"I love it when you talk that way," Rosie said.

"I was wondering if I could see Dr. Greenspoon," Bonnie said, addressing the wall above the well-coiffed heads of Erica McBain and Hyacinth Johnson. "I know I don't have an appointment, but it's really very important."

"I'm sorry," Hyacinth Johnson said, managing to sound as if she meant it. "The doctor isn't in today."

"d.a.m.n," Bonnie muttered, louder than she had intended. "I really need to see him." Look at me, she wanted to shout. Look at what I've done to my hair. Can't you see that I'm a sick woman, that I need to see the doctor as soon as possible?

"We've had a cancellation for next Wednesday at ten o'clock, if you'd like that."

"No, that's too late."

"I'm afraid I have nothing before that at all."

"That's all right," Bonnie told her. "I really don't need to see the doctor. It was just an impulse thing."

Impulse? she wondered. She'd been sitting outside the doctor's office for almost two hours, debating whether or not to come inside. Could that be considered an impulse? And how could she say she didn't need to see the doctor? She was crazy, for G.o.d's sake. Certifiable. Look at what she'd done today, for example. She'd bolted from the school parking lot without a thought, stormed into police headquarters in Newton to further antagonize Captain Mahoney, and then driven into Boston to have her hair butchered by Rosie the Riveter. How could she have given that crazy woman in a hat permission to do whatever she wanted with her hair? She looked worse than before, for G.o.d's sake. At least when her hair was longer, she'd been able to pull it back or push it forward. How could she do anything with two inches of hair? Hadn't anyone told Rosie that the waif look was dead? Didn't she know that thirty-five was too old to be a pixie? What would Rod say when he saw her?

He'd tell her she was crazy, she decided. And he'd be right. She was crazy. That's why she'd driven directly here from the hairdresser's, why she'd parked outside and sat there for two hours trying to work up the courage to come inside. She was nuttier than a fruitcake, as Rod would say. Weren't those the exact words he'd used to describe his ex-wife to the police? Well, now he could say it about the two of them. Both his wives were nuttier than fruitcakes. Something else they apparently had in common.

She was nuts, and she was making herself sick, Bonnie told herself. It was as simple as that. She couldn't cope with all the changes in her life, and this was her body's way of telling her she needed help. The psychosomatic flu. And the remedy was only two hundred dollars an hour.

"I think I will take that appointment, if that's okay," Bonnie said.

Hyacinth Johnson calmly wrote the information down on a small card, as if she was well used to patients changing their minds, and handed the card across the desk to Bonnie. "Ten o'clock next Wednesday morning," she repeated. "We'll see you then."

"I don't see your name on the guest list, Mrs. Wheeler," the elderly security guard was saying, tired brown eyes scanning his clipboard for her name.

"My husband doesn't know I'm coming," Bonnie said. "I thought I'd surprise him." Surprise was right, she thought, hands picking at whatever hair she had left, trying to fluff it up, give it more volume.

"I'll have to call down, I'm afraid."

"That's fine."

"I hate to have to do that to you," the old man apologized. "But they're very strict about regulations."

"I understand."

"I could lose my job if I just let you walk in."

"I'll tell my husband what a fine job you do."

The security guard smiled and picked up the phone resting on the high counter just inside the entrance to studio WHDH. "I almost didn't recognize you," he said. "You've done something different to your hair."

"You like it?" Bonnie asked hopefully, not sure how long she could maintain an upright position.

"It's different."

"I thought short hair might be a nice change."

"It's short."

Oh G.o.d, Bonnie thought. It must be truly awful if even the elderly security guard couldn't think of something nice to say to her. Don't be silly, she told herself in her next breath. He's hardly an arbiter of high fashion. Even if he doesn't like your hair, others might find it appealing. Besides, it's only hair. It'll grow back.

It'll take two years for this to grow back, she realized, leaning against the counter for support, watching as the security guard hung up the phone.

"They're sending someone right up for you," he told her.

"Thank you." Bonnie looked around the black marble foyer of the downtown high rise, just blocks from fashionable Newbury Street. Maybe after she was finished here, she'd go shopping, buy a new outfit to go with her new haircut. Maybe she'd even ask Diana to join her. Diana's office was somewhere close by. They could go shopping, have coffee, gossip, all the things that girls were traditionally supposed to do. Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little girls are made of.

