“In love?” I asked. He laughed at my shock. “It doesn’t make any sense. Trust me, I know that.” “With whom?” ” “Joy. “Joy Nathan?” “Yes. We’ve seen each other on and off through the years. You know how it is.” “I know how it is with you, sure. But last I heard, you broke her heart.” “Yes, well, it will come as no surprise to you that I have, in the past, been a little . . . let’s say, heartless.” “Sure, we can say that.” Rex laughed. “But I started feeling like it might be nice to have a woman in my bed when I woke up in the morning.” “How novel.” “And when I thought of what woman I might like that to be, I thought of Joy. So we’ve been seeing each other. Quietly, mind you. And, well, now I find that I can’t stop thinking about her. That I want to be around her all the time.” “Rex, that’s wonderful,” I said. “I hoped you'd think so.” “So what should we do?” I asked. “Well,” he said, breathing deeply, “Joy and I would like to marry.” “OK,” I said, my brain already kicking into high gear, calculating the perfect time to announce our divorce. We’d already had two movies come out, one a modest hit, one a smash. The third, Carolina Sunset, about a young couple who have lost a child and move to a farm in North Carolina to try to heal, ultimately having affairs with people in their small town, was premiering in a few months. Rex had phoned in his performance. But I knew the movie had the potential to be big for me. “We'll say that the stress of filming Carolina Sunset, of being on set and watching each other kiss other people, ruined