Martin was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"I wonder who that could be?" he muttered.

"You won't know until you open it," Ronee teased. Martin opened the door.

"Martin?"

Martin rubbed his hands against his eyes. "Sherry Dempsey?"

"The same," Sherry said as Ronee came to the door. The two women stared at each other.

"You!" Ronee almost hissed at Sherry. "I can't believe you have the nerve to come here!"

"Hey, hey!" Martin said to Ronee. "I haven't been out with her for years! You were OK with everything when we talked about our past love lives."

Ronee turned to Martin. "Marty, this woman is a cheat, a liar, and a big phoney! Oh sure, she appears to be all smiles, all fun, but she's not! She's evil!"

"I don't think I'm evil," Sherry said, "but you're right, I am a cheat and a liar. And that's why I'm here."

Martin looked at the two women. "I think you'd better come in," he said to Sherry.

"What was all that about?" Martin asked Ronee as they poured drinks in the kitchen. "When I told you about Sherry, you said you didn't have a problem."

"That was before I realised that the Sherry Dempsey you dated was the same person as the Sherry Wallis I knew in Vegas!" Ronee told him.

"Who could have seen that coming?" Martin wondered as they returned to the living room. He gave Sherry a cup of coffee, after having decided that giving alcohol to these feuding women would not be such a good idea. The three sat awkwardly for a few moments, before Martin decided to break the ice.

"So, Sherry, how's life been?"

"Been cheating on any more friends?" Ronee muttered. Sherry heard and glared at her.

"No," she said, taking a sup of her coffee. "I've been in Seattle all this time, since Marty and I broke up, and after quitting McGinty's I got a job at the Egremont Theater, returning to my love of dancing."

"And men," Ronee again muttered, causing Martin to also glare at her.

"Well, I don't know if Marty told you, but I did marry Ned in 1988," Sherry told Ronee. "But he soon left me for another woman. I think you had a lucky escape there." Ronee said nothing. "I got engaged, broke it off, then married and divorced John Dempsey before meeting Marty." She sighed. "I've never really had much luck with men. Apart from Marty, every man I've dated has been a rotten scumbag with only one thing in mind."

"Something you obviously picked up from them," Ronee said.

"I don't know why I did what I did with you and Ned, but I came here to apologise for it," Sherry said. "It was wrong and I should never have done it. It was mostly his idea, he was the one who started cheating on you behind your back, but like an idiot I gave in to his charms and so started our affair." She looked into Ronee's eyes. "I was just as much to blame though, and I'm sorry."

Ronee stared at Sherry, not saying a word. Sherry started felling uncomfortable.

"I'm really sorry. Believe me, I know how much it hurts."

"Me too," Martin agreed. Ronee and Sherry looked at him.

"I suppose once you started cheating....."

"Never!" Sherry said. "I never cheated on anyone after Ned. Listen, Ronee, I've come here to apologise. I want us to forgive and forget. Don't you?"

Ronee stayed silent for a few moments. "I'll have to think about it," she said to Sherry.

"Jeez Louise!" Martin said to his wife as Sherry shut the door behind her. "I've never seen you that bitter!"

"Marty, I told her I needed a couple of days to think about, and she agreed to that."

"I was referring to that whole incident," Martin said as he put the coffee cups in the sink. "You reminded me of Frasier's ex-wife Lilith!"

"Lilith? The one with the bun and the pale face?"

"That's the one. Believe it or not, in that photo of them you saw, Lilith was tanned!" Martin told her.

""Marty, let me ask you this. If that guy Hester did the dirty with walked into this room right now, what would you do?"

"Well, he's dead, so I'd be pretty freaked out. And I admit, for a long time afterwards I felt like punching him in the face every time I saw him. But, I talked to Hester, we managed to work it out, and had another 21 years together." He paused. "It did take a long time to completely forgive her, though. For ages I was paranoid in case she did it again."

"I can imagine," Ronee said, thinking back to her conversation with Martin before Sherry had turned up. "But I'm still confused."

"You will be, for a long time yet," Martin said, hugging her. "Sometimes I still feel confused, and it happened nearly 40 years ago."

"I don't want him to know I'm here, OK?"

"Right. I won't say a word."

"Thank you."

"I wouldn't say anything anyway. What with doctor-patient confidentiality." Niles Crane got out his pad. "Right, start from the beginning."

Ronee took a deep breath as she started her tale. "It all began when I met who could have been your stepmother. Sherry Dempsey. Or, as she was at the time, Sherry Wallis." She noticed the look of astonishment on Niles' face. "Yes, that's right. The woman whom I understand once tried giving a frog lamp to your brother."

Niles tried hard not to snigger at the memory of that lamp. "That's right. I can't believe you knew her."

"Neither could your dad," Ronee admitted. "I'd heard about Sherry from him, but it wasn't until she turned up yesterday that I realised the Sherry I knew was the same as the Sherry he knew."

"Small world," Niles commented. Ronee shrugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, who could have seen that coming?" she said. "It's like in a comedy, when it turns out the newcomer knew one of the characters many years ago."

"Indeed. Daphne tells me that happens all the time. Now, please continue."

