"Christ," said John. "I'm surprised you're back so soon."

"You don't have to tell me," she told him. She reached over for her cigarette. It had burned down to almost nothing, and she waved it away. Meg said, "She reminded me, though. We're barbecuing on Saturday. The four of us. Plus the kids. You're all coming here, the three of you. I'd completely forgotten."

John lit another cigarette. He took a drag and then, exhaling languorously, offered it to Meg.

Meg said, "Anyway." She said, "Should we put this debate on? Seems to be the talk of the town. Abby wanted me to come over and watch it with her." She added, "She seems a bit lonely," then wondered why she'd said it.

"Did she try and sell you a house, too?" said John. "I'll tell you what. I'm not about to get out of this bed and watch some Irish bastard tell me why we should go easier on the goddamn Communists." He said, "Next thing you know he's outlawing meat on Fridays, enforcing mandatory confessions and pilgrimages to Rome, replacing teachers and policemen and doctors with priests—shit. We're electing a president, Meg. Not a pope."

Meg said nothing. John was still slightly drunk.

"Absolute separation of church and state, my ass," he continued. "You watch. The man's hardly older than we are. He'll forget. They all do. No Catholic prelate, my ass. Anyway, Billy Graham won't let it happen. You watch. You mark my word."

Meg took a drag from the cigarette. This is what the man thought about after sodomizing her, apparently. Priests and popes. Catholics and Protestants. Meg said nothing. She crossed her legs at the ankle and then uncrossed them. She watched the sheets shift.

"Where are they again?" said John. He meant her husband, William, and her two children, Teddy and Michael. He said, "Shouldn't they be in school by now?"

"Just Teddy," said Meg. "It's only a couple days."

John said, "Mmm."

"William thought it was important that they see their grandparents' house one last time. Even if they won't remember it anyway. He didn't want to go alone, I don't think. See his brother without the kids. They took the train. They made a trip of it."

John nodded ironically. He touched her shoulder, said, "And what about you, then. What are you still doing here, if I can ask you that?"

They both knew she'd stayed to be with him, though Meg refused to satisfy him with a confirmation. Perhaps she was reluctant to admit it to herself. The phone rang again, just once, then went silent. Neither of them spoke. Smoke hung in the air.

Meg got out of bed and walked into the living room. She switched on the Philco, atop which sat a dying Philodendron and a pair of reading glasses. John's briefcase on the coffee table. His shoes drying by the fireplace, hints of mud tracked back and forth through the high pile. He'd left a can of his beloved Falstaff on the counter, plus a half-dozen roses. The sight of flowers in her kitchen brought Meg back to the countless bouquets with which William had once assailed her. Her husband was still the same hopeless romantic—completely incapable of irony—though the roses had stopped coming years ago. Now, here they were again. She heard a voice say, "Is the United States standing still?" as she watched Nixon's dour-looking face come into focus on the screen.

Meg sat on the couch and thought of the things that would need doing after John finally left, before William returned with the kids. The carpet needed vacuuming, that much was clear. The roses would need to be disposed of somehow. Perhaps she could bury them somewhere in the yard. An act of symbolic import. The twin framed photos of the kids in the bedroom. Their twofold gaze, fixed and exultant, their faces hanging there, staring at her—surely she'd left prints on the glass when she'd taken them down. The stoic and dusty bed stand, across which she'd dragged her licentious fingers and left four vulgar trails—this would need cleaning. And of course John's hands had been all over William's hi-fi, the hi-fi he insisted on playing every time he came over. He claimed it was to spare the neighbors the racket, though in truth he made very little noise whatsoever. A scowl would sweep across his face while he bit his lip. He'd shut his eyes and issue dispassionate grunts.

She'd probably have to re-alphabetize the records, too. William fancied himself a connoisseur of the Russian neoclassicists, though in truth it was only the records' organization that interested him. He vacillated between alphabetical, chronological, even stylistic cataloguing, though his actual collection couldn't have comprised more than twenty or thirty LPs. John had flipped through them casually that first time, sitting cross-legged and nude on the bedroom carpet, calling out the occasional familiar name. "Hmm," he'd say, "Shostakovich." He'd hold a record up in the air and say, "Prokofiev," butchering the pronunciation. Stravinsky was who he'd ultimately settled on, the most familiar of the bunch, and "A Kiss of the Earth" became the awful and de facto soundtrack to their lechery. John would stare at her from across the bed with that expectant and idiotic grin on his face as he held the needle over the spinning disc for a sustained moment, his other hand resting on the stereo, the oil from his fingertips seeping indelibly into the oak. That first time, the record had finished before he did, and the ensuing silence was pronounced and magnificent. But as time went on, Meg watched the point that marked his climactic collapse slip gradually toward the outer rim of the record, until it was scarcely halfway through the introduction when she'd reach over for a drag of his cigarette and listen to the entire thing with her head resting neatly on her husband's pillow.

