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part 1 of the story
Wink or Animal Costumery

Patrick Sweeney

    My bedside android’s new ringtone sounded like a vacuum cleaner seizing up. Like so much else on this toy, it had changed of its own accord. At least this time it was a daylight rousting. Greg was on the line feigning posh, “Sigismund Reynolds (My name – Siggy, please - was an inordinate part of my appeal in some circles.), your presence is requested at laboratorio di cucina at 11 sharp. Dress lightly as there will be some labor involved and a bella senorita there to scope your physique.”
    “Cool, I guess.” I’d fallen in with Greg and Brigitte during their first trip to Tuscany and they hadn’t been away much once they decided to marry here. I had somehow become a valued third wheel, seemingly within minutes. Bit of a pause for doubt there, like a sleek segue devolving into a tricycle, but still a sturdy vehicle and motorized. And it maneuvered fine. As we’d put it in my Brooklyn years, they hadn’t hit me up for sex or money half an hour in so, yeah, friends. They already had more social ties than I did in Florence and they weren’t after the history lesson jukebox I’d come to resemble.
    Greg kept a steady banter just slightly undermined by lapses into glib tomfoolery, particularly Don Adams’ voice circa Get Smart (Odd choice, given that the series had run its course decades before we were born and it was hardly the CV stand-out for creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.). He trafficked in slightly stale reveries, insights, paradoxes and non-sequiturs. Nothing priceless enough to follow him around with a tape recorder for, but an intravenous drip of coherent English for one barely muddling along in Italian and feeling pretty isolated for long stretches. If I continued to apply myself, I’d be fluent in my host language by the end of my extended sabbatical here. I was finding it a drag to just haltingly communicate clearly and I was elated whenever I could pull off - or comprehend – something nuanced.
    Greg’s verbal flights were moored by Brigitte’s ability to steer him off the shoals of boorishness, like a director firmly enabling an actor to blossom. My grokking this equation fast scored easy points with her. I was at a stage in my life where truth and justice were subsets of aesthetics and Brigitte was monumentally lovely. Always a plus. She brought out the frump in Florence’s duomo. She and Greg were encased in a private bubble that I wouldn’t think of puncturing, but I’d swear fealty as her knight given half the chance. Weathering the occasional smug affectation from Greg was a small price for her company.
    They had some bits that were way beyond my ken. Happy moments often occasioned a partner acrobatics routine. We’d be strolling in a park and stray from the footpath. Brigitte’s shoes would come off and Greg would lift her by her feet cleanly onto his shoulders then she would step onto his open palms and her would raise his arms over his head. This was called changing the light bulb. The sequence always started with this then flowed into a variety of options like her standing on his thighs with a handgrip keeping both at a 45-degree angle then one foot going behind his neck for a nearly horizontal “flag” pose.
    Folks would start to gather, scanning the lawn for a hat to drop change into. They were pointedly ignored. When my friends had had their fun, we split. And it was never a parlor game for the taverns. Perfect coordination absolutely required. Brigitte took the brunt of the immediate risk, but joint damage had to be a concern for both of them.
    I gather that I looked startled the first time I witnessed this. Brigitte grinned, “It’s a trust thing we have.”
    “Like the corporate team-building ‘trust fall’?”
    “Let’s call that the gateway drug. Still startled? There are wilder kinks out there. This has gotten fairly essential.”
    “If this is foreplay, I can disappear.”
    “More like therapy.”
    “Acts of faith with instant pay-off. Understood.”
    They both had jobs in high-profile multinationals (Nothing too pernicious, but don’t ask.) that gave fairly unlimited opportunity for virtual work so they could settle into Florence’s orbit with just minor adjustments. They were now back here in leisurely preparation for that destination wedding and their frequent bouts of importuning always had ample rewards. Somehow my academic drudge vibe had not sufficed to repel them. There is much torpor involved in producing a grant-funded study on Sandro Botticelli’s tangled iconography in tourist-thronged Florence’s busy season and I was finding renewed focus on my work between bouts of increasingly engaging misadventures with these two.
