Bride & Groom

group. That’s what makes me wonder. It’s possible that Francie borrowed his car. The problem is that seen from... seen from the perspective... the problem is that Artie isn’t all that distinctive. From that angle. But one thing I can promise you is that if it was Artie, Rita has no idea. None. None!”
    “Take a slow, deep breath.”
    “Stop sounding like Rita! I don’t need to take a deep breath!” But I did pause for a second to collect myself. “I’m sorry. I am so stunned that I’m incoherent. Thank God that Rita hasn’t married him! Steve, if this is true, she is going to be devastated. Heartbroken. If it was Artie, how could he do this to her? If he wants other women, lots of them, any of them, okay! But there he was on Saturday night at the restaurant saying how he, quote, adores Rita, unquote, and here he is two days later sneaking around having sex in a damned car with that corset-wearing tramp? So maybe it was someone else. But you wondered about him. When he said that he adored Rita? You wondered.”
    “Corset?”
    “That’s what Francie was buying when we met her. Black lace underwear. A thing called a merry widow.” I managed not to mention that we’d been in Victoria’s Secret, and I especially managed not to report that his ex-wife had been there, too. “Steve, if that was Artie, he must be insane. This woman, Francie, is... any sane man who could choose between her and Rita would choose Rita. On all counts. This whole thing is so squalid! My God! Rita deserves the best. You know that! She is the best friend in existence, and the finest human being in the world. She is kind, intelligent, pretty, funny... and if this is true, she is going to be so sick and so crushed. I just can’t stand it.”
    “You’re going to tell her.”
    “I have no idea. Among other things, there’s...”
    “HIV,” he said. “In the long run, there’s one big issue. And that’s what it is.”
    “If that was Artie Spicer, I could kill him. I could happily kill him for this.”
    I talked pretty much nonstop throughout the short ride home. As we drove up Appleton Street, Steve said, “One thing is, Holly, it’d be a bad idea just to blurt all this out to Rita.”
    “I won’t. Of course not! Why would I do that? Damn it! I have no idea what to do!”
    “If you’re going to tell her, you’ve got to think about what you’re going to say. How you’re going to say it.”
    “I’m not telling her anything right now. First of all, we have to think this through. Also, she’s got some cousin here, the daughter of a cousin, a girl who’s looking at colleges. One of them is MIT. She’s staying with Rita. And Rita has moved some of her regular Monday patients to Tuesday, because of Labor Day. So she’s got a heavy day tomorrow. Ten hours, she said. I can’t break this news to her when she has to face ten patients. If it is news. I mean, if it’s true. And if it isn’t, what a horrible way to treat Artie!”
    When we pulled into the driveway, Rita’s car was there. For the first time I could remember, I was sorry to see a sign that she was home; my strong suspicion created a barrier I’d never felt before. As Steve and I ate dinner, fed and walked our dogs, checked our E-mail, and went about our ordinary business, it seemed to me that the ceiling overhead had somehow thickened; even though I could occasionally hear sounds from Rita’s apartment—a bark from Willie, the muffled voices of a radio program—she and I now lived far away from each other instead of comfortingly close. If the incident at Wayside hadn’t occurred, I’d probably have gone upstairs just to say hello and to meet the visiting cousin. As it was, I fought a sense of shame about wanting to concoct innocuous excuses to dash up and have a word with Rita: I could pop in to tell her about the new outside lights. As if I needed an excuse! But I didn’t run upstairs. In fact, I just couldn’t face Rita. And when Steve and I discussed what I’d seen and what we should do, we abided by an unspoken agreement to talk in low tones, as if our voices and words might magically rise upward and break Rita’s heart. But talk we did—and clung to each other and to our dogs almost as if Artie’s probable falsehood were a contagious disease that would afflict us unless we warded it off with little rites and incantations of love. During the night, I awoke several times to find myself reaching for Steve.
    Over breakfast, I said, “All