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Sorry! Are you okay?”
    â€œYou hit me with a broom.”
    â€œIt was the soft part of the broom,” I say.
    Renee looks so mad I am afraid to say more. I can tell she is doing the kind of deep breathing they teach you in birthing class.
    â€œWhat the fuck, Lily. What the fuck?”
    â€œWell, you broke into my apartment,” I say in my own defense. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
    â€œYou weren’t expecting me? You sent me, like, three insane text messages in the middle of the night and then stopped answering your phone. What did you expect me to do, exactly?”
    â€œI did?” That’s right, I did. But why? “What about?”
    Renee’s eyes leave their sockets for a moment. “Fuck you, Lily. Fuck you. I’m leaving.”
    â€œWait, no! Hang on. Did I tell you to come over? I honestly can’t remember. There was some wine and a bit of crying…”
    â€œYou didn’t have to tell me to come over. You told me you had an emergency and you were married. I thought you had been sold into white slavery.”
    â€œSo you rushed over in the middle of the night?” I am so touched. Maybe I was wrong about our friendship wilting.
    â€œChrist, you basketcase. It’s not the middle of the night.” She turns open the mini-blinds, and sure enough, it’s not dark out there. “It’s eight A.M. I’m on the way to work. I worried about you last night and decided I better come check, is all.”
    â€œOh, Renee. I love you. That is so sweet.” I rush to wrap my arms around her.
    She responds with more deep maternal breathing, but eventually hugs back.
    â€œI’m so glad to see you,” I tell her, now that I’ve fully woken up. “It really did feel like an emergency last night—I was packing up when I found out I’m accidentally still married to that guy I hooked up with at your bachelorette party, remember him? And he’s engaged now so I’ve got to go make this right, and I wasn’t thinking straight and imagining all these terrible repercussions but truly it should be okay—probably just a phone call and some kind of processing fee. And then I passed out and forgot all about it.”
    Well, not really all about it, now that I start remembering my dream. “And my phone was in the kitchen.”
    â€œI know,” Renee says. “I called it on my way in here. I could hear it buzzing on the linoleum through the so-called door I jimmied open with my credit card. This place is such a dump, Lily. It’s good you’re moving.”
    â€œThat’s what I was saying to you yesterday!” I agree.
    She shakes her head like I’m the crazy one. “I’m going to work now,” she says. “If you need help getting unmarried, you know where to find me.”
    â€œNo, wait! I need your legal beagle skills to help me find this guy.”
    â€œYou don’t know where your husband is?”
    â€œNo idea. Some rough guesses, but nothing for sure. I do know his first and last names, both.”
    â€œWell. No wonder you guys got married, with that kind of intimacy.” She heaves a sigh that would be appropriate for, say, when your husband’s just surprised you with a boat or your kid brings home a stray dog. “Get dressed. I don’t have any clients until ten. I’ve always said a divorce lawyer’s office is the best place to find a husband.”
    *   *   *
    Besides the police databases, subscription search engines, and private investigators Renee has at her disposal as a litigious and well-compensated divorce lawyer, she also has another asset: she can Internet stalk way better than me. This, I suspect, comes from lots of practice. On her office computer, I show her the Facebook page for Ben Hutchinson, Attorney, and she clicks three times and gets to the spot where it says, “Engaged to Dani Ricthers.” One more click