    Their wholesomely voluptuary love braced me for the close observation of what sure appeared to be the rapid disintegration of a great artist’s personality. Botticelli went from champion of sensuality to Revelations-obsessed zealot thanks to his new muse, the power-mad monk Savanarola, who’d burnished his reputation for piety by adding some of Botticelli’s own paintings – thankfully not Birth of Venus, though conceivably something more glorious - to the books, art works, musical instruments and other “vanities” tossed into his famous bonfires.
    Florence’s golden age – granted already shaky - had flipped like an out-of-control car when this proudly ugly monk claimed to channel God in speeches so moving that his more devout followers were given to histrionics. They came to be known as piagnoni, the weepers, better yet the snivelers. Botticelli transitioned from the definitive naked Venus to increasingly religious material, most notably a compelling Blessed Virgin (side by side with Venus in the Uffizi Gallery), even employing the same model, Simonetta Cataneo, for both. Apropos to nothing whatsoever, she was sister-in-law to noted cartographer, Amerigo Vespucci. I was out to find any shadings, any ambivalence, maybe even secret messages in the later output. Or foreshadowing in his earlier works. All of his paintings are beautiful but the trajectory makes it one grueling carnival ride.
    Brigitte and Greg had very particular ideas about how they should tie the knot, this despite widespread snark from their families over how thoughtless it was to stage the event on another continent. With East Lansing, Michigan; Tampa, Florida and Waltham, Mass all laying claim to their ceremony and with a nice pool of mobility-drunk friends counting on them for an inspired setting, their choice of Florence wasn’t totally nonsensical.
    There would be little symbolic thingies stateside after their honeymoon, actually an entire tour would be essential as families proper had generally opted to receive them on familiar ground. Moreover, a whole panoply of second-tier relatives, friends and neighbors would need the opportunity to reciprocate various of their nuclear family members for wedding presents doled out to their kids. Greg and Brigitte were fine renewing their vows in Auntie Elsa’s lap if it appeased the disgruntled. Plus, there were plenty who were inordinately tickled that they had arranged for a multi-camera zoom cast of the wedding ceremony and reception.
    The sole relative of Greg’s who had pledged for the main event in Florence was his dubious Uncle Mitch, “a card, a laff riot”, whose response came in a wild, concentric swirl over every inch of the genteel invitation form, “Big G, Yowza! How’d you snare that crumpet! Set me up with a sister, will ya? Mom will do in a pinch.” Greg was psyched to have him represent the clan but warned me that his rakish persona had started to creak and his camphor aroma could get bracing. Brigitte’s sister, Claire – no warnings required – would be her family’s emissary as well as her maid of honor.
    Granted, this choice of Florence was still as ostentatious as all get out. You factor in bribing clergy and officials and it got pretty staggering for Greg and Brigitte too. They had actually contracted with a facilitator to ensure that the subcontractors and all others with moistened beaks colored within the lines. The facilitator, having no clout or debating skills, instantly met every impasse with more bribes.
    I met the fiancées and my surprise date at their courtyard grill sporting white shorts to milk what I could out of my meager tan and a Henley t-shirt to assure my prospective friend that the current chest-shaving vogue hadn’t snared me yet. Gaetana, wide eyes with a Roman nose to anchor them plus the pillowy lips those of little faith would be given to hiss “fake”, also wore white but had chosen a wife beater to give her oval face proper collarbone context. The duomo was indeed taking a beating these days. It really is a lovely building, though. Gaetana, an architectural student up from the south here for postgrad work, smacked me with some conviction when I later shared that comparison with her.
    The ingredients were arrayed on a large folding table. Someone had already done the scut work of mincing chives and orange zest. Still pristine were tubs of soft sheep’s milk cheese, local goat cheese and feta plus bundles of bacon, capicola and prosciutto, which along with bowls of shelled pistachios, marcona almonds and pecans surrounded a basket of medjool dates and figs, the latter both dried and fresh. We were to assemble and grill multiple varieties of meat/fruit/cheese/nut wraps to determine which of these hot, gooey morsels people would most relish during the reception.
    Brigitte verbalized our thought bubble, “You bite into the savory toothsome layer, get to the yielding succulence, releasing the creamy ooze, and keep going then you hit crunch. The last bit borders on unnerving but it’s traditional. I think these are common enough that it won’t bring to mind biting through a roasted finger.” In case the erotic component needed flagging, we posted a selfie giddily delivering the fig gesture.
