He grinned and flicked his eyebrows and marched over to the open window. Almost immediately, I recognized the logic at work.

Herbie secured one end of his rope to the cat's hind paws, lifted the animal to the sill, grasped the rope, and began lowering the cat head down toward the half-crazed, half-paralyzed rat. Here, I thought, was genius. Insensitive, yes, but Herbie Zylstra had a firm understanding of the laws of nature: Ours is essentially a cat-eat-rat world.

Mrs. Kooshof blanched. "You mean ...?"

"I do, indeed. A fishing expedition. Live bait."

"You're both sick."

I leaned back in the tub, polished off my wine, rearranged my feet against their fleshy cushions.

"Sickness," I said gravely, "is beside the point."

"There isn't any point!" she snapped. "And get those feet off me."

I responded as a gentleman, with a tolerant, forgiving, wholly benevolent smile. My feet, however, remained in place.

"All in good time," I said briskly, then reviewed the circumstances for her: how Herbie had tied the cat to a rope-a fairly large cat, I added-and began lowering it toward the trembling rat. (This dizzying operation, I will admit, soon nauseated me.) And the cat, too, seemed out of sorts-eyes glazed, hissing, pawing at the air with its front legs. "Hey, be careful," Lorna Sue murmured, "you'll hurt my cat," but Herbie shook his head and told her it was like a carnival ride, lots of fun.

Lorna Sue frowned. "Well, it doesn't look like fun," she said. "Topsy-turvy and upside down and everything."

Herbie paid no attention.

Carefully, muttering to himself, he kept inching his baited rope down toward the cornered rat. The idea, of course, was for the cat to seize the rat in its mouth, at which point Herbie would instantly yank both creatures back into the attic. An elegant concept, but one complicated by issues of geometry and discomfort. Three stories high, suspended by its hind paws, the terror-crazed feline had no stomach for lunch. "Fetch!" Herbie cried, and swung the animal like a pendulum, working the rope with quick, encouraging jerks. "Come on, girl, come on!" he chanted. "Yummy!"

Lorna Sue and I leaned out the window for a better view. I remember our arms touching, a shiver running up my shoulder blades. (Even then, as a child, my passions were high.) I remember, too, the tension in her face, how her tongue curled seductively against her upper front teeth. "Listen, I don't think this is working," she said. "You're almost hanging her."

This seemed a valid point.

Three feet below, the cat was quite literally at the end of its rope, thrashing in raw cat-terror. Somehow its neck had gotten tangled in a large loop, which tightened each time Herbie tugged. Asphyxiation seemed imminent, and with a loud, desperate hiss-a screech, actually-the cat made a sudden corkscrew motion, twisting violently.

Herbie lost his grip on the rope.

The cat dropped to the ledge below, landed heavily, and then peered up at us.

"Okay, smartie, so now what?" said Lorna Sue. "I told you it wouldn't work."

Herbie's jaw made an audible pop.

"Well, piss," he said, and climbed out the window.

Herbie Zylstra was not the sort of person to call it quits, not ever. He grasped the sill, turned his back to us, and lowered himself down toward the ledge. For a few seconds he dangled there. (Like a circus act, I thought, except no net.) He stared straight at me, almost defiantly, then let go and dropped the final few inches.

A miracle, really.

He wobbled briefly and then found his balance. "Moron crappy idiot fuckhead cat," he said.

Quickly, then, Herbie grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck, gave it a scolding shake, and passed it up to me.

Next he retrieved the rat.

And right then-in what would prove a pivotal intersection in my life-the unwinding reel of our universe clicked into a kind of jerky slow motion. A set of snapshots, in fact.

I remember Herbie uttering the word "Catch."

I remember how he gripped the rat like a baseball. How he turned and tossed it up to me.

I remember reaching out with my left hand.

I remember the rat's glittery left eye, a high squealing sound, Lorna Sue's gusty breath against my shoulder.

Two unfortunate variables were at work. Number one, I was still cradling the cat-Vanilla, by name. Number two, I had never been blessed with athletic prowess.

The rat bounced off my fingertips.

I also dropped Vanilla. (More accurately, I juggled the cat for a split second, almost recaptured her, then watched her plummet like a furry rock to the cement driveway.) Contrary to cat mythology, Vanilla did not alight nimbly on her feet. She landed like a heavy foot stepping into a puddle.

