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went right for her lap again. She had not paid me the slightest attention since we’d met up with Merilee.
    “I’ve missed her,” said Merilee, scratching Lulu’s ears.
    “I see it’s mutual,” I noted drily.
    “She reminds me of us. The good part.”
    “You like to be reminded?”
    “From time to time.” Merilee flushed slightly, looked away. “When I’m feeling as if something is missing from my life. When I’m feeling … ordinary.”
    “That’s one thing you’ll never be.”
    We ordered blood-rare roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a bottle of Medoc. And two martinis, very dry.
    “Nothing to start with?” asked the waiter.
    “Just extra olives in our martinis,” I replied.
    He frowned. “How many would you like?”
    “Bring the jar,” Merilee said. “Please.”
    For Merilee Nash he’d gladly have tangoed with a sheep. He returned a moment later with our martinis, very dry, an ornate bowl brimming with cocktail olives, and an autograph book, which he held before her shyly. She signed it.
    I held my glass up. “To a successful run.”
    “To then.” She clicked my glass with hers. “The good part.”
    We drank.
    “How are the parents?” she asked, dunking an olive in her drink and devouring it.
    I come from one of those families where no one speaks to each other. Merilee they loved. “Alive, last I heard. Yours?”
    Merilee comes from one of those families where everyone speaks to each other. Me they never liked. “Well.”
    I dunked an olive in my drink. I was about to swallow it when I saw her gazing at it longingly. She’d always insisted mine tasted better than hers. I let her have it. Then I had one of my own. “And Zack?”
    She looked down into her drink. “Zack is having serious problems with his second play.”
    It had been several years now since Zack had made his Broadway splash. He was overdue. “What’s it about?”
    “Us, apparently. Him and me. It’s caused him to withdraw from me. And to get churlish.” She sipped her martini. “Also to drink too much.”
    “Say, this sounds mighty familiar.”
    She smiled ruefully. “Doesn’t it?”
    “It’s so unlike you. Truly. I mean, you’re such a perfect person except for this one teeny little flaw of yours.”
    She stiffened. “Flaw? What flaw?”
    “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Merilee, but you have terrible taste in husbands.”
    She covered my hand with hers and looked dreamily into my eyes. “You noticed.”
    We tore into our food when it came. Merilee eats like a sophomore nose tackle and never gains an ounce. It drives her friends crazy. Her women friends.
    “So is it over?” I asked. “You and Zack?”
    “It’s acrid.”
    “Acrid?”
    “Tell me about T. S.,” she said, gently but firmly steering us elsewhere. I let her do so.
    “Haven’t figured him out yet. He’s moody. Self-centered. Cooperative, but evasive when he wants to be. A tough nut, no question.”
    She helped herself to some of my roast beef. “And the novel? What’s it about?”
    I cleared my throat. “The last couple of years.”
    “I see,” she said, the weather on her side of the table getting noticeably chillier. “And I’ll play a featured role in it?”
    “I’m trying to deal with what happened.”
    “From your point of view.”
    “It’s my book.”
    “That’s right, it is,” she agreed, sharply. “I’m going to write a book myself. I’ll call it I Keep Marrying Men Who Blame Me For Their Problems.”
    “Not true, Merilee.”
    “Not fair! I do the best I can! Why do I deserve this?”
    “Look, I don’t blame you. But I do have to write about us. That’s how I work things out. The thing that drove us apart was I couldn’t write.”
    “All of which makes it okay—even if I get trashed in print.”
    “You won’t get trashed.”
    “But I will get undressed!”
    “If you insist. Shall I blindfold the waiter?”
    “Not funny,” she snapped, glaring at me.
    Lulu shifted restlessly in Merilee’s