    Other than some careful carving, there really wasn’t much to it. Alongside Gaetana for the slow knife work, I let my gaze linger a bit more than surreptitiously. Apropos to nothing more, the eye beneath the meandering part in her wavy auburn hair delivered a sultry flex of low-light shutter action. I winked back.
    The eyes have it. Can’t have eyes without “yes.” Ad infinitum. Ad astra. I’m known in some circles as reserved. I barely resisted the physical backflip that my heart cued.
    Soon the array, including some open-faced vegetarian options, was caramelizing over the oak pellets with pepper and parmesan mills lightly strafing them from above. A little balsamic reduction while they cooled off. The first batch never quite made it to warm. Unhinged umami uprising! No losers whatsoever.
    This canapé selection would seem to encapsulate their future; warm, luscious and pheromone-saturated. I was thinking of volunteering a toast to that effect at their reception. But first to matters at hand. Gaetana and I – there’d been pleasantries vacillating between Italian and English earlier, but no words necessary at this point – shyly took our leave for the logical conclusion of this lovely ambush. I’m not remotely this smooth, but wasn’t about to question my good fortune.
    Our route took us through the Piazza della Signoria, the main square, and it was pretty lightly touristed so we paused on the rim of the Fountain of Neptune. Now a fairly garish sculpture garden and currently hosting an antique car exhibit, the piazza was where Savanarola had delivered many speeches, hosted a number of bonfires and ultimately got burned at the stake. The latter was a triple execution, like Jesus, with many former followers in the festive crowd and some tearfully atoning when the flames lifted his hand into some facsimile of a blessing. You wouldn’t notice the plaque unless you were looking for it,
    On the periphery, tour guides with pennants and whistles led their docile charges through the highlights including a cast of Michelangelo’s David for those who couldn’t be bothered crossing the river for the original. One guide dude in a top hat was barking like a border terrier. I thought I heard sobbing. Bracketing the prospect of a haunted piazza, little wonder.
    “This must be a strange spot for you,” Gaetana ventured, “Brigitte told me about your study on Botticelli and his burnt offerings.”
    “I pause here often as if it can teach me something”
    “Any progress on reconciling the two Botticellis?”
    “We Catholics are a strange people, aren’t we? Also, there is a theory that he was coerced, playing along because the weepers were in control and, wrenching lamentations aside, were known to be vicious. And there’s that speculation about overcompensating for repressed homosexuality. Something more, though... mind you, I’m spitballing at an auto-da-fe, but there’s something in an artist capturing a subject to subjugate it. You wrestle your demon to the ground in the creative process, so what do you do with it now? There’s that grand tradition of great artists committing infanticide on their creations. You apprehend beauty like you apprehend a crime suspect.”
    “Where does apprehensive fit in?”
    “Both, my sweet terror.”
    A righteous debauchery ensued.
    The spell was still intact for both of us, after she’d had her way with me. I immediately asked her to be my date for the wedding and nearly spit it out as sposarmi (marry me). I had a curious feeling that I was cheating on Brigitte, but I would quickly be dispersing that fog.
    Gaetana and I became very much an item. My Italian was getting a chance to blossom, but it wasn’t remotely as good as her English. We spent a big chunk of our waking hours on the pillowed ledges of my bay windows overlooking the Arno and a stretch of the walled city. We also inhabited the underused rooftop terrace of her hostel, soon our only use for the place. And, naturally, Piazza della Signoria in the off-hours.
    I absented myself one afternoon to meet Greg and Brigitte at a caffetteria and formally thank them for their matchmaking’s transformative machination. Brigitte assured me that their motives were purely selfish, aligning their stars for their wedding and their life ahead. Greg nodded sagely. Um, okay.
    Further upriver from us towards the Ponte Vecchio’s jewelry shop scrum but still short of tourist ground zero, Greg and Brigitte had set up operations and they had coaxed many guests to rent flats along that stretch of the river. The idea was to keep things quite communal for all those who were making the long journey and maintaining Fierenze as a home base for a while.
    Gaetana and I, settled into our own orbit, were swinging wide periodically to meet new guests as they trickled in. We joined them most nights for the duration of a wine bar visit or two. Pretty savory lot but they had the stray occasion to step in it.
