“Whatever.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “whatever.”

I checked my watch: T minus thirty-two. I pulled the car over to the side of the street and parked for real. “Go on,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean: Go on. Elaborate. Tell me what the reason is.”

“Well I don’t know!” she said with mock outrage. “I was just trying to, you know, put a sort of spin on things.”

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “Help me,” I said. “Seriously. I’m dying, here. Tell me something that will make me feel better.”

“Look. Listen,” Gayle started. She sputtered. She stammered. “There absolutely is a reason for all of this. One’s fiancé’s exfiancée doesn’t simply drop from the sky one day, completely out of the blue, and enter, or reenter, their lives, five months before their wedding day. Do you follow?”

Now I was the one blinking. “Yes, I follow.”

“This is a test.”

I searched her face. “A test of what?”

She searched my face, too, as if she were making up her answer as she went along. “A test of your love for Donald, of course,” she said. “And of his love for you. It is a test of trust.”

Of course it was. I know that now. Though at the time, I couldn’t see the bigger picture; couldn’t understand the enormity of the situation and what passing—or failing—would really mean.

I released my grip on the wheel, slumped in the leather seat until it squeaked. “I hate tests,” I said.

“Yes, well, look, who doesn’t?”

I scanned the dashboard and peered outside. Soft lights were flickering on behind leaded glass windows in town houses; cars were starting to move; people were walking around with takeout coffee. “What I mean is, I’m terrible at tests. I almost always fail them.” I paused, then tugged needily at Gayle’s bony elbow. “What if I fail this one?”

“That’s exactly my point. Don’t you see?”

“See what?” I felt lost, completely at sea. I could, for one sad sorry instant, see Donald, our home, our impending life together, everything I’d come to adore and finally have, slipping away.

“You can’t fail this test. You simply, absolutely cannot. Do you not follow?”

Her formal negative, usually reserved to flag matters of great importance. Duly alerted, I sat up, took note.

“And neither can Donald,” she said, rather pointedly.

Even though I didn’t really know what Gayle meant by this until much later, my stomach sank: destiny (Adrienne) waited; gloom and doom loomed; failure was certainly at hand. I turned the ignition, signaled, and lurched abruptly out into the sleepy, slow-moving, Saturday morning traffic.

11

It occurred to me as we snaked through Georgetown, down Rock Creek Parkway, then under the Kennedy Center, around the Lincoln Memorial and over the bridge toward National Airport, that I was better prepared than I’d given myself credit for.

I’d done my homework. I’d survived the French beauticians; survived Fran; survived the shock of signing the credit card receipt for the sweater she’d sold me. The session of physical attenuation I’d had with Cynthia that morning was only a metaphor for what I’d really needed to do: Attenuate myself emotionally. Spiritually.