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believe my ears. Is this the same man with whom I’ve been in
a loving relationship for almost two years? With whom I went on a fun
vacation to Italy? With whom I made love a hundred times or more? His
reaction seems completely irrational. I try again: "And what about your
response to the woman detective when she questioned you? Didn’t you
tell her that you confirmed the rumor?"
    "No, I’m a bit more clever than that. I remained deliberately vague. I
told her that we call each other at least once a day and that I don’t
remember if this ever came up. So I’m in the clear unless you put me in
the shit. It’s your duty to undo the damage you’ve already done to me."
    "Gary, I am not going to perjure myself. I have done nothing criminal
or illegal," I emphasize each word, "and I’m not starting now. Nor have
you done anything wrong."
    "I insist that you get me out of this shit. You owe me that … You hear
me?"
    We both remain silent for several long seconds. How can he ask me to
do this? The person I’ve counted on to be my support now turns against
me. For once, I’m lost for words.
    "Are you still there?" he questions gruffly.
    "Yes."
    "Look Cecilia, that’s the only way to get me clear. You have to do
this."
    I notice that this is the first time in our conversation that he calls me
by name.
    "You owe this to me. If you don’t retract your statement, I don’t know
what I’m going to do. I may flatly deny that you ever mentioned this …
and, come to think of it, I won’t hesitate to point out that you’re often
economical with the truth."
    This is it! I press the end-call key. I’m livid, hurt, suddenly
apprehensive of what is coming next. I’ve just lost my job. I’m accused
of fraud. And now I also seem to have lost the man I viewed only the
other day to become my partner for life. Things are going from bad to
worse. Are the police already on the way to arrest me? Then I remind
myself that I’m innocent, that I have to fight this and get out of it
unscathed.
    Keeping up my strength is part of it, I remind myself. So, although I
don’t really feel like eating, I search the refrigerator for something
palatable. I find a tomato, slightly overripe, half a container of cottage
cheese, and an avocado, its flesh discolored brown, some of the spots
turning indigo, smelling fermented. I throw it into the rubbish. It reminds
me that I need to stock up. I cut up the tomato, mix it with the cottage
cheese, and flavor it with some liquid organic vegetable condiment I
bought in a health food store on my last trip to Lugano. While I eat, not
really tasting it, I replay my conversation with Gary. I’ve never
deliberately lied to him. How could he say that I’m economical with the
truth? I feel bruised. And he doesn’t care in the least about my
predicament. He’s only concerned about his precious self. It hurts. And
there I thought he loved me, as I love him, maybe not the all-consuming
infatuation of a Mills and Boon novel, but a solid commitment. He
revealed a side of himself that he kept mostly well hidden. Did it need
adversity or a crisis for it to come out? Is this a truer picture of what he
would be like in the long run than what he let me see so far? And would
I ever be able to trust him again after this? I doubt it and it makes me sad.
It feels like this important aspect of my last two years has been a failure,
a dead-end.
    Suddenly I yearn for a close and intimate girl friend, one who would
listen to me, one to whom I could confide my innermost thoughts and
who wouldn’t judge me; who would take me the way I am; who would be
supportive if I need comforting; who would help me laugh at myself; one
for whom I could also be the same kind of friend. But when my mother
took me to Switzerland, I left my only real highschool friend in South
Kensington, nor might that friendship have survived beyond highschool
or developed into a close and intimate one. Back in Montagnola, suddenly
thrown into Italian, any spare