    Most of the guests and the locals they’d hooked up with were at least born American and a fair amount of the talk was squandered on passports, visas, pied-a-terres, long-stay contracts and citizenships for elsewheres. Enough that Gaetana, one of the few actual Italians, articulated what was hanging in the air like pollen. Many of them were privileged and ravishingly tone deaf about. it; collecting properties like antique cars, eager to share the details of their acquisitions and readily admitting that they rarely found the time to show up for sweeping away the cobwebs and investigating the dead animal smells. There was much buzz over the enchantment of freshly war-scarred hot spots across the Adriatic. Syria and Yemen weren’t quite happening yet.
    Once my stipend for this work ran out, I wasn’t necessarily destined for the rural Illinois Knox College that was waiting for me, and Gaetana sure was inspiring alternative scenarios, but I would have that single base and limited mobility unless I morphed into that rare anomaly, celebrity academic. I no longer had the option of leaching onto a royal court. Couldn’t knock Knox, but I had no obligation to them and would master Italian quickly.
    I gently eluded a few opportunities to be personal guide through the Uffizi, a collection that left me indifferent at best, excepting of course its Botticellis, which were already cued for slideshow whenever my eyelids came down.
    Our being gracious with their guests was hardly the most noxious administrative duty associated with this wedding. Greg and Brigitte, attributed with supernatural powers because they were ostensibly pulling off this stunt, had prodigious problem-solving and counselling responsibilities, even for those they’d end up having to visit stateside. FAQs on accommodations, visas, currency exchange, car rentals and connecting flights had them considering a travel agency sideline, but didn’t help with those waylaid by transport strikes, acts of nature, technical snafus shrugged off by officials and all-around piss poor judgement.
    One night’s sorrowful litany of nuisances and complications – most of them instantly cute anecdotes even to those suffering through them - culminated with an account of Tony’s macabre predicament. One of Greg’s oldest friends, he was suddenly touch and go about showing up. It was a real good time for Tony to be anywhere but the US for an extended stay and finances were not an issue, but he had some unfinished business with a surprise house guest.
    Tony had awoken just before dawn on a recent morning to a faux-wood paneled Rambler whinnying and wriggling its rump as its stripped front-passenger side wheel rim gouged a hole into the front lawn. Bad associations with Ramblers. The lush that had sired him had roared off in a Rambler Cross Country after beating his mother with a wrench and trying like hell to set the house on fire.
    Glancing blows punctuated by the sobbing non-starter “after all I done for you” and a flame ill-fed by squirts from the wrong tool chest squeeze top didn’t do all that much damage. The fumes from the singed splatters of Elmer’s glue had addled his father enough that the final wrench blow was his wife’s crunchy two-hander to his left knee. Fuckface hobbled off mewling imprecations. He somehow eluded a police dragnet and motored his way into oblivion. The terror subsided after a while. It wasn’t all that certain he’d ever even be able to find his way back.
    So now with the Rambler becalmed but still panting and a crutch poking from the open front door like an insect’s feeler, Tony reached back to the umbrella stand for his shillelagh. Clump clump clump, left knee was not weight-bearing. The uninvited guest stopped short of the front steps.
    “Here’s the deal, “His visitor paused to let the visuals sink in. Was this adenoidal troll in Goodwill cast-offs the beast roaring through every pleasant dream or daydream over the past two decades like a flamethrower? “This isn’t fun anymore. I’m gonna drink till my organs dissolve. Thought you’d like to help. But first! First I have things to himpart.”
    “You’re not welcome in my home.”
    “Home’n me don’t mix or hadn’t you noticed?”
    “You here for money?”
    “If you gave me money, you couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t spend it on hootch, right? Davey Crockett Bourbon. Start with those cases of half-gallons in my back seat. You’ll hafta pour for me. And mail order Fed Ex right away in case we run out.” A balled $100 note drops onto the porch, “Any left is yours t’keep.”
    “Cool. Or rather, I’ll be putting up a tarp here to conceal you,” The modest geodesic tent, never properly rinsed of the mosquito splatters from an ill-conceived weekend in some faux Arcadia, would barely sheath the station wagon. It’ll be hot and smelly but that’s perfectly okay.
    “If you leave the car or get too loud, I know which knee to hit. Then, none too soon, I’ll replace your wheel – a hard black funeral wreath – and off to the quarry with you.”
    “Yeah, yeah. An don’t be calling me da da.”
