Vicki couldn’t determine whether she was in trouble with the bride. Bee had caught her having sloppy, partially clothed intercourse with her new brother-in-law during the wedding reception, when she was supposed to be helping Hannah. But, Vicki argued with herself, nervously placing her hands in her lap, Bee had given her reason to believe that she might have condoned the wild behavior. After all, as Vicki left the tent to share a ride back to the historic inns with Jimmy Fee and his girlfriend, Bee had given her a quick hug and whispered in her ear, “Nice to have you back.”

Now Vicki was in the backseat of a rented convertible, making small talk with the woman whose boyfriend she’d just clawed during an unfinished sex act. Her life in Rochester picking paint colors for grocery stores seemed galaxies away.

“What do you do for work up there?” the girlfriend asked. Jennifer had already volunteered that she ran a boutique down in Raleigh. It sold “unique gifts,” which she defined as, “You know, like, funny magnets, coffee table books, and those ice-cube trays in the shape of fruit.”

Vicki considered how she might explain what she did for a living, that the color palette of the walls of Walton’s supermarkets across New York, New Jersey, and New England were carefully inspected by her designer’s eyes. No matter how Vicki phrased the job description in her head, it sounded awful.

“I run my own interior design firm,” Vicki said, surprising herself with the impromptu lie. “And,” she continued slowly, shifting forward in her seat, “I’m moving to New York to launch my own business there. I want to bring art to people’s homes, to act as a liaison between struggling artists and people who are redecorating their apartments.”

“Cool,” responded the girlfriend, who was almost instantly drowned out by the car radio.

Jimmy Fee had scanned through the stations until he settled on 100.7, which played “Why Can’t This Be Love?” Vicki dipped her hand in her purse and stroked the V. C. Andrews paperback that barely fit in it. She’d brought it along with her today, assuming she’d be bored enough to read during the reception. Vicki smiled, took the novel out of her purse, and dropped it on the floor of the car.

Joe

Joe put her in the backseat of the car, although he wasn’t sure why. It’s wasn’t as though she needed to lie down. In fact, he’d told her not to. His experience with drunks in cars had taught him that going horizontal was a bad idea.

He gave her some chewing gum from his jacket pocket and told her to roll down the window. Air was important, he advised. She responded with a soft whimper.

They were mostly silent during the ride back to the hotel. He heard her moan a few times. In the rearview mirror, he saw her snap her bra angrily. “You’re an asshole,” she said, talking to the bra like it was a person. A few times, when he checked the mirror and saw her eyes closed, Joe yelled, “All right back there?” She would respond by nodding.