I wonder if Mother knows. She seemed awfully suspicious about the Lincoln account. I'm going to have to come up with a plausible lie for why I didn't get this nonexistent client. This wasn't a problem last year, when Mother wasn't working for me. I'll have to think of a better excuse for a business trip next year, if there is a next year. Well, I hope there will be. It'd be such a shame if Anthony & Ingrid didn't get to celebrate their twenty-fifth.

As for our twenty-fourth, well! Despite Anthony's admirable attempts to give Ingrid a classy, romantic evening (Bud Light aside), that little trollop quickly brought things down to the lowest common denominator. First she wore that scanty little blue dress and then she enticed Anthony into third base by the side of the road! And that poor man is helpless around her, a victim of her wiles and his hormones.

"What are you grinnin' about?" Tony asks me now, and I know it's Tony rather than Anthony, because he's one inch from calling me "An-gel-a."

"It's such a lovely view," I respond innocently.

"Yeah," he says skeptically. But then he looks through the windshield of his van and out at the trees and the mountains, and the river rushing below, and says "yeah" more sincerely. And then he looks at me and says, "Beautiful."

"Do you think it's the local Inspiration Point or should we keep looking?"

"Works for me. You like it?"
"Yes. I like it a lot." But I'm not talking about the view. Or not the view outside the van anyway.

He was so sweet a few months ago, helping me finish my wish list of things I never got to do as a teenager. I obviously carefully avoided putting anything like "a reunion with Anthony." After all, Mother saw the list, and anyway that was something I accomplished a couple years ago, even if we keep having annual reunions now.

After he showed me a very naughty version of an "Italian kiss" last night (and I have no idea if such a thing exists or if it was just something he made up on the spot, but frankly I don't care because it was deliciously naughty), he "drove me home." That is, the couch became the bed, the same sofa bed conversion that converted us, or Ingrid & Anthony I should say, from third-basers to home-runners one year ago.

No, it wasn't easy to go home (our real home I mean) last summer, to lie about my business trip, to pretend that Tony had never been inside me, or even close to it. But we didn't lose each other as friends. Maybe this other pretense, that we are Ingrid & Anthony a night or two a year, functions as some sort of safety valve, relieving what might otherwise be unbearable tension. I don't know.

But I think it also started us down paths that we hadn't intended. For a romantic like me, even a disappointed one, going to a wedding is bound to set thoughts in a certain direction, although my own two weddings (the Vegas quickie and the big spectacular that Nanna paid for), did not lead to eternal bliss. Seeing Tony across the aisle from me, looking so handsome in his tuxedo, made me imagine what our own wedding would be like.

But then the next thing I knew I was in a serious relationship with a stranger. I mean Geoffrey was initially a stranger. And I never felt like I got to know him well later. He certainly didn't know or understand me. Not the way Tony does. Yet I came close to marrying Geoffrey.

He didn't find my inner Ingrid. But marriages can be about other things. And really, would a woman like Ingrid survive marriage? Maybe to somebody like Anthony, but you can't found a marriage on an annual naughty weekend. Especially when it might hurt Tony & Angela, two good, caring, honorable people. Not to mention their wonderful children.

I know, I sound schizophrenic. Sometimes I think that this secret keeps us sane and sometimes I think it's madness, even if it's a happy madness.

So if Mother knows, or at least suspects, will that change things? After all, she's always trying to get me and Tony together. Would she happy for Anthony & Ingrid, or would she be annoyed that we can't bring them into our everyday lives?

You know what it's like? It's a little like Tony is my husband and Anthony is my lover. And it's the same for Tony with me and Ingrid. Only we're not cheating because we have an understanding. OK, and because we're really two people, not four.

Except when we're one. How is it that a man who is my opposite in so many ways fits with me so well, fits into me so well? I don't just mean sex. I also mean dancing and the way we talk to each other. The way we sometimes laugh about the same things. It's like our brains interlock, too.

"So, uh, you think Mike Ott is gonna show up?"

I'm startled out of my thoughts. "Who?"

"You know, Mike Ott. At Inspiration Point."