    “No risk of that.”
    “Or pops”
    “Not till you’re ready for puncturing. And you’re not allowed out to use my bathroom.”
    “Not a problem.”
    “Oh really. How’s that?”
    “Depends”
    “Depends on what?”
    “Depends on me.”
    “What depends on you?”
    “Fuckall glad I didn’t stick around to raise an imbecile like you. Adult diapers!”
    “Ah, considerate.”
    “Yeah, yeah. And you can quit sulking. You weren’t the only contender and you get the pleasure. Be grateful....”
    “So Tony hasn’t actually bought a ticket yet?”
    “Got to see this through. Hoping he’ll make it. Here I mean. And there. Cain’t leave ‘pops’ unattended, cain’t bring him to a hospital that would release him at Tony’s address while he was out of the country and cain’t, rather won’t, bring him inside to lock in the cellar for the final days.”
    That was the only truly dire situation other than Ruth’s, which we were pretty sure was just some masculine joking in particularly poor taste. She’d been in Gabon drumming up a market for these sardine crackers that are fine by themselves or adding a little heft and tang to a splendid local fish stew. Her employer had brazenly transgressed with some Gabonese importers by selling them bales of New York Mets t-shirts that would unravel if you stared at them too hard. Her mission was the exporter’s undeserved second chance with this market.
    Somehow, Ruth’s posting was depicted in easily retrievable e-mails as expiating the offense. There was a long string of messages in Franglais linking her to the t-shirt fraud and proposing her head on a stake as a peace offering, one that would be graciously accepted, presumably figuratively though she didn’t run in those circles. There were also some garbled sexual innuendoes and the head on a pole may well have been one of them. Her hosts, encountered only after the e-mail chain, had been unfailingly civil but their relentless hard glares were beyond anything needed for bargaining positions.
    She didn’t really fear for her life, but now that she had a working recipe for a dish she’d grown fond of, there was little point in seeing how all this would transpire. This gig sure wasn’t going to further her career. She would absent herself from this situation and contend with the dreaded gap in her CV later.

*

    Four nights out from the main event, Greg was particularly keen on our meeting his Uncle Mitch from Baton Rouge, who we were reminded yet again was “not your typical older relative.” That pitch and the insistency rubbed me the wrong way. “Maybe we should let him acclimate, get over the jet lag while we do our own urgent detox and we’ll catch up the next night.
    “Don’t be surprised if you and la bella are serenaded tonight!”
    “Boys off the leash?”
    “Yowowza!”
    “Unk one of these confirmed bachelors?”
    “Last man standing!”
    “Don’t tell me you envy him!”
    “Naw! Maybe before Brigitte a bit. He’s a man’s man!”
    “Yeah, I’m way out of sync with that latency stage and I have you two to thank for totally vanquishing it. Tomorrow with women around works for me.”
    Mid-morning, we were noshing through Mercato Centrale and Gaetana was accosted by a pencil-mustached, paper mache-skinned lothario in sky-blue windowpane check suit out to melt her heart with “Tutti frutti antipasti valpollicelli spumoni ronzoni montepulciano” delivered with a fusillade of likely communicable eye twitches in a twang that I would make the leap and call Louisiana swamp.
    She appeared to be torn between toying with him and providing a souvenir scar, then settled on neither, “Uncle Mitch! We’ve heard so much about you!”. She stepped back, proffering a perfunctory arms-length handshake.
    “So nice to stand out even in this company.”
    “Oh, you represent.” Mitch conjured the famous account – perhaps apocryphal – of the dude booted from the Cheap Suit Serenaders for excess cheesiness.
    Greg materialized, beaming and otherwise unaccompanied, to complete the introductions.
    “And Brigitte.”
    “A little off her feed.” Fancy that, “She’s sleeping in and we’re under orders to burn off some energy.”
    “Nothing if not obedient,” Mitch added, “Hey, you’re touching yourself!” I was clasping my ribs, calming a sprain between aspirin rations, “For the pain,” I felt compromised responding at all.
    “You are touching yourself! Not judging, just saying it’s obvious.”
    “Your ribcage an erogenous zone?”
    “He’s just having at ya, Sig. Mixing it up a bit. After all, you beat him to la bella.”