"Let's take hydro-electric power," said Nixon, his hands gripping the corners of an unsteady podium. He licked his lips. Meg ran her fingers over the coarse weave of the couch, rubbed a spot where a bit of one of the boys' Oh Henry! bars had been ground into the material and had made a dull gray spot. She thought of John and Abby's new Eames couch, the one Abby had sung the praises of earlier over the telephone. She thought of the soft, warm leather on her back, her legs, the large Norman Rockwell hanging over the unused fireplace as John went to answer the telephone—Abby, of course. That couch was worth the thousand-plus it had cost John, there was no question, and both of them knew it. Nixon licked his lips again and said, "What kind of programs are we for." Meg shifted her weight on the couch. He said, "We both want to help the old people."

And what about Abby? Those ridiculous legs, the waist which can't possibly have been any more diminutive before she'd been pregnant with Charlotte—she belonged on the cover of Vogue or Elle or Glamour, instead of behind the latest issue, seated complacently on her sullied Eames with the television running, or out sunning herself in the yard while her husband had his way with her best friend. Meg got up and walked toward the television. She could feel the warm, static pull of the screen on her legs as she fingered a wilting Philo leaf. Because for all of Abby's unquestionable appeal, it had taken remarkably little effort to lure John away from her. Meg had wanted a man who didn't come easy, had wanted sex she'd have to work for, and John had jumped into bed with her after little more than a telephone call. Once there, though, his complete lack of intensity had both surprised and enthralled her. Where William still approached the subject with a childlike enthusiasm, with a blind and desperate fervor, here was a man who appeared altogether indifferent. Is this how he was with Abby? It seemed impossible. And what about the roses? Meg let the leaf fall and placed her hand on top of the television. The set was covered in dust. There was dust on her hand. John called to her from the bedroom; she didn't move. She heard him running the shower. Meg returned to the bedroom and slipped into a pale, minty nightgown. She watched a cigarette smoldering in its ash tray. The clock on the wall said half past ten.

At a quarter till, John stood in the white-tile foyer adjusting his coat. His shirt was wrinkled, it clung to his damp chest. He smelled strongly of soap. He put a hand on Meg's hip, kissed her gently and said goodnight. "Goodbye," she said.

John smiled and said, "Jesus, those eyes."

"Stop it," she said, discouraged. She said, "You sound like William."

The next day, Meg re-hung the photos of her children on the bedroom wall. She dragged a vacuum through the house and re-catalogued her husband's records. She washed the sheets. She watered the Philodendron. She drove to the train station through the violet evening, tossing John's roses into a grove of naked aspens near an empty little-league field on the way.

The 6:15 from Harrisburg was twelve minutes behind schedule. A man with a briefcase paced back and forth in front of her, eyes fixed on his wristwatch. He seemed completely anomalous here—fire-red cane ash shifting lazily in the dusk, warm yellow living rooms in houses across the highway. The man disappeared into the station and minutes later the train arrived, a clenched fist full of steam. William emerged with their younger son, Michael, draped in sleep over his shoulder. He held in his other hand the tremendous suitcase into which he had forced a week's worth of clothing for the three of them. Teddy kept a finger hooked through his father's belt loop as he stepped gingerly onto the platform. When he saw his mother, a smile spread across his face. Meg embraced her son. She kissed her husband and took Michael into her arms. They drove home in silence but for Teddy, who woke once from a precipitous sleep to mutter, "School tomorrow. Where are we?" then fell back to dreaming.

After the boys were in bed, William, sitting on the couch in the silent living room, said, "Well. Shall we?" He was smiling.

"Here?" said Meg. The proposal had caught her by surprise.

"Wherever," said William. "I don't know. Where do you want?"

"Why don't you tell me about the trip," she said. "You haven't said anything about it. How does the place look?"

