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In Lucille's imagination, all daytime drama scenes took place in underlit, windowless rooms. All the characters inhabited a permanent twilight. All silences included meaningful looks with zooming cameras into tightly framed faces in case she needed the hint.

Listening to Darren pour his troubles onto her over their second candlelit dinner at Zorba's she wondered if she'd ever find somebody to listen to her for a change. It all seemed so hard, why had she left Schroeder? She hadn't known it would be this hard to bend herself to a new mould. Hadn't she done it tens of times before she'd gotten married and divorced?

Snatches of her favourite daytime drama dialogues kept intruding in her mind: he's not the father, Danielle is Jared's sister! The babies were switched at the hospital, Francine has amnesia and nobody else knows the password.

Just at the point where she'd lost track of Darren completely he broke into her daydream.

"Lu? are you even listening to me?" said Darren.

She gave him a long meaningful look, she even caught herself imagining the zoom shot before answering.

"Sorry, I...I'm just...please go, I can't do this tonight."

There. She'd said it, the words not cold on her lips before he had grabbed his coat and left without so much as an 'I'll call you.' Thank Gods, she didn't think she couldn've stood another second of his droning on and on about himself and his problems. She didn't even mind paying.

She walked out into the cool December air and bent her head towards home.

Maybe She and Schroeder could work it out. She realized they might have bent themselves to each other too far to fit anyone else. It wasn't daytime drama but at least it was hers?