    “That is a tragedy. Sorry you had to settle, senorita. I’m gonna mingle. Make new friends,” Mitch slipped into the crowd.
    “No brawling!” As Mitch disappeared, Greg dropped the cheeriness like a turd, “She didn’t put a dent in her dinner last night, just a few sips of wine and begged off early. I found her trembling when I got home to bed and this morning, she could barely get down some tea. She swears it’s not me. I think she means it.”
    “Is it this buffroon?”
    “Mitch is the least of it. It hadn’t occurred to us that all the guest traffic of a destination wedding would make us responsible for all these people getting disoriented and petulant. And worse.”

    “For one thing, we got another message from Tony. The himparting is hunderway. His father has a stack of sodden notepads with large, loopy scrawl that even its author has trouble reading. And Tony was not about to try. He’s allowed one page per shot. The squinting, guesswork and portentous throat-clearing, while interminable, are no more than absolutely needed:
    Git your assin. Outta tha rain. Unless you like it. Then stay.
    A learned ape is just a monkey to me.
    Tuffman compatition prostatutes your tuffness.
    Not gonna finish that thing, step aside.
    That’s a shotsworth. The ration is transferred from a shot glass to a plastic cup, which pops rides up him arm to keep steady. Scumbag leans in unsteadily – dreadful intimacy to that, like tete-a-tete with an STD - to ensure that Tony is transcribing every word triple space, 22 font and bold print.
    Hain’t saying I lived a good life, but I have lived a good life and screw’em that can’t tell the difference.
    Fear keeps a woman honest. That bullshit a theirs is genetic.
    Don’t like my hat? Buy me a new one!
    Civilization ‘n culture’n social order and all such amount to animal costumery. Not foolin anyone. Pure fru fru.
    Tilt back and open wide. You’d think this would be making short work of him but it’s like nourishment. And he naps a lot.”
    “I aim for total transparency with Brigitte. All of life is ultimately misfortune on balance and happiness is a bluff when you completely ignore that. It seems, though, like a human sacrifice is anticipated as a good omen for our wedding. I’m ambivalent at best but, yeah, I want Tony here. I can just imagine Brigitte’s take on it. “
    That plus the frenzy of feeling responsible that everything be perfect plus the eruptions of jealousy, pettiness, and paranoia plus the shock of being serially whacked with the full crew of insipid principals for most every family holiday, houseguest and vacation host scenario to come over the next several decades.”
    “Are there many more like Mitch?”
    “No such luck”
    “Gotta say that meeting him was like rooting through the toolbox and finding an implement with no discernable function. Just pure tool.”
    “Don’t be so sensitive!”
    The bat signal went out the next day alerting select friends and family that Brigitte had some serious troubles and needed to get her allies together for a summit at nearby Lake Bilancino. No mention of plus one, but I trusted that bringing Gaetana wouldn’t be a problem. It was just about mid-afternoon so I wouldn’t necessarily have to beg off on carousing with the boys-terous crew. Maybe join them later. It was evident that Brigitte should not be left alone. We were hoping there was no major crisis and that these folks would have the sense to cancel tonight’s frolic if there were.
    Would this eventually pan out to the boys going out for a howl while the girls commiserated with Brigitte? I really hated that segregation and the disharmony, but what’s the alternative if Greg decides he must still get his due? Maybe skipping out early on the boys again, at very least before it gets to Sexy Disco Excelsior for lap dances. And whatever the women are hashing out, it would just about coincide with the lap dancers. Maybe some bored deity could jump cut me between them like a celestial Coppolla imitator.
    Motoring northward on A1, we got a few flurries of beeps from other attendees who all appeared to be in high spirits. The exuberant shouts started to cohere. With others making various leaps in judgment – many probably no worse than my assumption that Gaetana would be welcome - the message had quickly mutated into taking over a lakefront inn/tavern for a spontaneous jack’n jill bridal showery thingie. Granted, I was second tier, knowing that there was a problem but not what it was. Still, I was taken way aback by the number and, well, quality of summit attendees.
    We arrived to find a few of the men pretty far out into the chilly and fairly shallow lake fully-clothed in response to a call to assist a woman in distress. They were more hanging out in the waist deep passing around bottles than doing anything concerted. Police cars were swarming in from the northwest and the constabulary dispatched a motorboat to consult with the waders. A young woman was soon rousted from sleep on a small island just a bit offshore. She was a sous-chef who’d been foraging wild plants for a nearby cutting-edge restaurant and had indulged in a logy sunbath. She was not who they were after, though they don’t have much of a lead. They would linger to wait for instructions and presumably size up our crew.
