it was wrong of her to waste her life with him forever, and Tanya knew that. She just hated to see her give up so soon, after everything that had happened to them. And it was so unfair that he should blame Mary Stuart.

“Is that true for you too?” Mary Stuart asked her, as they walked back down the hall toward the living room, past a bunch of closed doors that Tanya suspected were other bedrooms. “It's not over till it's over?”

“I think in my case, it's different,” Tanya said with a sigh. “Maybe it never was, or never should have been. But I think it's been over for a while, and I didn't want to see it. I never realized how unhappy he was with all the garbage I can't control. But if that's going to make him crazy, then I can't do anything about it.” She still loved him, but she was also smart enough to know when she was defeated. And in some ways, it had never been completely right between them since the beginning and she knew that too, although she would have hated to admit it.