So. had tea and clotted cream and also profoundly delicious strawberry jam (weirdly runny, yet continuous, holding together: fluid, with gobbets of fruit, one long pure varying stream of sweetness, you understand 19th century kidlets thinking of it as candy) with the Misnomered Brunette this afternoon. Yes ma'am. The MB is my former roommate, longtime confidante, sometime idol, sometime disciple, and so on, and so forth, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Cinematic & literary representatives of us include, um, those girls from Heavenly Creatures and Emma plus Jane Fairfax. We are patently not Angela and Rayann, or Emily and Ilse, no matter how much I may wish we were. Anyway anyway of course we talked about this kissing Arnaud thing. Here is a transcript:

MB: Her husband??
AB: Yes, her husband. They've been married for, like, five years.
MB: That's kind of a lot of years.
AB: Basically as long as I've known her.
MB: I thought you knew her in college.
AB: No, that's my other arch-nemesis, and I met her in high school.
MB: Oh, Cleanthe.
AB: No, she was college. She's not really an arch-nemesis, she's just an irritant.
MB: Yes ma'am.
AB: Anyway, so, yes, it was her husband. I kissed Lillian Swift's impotent husband.
MB: Pretty crazy.
AB: Yes ma'am. Anyway, isn't that crazy?
MB: Pretty crazy.
AB: You bet. I guess it's not that crazy. I've kissed a lot of gentlemen in my day.
MB: You have kissed a lot of gentlemen.
AB: But no married ones.
MB: You kissed my boyfriend that one time.
AB: Yeah, but I forgot he was your boyfriend.
MB: The mescaline.
AB: Yes. I knew perfectly well that Arnaud was married to Lillian. That's the way I knew who he was at all.
MB: Did he know you knew?
AB: I don't know. We didn't discuss it. Yes. Yes, he must, because I've met him before, with her, at different places. Jack's weird barbecue last year. That wedding we went to. That jewelry sale, remember, where we ate the gnocchi?
MB: I wasn't at that.
AB: That wasn't you?
MB: No, definitely not.
AB: Oh. It must have been the Ignominious Redhead?
MB: Oh, probably.
AB: Oh, yes. Oh, yes indeed.
MB: Crazy that you would confuse me with the Ignominious Redhead.
AB: Oh, come on. I'm sorry. (uncomfortable pause) She's really a poseur, you know that. She just dyes her hair so she can be like us.
MB: That's why she's ignominious.
AB: It's too bad, because she could be misnomered if you hadn't taken that one.
MB: Except I'm basically really a brunette. Is this getting too postmodern for you, Nonnie?
AB: It's making me a little uncomfortable, yes.
MB: I'm sorry. You know, I hear that your latest subject guy is reading Borges.
AB: Yes, he is! How did you know?
MB: The other night, when you were in the bathroom, I was looking for that Barbara Kingsolver novel I lent you and I found your notes so I leafed through them.
AB: You should talk to him about it. I've never read Borges.
MB: I'd love to. Anyway, you kissed this guy.
AB: Yes.
MB: And he knew you knew he was married to Lillian. Did Lillian see?
AB: No.
MB: Why not?
AB: I don't know. We weren't in a hidden place. We were in a room with four other people in it.
MB: Did they see?
AB: A couple of them did.
MB: Do you think they'll tell her?
AB: I don't know. I don't really care, really. I mean, I hate her.
MB: She's your arch-nemesis. So why do you care at all?
AB: I guess I feel guilty.
MB: How did it happen?
AB: I don't know. We were having some stupid conversation about shallots and how I didn't know what they were, and I was talking bad French, and then we were kissing, and then we weren't.
MB: I have to go back to work.
AB: He's the first person I've kissed since Freddy.
MB: Oh shit! He is!
AB: yeah.
MB: That means he's the first person besides Freddy that you've kissed in like eight months.
AB: I know.
MB: Wow.
AB: I'm a slut.
MB: Whatever.
MB: For what?
AB: I don't know. I feel like a slut.
MB: Homewrecker.
AB: Oui oui.