The Gentlemen's Hour

72

Okay, not Dan Nichols.

He catches Boone outside Pacific Surf and they go for a walk along the boardwalk.

“Tell,” Dan says.

Boone tells him everything he observed with Donna and Phil Schering. Her driving straight to his house, spending the night, kissing him good-bye in the morning.

“So, you’re sure about this?”

“Dan, what do you need?” Boone asks. “She spent the night. No offense, but I don’t think they were baking cookies and watching chick flicks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I wanted to be wrong.” Dan says.

“I know you did. I wish it broke that way.”

“Fuck,” Dan says. “I mean, you think you’re happy, right? You think

she’s

happy. You give her everything . . .”

Boone doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. He could go the whole

women are greedy bitches, nothing’s ever enough

route, but it’s too easy a line. All he can do is walk with the guy and let him blow off steam.

Matrimonial sucks.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Dan says.

“Don’t do anything in a hurry,” Boone says. “Take your time, think about it. A lot of marriages make it through this kind of thing . . .”

Great, Boone thinks, now I’m Dr. Phil.

“I don’t know,” Dan says.

“You don’t need to know right now,” Boone says. “Chill for a spell, lay out, don’t act from anger.”

“Don’t act from anger”? I sound like K2.

Which is another difficult conversation on the horizon.