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By Barbara Guggenheim<\/strong><\/p>\n What led me to think I could and should swear off gossip – at\u00a0least for a while – started with something my friend Samantha\u00a0told me over lunch.<\/p>\n “Did you hear?” she asked, leaning\u00a0forward over her tuna tartare. “Lester and Jane are having an\u00a0affair.” “Really?” I replied incredulously. Jane is wild and crazy.\u00a0<\/em>I thought, but she’s married to a man she loves desperately,\u00a0<\/em>and Lester’s an arrogant, high-profile bore.<\/em> “Yeah, Lester and\u00a0his wife were at a dinner party. It was hot, and the men took\u00a0off their jackets. When Lester left, he forgot his,” Samantha\u00a0continued, breathless, “After everyone left, the hostess looked\u00a0in the jacket pockets for some identification and found a sex\u00a0note to Lester from Jane. It was partially burned.” I nearly\u00a0choked on my asparagus. I knew the genesis of this particular\u00a0story, and alarmingly, it was traceable to me.<\/p>\n A year ago, I gave myself a birthday luncheon for 40\u00a0friends – all women, all married. It was\u00a0raining, and everyone threw their wet\u00a0raincoats on a bench in the corner. By\u00a0the end of the party, the weather had\u00a0changed. The sun was shining. The last\u00a0woman to leave grabbed the only\u00a0remaining coat, a classic Burberry.\u00a0Holding it up, she turned to me. “This looks like my raincoat,\u00a0Barbara, but it’s not.” She shook her head. “Mine has a lining.”\u00a0“It’s stopped raining now,” I said. “Leave the coat. I’ll call\u00a0around and find yours.”<\/p>\n When she’d gone, I checked the pockets of the coat and\u00a0found only a folded note, written in a woman’s hand. “Lester,\u00a0dear,” the note began, “I suppose you noticed that the sex\u00a0wasn’t as good this time as in the past.” There was no\u00a0signature, because the bottom half had been burned.<\/p>\n If I had to suspect any of my guests of infidelity, my first\u00a0candidate would have been the woman who said her raincoat\u00a0was missing. She’s young and beautiful; any guy would fall\u00a0for her. But she clearly wasn’t the one. Finally, a nicely written\u00a0thank-you note for my birthday luncheon gave me a clue. The\u00a0writing was identical to that of the note. Now I knew. But will I\u00a0tell you? Not on your life. But I’ll tell\u00a0you this: It wasn’t Jane.<\/p>\n Loving gossip, I told the story many times, never revealing\u00a0the names. But now my story had come back to me, distorted\u00a0by multiple repetitions. Madame X’s raincoat had become\u00a0Lester’s blazer. The note had actually been received by him,\u00a0rather than held back. And it came from poor Jane, who,\u00a0although blonde and sexy, was totally innocent.<\/p>\n The only one who knows the truth is the woman who left the\u00a0coat. Each time I’ve seen her since the luncheon, she’s been\u00a0icily polite. She knows I know.<\/p>\n \u00a0*All names have been changed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Barbara Guggenheim What led me to think I could and should swear off gossip – at\u00a0least for a while – started with something my friend Samantha\u00a0told me over lunch. “Did you hear?” she asked, leaning\u00a0forward over her tuna tartare. … Continue reading