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asked, puzzled by her reaction.
    â€œWho’s Lisa?” she asked him dryly.
    â€œLisa?” he repeated, buying himself a few moments to formulate a credible answer.
    â€œWho is she?”
    â€œOh, she’s just a student in my introductory French class.”
    â€œAre you fucking her?” Karen asked him point-blank.
    Now where the hell was this random accusation coming from? Michael wondered with indignation, as if it were false. Besides, Karen never used that kind of language. Generally speaking, vulgarity was his domain. His wheels started spinning in place. What do you say to a woman at a time like this? It didn’t happen? It wasn’t serious? I wasn’t in love? Every answer sounded kind of lame. Besides, he had run through all of them before. Now, the second time he got caught cheating by his fiancée, Michael realized that he couldn’t rely upon his usual arsenal of excuses. The absurdity of his predicament amused him. The corners of his mouth twisted into a smile: the shameless, idiotic grin of a mischievous child who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
    â€œYou’re laughing in my face, you ... you bastard!” Karen lashed out at him. The mixture of indignation and self-pity brought tears to her eyes, which streamed soundlessly down her cheeks. I have to remain strong, she told herself. I can’t let this womanizer see me fall apart.
    She cries like a man, Michael observed, remaining silent.
    â€œWhy are you screwing around on me? After you promised me that you’d never do it again?” Karen demanded.
    The answer was on the tip of his tongue: because I like it. But he couldn’t say that since he didn’t want to sound tactless. What Michael couldn’t quite figure out was why Karen felt so confident in her charge. Did he forget to toss away Lisa’s note? “How did you find out?” he asked her.
    â€œDidn’t I give you enough chances already?” she ignored his question. Her eyes were full of reproach. “When I found out you cheated on me with that sleazy French girl, didn’t I give you a second chance? How many women would have done that?”
    At this point, Michael did his best to appear genuinely contrite. He looked away, to muster a somber expression. He recalled how only a few months earlier, Karen had arrived home early from work with a splitting headache. She caught him in the midst of a heated phone conversation with Mireille, who was pressing upon him the importance of committing to her. She was ready to dump her fiancé and marry him instead. At first, Michael had tried to remain diplomatic in dissuading his overzealous colleague. He cautioned her to be prudent and not leave her fiancé, who, he reminded her, loved her and was a good man. But, as it turns out, his strategy backfired.
    â€œWhat are you talking about? It’s you I love. Je suis folle amoureuse de toi ,” Mireille protested.
    Why couldn’t side dishes remain side dishes? Why did they insist on becoming the main course? Michael wondered. He tried to persuade Mireille that, in point of fact, the most fulfilling relationship between a man and a woman entailed hooking up several times a week with no strings attached, especially for the man.
    â€œ Non !” Mireille vehemently disagreed. “ Merde . This is bullshit! If you can’t commit to our relationship, c’est fini entre nous .” At which point Michael realized that Mireille meant business, since whenever she got upset—or ecstatic, depending upon the circumstances—she slipped into French.
    But rejection was not something Michael liked to hear from his women. If anybody were going to do the dumping, it would have to be him. So by the time Karen slipped quietly into the living room, he was too absorbed in the discussion with his girlfriend to hear his fiancée come in.
    â€œ Tu me prends pour une conne ?” Mireille was shouting into