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been?”
    “Fine, fine. Busy, busy.” I tapped the book of wallpaper samples and worked on keeping an upbeat tone. “Apparently Barb didn’t ruin my boss’s career after all. Business is booming. I even got a raise.”
    “Excellent.” He couldn’t have cared less. “So are you . . .”
    “Married?” I held up my left hand to show I wasn’t.
    He took one long look and, as if just understanding what I’d meant, broke into a knowing grin. “Actually, I was going to ask you to dinner since I think you got off easy with the French fries and beer at the A&B.”
    Horrified that I’d presumed he’d been asking about my marital state, I blurted, “Can’t do it tonight.”
    “How about the rest of your life?”
    Was he serious? “What about . . . ?” I nodded to the woman waiting patiently a block away.
    He followed my gaze and said, “That’s one of my students, nothing more, of course. How could I even look at another woman after kissing you?”
    I didn’t care if he was slightly teasing me. I was so happy that he was still interested and that we were both free, I could barely keep myself from dragging him back to my apartment then and there. “How about we start with dinner tonight and see where that takes us?”
    “Okay, but you’ll want to pencil me in for the rest . ”
    “The rest of what?”
    “Your life. You thought I was joking. I wasn’t. Not a day’s gone by since we met, Kat, when I haven’t thought about you and that . . .”
    The next I knew, he was kissing me at the gates of Princeton in front of his student, in front of the entire campus.
    Yes, the rest-of-your-life line was corny. It was the kind of corny line nerdy econ grad students dream up while taking breaks from writing love letters to Ayn Rand. (Griff later admitted he’d started working on it the night he’d left me in Chloe’s parking lot.) Which might be why it’s the one our daughter has always loved the most.
    I was certain that I had it all that rainy late September day. I was in love with a man who was so intellectually stimulating and masculine and sexy, the touch of his hand against mine could trigger a shiver of erotic pleasure. I had the job I wanted, and soon after, I had an adorable baby girl, Laura.
    We were blessed with plenty, more than enough. No, I never moved into a huge colonial in Morrisville, nor did I join a country club and spend my days lunching and shopping and chauffeuring kids in a wood-paneled station wagon. Because money was always tight at our house, I had to go back to work when Laura was six months old and I have never known the luxury of never worrying about bills.
    If there was one regret, it was that I didn’t pause in our whirlwind courtship to stop and analyze that offhand comment Griff had made about wasting money on parking tickets. How to handle money is one of those uncomfortable premarital topics that couples are supposed to discuss, along with kids and religion.
    And, like most new couples, we artfully dodged it.
    Maybe it was because I was so young and having too much fun and so giddily in love to ruin the magic by sitting him down and laying out a balance sheet. But more likely it was because I already sensed there was a conflict.
    Griff was a saver; I was a spender. Therein lay the seeds of our destruction.
    Despite that, we managed to survive our many, many fights about money intact, more together and more in love than we were on that fall day outside Princeton.
    Or so I believed, until twenty years passed and I zipped open the suitcase from his trip to the West Coast to find I’d made an awful mistake. I’d married the wrong man.

CHAPTER THREE
    T wo wrappers from Trojan Mint Tingle condoms. That’s what I found in the pocket of Griff ’s khakis while unpacking the suitcase from his trip to San Francisco.
    My first question—after the initial wave of revulsion—was what normal man would insist on a minty tingle there? Mint was for fighting gingivitis, no?
    More important,