    Back to “festivities.” We went inside and the women were far more sensibly gathered around the fireplace with brandies. Brigitte gave us a muffled introduction to Marcy, an unfamiliar childhood friend of hers, who stepped forward and thanked us for coming but in a fairly distracted way. I mentioned my surprise at the large turnout and she closed in, lowering the volume, “Yeah, it got out way of hand.”
    “Greg here?”
    “No, we got that much right.”
    “Yikes! Are we gonna be able to calve off from this once the police clear out?”
    “I would hope so. There’s a fair stroll along the shore in the opposite direction.”
    “You mean away from the parking lot?”
    She was gone, slipped back into the banter. I could touch base later.
    I was quickly waylaid by Horst, a blustery fellow from Greg’s contingent who openly held Brigitte in contempt for lacking Greg’s verbal firepower while himself obtuse to her verbal sleight-of-hand. He’s already in Hugh Hefner loungewear and in his cups and in a mood to talk literature. I wasn’t all that intent on fleeing provided we not leave the threshold of the main chamber. The banter didn’t take much energy, just baiting the stodge with segues from immortals like Milton to pre-immortals like Chuck Palahniuk. Nonetheless, I was getting woozy from that silky brandy.
    It took a while to register that Brigitte and several friends had cleared out. I excused myself, giving Gaetana the option to stay back, which she judiciously took, and set out for the path along the lake.
    Moonlight was just about adequate to the task. I had a flashlight in my car but I was confident I’d manage without it. Exposed roots pitched me forward a couple of times but it was not quite stumblebumming. It was déclassé to take the brandy snifter along but I couldn’t abandon it now. Marcy emerged where the path crossed under a split tree trunk.
    She looked chagrined, and had a stemmed tumbler of her own, “I’m not good at this, Sig. As you noted, this evening metastasized something fierce. It was really meant to be a crisis summit. Just a couple of folks dealing with a harsh situation. I took my cue and volunteered to waylay any travelers on this route. Actually, it would be nice if you could help.”
    “Is it okay to ask what this is about?”
    “I took my cue and didn’t ask. Got the feeling that if I knew, I’d wish I didn’t. There’s no way it’s your standard jitters. She’s such a sweet kid. I really feel rotten.”
    We framed the interior of the split trunk, obscuring the path and leaning halfway into an embrace should we have to ward anyone off. We ended up drawn into a few respectable nuzzles in the ensuing half hour or so, convincing enough to turn around all four parties that had ventured our way. After a while, it made more sense to just surrender to the clinch. It was an unselfish act performed with alacrity.
    We heard muffled sobs approaching from the far shore and, cued once again, slowly headed back, hand-in-hand, partly for steadiness, until the parking lot. Fireside, Gaetana shot me a glare, having rather pointedly taken up with Horst, presumably upon catching wind of our hijinx on the trail. Just this side of a lap dance from the looks of it. Marcy hooked my arm and led me to a glider on the porch,
    “Did I ruin anything with potential?”
    “Yes, actually. I need to be fully accountable with her. Can we take her aside without divulging too much? Maybe just a down payment on candor?”
    “I would venture to give her a date that all could be revealed. And confirm that you were faultless but maybe she should slap you if it would feel better.”
    “Whatever you can do. She means the world to me.”
    Gaetana materialized, scootching us over with, “Enough strategy! I’ve been tonguing an ashtray’s asshole in there.”
    “Did you hear enough?”
    “Certainly. I know there’s something, um...”
    “Amiss”
    “Yes. It’s eerie tonight. I did have to do something though when people started talking about you two. Keeping things festive. Wasn’t about to grind one out. Left him with a stiffie, though. Souvenir. Naw, I’ll let you know who makes me jealous. You’re a sweet girl, Marcy, no offense.”
    “No sweat, doll.”
    So, they leaned over me for a big hug fest and I ended up with my cheeks pinched. We lingered a bit longer.