"Killer!" Lorna Sue screamed.

Killer? Not only was the charge inaccurate; it was also grossly inconsistent-the purest double standard. Bear in mind that just minutes earlier Lorna Sue had been happily feeding a live, innocent, utterly defenseless rat to her fucking python.

"Killer!" she screamed-absurdly-and I defended myself as best I could. I took the wise course. I sucked up my courage and lied.

"Your stupid cat!" I yelled back. "It bit me."

Lorna Sue hesitated. I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, those microscopic droplets of remorse and guilt that accompany a convincing piece of deception.

"Bit you?" she said. "Does it hurt?"

"Like crazy," I said. "I need a rabies shot."

And then effortlessly, out of the blue, I summoned the evidence of tears. Real tears, real anguish. (One could argue, perhaps, that I am a born liar. But one could also argue that I had no alternative. I was in love with Lorna Sue Zylstra-madly in love, heroically in love-and simply could not bear the burden of her ill will.) It was an instructive moment. In matters of the heart, with love on the line, what can be the harm of an innocent lie or two?

"Rabies," I repeated.

I winced and grabbed my thumb, removing it from view, but already Lorna Sue had performed a rapid medical survey. The concern in her eyes turned to skepticism, then faded into something for which there is no adequate piece of language-something sad and weary and resigned and knowledgeable. A child, yes. But she looked at me with exactly the same expression I would encounter four decades later, on a Tuesday afternoon, the ninth day of July, when she turned her back and walked out on me forever.

As an adult, she said: "Don't be an eighteen-year-old."

As a child, in the attic that day, she said: "You're a liar, Tommy."

Mrs. Robert Kooshof removed my feet from her breasts, stepped out of the tub, and began drying herself with a large monogrammed towel.

"What a jerk," she muttered. "I was totally patient with you-I sat there like some idiot psychiatrist-and what's the upshot? You told her a dumb fib. So what? I mean, you could've explained that in ten seconds."

"I'm a wordsmith," I said. "It takes time."

Mrs. Kooshof wrapped the towel around her splendidly proportioned upper torso. With a distinct growl, she reached down, turned on the cold water, and left me to the pneumonia bugs.

Dumb fib?

Mrs. Robert Kooshof had missed the point.

A pattern was established on that Saturday morning. Issues of trust, issues of faith.

If necessary, we will lie to win love. We will lie to keep love.

(Cat becomes mattress.) Granted, Vanilla had not bitten me-my own fault-but why should a mere accident jeopardize the world's greatest romance? Why should I (or anyone) be condemned by a fleeting lapse of concentration? Why should I (or you) be judged by a piece of bad luck, a fluke of physics, a momentary miscalculation? Under such circumstances, is it truly a crime to rescue oneself with a modest little lie?

Apparently so.

It was not until evening that Mrs. Kooshof spoke to me again. I poured on the charm. I followed her around the house in my underwear. Persuasively, like the teacher I am, I insisted that the fate of that poor, crushed cat was entirely relevant to the collapse of my marriage years later. Without such detail, I asked, how could she expect to understand the human being she'd found weeping in her backyard?

None of this helped.

Mrs. Kooshof remained incommunicative, silent as stone, and in the end I was compelled to grovel. I did the tear thing, pleaded for a final chance-a first-rate performance-and near dinnertime Mrs. Kooshof relented. "All right," she said. "One chance. Divorce. What did you do to her?"

I hesitated.

"A long story," I said.

(The truth, to put it squarely, is that I have always had trouble with the truth. Confession is not to my taste. I fear ridicule; I fear embarrassment.) Mrs. Kooshof may well have suspected my dilemma. The wrinkles along her eyes seemed to soften. "You stepped out on her?" she said quietly. "Had a fling?"

"Never."

"Secret love letters?"

"Hardly," I said. Then to my surprise I added: "The betraying little saint wanted me to see a psychiatrist. A counselor! She thought I was-you know-thought I was losing my grip. Thought I was paranoid. Jealous of Herbie, jealous of a hairy goddamn tycoon. Ridiculous! I told you, didn't I? Right at the start didn't I tell you point-blank how ridiculous it was? Absurd! You heard me, right?"

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Kooshof.

"Do I look paranoid?"

"Well-"

"Totally nuts! Lorna Sue, I mean." My voice had shuttled up to a high register, quavering. "Believe me, it was a nightmare. She said she'd leave me if I didn't get help. Her phrase-'Get help.' What could I do? I faked it. Made up a few stories. So what?"