Ronee told Niles about what Sherry and Ned had done back in 1987, and how mortified she had been catching them. "I ran off," she told him. "Ned came chasing after me and said it was just a one off, that he'd never cheated on me before and never would again."

"So he admitted it?"

"Yep. He was nearly in tears. Somehow I managed to keep my cool, until then. He was almost begging me, then I exploded at him." She stared out the window.

"I told him that I'd suspected as much for ages, that he was a lying cheating son of a.....well, you get the idea. All the times when he'd been 'working' - I'd never fallen for that at all. He was a dancer at the same club Sherry and I worked at. I knew exactly when he'd been working and when he hadn't. So I confronted Sherry. I got a different story out of her."

"What did she say?" Niles asked his stepmother.

"She admitted it as well, and said that she wasn't the first. They'd been sleeping together for about a month, but before that Ned had been sleeping around with a few other women."

"Did the option of forgive and forget ever enter your mind?" Niles asked. Off Ronee's glare, he added, "I need to know this if I can help you."

"Never," Ronee said. "My ex-husband had cheated on me. He'd been sleeping with - oh the irony - the teenager next door who used to baby-sit for the local kids!"

"How did you find out about that?"

"When she had their baby," Ronee said sadly. "We divorced soon afterwards and I vowed never to stay with a cheating man ever again."

"I think I see what you're getting at," Niles said, writing in his pad. "I think those incidents left you, probably without realising it, afraid of committing yourself to a man in case he hurt you."

"What makes you think that?"

"Remember, not long after you started dating Dad, you made a date with that Richard fellow?"

"Oh. That."

"You were afraid of committing yourself to Dad, you were convinced he'd cheat on you, so you decided to do it first. Hurt him before he hurt you. That's why you made that date with Richard."

"I never thought about it that way," Ronee admitted. "But, trust me, I've overcome that now. After Richard, your Dad and I had a long talk about our relationship. And I realised that not all men out there were creeps."

"Yes, Frasier told me all about that!" Niles chuckled.

"That evening was a real eye-opener - for more than one person," Ronee smiled.

"You say you've overcome that now," Niles said, "but I think a little bit of you doesn't. You've seen Sherry and all the old feelings of hate towards her you once had have suddenly returned. The fact that Dad used to date her has also put you on the defensive, as you think she might steal him away just as she did before."

"Thanks, Niles," Ronee said. "That really helped. You know, yesterday I said to your dad that everything turned out for a reason. I guess all of those events in '87 helped me to find your father all those years later. If she hadn't cheated with Ned back then, I'd have probably stayed with him and may never have moved back to Seattle."

"Yes. Think about it positively." Niles had another thought. "I think you and Sherry should meet up privately and talk. In a neutral location. Maybe you and she will be able to bury the past behind you once and for all."

"I hope so."

"Well, our time is up." Niles spoke into his intercom. "Mrs Woodson, send Mr Hunnicutt in."

"You don't sound too happy to see him," Ronee said as she put her jacket on.

"I've been seeing him for sometime now, and he thinks he is a character from M*A*S*H. He even calls me 'Hawkeye' sometimes."

"I bet he thinks he's BJ Hunnicutt as well, right?"

"No, actually that is his real name."

It had been a fairly pleasant day when Ronee had left the house to head to Niles' office, so she had decided to walk over. Now, the rain had started. Ronee stood in the lobby of the building waiting for a taxi. So far, no empty ones had driven past.

She thought about what Niles had said, and to his credit her stepson had been spot on with his diagnosis. She had had a fear of commitment, ever since she'd found out about her ex-husband's affair.

I wonder if that's why I decided to see Dr Goldman, she thought. To make myself younger looking again to spite that ex of mine. She shook her head. "Nah!" she said out loud. "It was just a treat to myself."

She thought back to what Niles had said about meeting Sherry. Sherry had left her telephone number behind after she'd left the apartment, so that she could be contacted. Martin had made sure the number was not destroyed by an angry Ronee.

Spotting a payphone across the street, Ronee walked towards it. Once she was inside, glad to be out of the rain, she dialled the number.

"Hello?" Sherry's voice on the other end said.

"Sherry, this is Ronee."

"Ha, ha, fooled you! This is the machine. I'm not in right now, but please leave a message for me and I will try to get back to you! Byeeee!"

Ronee sighed. How many people must have fallen for something that silly. She spoke into the phone. "Sherry, this is Ronee Crane. I think we should talk." She paused. Niles had said somewhere neutral, so both their apartments were out. "Please meet me in Cafe Nervosa at 4pm tomorrow. It's on the corner of 3rd and Pike if you don't know where it is, near the KACL studios. Oh, and by the way, that message of yours - not funny. That is so 1984!" She chuckled slightly, thinking of The Terminator which had come out that year and in which one of the characters' answering machine had done a similar joke to Sherry's.

Ronee spoke back into the phone. "Bye." She then hung up. Spotting a taxi approaching, she left the phonebox and ran towards it.

"Taxi!" she yelled, all thoughts of Sherry temporarily forgotten. But not for long. Soon, Ronee was wondering what she would say to Sherry tomorrow. They were meeting in a public place, so hopefully she would keep her cool.

Hopefully.