"Oh. He might. He seems to like Inspiration Point. All the Inspiration Points."
"Yeah." Then he reaches into his pocket and brings out a list.

"What's this?"
"Plans for this weekend." He hands it to me.

"It looks like you've already crossed off a few." I see "dance to Sinatra," "wine & dine," "make love to Ingrid." All with lines through them. Except "make love to Ingrid" appears more than once. "So you can cross off 'Find local Inspiration Point.' "

"Yeah."

"What's this next one? 'Bess Thor at Inspiration Point'? Who's Bess Thor?"
"No, that's 'Base, Third.' "

"Oh. That's more specific than my list was."

"Well, you know, 'make out' is such a vague term."

"And you're very good at defining your terms," I say, hoping that he's planning to kiss me Italian style in his van.

"Well, I try to be."

"Anthony, why Bess Thor? Why not Bess Forest or Bess Sacred? Or even Ham Plot?"

He chuckles. "Ham plot."

"Why third base?"

"Oh, well, this is sort of embarrassing."

"You can tell me. I don't know anyone you know."

"Well, you know me. You knew me way back."

"Yes."
"I got this van about five years after we met. I'd just got my license and I fantasized about a really cool car. Something James Bond would drive. Or the Batmobile."

I try not to laugh. "The Batmobile?"

"You know, something sporty with a lot of features. Something to drive to go fight the bad guys."

"Or to pick up chicks in?"

"Well, yeah. But I couldn't afford anything fancy, or even all that nice. But there was something about this van that drew me to it."

"The price?"

"Well, that didn't hurt. It wasn't that new even then, but I enjoyed working on it. And, yeah, I could pick up chicks in it. Especially Pitkin Avenue girls, who weren't too fussy. There was one named Tanya."

"Oh, Tanya?" Obviously the same one I met when I was seeing Geoffrey.

"Uh, yeah. I lost, um, well."

"You lost her as a friend?"

"Well, we were never exactly friends. Anyway, it happened in the back of this van. But on the way there, in the middle of third base actually, I thought of Ingrid."

"Oh!"

"I mean, it's not like I called out Ingrid's name or nothin'. But I started thinking of what a great kisser she was and wondering what if it would be like if I was with her instead of Tanya."

"Poor Tanya."

He gives me a look like he doubts my sincerity, but he continues. "Well, I don't think she knew. She was just happy I was so turned on. And I managed to focus on her before going on to, um, ham plot."

"Good." Imagine if that had been me instead of Tanya! This was even pre-Brian-Thomas. My post-Anthony romantic life had been a series of disappointments. Not very many dates and nearly all of them terrible. But it was extremely unlikely that I at 18 would've ever made out in a van with some guy from Brooklyn, even if he was Anthony.

"So, yeah, that's what I was thinkin' of."

"I see." I hesitate and then I say, "This is a really nice van, Anthony."

"You like it, Ingrid? It's nothin' special."

"It's, it's lovely. Especially for your first car."

"Well, yeah, it's—" I watch his eyes and see his mind click. "It's no Aston Martin, but I like it."

"Well, it's roomier."

"Yeah."

"So we're 18 now," I say abruptly, just in case he doesn't get what I'm doing.

"Uh, that's right." It's a bit of a trap, because he can't admit that he was really 16, since he didn't tell Ingrid about the age gap till he was 33. Of course, this means Ingrid is corrupting a minor in this fantasy, but it's not like he was more innocent than she was.

"And, well, since we're adults, no one can tell us what to do. So I decided I had to find you again, see you again, find out if your kisses are as good as I remember."

"I'm glad you found me. I didn't like being lost."

And then we kiss, as if we haven't in five years but have been thinking about it all that time.

"Mmm, better than I remember."

I nod. "You've clearly been practicing."

"Well, it was all for you. So I could be better for you."

"How sweet," I say, and I'm half tempted to make up an active love life for Ingrid, but she was shy and awkward at 13, so I don't know how to make it plausible. "What else have you been practicing?"

"Well, this." He kisses my neck and then reaches under my T-shirt for my bra. It's like a polished version of how teenaged Tony likely made out. Probably the real 16-year-old Anthony would've been too rough and wild for Ingrid. Well, too much for me anyway. Ingrid seems to like it.