"Oh," he said, "It looks fine. What do you mean? It looks the same. Just empty."

"All that furniture," said Meg. "Did you mention to your brother about the couch? What's going to happen to that couch when he leaves, I wonder." She fingered the spot where the chocolate had stained. "Look at this old thing," she said. "Did you ask him?"

"The boys just wanted to swim all day," said William. His shoulders had slouched. "The lake must have been frigid, but there they were. Day in, day out. I suppose there isn't much to do out there otherwise."

"No," said Meg. There was silence.

William said, "Christopher's been seeing someone."

"That's good," Meg said. "Oh, that's really good. I'm glad to hear that."

"Off and on," William said. "He says it's nothing serious. He says they're figuring things out still. She's a stewardess. He says she isn't around much."

A prolonged silence hung in the air. William gazed at her. Meg said, "I can't do it tonight, William. I can't. I don't know. I'm sorry."

On Saturday, John stepped once again through the foyer, his eyes full of fire, and pecked Meg on the cheek. "Welcome back," he told William, shaking the man's hand vigorously. "A drink," he said. "A toast."

"Oh, give us a minute," said Abby, rolling her eyes and smiling at Meg. Charlotte hid behind her mother, clinging. "Say hello, Charlotte," Abby said, and the girl emerged in a pink gingham shift and a wool shawl. Her mother wore an oversized sweater and salmon-colored heels. The both of them exuded glamor.

They sat at a small wooden table on the backyard patio. John, broad-shouldered and self-assured, spoke to William about the presidential debate, which neither man had seen.

"My brother didn't have a television," said William. "He's just sold his house. The only thing left were boxes."

"Oh, he was wonderful," said Abby. "Absolutely thrilling. You watched, didn't you, Meg? John was at work. You said you'd watch, right? He was absolutely wonderful."

"Save it, Abby," said John. "This isn't a house we're talking about. We're not here to buy a house from you." Addressing William, he said, "I'll tell you what. You've done alright for yourself here. You're still writing ads? Believe me," said John, "You're doing alright." He lowered his voice and said, "You let a Catholic in the White House, you and I both can kiss our paychecks goodbye. This house? Your television? Trust me." John pursed his lips and made an exaggerated kissing sound. It was the same sound he liked to make when he and Meg parted—a gesture that had burned quickly through its scant charm. Meg looked at her husband, who returned her gaze with a smile.

"I'm not much of a churchgoer anymore," William said. "Since I met Meg, anyway. I don't follow much of that anymore. It's not something that interests me, really." He said, "After I met Meg I gave it all up." He smiled at his wife. Meg felt his foot brush her leg under the table. John was silent. He finished another can of beer.

Abby's sweater lay draped across a chaise longue. Her bare arms were tan, a lingering and even hue accrued from a summer reading Good Housekeeping by the pool while her husband cut checks, made telephone calls, and smoked cigarettes in William's bed. Oblivious to, or perhaps in spite of, her husband, she spoke excitedly of her plan to infiltrate Williamsport's nascent real-estate market, which plan included a night course at the Technical Institute and a detailed wardrobe expansion. William turned franks on the grill and Meg brought out cans of Falstaff for John, who remained silent. Teddy had his father's old radio, and the two younger children sat on the lawn in front of him, listening as he ran through the stations, sending a muffled garble of voices and static into the late-afternoon sky.

Abby said quietly, "They're like brothers and sister over there. Look-it, John. Doesn't it just make you ache?"

After the sun had set, they moved inside. Meg interrupted a game of hide-and-seek and Teddy helped her carry in the dishes. The seven of them sat in front of the television, watching shapes move. "Shields against black heel marks," said an advertisement. William's radio lay forgotten in the moistening grass.

"Do you have any gin?" said Abby, after the kids had disappeared into the boys' bedroom. She stood up and walked into the kitchen. Opening cupboards, she said, "I'll make us Tom Collinses. Where's your sugar at, Meg?"

"Hey, I'll take mine with just a touch of lime and a nice two-story Dutch Colonial," said John, his voice thick with beer.

Abby was silent. Meg shot him a look, which went unnoticed. "Leave it, John," she said.

"OK," said John. "OK, I'll leave it. Only what about Charlotte, is all I'm wondering." He said, "Will she come along to your meetings with you, Abby? Or to your conferences in Trenton and Philadelphia? To your appointments in Laureldale and Doylestown and West Chester? Do you even know what these men do all day? Shit, Abby. You don't even know what I do all day."

