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rain had not let up, and the traffic was light for a Saturday in late September. “And you really get up at six every morning?”
    “Damn straight. Six A. in the M. Susannah won’t even get up with me. I grind the coffee, I put the water up, then I get dressed. By the time I get my clothes on straight, the kettle’s boiling. So I have coffee, I eat a container of yogurt standing—”
    She listened to him, amused. A man proud of discovering he could actually get up in the morning by himself, make his own breakfast. She could not imagine a woman living who would think such a thing worth reporting.
    “ … just make it. Fortunately, I’ve straightened out the coffee situation at the studio. A Mr. Coffee with Zabar’s blend in it is workable by the most imbecilic of the staff. And at home Susannah’s finally learned how to make espresso without explosions.”
    Susannah. Was that the woman he’d been involved with in April? A couple had been sharing the apartment with him for a while. The Dorfmanns. But why would he expect Mrs. Dorfmann to get up with him? She decided to assume knowledge. “Susannah’s living there?”
    “Sure. You knew that … Hadn’t she moved in the last time I saw you? I thought … Let me remember.”
    “I didn’t know she was really living there.”
    “Aw, come on, Vida—”
    “Could you remember to call me Vinnie, please?” “In the fucking car?”
    “How do you know the car’s not bugged? You were talking about Susannah.”
    “She’s not news by this time. I’ve been living with her for a year.”
    “The Dorfmanns aren’t living with you any longer?”
    “They moved out when Susannah moved in. Did I forget to tell you in April? Maybe I wasn’t sure how it’d all work out … Let’s see, I guess the Dorfmanns moved out in March. Susannah was staying over all the time anyhow, and she had that damned remote pad in farthest Brooklyn.”
    He had got very involved with Susannah since April, that was evident. She was positive now she had heard Susannah’s name, but along with a Lois and a Maggie, all through the last winter. He certainly had not been living with anyone but the Dorfmanns, and now this Susannah was occupying her apartment. Where she couldn’t go.
    “Come on, baby … don’t sulk. You knew about Susannah. Anyhow, what difference does it make to you? We can’t live together”
    Part time, we could, just as we did in Philadelphia, she thought, which was one thing she wanted to arrange this trip; but she was already seeing that wasn’t the way his plans were running.
    He said plaintively, “Here I am cheating on her to spend this weekend with you, and do I complain? It means a lot to me to see you. It’s worth any risk, any expense, any amount of finagling and covering up”
    “Cheating, to see your wife? That’s a new one” Make me feel guilty, why don’t you? She sighed, grimacing into the rain. Say something bland quick. “Have you any ideas about motels?” She had let too much time go by without seeing him. She had to stay East now. Eva would just have to understand. L.A. would never be Vida’s home. She was losing him finally, losing him utterly. Another woman in the bed she had picked out. Would it have been a worse sign if Susannah got up with him Monday through Friday at 6 A .M. just to see him off into the early smog? Also, it was typical of Leigh in their whole marriage to keep a disturbing piece of information from her—an overdraft, a bill, a problem—and then to announce it all at once when it had reached postcritical explosiveness as if she had really known all along, just as he did. Control. Retaining information gave him control. She found herself angry, and again she sighed at the rain.
    “ … so I made a reservation” he was saying. He sat up as they approached Montauk. “Take the shore road, next right. Let’s see if we can find it. Sounds nice.”
    He had chosen a colony of duplexes scattered over a hillside on sand paths that