When someone tells you to sit down, it's usually for one of two reasons. You're drunk, or they come bearing bad news. My money was on the latter. 

I walked toward the bar. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Sid's on his way over." 

I lifted the lid on my five hundred dollar Waterford "Nouveau" ice bucket. Three slivers of ice floated on top of tepid water accompanied by one dead fly. I put the lid back on and asked a simple question.

"Sid who?" 

"Sidney Rosenthal. You remember him. Your ex-psychiatrist, ex-friend, ex-lover. The guy you hired me to kill for playing fast and loose with that chunk of charcoal you call a heart."

I sat down.

"Then, I assume you did not kill him ."

"You were having a nervous breakdown. I was placating you." 

"Since when does placating cost ten grand?"  

How about a lovely lemonade?" He asked. "Fresh squeezed."

"No," I said. "Is he flying in from Florida?

"No, he is taking a cab from Fullerton Avenue."

"When did he get back?" 

"Oh, a little while ago," Q said, rattling the ice in his glass. "Sure I can't get you one of these?" 

"Fuck the lemonade. When were you going to tell me that Sid is back in Chicago?" 

"You hate Sid. I didn't think you cared." 

"Right on the first part. Wrong on the second."

I walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of lemonade. "So let me get this straight. Sid is coming here, now?"

"Yes, unless you have a better idea." 

I sat my drink down on the glass coffee table. "The asshole left me broken-hearted and sans a psychiatrist to pour my aching heart out to." 

Q picked up a coaster and placed it under my drink. "Since when does charcoal ache?" He said mockingly. "And, as I recall, you drove him away!" 

I took a drink and set the lemonade back down on the glass table. "If he truly loved me, he would have stayed and fought for me."

Q moved my glass back onto the coaster. "Fight for you? You mean like slap the piss out of you for being an asshole?"

"Everyone knows I'm an asshole," I said, tossing the coaster to the floor. "That is no excuse for leaving me." 

Q picked up the discarded coaster and my half-empty glass of lemonade and set them on the bar. Then, he walked around the coffee table to where I sat, took hold of my four hundred dollar Kolbi Haperin silk blouse, and ripped it over my head and off my body. Buttons flew. He then used it to wipe the lemonade rings off the glass table. 

"You asshole!" I said, standing in my bra and slacks. 

"Touche'" he said. "Now sit your ass back down before I rip your bra off and stuff it down your pie hole." 

The muscles around Q's eyes tighten, his nostrils flared, and his hands clenched and unclenched. I do believe he is angry with me. 

I sat. "You're supposed to be on my side. Now you are siding with Sid?" I said in my best sniveling voice. 

Sid's a doctor. A psychiatrist. He has drugs and connections. We have a pregnant girl in a comatose state. I think her need trumps your fucked up love life."

He had a point. 

My phone rang. Stella's name popped up. "What! Yes, I know. Hey, asshole, I got a situation here. Eat a ham sandwich." I hung up. 

"Who was that?" 

"Stella, wanting to know when we are going to spring her from the funny farm." 

The phone rang again. It was Stella. 

"I'll get it," Q said. 

The following conversation ensued. "Keep your shirt on, Stella. Take a chill pill. Get to know your fellow inmates. Make friends." 

A long pause. "Well, fuck you too." He said and hung up. 

"That went well," I said.

"By the way, she said to tell you that you're an asshole."

"At least my reputation is still intact," I said, recovering my destroyed silk blouse from the floor. 

This time the house phone rang. Q answered. "Send him up." 

He turned to me. "You better fix your face and put on another blouse. Sid's on the way up."  

I hurried from the room. Yes, my face needed fixing. My nerves needed calming. And I needed to splash a bit of lovely on the girls. 

I dressed in a lavender, see-through top. Combed my hair and repaired my smudged eye shadow. And, all I could think of was, "Sid is coming. I will not fall into his arms." (Thank goodness I had my nails done.)

"He's probably in the elevator right now! I will not fall into bed with him". (Thank goodness I got a bikini wax.)

Oh my god, Sid is, (knock knock knock) here!