What the hell is Paul talking about, one might wonder.

"What the hell are you talking about?" his wife asks. Angela, their therapist who has become his therapist, Angela who has bad breath, Angela whom we may just meet again, is in some ways astute. That's a word men use for women; what he means is that she agrees with him.

But the definition behind the definition, misdirection being key in relationships, is that what's astute about Angela is her ability to speak in words that Paul will understand: To make herself seen, make herself Angela, rather than a ball-buster or a pushover, which Paul would never willingly pay for, not even for the ethical high-hat in his threnody of martyrdom that is saying he's going to couples therapy by himself. Paul likes to hear about himself, so that is what therapy is to him. He likes defining things in opposition to each other, because he likes the idea that one of them is bad, and one of them is good.

"She thinks that the reason that we're drawn to each other as a couple is because we're such opposites in that way. You know: I like to stand out, you like to blend in."

Cathy Jamison is pissed off by that but it's begging the question, because God knows what Angela actually said: This is about what Paul heard. That there are "behind-the-scenes" type people, and his wife is coincidentally one of them. That there are people who deserve the spotlight, and he coincidentally is one of them. That the world has one eye covered and can only look at one of them, and it is merely destiny that the chosen one is Paul:

"You won't even wear skirts, because you don't want people looking at your legs. Angela says that in the best relationships, there can only be one person in the spotlight at any given time. That's why we work so well together." Cathy points out that, backing away from the alchemy of their relationship and into the purely functional, they don't technically "work well together," vide the fact that they are living apart. She will leave for another day the explanation that "behind-the-scenes" people don't exist, that letting other people's needs into your narrative doesn't make you weak but strong. That there is only loud, and soft.