Kat rented a car and drove straight up from Manhattan. It was an extravagance, but she was so excited and so eager to see the surprise—the happy shock on Mitchell’s face, that it made the expense worthwhile. Don’t worry about the money, she could still remember her father saying, we’ll get it back. But time, life, those things are irreplaceable.

She’d done a lot of thinking on the way up. Maybe Mitchell’s right, she reflected. Maybe I’m living in the future and I should just start living in the moment. Things aren’t bad the way they are; why rock the boat? Everybody’s always so worried about everything, myself especially. Maybe it’s time to relax and just savor the moment, live a little bit before I’m too old and gray to enjoy it.

Kathleen pulled up and crossed past Mitchell’s Jeep and went right to the front door. She rapped on the door and waited, a smile plastered across her face. There was a brief pause while she heard sounds of scuttling around inside the big, red cabin: an odd woodland barn without a matching farmhouse. It took longer than usual for Mitchell to get to the door, but since he wasn’t expecting her, she knew he could have been in the shower, or locked up in his writing room.

Instead, he opened the door.

“Mitchell, hi!”

“Um, hi.” Kat tried to walk past him and into the cabin, but he shifted to the side to block her path, his eyes round with more than just surprise.

She understood that he was taken off-guard. That had been the point. “Listen, Mitchell, I was thinking…maybe you’re right.”

“I’m…I’m right?” He stared at her with nervous impatience growing on his face.

Kat went on, “About us. I didn’t mean to try to paint you into a corner, not at all. Let’s just enjoy ourselves a while, like you said—live for the moment. My father would have wanted the same thing. And we’ll just, y’know, see how it all goes.”

“Mitch,” a woman’s voice said from behind him, “who is it?”

Kat looked at Mitchell, knowing exactly what was happening; at least she thought she did. Kat stammered in disbelief, “Mitchell, are you…are you cheating on me?”

“Um, no…”

The woman arrived behind Mitchell, putting a hand on his shoulder as if to claim him as her own. She looked Kat up and down from under a blond bob. “What do you want?” she probed.

“How about an explanation?” She looked at Mitchell. “Who is this woman?”

“I’m Barbara Jarvis, Mitchell’s wife. Who the hell are you?” Tensions increased by the second.

“I’m…I’m Kathleen Le Fleur; I’m Mitchell’s girlfriend.”

Mitchell spun to face his wife. “I don’t even know this woman; she’s just a deranged fan or something. This has happened before, you know that.”

Barbara paused, eyes combed Mitchell’s body, a sneer taking over her lips. “Yeah, sure.” She turned to Kathleen, “Why are you still here? Get lost, you slut, before I call the cops!” With that, Barbara Jarvis slammed the front door shut, a gust of air hitting Kat square in the face, the door only inches from the tip of her nose. She was entirely stunned, as if the wind had been punched out of her lungs, her legs managing to turn her and send her stumbling away from the cabin and back to the rental car, the shrieking voices of the bickering Jarvis couple ringing in her ears. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks as she rested her head on the steering wheel of the car, hyperventilating in bewilderment. She turned the key in the ignition, reversed the car, and took off like a bat out of hell. Once she was out of the driveway, and down the country road, Kat pulled over at a safe rest stop, put the car in park, and attempted to digest the tsunami of emotions that were raging through her body. Once some time passed and she regained enough stability to make it home safely, she drove in silence all the way home. Never before in her life, had she felt more relieved than seeing those bright city lights guiding her to her tiny sanctuary.

* * *

Twist, fold, twist and fold again. Twist, fold, pop! Ben was in his full rig as Bendy the Clown, working alongside Kat at a very big event for Viacom, the broadcasting giant. The line for balloon animals was only getting longer, circling the posh lobby and attracting the annoyed grimaces of the company’s best and brightest.

“Take it easy, Kat,” Ben said. “It’s a party, not a slaughterhouse.”

They kept folding, handing out the colorful little animals, and keeping the line moving as quickly as they could. Twist, fold, pop!

“Rats!” After pumping another long, yellow balloon full of air, she released a little bit and then tied it off. “God, I feel so stupid!”

“Just concentrate—you’ve done it a billion times before.”

“Not that, Ben.” After a knowing silence, Ben nodded, his curling mouth lost in his thick, bushy beard. “Married. How could I have been so…so blind?”

“It’s not your fault, Kat. The guy’s a sociopath; a person of your character and integrity wouldn’t be any match for a person like him. He was the one doing the cheating, practically living a double life.”

She folded the little giraffe, drawing a few spots and a face on it before blowing the ink dry and handing the balloon out, slipping another on the plastic pump. Kat sighed. “He was leading a double life, as much as I can figure. I guess he was telling his wife the same thing he was telling me, that he was at the cabin writing. Really, he was spending half his time with her.”

“That explains why he never wanted to come into the city,” Ben said, folding his own pink poodle for an entranced little girl staring at the balloon like it was a giant sparkling diamond. “Probably lived here in the city with her—didn’t want to be seen with you.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But…he didn’t even have a tan line on his wedding ring finger.”

Ben shrugged. “Wouldn’t have a tan line if he only wore it half the time.” Kat slumped, but he gave her a friendly nudge. “C’mon, you can’t blame yourself. You took a chance and it didn’t work out. That’s life, right?”

“I suppose.” She looked out over the office. “I wonder if it ever will work out.”

Ben tossed out a surprised chuckle. “Are you kidding? Sweetie, I’d fall to my knees and propose right now if it wouldn’t half-crush a few of these kids.”

“Ben, we’ve been through this—” Kat pouted, feeling slightly bad that she kept throwing Ben back into the dreaded friend zone.

“I know, I know, and I’m not making a big thing out of it. Tell you the truth, I think you’re right.”

“Yeah?”

Ben nodded, pumping up another balloon and tying it off. “Sure, I mean…we’re friends, right? And we wouldn’t want to mess that up, not to mention the business. But that doesn’t mean you won’t find somebody…somebody great. You’ll just have to let fate take its course.”

“I guess.” Her eyes found the carpeting, her fingers folding slowly, with hesitant uncertainty. “I was thinking…maybe my mother’s right, maybe it’s time to go home.”

“No, Kathleen, no,” Ben said, too fast and more than just a bit too loud. Recalibrating his tone, he glanced around and went on, “This is your home now, Kat. C’mon, you can’t go running back with your tail between your legs just because of one bad experience.”

She sighed. “No, you’re right about that. But it’s not just one bad experience. I came here to be an actor, Ben, like you. I thought I was onto something else, something just as good, but…”

Ben smiled, leaning toward her just a little. “Didn’t your dad always say something about being happy is better than being rich?”

She couldn’t help but smile herself, to recall that gentle, bygone face and his loving, hard-won wisdom. “He used to say a lot of things like that, and he meant every one of them.” But uglier images interrupted her sweet memory, and she was yanked from the past and pulled back into her present and further into her future. “But I have to admit, it’s a lot easier being happy without being rich in Tucson.”

They shared a little chuckle. Ben said, “Why don’t you get back into serious acting, start taking auditions? We’ll get Giggles and the rest of the troop to fill in, maybe hire on another performer?” But expanding the business was the last thing on Kat’s mind, and competing against the most talented women in the world who were almost half her age made even less sense.

Less and less in Kat’s life was making sense, in fact, and she had less and less clue what to do about it.