“Never mind. Next question. This one’s important. Did you ever have the hots for any of the popular girls?”

Oh.I watched the pieces begin to fall into place. “You mean theüber-popular alpha bitches?”

“Just answer me.”

“Where is this going?”

“I’m trying to understand why you’re being so precious with Gibbs. Like I said, I have a theory.”

“And you’ve decided it has to do with some high school time warp I’m locked in to?”

“Just tell me, did you ever have a thing for any of the popular girls? You know who I’m talking about.Them.The ones who sat atthattable at lunch, the ones who never said anything in a normal voice. The ones who were always whispering to each other or saying things loudly enough that the whole world knew what they were thinking.”

Several steps passed before she repeated, “Them.You know exactly who they were.”

“No,” I said. But I immediately had a 70mm Technicolor image of Teri Reginelli flash onto the wide screen in my brain. Wavy hair, brown eyes, and a smile that could plaster me to Teflon.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“No, you’re not. Be honest-who are you thinking about right now? Give her a name, come on.”

I sighed. “Teri Reginelli.”

“Cheerleader? Prom queen?”

“Neither. Mere goddess.”

“She was above you socially?”

“It was crowded territory.”

She punched me and said, “Still is.” Her tone softened. “Isn’t it strange how being an adolescent never really stops? Isn’t it? Show me what someone was like during their high school psychosis, and I’ll put together a damn good road map into their romantic future.”

I didn’t want to argue with her. Mostly because I knew that there was plenty of truth in her words. To deflect attention from myself I asked, “What was high school like for you?”

“I was fully occupied thinking up ways to kill the Teri Reginellis of the world. Andthatis the source of my transference to the Dancing Queen.” She admitted her introspective success triumphantly.

“A question,” I said. “Did you ever think about whacking ahachainto thecabezaof a Teri Reginelli or three at your school?”

“I was taking French-Mon dieu, il y a une hache dans ma tête!Otherwise, I’m sure I would have gotten there eventually. So, at what store down here do you think you’re going to find your daughter a DVD about trucks?”

“I don’t know.” I’d totally forgotten about the DVD. Teri Reginelli had that effect on me.

We crossed Thirteenth. Diane leaned close to me, tugged my head down so my ear was closer to her level, and whispered, “It’s called transference, Alan. It sneaks up on all of us. Don’t ignore it just because I’m the one who brought it up.”

Before I could reply, Diane peeled away from me like an F-18 dropping out of formation. She was making a beeline for the bank down Thirteenth, one of her favorite places downtown.

“Dios mío,”she said over her shoulder.“Adiós.”

Transference:treating, responding to, and/or having feelings about someone in the present as though they were someone important from the past.

Teri Reginelli.

Gibbs Storey.

Me.

Help.

DVD procured, the drive east was uneventful. I parked my car in the garage, got out, and took a moment to linger near my dark blue not-too-old Trek road bike. The bicycle was hanging securely on its pulley system from the rafters in the garage. I glanced outside even though I knew it was already too dark to make up for the ride that I hadn’t taken that afternoon.

Lauren kissed me, Grace squealed, and the dogs seemed happy to have me home. Lauren got the DVD going for Grace while I made a couple of adjustments to Emily’s paw umbrella. The thing was protecting the wound on her paw marvelously, but it required an abnormal amount of maintenance. I was no longer certain that a trip to the patent office and instant wealth were on the horizon for me.

Once we moved to the kitchen, Lauren sat down across from me while I sorted through a seriously uninspiring pile of mail. Neither of us had any fresh news to report from either Sam or Sherry. I filled her in on the morning adventures with the cable company, the post office, and the drivers’ license office. Unmoved by my tales of institutional indolence, she moved into the business part of the kitchen to attend to the meal she’d been preparing.

Once she had her back turned to the stove, she said, “That’s interesting. So who’s Teri Reginelli?”

My breath caught in my throat.

Instinctively, I knew that my wife was facing away from me so that I couldn’t see the I’m-sitting-in-the-catbird-seat grin that she had plastered across her cute mug. I said, “Oh God. I bet Diane called you right from the bank, didn’t she? She was going straight to the bank.”

“I heard the whole story while she was standing in the teller line. She said she left you befuddled on the Mall.”

“Figures.”

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Befuddled on the Mall?”

“Most of the women in my life leave me feeling befuddled. I’m beginning to feel befuddled right now, for instance. Teri Reginelli was not an exception. Believe me, she was not an exception.”

“So who was this mystery girl I’ve never even heard about? High school, right? Should I be worried?”

Lauren’s tone was ninety-nine percent tease. “No,” I said. “But Diane should be.”

“Is this going to end up being like that Sawyer thing a few years ago? Is Teri Reginelli about to show up at our door with a suitcase and a few verses about how her life isn’t complete without you? God, I hope not. I didn’t like the Sawyer thing much at all.”

“The Sawyer thing” was the one percent in Lauren’s tone that wasn’t tease. She wasn’t kidding; she hadn’t liked the Sawyer thing at all.

“I swear that Teri Reginelli wouldn’t be able to tell you who I was if you held a gun to her head. Actually, get Diane to hold the gun to her head. Or ahachato hercabeza. She’d relish the opportunity.”

“What? What language are you speaking?”

“It’s not important.”

“Teri Reginelli is. At least to me. Go on. I want the details. Pretend you’re talking to your therapist.”

“Teri Reginelli was a high school crush I had. I never even went out with her. Not once.”

“Then why are we talking about her?”

“Ask Diane.”

“I did. She said you had the hots for her. For Teri, that is. She said after all these years Teri’s still changing your oil. She told me to mention Teri’s name, sit back, and watch you dance like your toes were on fire.”

“That’s Diane’s phrase, isn’t it? ‘Changing your oil’? Diane said that, right? Am I right? Diane thinks I’m a prude. Do you know that? Do you think I’m a prude? A serious prude?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Part of it’s true, I guess. In the high school era of my life Teri was the neighbor’s wife whom I coveted.”

Lauren looked puzzled.

“Figuratively speaking. Teri Reginelli was the head of the pack in high school. You know, the leader of the popular girls. The alpha chick? Senior year she dated a guy who slummed with me and my friends sometimes.”

“Was he a hottie?”

“Yeah, Sean was a hottie.”

“And?”

“This guy Sean treated her like shit. She would talk to me about it, ask me about things he did with other girls, what he said about her. You know how girls are when they’re seventeen. She wanted to know what made him tick. I was a good listener-”

“Even then?”

“Yes, even then.”

“And you fell in love with her, and she never even knew it. Right? It was unrequited love?”

I sighed. What had felt like a monumental event in my life was suddenly sounding like a carefully carved monument to banality. “Right, something like that.”