Jill was an excellent house guest. She was helpful and considerate and appreciative. She got along with my husband and she was great with our son. She was also into a nonsexual cycle, so even when she drank (not much, and more likely then to smoke than drink) she kept her clothes on and her language clean. Mike and I enjoyed her company, and when Jack came by the four of us laughed a lot, played board games, watched TV.

By the time she moved out a month later, she and Jack were a couple. As far as I could tell, they had little chemistry and less sex, but they were both very nice people who enjoyed the company of one another. They were also each insecure, about their educations and body types among other things, and they seemed to develop an alliance or agreement about the hostile world. From then on, even when they quarreled, they seemed to stand back-to-back against a threat (which may have been the reason for little sex).

When they married half a year later, Mike and I were their attendants.

Their partnership prospered in daily tasks and nightly meals, but their romance never flowered. I’m not sure that bothered Jack. It must have gotten to Jill, though, because she soon sought connection beyond their comfortable existence. I was stuck because I was viewed as her closest friend; I saw and heard more than I wanted to, and I was supposed to keep it secret.

She had an affair with the senior partner at our firm (Cliff was sleazy and older than our fathers, but I guess the money and power spoke to Jill). She had sex with the Colombian guy she and Jack hired to help them rehab the house they bought, and that must have cured her of her bigotry because soon after that she told me she’d done her stepfather. She dallied with several of our clients and at least one referral source.

Jill decided not to have children because she’d had such bad mothering. She despised Marge. But the more I knew Jill, the more she resembled what she told me of her mother. Not that I had much to do with Marge. I only met her once besides the wedding events. That was an evening after the four of us had been to dinner. We stopped by Jill’s mother’s apartment to pick up something. Marge had been drinking alone; Jose was on a business trip. When Jill opened the door with her key, we surprised her mother in the act of admiring her own legs. Marge was flat on her back on her couch, left foot on the upholstered backrest and right foot straight up in the air.

“Hi kids!” she almost sang out from her supine position. “See: I still haven’t lost it. I think that’s one fine leg.” And she remained with her feet up and apart, flashing us all her black panties. Yeesh. (Even worse: after that evening Jack told me that Marge had slipped him some tongue when she kissed him goodbye.)

Nobody’s marriage lasted. Mine was the first to end, two years later. Mike and I were amicable about it (splitting up the kitchen reminded me of choosing street baseball teams when I was a kid). We agreed to share custody of then 8 year-old Adam, and we each sought new partners. The divorce was my idea, and I was happier about it than Mike was. I had my hands full as a single working mother, and I took some time finding my next husband. Mike entered a depressive phase. He started drinking nightly. He dated like a maniac, and he proposed to any woman who looked favorably on him. He was desperate to acquire a new mate.

There was a two year period between the divorce decree and Mike’s second marriage. I know Mike was unhappy but those were Adam’s best times with his dad. Mike had time for him when they were together. He made his son his best buddy. Adam still talks about staying up to watch SNL, about experiments with pancakes and food coloring, about things they built together. After Mike remarried he didn’t make much time for Adam, and the bedroom in the new house became more the property of his new stepbrother than his own.

It was probably inevitable, but early in the two year period of Mike’s singleness, he and Jill had a night together. I know because they kept calling me.

Really. It outdid any tackiness from Marge. They started in a bar after work, and I’m sure the phone calls were Jill’s idea. The first one came when they were about an hour into cocktails and had decided to cab over to Mike’s Mission District apartment. Jill called me with that sex-slur in her voice, and I could hear Mike kibitzing in the background.

I received another call half an hour after they got to Mike’s place, and then a third giggling bit of salaciousness a little after. Meanwhile Jack phoned asking if I knew where Jill was. Of course I lied.

Maybe I’m in denial (not!), but I don’t think Mike and Jill were battling an attraction when we co-habitated, to which they finally succumbed. The truth is, Jill was always way too interested in my sex life; she seemed to want to sample anything I had experienced. And Mike was just plain desperate like a puppy with any woman who said yes.