For TWO MONTHS, I was living in near bliss. Celia and I never talked about Mick, because we didn’t have to. Instead, we could go wherever we wanted, do whatever we wanted. Celia bought a second car, a boring brown sedan, and left it parked in my driveway every night without anyone asking questions. We would sleep cradling each other, turning off the light an hour before we wanted to fall asleep so that we could talk in the darkness. I would trace the lines of her palm with my fingertips in the mornings to wake her up. On my birthday, she took me out to the Polo Lounge. We were hiding in plain sight. Fortunately, painting me as some woman who couldn’t keep a husband sold more papers—for a longer period of time—than outing me. I’m not saying the gossip columnists printed what they knew to be a lie. I’m simply saying they were all too happy to believe the lie I was selling them. And of course, that’s the easiest lie to tell, one you know the other person desperately wants to be true. All I had to do was make sure that my romantic scandals felt like a story that would keep making headlines. And as long as I did that, I knew the gossip rags would never look too closely at Celia. And it was all working so goddamn beautifully. Until I found out I was pregnant. kk * “YOU ARE NOT,” Celia said to me. She was standing in my pool in a lavender polka-dot bikini and sunglasses. “Yes,” I said. “I am.” I had just brought her out a glass of iced tea from the kitchen. I was standing right in front of her, looming over her, in a blue cover-up and sandals. I’d suspected I was pregnant for two weeks. I’d known for sure since the day before, when I went to Burbank and saw a discreet doctor Harry had recommended. I told her then, when she was in the pool and I was holding a glass of iced tea with a slice of lemon in it, because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I am and have always been a great liar. But Celia was sacred to me. And I never wanted to lie to her.