May We Be Forgiven

thing.”
    “She’s after you,” Cheryl says. “Her husband is dumping her for a new kind of trophy wife, a particle physicist who’s a big skier.”
    “Not going to happen,” I swear to Cheryl.
    “Because you’re already in a ‘relationship’ with Amanda?”
    “Because I’m not interested in Sofia.”
    “Are you inviting Amanda on the trip?” Cheryl asks.
    “I haven’t yet,” I say. “Are you asking because you want to go?”
    “I’m not going,” she says. “It would look weird. What would my kids say if I said I had to go to South Africa for your nephew’s bar mitzvah? They’ve never even met you.”
    “That’s what I was thinking, but didn’t want to say it. Just so you know, it’s an open invitation for you and your family, husband, kids, whoever. …”
    “Sounds fun, like an adulterers’ Brady bunch,” she says.
    “And,” I say, like a TV game-show host heaping on the prizes, “I really would like to meet your kids sometime—it would make things more real.”
    “Meet them in what way? Like you come for dinner and I say, ‘This is the guy Mommy plays with while Daddy’s busy vulcanizing’?”
    “Meet them like I’m a friend of yours,” I suggest.
    “I’ll think on it,” she says. “Married women don’t have male friends.”
    “Times are changing,” I say.
    I’m loading my basket with travel sizes of toothpaste and shampoo while Cheryl is trying to get me to “do” her in the new grocery section—“grab and go,” it’s called. Her idea is that we should have a sexual adventure in every store in the mall. We’ve made our way approximately one-quarter of the way around the horseshoe-shaped structure, but I’m convinced store personnel, security guards, and others recognize us. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re regulars—like the old ladies who come to walk, doing exercise laps—or because they’re trading some kind of hidden-camera videos.
    I’m putting disposable toothbrushes in the basket when my cell phone starts to ring. I ignore it. After four rings it stops, and then it rings again. “It’s her,” Cheryl says. “Who else calls you twice in a row? You may as well answer it.”
    “Hello,” I say.
    “I can’t find my father,” Amanda says, panicked. “He’s wandered off.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Outside, in some fucking shopping center,” she says, “near the parking area.”
    “What does your mother say?”
    “I sent them into the Dairy Queen while I was taking the sofa cover into the dry cleaner’s—I didn’t want to embarrass them by explaining that there were feces on the sofa. …” Despite the fact that I’m not on speakerphone, every word is coming through loud and clear for Cheryl and anyone within ten feet to hear. “My mother told my father that he couldn’t have chopped nuts on his sundae because it’s bad for his diverticulosis, and he stormed out. I’m trying to look for him, but she can’t walk fast enough to keep up.”
    “Maybe put her in the car while you look, or see if there’s someone who can keep her for a few minutes.”
    “Ask her if there’s a Home Depot,” Cheryl whispers. “Men gravitate towards hardware.”
    “Is there a Home Depot?”
    “Yes,” she says.
    “Check there. Find one of the people in an orange vest and tell them that you’re with the missing person.”
    There’s a bit of a delay, and then Amanda says: “The orange vests are on the lookout. Hang on—something’s coming over the walkie-talkie. …They’ve spotted him in the plumbing section—he’s peeing in one of the display toilets. I’m heading over there now. He sees me. He’s heading the other way, he’s running. My father is running away. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later,” she says, hanging up.
    While I’m talking, Cheryl has been adding things to my cart, things I don’t notice until I’m in the checkout line: enemas, Tampax, adult diapers, duct tape, and now she’s somewhere in the makeup aisle.
    “What do you think of these?” Cheryl texts.
    I turn my head; standing at the end of an aisle, Cheryl lifts her shirt and flashes me a bare breast wearing false eyelashes.
    My heart beats fast—did anyone else see that?
    “Is this yours?” the man at the register asks, taking a large tube of K-Y out of my basket.
    “No,” I say as I’m rapidly digging through and taking out the glycerin suppositories. “All that’s mine is the Purell and the travel sizes. Someone must have confused