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By Root 592 0

went through a pot of coffee, lit a Montecristo, and drove out to the cottage, rehearsing variations of my I-think-it-best-for-you-that-we-divorce speech, every one of which sounded disconcertingly farouche to me. The Second Mrs. Panofsky was not to be found in the kitchen, or in our bed, which had already been made up. Maybe, as troubled as I was, she had also risen early, and gone for a swim. Certainly it was already hot enough for that. What if I scrawled a note, saying I will agree to divorce you, left it on the kitchen table, and beat it. No, that would be cowardly, I thought. So what, Barney? No, I mustn’t. I decided to waken Boogie and talk my problem over with him. And, lo and behold, there they were, my wife and best friend, snug in bed. I couldn’t believe my good luck. “Well, well, well,” I said, simulating outrage.

“Shit.” The Second Mrs. Panofsky leaped out of bed, starkers, scrambled for her nightgown, and fled.

“It’s your fault,” said Boogie. “You were supposed to phone before you left town.”

“I’ll settle with you later, you bastard,” I hollered, and then pursued The Second Mrs. Panofsky into our bedroom, where she was already dressing.

“I came back here hoping we could be reconciled,” I said, “determined to make our marriage work, and I find you in bed with my best friend.”

“It was an accident. Honestly, Barney.”

Stacks of cliché-ridden TV scripts hadn’t passed through my office for nothing, and now I began to crib from the worst of them. “You betrayed me,” I said.

“I brought him a tray, like you asked,” she said, between sobs, “and he was trembling, and his sheets were soaked, and I lay down beside him just to keep him warm, and he began to do things, and I was putty in his hands because you haven’t touched me in months, and I’m only human, and one thing led to another. I hardly even knew what was happening until it was over.”

“My wife and my best friend,” I said.

She reached out to comfort me.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, hoping I wasn’t overdoing it.

“We shouldn’t talk about it now,” she said, “when I’m so upset.”

“You’re so upset?”

Tears flying, she grabbed her purse, snatched her car keys off the dresser, and started down the stairs, me following after. “I’ll be at my mother’s,” she said.

“Tell her we’re getting divorced.”

“You tell her. No, don’t you dare. She has a dentist’s appointment this afternoon. Root canal.” She whirled to confront me in front of her car. “If you loved me, you never would have left me alone with a man like that.”

“I trusted you.”

“You have no morals, guys like you and Boogie. I’m so inexperienced and he’s such a — I had no idea what was happening. He seemed so distraught, so sad, I thought his hand — that he didn’t even know he was stroking me there — that it was by accident — I pretended it was — I didn’t want to seem like a square — make a fuss. I — he’s your best friend, I — then it was too — I still don’t know how he got my nightie off. I — he — Oh, what’s the use? Nothing I do is right, so far as you’re concerned.” She got into the car and lowered her window. “Shit. Now I’ve broken a fingernail. I hope you’re happy. You haven’t stopped yelling at me, but he was the one who started it, honest to God he was, your best friend, I’ll bet he fucked your first wife too, a man like that. Some friend. So what are you going to do about him?”

“Oh, I’m going to kill him is what I’m going to do, and then maybe I’ll come after you and your mother.”

“My mother. Shit. I can’t let her see me like — I forgot my makeup kit on my dressing-table. I want my eye-liner. I need my Valium.”

“Go get it, then.”

“Fuck you,” she shrieked and, hitting the accelerator, she raced down the driveway, her rear tires spitting pebbles. Once she was safely out of sight, I slipped into a Hotch on the porch, bracing myself against the banister. I followed this up with a nifty Shim Sham and a Da-Pupple-Ca, and nearly got caught at it as she roared back up the driveway and lowered her window again. “You can keep a whore in Toronto, I’m not supposed to complain, you’re a man and I’m not, that’s life.