He cups my breasts and says, "These turned out even better than your teeth."

I grin at a compliment that would've made me blush or fume nineteen years ago. "Thank you."

We neck as he feels me up above the waist. I never reached second base before Brian came along. But Brian played footsies with me and then suddenly Ingrid woke up like she'd been hibernating through most of my teens and thought, Anthony, is that you? Oh, Brian. Mmm, Brian, Brian Thomas!

Anthony licks my teeth. He licks my breasts. Ingrid is making out with a Brooklyn boy in a van!

Tony is having absolutely no trouble acting like a hormonally crazed teenaged boy. I put my hand lightly on his crotch at one point and he responds like he's never had a girl touch him there before but he's been waiting for it for a long time. Waiting for Ingrid? Maybe.

"Please, please, Ingrid, touch me!"

"Anthony, I've never—I've never even seen one!" Because I hadn't at 18. Hell, I still hadn't when I finished grad school. Brian and I never got to third base and not many men after him took me even to second, not till Michael came along.

"You can see mine. Uh, if you want to."

I nod. "I want to."

So he quickly undoes his jeans and yanks down his jockey shorts.

"Big," I murmur.

"Don't be scared, Ingrid. He won't hurt you. He likes you."

"He hasn't even met me."

"Well, I've told him about you. And he wants to meet you. Really really bad."

"Should I shake hands with him?"

He grins. "Yeah." He takes my right hand and puts it back on his crotch. "Ingrid, this is, well, my friend. Friend, this is that girl I been tellin' you about. See, she grew up to be real cute."

I don't point out how plain I was at 18. Maybe Ingrid didn't have as many awkward years as Angela did.

He has me wrap my hand around him and shake. "Mmm, nice firm handshake."

"Thank you."

"You can let go now if you want."

"I don't want to."

So there in the front seat of Anthony's van, I give him my version of an Italian kiss, my tongue teasing his mouth and his sensitive neck as I masturbate him. It's sort of like what I did to him two years ago, but at that time I wasn't ready to have him inside me. Third base, or whatever you want to call it, when you have had sex and know that you're going to have it again, is, if anything, hotter. Now you know what this person is capable of. Except of course, in this fantasy within a fantasy, Anthony has never been had by Ingrid or anyone yet.

"Oh God, Ingrid! I'm so glad you found me!"

I almost laugh. I can hear the Tony underneath the layers of fantasy. It is Tony's penis after all, even if I only know it in our Ingrid & Anthony trysts. He's at least seen Angela, not just Ingrid, naked. While I've only seen Tony in bits and pieces, those muscular arms, chest, back, legs—

"Oh, Anthony!"

He's squeezing my breasts as we neck, as I fondle him, one hand on his chest, the other still working away below. I love it when he's inside me, but we seem to have a lot of fun outside, too.

After he comes, he says, "Sorry I didn't reciprocate."

"Well, it's not easy to do much in a front seat."

"Yeah. You, uh, you wanna go in the back of the van for some reciprocation?"

"It's not on your list."

"You didn't read the back," he whispers in my ear, making me happily shudder.

An hour later, in the back of his makeout van, as I lie on 1960s tangerine pillows on top of a saffron shag rug (and I'm going to guess he redecorated for the weekend since I never noticed these before), he finishes Italian-kissing me and reaches for a box of condoms. "This is the brand I used almost twenty years ago."

"Do you still like them?"
"I haven't tried them since. I mean not this brand. But as long as we're trippin' back in time, why not?"

I put one on him and then he enters me. I don't know if this is sixteen-year-old Anthony losing his virginity to the first girl he kissed, or grown-up Anthony the chef with the secret annual trysts, or my Tony who's penetrating me. I don't know if I'm nervous eighteen-year-old Ingrid, or Ingrid the professor who's been with a few men in the last twenty years, or if it's me, Angela Robinson Bower, the Gemini who's split in two and trying to find wholeness.

But it's good. Oh, is it good! And maybe schizophrenia isn't healthy but if it makes us happy, who cares?