    Ruth, head attached, was also on the porch networking up a storm. She broadcast her predicament by marveling at the abject mendacity of her former employer and the astonishing consistency of fraud in its global operations. She could be forgiven for belaboring the old saw about how you can’t have truthless without ruthless and asserting that her absence would leave an enterprise of pure, unalloyed corruption.
    They had her electronic signature on a non-disclosure agreement while she had hundreds of e-mails documenting her account of their hijinx as well as thousands more from allied colleagues who had designated her as a clearinghouse for damning evidence against rascality that had overstepped cute.
    She’d already made some import/export contacts in Italy, finding them very receptive to a refugee from an enterprise that had devolved to full scorched earth policy in multiple sectors. And this was only after drafting an agreement with a talented and charismatic Gabonese chef for collaboration on a cookbook. She e-mailed us both her CV in mid-conversation, barely straying from her interlocutors.
    She had drawn Horst’s attention last we checked and she seemed inordinately transfixed by his gold paisley ascot. Gaetana drew up behind her, slipped her hand under the back of her blouse and traced ‘NO GO’ in large letters. Ruth clasped her other hand and whispered, ‘Gotcha’, as we otherwise absented ourselves with as small a ripple as possible.
    It wasn’t appallingly late. With great trepidation and little presence of mind, I dialed Greg’s number. My heart leapt when it concluded a decent interval without answer. Due for quality time in the bay window. The phone spit up a furball. Good sign that he wasn’t too wasted for redial, “Siggy! The cavalry has arrived and it’s you.!”
    “Just checking in actually. I’m knackered.”
    “We’re having an epic, epic night. Leaving a trail of broken bodies. Time to kick it into high gear. And as usual, Mitch is the last man standing.”
    “Jesus, tell him I’m busy touching myself.”
    “My last hours as a bachelor, bro!”
    “I gotta tell you. I’m worried about Brigitte. You really, really need to get a good night’s sleep as tomorrow will need you alert.”
    “She’s just whimpering to her sister. Doesn’t need me for that.”
    “She’s the best thing that ever happened to you and you’re her first line of defense. Leave Mitch some place where he can’t do too much harm and go the hemorrhaging fuck home to bed.”
    Alright, that was maybe a little harsh, but it had to be said. I made a note to myself that I owed him a big hug.
    The next day was oddly becalmed. Got through breakfast then lunch with no summoning, dispatch or convocation and we were having a really productive stretch so we didn’t give it a vast amount of thought. It got to early afternoon and it occurred to us that we should check in, but not a phone call.
    Gaetana IM’d Brigitte, “Everything falling into place?”
    “Like a rockslide”
    “Let us know what we can do.”
    “Just not feeling good.”
    “Greg with you?”
    “Taking a walk.”
    “Claire?”
    “Just stepped away.”
    “Come out with us. Please.”
    “Just you, okay. And just close by. Claire would worry.”
    “Greg wouldn’t?”
    “I’m working on his last nerve.”
    “Aha. It did sound like he’d be hung over today.”
    I was left to my own devices. Greg doubtless getting hair of the dog. Pretty sure where. The notion of a rehearsal dinner hadn’t really gelled other than our being asked a week earlier to keep this night open. How many folks did they have anxiously breathing down their necks for the premium event? And how many had assumed it best to demur?
    I’d let Gaetana get back to me, which she did soon enough, “Brigitte’s thinking it’s her first migraine but it’s lasting and lasting. She went to the clinic yesterday and told them she wasn’t eating or sleeping then let slip that she’s getting married tomorrow. Came home with a bottle of sleeping pills. Seal’s still unbroken.”
    Greg is some strange mixture of clingy with her and renewing his vows with that awful uncle. There is supposed to be a rehearsal dinner. Terms are very fluid, in part because Brigitte has sworn that she will not attend if that uncle is invited. If she doesn’t extend a personal invitation to us, it’ll be because things got truly dire.”
    “I know they’re the ones really going through this, but how exceedingly feeble! Like there was no occasion for this kind of stand-off until they’re the main event?”
    “I still believe in this couple. I think there’s much more to this.”
    We toasted their good fortune repeatedly that night. No contact from anybody whatsoever. We didn’t want to become stalkers. We set out to mind our own business for a while on our favorite park bench overlooking the river. Its status as our hangout was well-established, so we wouldn’t be hard to find. Nothing doing.

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