What was she doing here? Why had she decided to interrupt her husband in the middle of the afternoon when he was frantically trying to prepare for Miami? If she were smart, she'd leave now, just turn on her heels and exit the premises, tell the guard she'd made a mistake, that she was sorry she'd bothered anyone, my best to the wife and kids....

"Bonnie, Bonnie, is that you?" Marla's voice cut through the black marble, like an electric saw through gla.s.s, splinters everywhere. She strode toward Bonnie, her svelte body encased in a bright purple dress, her corn-blond hair a series of cascading ripples falling to her shoulders.

Bonnie's hand was instantly at her hair, self-consciously pulling at a few wisps around her ear. "You didn't have to come out...." she began.

"I heard you were here, and we're on a break in the taping...."

"My G.o.d, you're taping. I'd forgotten."

"That's all right." Marla's hand was on her elbow, pulling Bonnie toward the corridor to the right. "It's always a pleasure to see you. Did you do something new to your hair?"

"I felt like a change," Bonnie said.

"You got it," Marla told her, pulling open the door marked STUDIO. They continued down the narrow, dimly lit corridor.

"I'm really sorry to be bothering you...."

"Nonsense. You're no bother. I don't think you've been down since we changed the set."

"No, it's been a while."

Several attractive young women in short skirts pa.s.sed them in the hall, half bowing in Marla's direction. "The new set is such an improvement," Marla was saying. "Rod's idea, of course. He got rid of all those grays and greens and replaced them with peach and blush, which, of course, is much more flattering, and much more feminine, don't you think?"

Bonnie said nothing, understanding that no response was required.

"I can't tell you what a pleasure it is working with your husband. I've had directors before, let me tell you, and there are directors and directors, let me tell you. Anyone can point a camera in the right direction and tell people where to sit, but it takes a good director to understand what makes people tick, and how to make sure everything runs smoothly. And your husband is the best. Just the best," she said, almost wistfully, leading Bonnie past a door marked MAKEUP and another one labeled GREEN ROOM, although the walls were pink. "Our guests wait in there," Marla confided, her voice low. "It's really cute how nervous they get. Don't you have school today?" she continued in one breath.

"We finished early," Bonnie told her, thinking this was true. She had finished early. Very early.

"The studio's in here." Marla guided Bonnie through yet another heavy gray door. And suddenly they were in a darkened world of cameras and monitors, where thick cable lines ran like creeping vines along the floor and hung from the ceiling like exotic plants. The audience, some three hundred people, most of them women, sat in tiers of comfortable chairs, eyes glued to the peach-colored sofa and blush-tinted swivel chair on the lit podium at one end of the studio. There were silk potted palms and vases filled with fresh-cut flowers at strategic intervals around the ersatz living room. On the back wall hung a large modern tapestry in shades of pink, mauve, and beige. Marla was right-it was a vast improvement over the old set. Rod had always had a good eye. "Why don't you sit over there?" Marla said, acknowledging an adoring woman fan in the front row with a wide smile. "That way, if you have any questions you want to ask one of our guests, I can get to you easily."

"I don't want to ask any questions," Bonnie said.

"You never know," Marla told her. "You might relate. We have a very interesting show today."

"I'm sure you do, but I just wanted to see Rod for a few minutes. I really don't have time to watch the whole taping."

"There's only half an hour left. Besides, he can't see you till after the taping anyway. He's in the control room." Marla pointed to a gla.s.s-enclosed room high above their heads at the back of the studio. "So, why don't you just sit down and make yourself at home, and sit back and enjoy the show." She all but pushed Bonnie into the empty seat in the second row. "I'll tell the cameraman to make sure he gets a shot of you."

"Please don't do that." Immediately, Bonnie's hand shot to her hair.

"Don't be silly, and don't be shy." Marla was already moving away from her. "And remember to speak up if you want to challenge any of our guests."

"I don't even know what the show's about," Bonnie protested, weakly, grateful to be sitting down.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? It's all about extramarital affairs." She smiled, displaying all her perfectly capped teeth. "We're calling it 'Wives Who Hang On Too Long.' See you later. Enjoy."

