The road was clear, the car was fast, and Shirley and I were free. The air quickly dried as we got off the 10 onto the 111 heading for Palm Springs. I hadn’t heard from Betsy in a few days so my conscience was unrestrained.

“Where we staying?” I asked.

“I told you, we’ll see.”

The coincidence surged the current of my blood. The cottages had been painted and fixed up, but to me they stood a harsh reminder that the past will always return. Is this why the time my mother had abandoned my sister and I for a night of dark intimacy came to me in stark detail only two nights ago? Was it a prelude for pulling into this driveway and while Shirley was proud to show what she found, I was too embarrassed and too lonely to want to spoil the moment, so I said nothing and counterfeited a smile. “Looks great.”

To my relief, we did not have the same cottage but the one across from it. While Shirley brought in the bags, I stood facing the opposite bungalow porch that I had struggled on years earlier. The night my sister and I split from each other’s lives, never to truly return. The night my mother’s undefiled nature was crushed in my mind. The night I learned the world was not always intelligible and that I stood independent from my sister and my mother--- an understanding that was frightful to a young girl who suddenly felt incongruent and alone.

A fifty year old dignified woman opened the screen door. She noticed me staring from across the way. “Hello.” I waved. Her husband, I assumed, a handsome man with combed back thin hair, followed her out. He had two drinks in his hand. Gin or Vodka on the rocks--- probably gin once I identified the floating olives.

The husband noticed his wife noticing me. He raised his glass. Without knowing my lover is another woman he yelled, “Please join us for a drink.”

Shirley responded, “Sounds great. Just what I need.” I investigated our neighbor’s response, which seemed quite polite and civil. This was a sophisticated couple.

The husband had our drinks poured by the time Shirley dumped the bags and we headed over.

Two gins later Zelda, the wife, began telling their love story.

Howard, the husband, said as she began, “When it’s real love, nothing will stop it.”

Zelda spoke over Howard’s words. “We were both married to the wrong people. I had no children, but Howard had four. We met in New Orleans while Howard was on a business trip and I was there with my husband at the time vacationing. Actually, my first husband and Howard met first over oysters. I had been taking an afternoon nap and then went to meet my husband for pre-dinner oysters, but Howard had convinced him to start without me.” She fakes a sneer.

“I’ll never live that down.” Howard lips pull at the gin.

I could see Shirley wanting to leave already, but Zelda was incognizant and continued. “My Howard was immediately in my heart when I laid eyes on him.”

“Right in front of your husband? Didn’t he notice?” Shirley blurted, leaving a stagnant moment in the air.

Zelda tersed, “No, he never noticed anything, that was the problem.”

“Relationships are complicated. People do what they have to do.” I said over a Mexican dinner defending Zelda and Howard.

“Bullshit. Cheating and lying are selfish and unacceptable in my book. You want another margarita?”

“Let’s get a pitcher.” I said thinking someday I would have to tell Shirley about my deception with Betsy and face the very real possibility of losing any chances with her. Perhaps, after all, I’m not so different than my mother.