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on a telenovela, too.
    Even more to the point, Esperanza shares Mario’s marital status: single. Which is the opposite of mine: married.
    “And we all know,” I go on, “that Mario taking Esperanza to that party is only half the story. There are the yoga pictures, too.”
    Those appeared in the tabloids just last week. And in my opinion they are even more revealing. Mario and Esperanza appear in workout clothes, with scrubbed and smiling faces, strolling along a foggy Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, according to the caption. Esperanza is carrying a lavender yoga mat and Mario has a takeout coffee. They’re both laughing. If you were a mile away you could see the joy they take in each other’s company.
    The caption provides one other telling detail: Esperanza is en route to her early morning yoga class. I don’t have to tell you what it means that Mario is by her side in the early morning. It means he was with her late at night. In fact, it means he was with her over night. We tabloid readers all know what that means.
    Since I am not entirely without discipline, I am able to push these thoughts from my mind. I’ve taken to asking myself one simple question: do you love your husband? When I answer yes, as I always do, I realize I’m a fool to be thinking about Mario. That makes it a teensy bit easier to banish my wayward thoughts.
    At the moment it helps that our cab is pulling up to the theater. It’s time to focus on the task at hand. I pay the fare and leap out onto the now empty sidewalk, cheered that thanks to the wee item I purloined from Lisette’s satchel, the locked doors on our theater will present no problem.
    My heels click on the pavement as I head for the alley that leads to the rear of the theater and the stage door. It’s the way insiders enter and exit. Until this evening, I didn’t have a key. Trixie and Shanelle reach me as I’m poking Lisette’s key into the lock. Trixie slaps me on the arm. “You scamp!”
    The key fits. I turn it and pull open the heavy metal door painted emerald green. “I recognized this key from that time Lisette let us in behind her,” I whisper. “I thought it might come in handy.”
    “I knew you’d have some trick up your sleeve,” Shanelle murmurs.
    “Let’s be super quiet until we’re sure everybody is gone. It would be really hard to explain why we’re here at this hour. By the way,” I add, “I’m so glad you two came with me.”
    “Girl,” Shanelle says, “I may not always agree with you, but I’ve always got your back.”
    “I want you to have my back,” Trixie tells Shanelle, “in case there are any ghosts.”
    It is in this formation, with me in the lead and Shanelle bringing up the rear, that we enter the theater. Taking care to be quiet, Shanelle closes the stage door behind us. We pause to listen for sounds of life. The overhead lights are on, but the corridor in which we stand is dim. Lisette’s office is at the other end. Between here and there are dressing rooms, mostly, and halfway down there’s another corridor that splits off to the right. That’s the route to the stage, and everywhere else in the theater, for that matter. For some reason it’s a little better lit than where we are.
    It’s so quiet I swear I can hear my heart thud in my chest. But it’s not utterly silent. Old buildings like this creak. Something somewhere is whirring. And overhead I hear water trickle. I wonder where that’s coming from.
    I tiptoe forward, ruing my choice of footgear. I should know by now that chunky heels do not aid surreptitious investigation. Trixie and Shanelle creep along behind me. As I near the corridor to the right, I understand why it’s brighter. Somebody left his office lights on. I’m about to peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear when Oliver’s voice, loud and impatient, sails toward me. I reel backward, colliding with Trixie.
    “Since we can’t think of anything,” Oliver says, “let’s leave that for