"She's having an affair with my husband," Bonnie was saying, pacing back and forth in front of Diana's desk, like a lion in a cage.

"Bonnie, calm down."

"Don't try to tell me I'm imagining this."

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Diana said. "I'm just trying to understand what happened."

Bonnie walked to the floor-to-ceiling window of the modern office tower and looked down at the street some twenty floors below. It made her feel dizzy, and she immediately pulled back, b.u.mping into the sharp corner of Diana's green marble desk top.

"Why don't you sit down?" Diana offered, indicating the two green-striped wing chairs across from her desk.

"I don't want to sit down," Bonnie snapped. "I'm tired of sitting down. I've been sitting down all day." She pictured first her car seat, then the barber chair at Rosie's salon, then the soft wine-colored armchair in the darkened studio. "'Wives Who Hang On Too Long,' she called it," Bonnie spat into the air. "Can you imagine? She actually had the gall to say that to me."

"Bonnie," Diana reminded her, "that was the name of the show. What else could she say it was called? She didn't make it up for your benefit. She had no way of knowing you were going to drop by."

"It was the way she said it," Bonnie told her. "The insinuation was too blatant to miss. She was implying that I'm one of those wives. You weren't there. You didn't hear her."

Diana pushed herself out of her high-backed black leather chair and walked around, leaning against the front of her desk. "Okay, so let me see if I have this straight," she began in proper lawyerly fashion, tugging at the jacket of her wheat-colored suit. "You had a run-in with one of your students so you decided to skip school and get your hair done...."

"I know it's awful...."

"It's not the most flattering cut you could have selected," Diana agreed, "but that's not the point."

"I'm not sure I know what the point is," Bonnie said.

"Which is exactly the point," Diana said, pouncing on Bonnie's words. "You always know what the point is. You never do anything without thinking it through well-out in advance. Suddenly, you're skipping school and cutting your hair off and dropping in unannounced to the studio. Why? What's going on?"

"My husband is having an affair," Bonnie insisted. "That's what's going on."

"With Marla Brenzelle? I can't believe it. Even Rod has more sense than that."

"I know it sounds ridiculous at first, but it all makes sense."

"What makes sense?"

"Rod's been working very long hours lately. He leaves early in the morning and doesn't come home till late at night. Sometimes, he even goes out after he's come home." She thought of last night.

"He's preparing for an important convention in Miami. Doesn't he leave in a few days?"

"With Marla," Bonnie reminded her.

"She's his boss."

"She has big t.i.ts."

"Excuse me?"

"Remember that s.e.xy lingerie I found in Rod's drawer, the stuff I a.s.sumed was for me, except that the bra was too big?"

"Bonnie, that hardly means-"

"It was for Marla, that's why. Not for me. Diana, I'm not imagining this. Remember I told you that Caroline Gossett said Rod always used to cheat on Joan."

"You're not Joan."

"I'm his wife. Same difference."

"Not quite. Joan happens to be rather dead."

There was an abrupt silence.

"Well, that was hardly the smartest thing I've ever said," Diana said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Are you going to confront him?"

"So, you believe me?"

Diana shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "The evidence is very flimsy."

"Stop being a lawyer for a few minutes and just be my friend."

"Would a friend tell you she thinks your husband might be having an affair?"

Bonnie sank into one of the wing chairs, felt it scratchy against her bare neck. "I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. I'm so tired. I feel so lousy all the time."

"Okay, here's my advice," Diana told her, kneeling beside Bonnie, placing her hands on top of her friend's. "Don't do anything for now. Wait until Rod gets back from Miami. Hopefully, by then you'll be feeling better, you'll be thinking more clearly, your hair will be longer...."

Bonnie tried to laugh, found herself crying instead. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For acting like such an idiot, for bursting into your office in the middle of the afternoon...."

"You don't have to apologize."

"I just don't know what to do."

"Go home and get into bed," Diana told her. "You really don't look well, and it's not just your hair. Maybe you should see a doctor."

"I'm fine," Bonnie insisted, getting out of the chair.

"Are you going to be all right to drive home?"