"What sort of stories?"

"Well, you know-the counselor kind. Told her I was busy getting analyzed. Very helpful, I told her. Except one day Lorna Sue picked up the checkbook, asked why I wasn't paying the cocksucker. I was trapped. So I started writing these phony checks to make her feel better. Hid them under the mattress."

"You invented a shrink?"

"Right."

"And wrote checks to this ... this made-up psychiatrist?"

"Right."

Mrs. Kooshof's face lost some of its wholesome Aryan radiance. She seemed to slide down inside herself, quiet and thoughtful. "Well, God," she finally said, "I don't know how you could even sleep at night."

"Fitfully," I admitted. "Poorly, indeed."

She turned and faced me. "This whole thing, it's just so incredibly convoluted. You're sure there wasn't something else?"

"Such as?"

"You tell me. Girls. Affairs."

"Certainly not," I said firmly. "Out of the question."

In truth, however, I felt a twinge of guilt. Along with the checks, I had stashed several other embarrassing items beneath my marital mattress, most prominently a certain leather-bound love ledger. It was a diary of sorts, a carefully quantified record of my life as a man of the world. (Names. Dates. Body types. Hair color. Other such vital statistical data.) Perhaps at that instant I should have mentioned the ledger-who knows?-but under the circumstances I saw no point in overwhelming my consort with excessive data. Instead I shrugged and said, "No affairs."

Mrs. Kooshof sighed.

"Well, sorry, but I don't understand. You could've just-I don't know-just junked the phony checks. Tossed them out. Burned them."

"An oversight," I said. "Major error. I forgot."

"Forgot?"

"I lead a hectic life."

My companion pushed to her feet, carried her half-eaten dinner to the kitchen sink, then turned and gazed directly at me for several seconds, her lips moving as if she were at work on a problem of trigonometry. The dear woman had never looked more ravishing: an improbable blend of Great Plains housewife and sturdy strumpet. (Rayon blouse. Black stretch pants. Alpine breasts. Bewitching blue eyes.) In short, to be completely frank, the laws of hydraulics had come into play, and it was with a playful tingle of joy that I rose up, joined her at the sink, arranged my hands at her hips, and suggested an impromptu excursion to the bedroom.

Mrs. Kooshof shook her head. "Zip it shut," she said. "You're still not telling me the whole truth. I can feel it. What happened next?"

I made a silky, sensuous sound with the tip of my tongue. "Nothing, really. Pronounced myself cured. Told her Dr. Constantine did a bang-up job."

"Dr. Who?"

"Constantine. Ralph. Fictitious, but a good man."

Mrs. Kooshof grunted. "But what if your wife had gone to a phone book? Tried to find the guy?"

"Unlisted," I said. "Exclusive shrink."

"You told her that?"

"More or less."

Again, I tried to divert her attention, toying boisterously with a button on her blouse, but Mrs. Kooshof pushed me back and said, "You're right, it's ridiculous. In fact, I don't think you even know what truth is. Not a clue."

She strode out of the kitchen.

For the next hour, if not longer, she busied herself in the bathroom, behind a locked door, and eventually, in a condition of intense discomfort, I found myself attempting to converse through the tiny crack between floor and door. There was no longer any point in holding back. Flat on my belly, lips low, I completed the dismal record-how Herbie gave every indication of being in love with his own sister, how he had spied on me, how he had located incriminating evidence under my mattress and ruthlessly displayed it to Lorna Sue. My performance, I judged, was soulful. I pressed my heart to the door. I wept copiously.

(The word performance, I must insist, should in no way imply dissimulation on my part. The exact reverse: I was engaged in heartfelt truth telling. I was throwing an actor's light on the human spirit. Survey, for a moment, your own linguistic performances. When your husband deserted you. When you learned about that cheap redhead named Sandra. Did you not feel as if you were on a stage, or before a movie camera, and did you not play your role with gusto? Perhaps ham it up on occasion? Manufacture a wail or two, exaggerate a groan, embellish your own invective? In one way or another, it seems to me, virtually every human utterance represents a performance of sorts, and I, too, have been known to lay on the flourishes. I enjoy the decorative adjective, the animating adverb. I use words, in other words, as a fireman uses water.) Hence no apologies.