Most of us have something hidden in our past, something we did but didn't share for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was a painful loss we hate to dwell on or an ugly moment in our lives we wish to leave behind, or maybe it was just something too embarrassing to ever admit.

Of course, there are also the folks out there that are living secret lives, that have pieces of themselves they do not share with their families and friends.

We read about folks like that in the paper every now and then, people whose families thought they spent their days as average people, working at respectable jobs, when in reality they were placing bets at the racetrack or acquiring spouses in seven states. Once in awhile you hear about the person who was a PTA president and grew prizewinning roses until their arrest for crimes committed as a reactionary bomber in the '60s.

I often wonder if my neighbors and friends might be leading secret lives.

Is my buddy Char actually spending all that time in meetings, or is she really searching for lost-treasure maps, which she plans to use on her vacation?

Is the neighbor down the street really a spy?

Why is it fascinating to me to think about what people might be concealing? I wonder if I would care for my friends and neighbors any less if I learned they had hidden lives—I wonder if it would really matter.

If my neighbors' behavior didn't affect my family or me in some dramatic fashion, I don't think my opinions about them would change.

Finding out that some of these rather unassuming folks in my life were actually bestselling authors using pseudonyms, or ex-CIA operatives, or madams running little brothels out of summer cottages, might actually improve their stature in my eyes. Especially the brothel. If my best friend was making that kind of money all these years and keeping quiet about it, I would be darned impressed.

I know my husband has fantasies about being the bass player in a band, but to find out that he had taught himself to play, created a band, and was out doing gigs on Sundays rather than driving out to races at Laguna Seca would be extremely sexy to me. All that secret talent and ambition hiding behind that demure smile would be hard to dismiss.

I still have fantasies about being one of those spy girls from the TV shows of the '60s like The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., or being Mrs. Emma Peel, from the television series The Avengers. She had her life and daily chores, but when duty called she would silently slip into her catsuit and stiletto heels and vanquish evil from the world.

That particular fantasy hits me whenever I see clothes that would fit the part. Sometimes I even buy them, knowing that they will have to be worn either under other, more suitable "Mommy clothes" or be compromised as I tromp off to Petco for hamster food or run the Jeep to the carwash.

Every now and then I will wander into some less-than-PTA-approved retail establishment and wander around, wondering what life would be like if I could just slip into the back room, put on a cape and disappear out the side door, into the night. I refuse to ever truly give into whatever my current role is, as my imagination keeps coming up with the most delicious plans for those unscripted moments in my life.

And someday I hope my son opens up a box and changes his opinion of what his staid old mom was like. It would be a chance to reevaluate a familiar image and give him a whole new way of seeing me. It would offer him a wonderful opportunity.

Deborah can be reached at dthollis@svcn.com.