"You cut checks and smoke cigars," Abby said. "You take long lunches and eye your secretary. I'm perfectly aware of what you do all day, John." She said, "Just shut up and let me have my fantasy, will you?" There was a resignation in her voice.

"Fine," said John. "Have it. It's all yours." He said, "Enjoy."

John and Abby and Charlotte left a silence in their wake. The boys had fallen asleep hours earlier. Meg said, "Turn the television back on. It's so quiet all of a sudden." Her voice wavered.

"It's nice," said William. "Don't you think? I missed you," he said. "I miss you." He placed a delicate hand on Meg's thigh.

Meg heard the words fall from her mouth. She said, "John and I." She nodded involuntarily. She said, "John and I, William. We're having a relationship." She looked at her husband. She watched the words register. She felt them register in her own head. The truth.

He said, "What?"

Meg said, "I didn't look at him." She said, "I wouldn't look at him the whole time. We did it—with him behind me. I made him do it that way so I wouldn't have to look at him. I wouldn't let him kiss me." She said, "He put on 'The Rite of Spring' and—"

"He played my records?" William asked.

"Just the one, really," she said. "Just 'Rite of Spring.'"

William offered, "But," and nothing more.

Meg continued. She said, "He'd put the record on and we'd climb into bed. There was never any talking. No one said 'I love you.' It was like a business transaction, really. There was never any kissing. I wouldn't look him in the face. I did once, the first time. The first time we did kiss. I looked him in the face and he kissed me on the mouth." An exhilaration began to build. It seemed as if she were relating a story she'd read in a magazine, only the story was her own. She decided to embellish, to exaggerate. "We tried some different things," she said. "We tested the waters a little. We experimented."

William shook his head. He said finally, "Jesus, Meg." The large grandfather clock in the hallway chose this moment to strike the half-hour. The single chime rang out with petulance, trembled in the air and then died. "How long?" William asked.

"Not long, honestly," she lied. "Really, not long."

She might have told him it was over now, though these words would not come. William was staring at his lap, as if figuring a math equation or a poorly constructed tagline. To admit the thing had run its course—though it undoubtedly had—would be to deprive this moment of all its potency. Its import. She sat in silence, holding it over her husband, goading him to speak.

In his third year at Amherst, before he knew Meg, William had once shared a very brief relationship with a boy he'd met in a biology course. The affair had comprised a single evening, during which William had accompanied the boy to a late afternoon showing of "The Asphalt Jungle," and then sat with him on a bench under an oak tree in a secluded and forgotten corner of campus. Despite its brevity, the incident had frightened William immensely. The boy had been blonde, his complexion fair. His face was sad and full of freckles. He was quiet—William could not remember him speaking a word the entire time—and yet he was also, somehow, quite commanding. The boy wore wool slacks with a threadbare knee and white socks, a yellow cable sweater and a tie. They had sat on that bench in the evening's dying air, neither of them speaking, until the boy leaned over and kissed William on the mouth. William did nothing. He opened his mouth and felt the boy's tongue against his teeth, his teeth against his lips. The boy placed his hand in William's lap, the first hand William had ever felt there. The boy looked at William, his hair awry, his hand making slow, small circles against the weave of William's slacks. William's arm was wrapped around his slight, girlish shoulders. Neither of them moved. The moment sustained itself. And then, still without moving, William said, "I can't." Though desperately, achingly, he had wanted to.

After several days of wretched aimlessness, William had attended mass for the first time since leaving home. He sat in the lonely hall of St. Brigid's on a Tuesday afternoon in April, futilely seeking comfort or explanation. He met Meg a year later, and they were married in the summer after graduation, her blonde hair tied in a bun, her dead mother's earrings trembling as she wept at the altar. Now, sitting in his own living room, the television silent, the pale, yellow walls sparse and vibrating, he felt that sense of aimlessness returning full-force. It was once again as if everything William knew to be true had been suddenly upended and was no longer. His heart pounded in his chest; his skin felt moist. His eyes welled. He spoke. "Please don't leave me," he said.

"What?" said his wife.

"Please, Meg," he said. "I don't want you to leave me." He said, "I love you, Meg. I want you to stay. I don't want you to leave me here."

His wife said nothing. She stared at him in awe as he repeated the line.