Am I in hell? he thought, awhile later. She rode against his nose, getting closer. She launched her pelvis many inches into the air, and then down, then up again, like an old Greco-Roman wrestler trying to earn a fighter’s wage, to keep from being pinned. Gynnie was on the beach in Rio with Rich as he ate his plum again and again, and she looked gorgeous in her bikini—as always, an epiphany. Rich actually began to picture Gynnie helping him escape: She urged him to finish eating the plum so they could go swim—it didn’t make any sense, but he thought of her beside him in those moments, and it did save him. Of course, in reality, she didn’t know where he was, and if and when she did find out she would dump him and never speak to or look at him ever again.

“ARRRGHH!” Nora yelled. What made her yelling so awful was not any fear that a passing stroller might hear her or come onto the site—though during the last few moments Rich had begun hoping that a crazy person would break in and beat them to death with the spade beside Nora’s writhing head. What made her yelling awful was the sound—a lonely yell, from a woman who didn’t have boyfriends, who would have to be satisfied with this degraded scene for months, who didn’t have to worry about what Rich thought of her, because she knew he wouldn’t be calling ever again except with a catastrophic problem about the renovation. At the end she crammed his head into her with the fearsome power of a combat-ready United States Marine feeding on adrenaline, her body like a vise, yelled, “RRAAGGHH,” like a butcher in a poker game, like a buckshot gorilla, and he felt like crying. He could’ve thrown up at any time, lying there in the dirt; and to think he’d done this in the name of love, in the name of freedom, of a last fling.

RICH WAS SO happy to be home he felt like hugging his porch, like squeezing the bag of rotten leaves like a pony, tossing the leaves in the air; like grabbing his neighbor—as the man silently loaded bottles into his recycling bin, with his back to Rich—and kissing the man. Rich stood, his face abraded from shaved crotch whiskers; he wanted to say hello, make small talk, tell the man what had happened tonight, but he would’ve fallen apart. That long-headed freaky spit factory would be stalking Rich when he got back from his honeymoon, he was now sure of it.

The UPS man had left a box wedged between the storm door and the front door. He kicked it in with the mail. He could hear the packing pellets shaking inside it. Untouched mail from the last five days lay on the floor. A few last response cards. He knew the answer by this late date. This European wedding idea had stunned a lot of people who didn’t feel like spending two thousand dollars on a trip to fucking France. He understood that finally and wasn’t mad. He read each card, carefully appreciating whatever little apology they made, even one with only the “Will not attend” box checked off.