Free Mating Rituals of the North American WASP by Lauren Lipton Page A

what looked like pink barbed wire. Luke secretly believed he had saved the world from it.
    Nicki shut the phone but didn’t put it down. “What about me? I’m supposed to stay out of your life for a year?”
    “Not if you don’t want to.”
    “You mean if I want to sneak around, see you only during the week, and stay away from New Nineveh completely.”
    “You’re at craft shows nearly every weekend anyway. And if you don’t come to New Nineveh, you won’t have to visit with my
     great-aunt.”
    Luke was worried about Abby. She’d returned from the hospital uncharacteristically docile, obediently following her doctor’s
     orders to avoid taxing activities, like gardening, that she’d always enjoyed. She was more muddled, too; he’d tried to make
     her understand Peggy Adams was not related to the extinct Adams family of New Nineveh, which had once rivaled the Sedgwicks
     in importance, but she couldn’t grasp it.
    He frowned. “I’m afraid Abby might not be around very long.”
    “You’d better hope she isn’t. It’ll kill the old lady for sure when you dump that Vegas whore after a year.”
    “Don’t call her that. It’s unbecoming to you.”
    “Well, la-di-da.”
    “Anyway, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” Luke was thinking, suddenly, that he and Nicki should break up once and
     for all. Life would be considerably easier.
    Then he thought,
Bridge.
The word brought to mind Peggy Adams. But why, he didn’t know.
    “What’s she like?” Nicki asked. “The Vegas whor—”
    “Her name is Peggy.”
    Nicki rolled her eyes. “What’s she like?”
    In a tray on the trunk Nicki used as a coffee table, scuffed nuggets of sea glass surrounded a dusty collection of candles.
     “I don’t know. Nervous.” Luke poked at the candles. “Why don’t you ever light these things?”
    “Is she pretty?”
    He knew he should jump in with the objective truth, that given the choice between Peggy and a five-foot-ten-inch redheaded
     Amazon goddess, few men would notice Peggy was in the room. He had vaguely remembered Peggy as being vivacious and intelligent,
     but he’d seen none of that in Mayhew’s office. Obviously his attraction had been to the situation. The liquor, a stranger
     in a strange city: The combination had proven a potent but all-too-fleeting aphrodisiac.
    Aphrodisiac.
The word had great rhythm—perfectly trochaic on its own, but ideal for iambic pentameter:
An all-toofleeting aphrodisiac. An aphrodisiac that vanishes.
    “Don’t think I don’t notice you aren’t answering my question. Which means you think she’s pretty. You want to fuck her. Why
     else would you stay married to her?”
    She was jealous. Nicole Pappas—jealous. Like a vulnerable child, she curled her legs underneath her. Her dark snake-eyes faded
     back to green.
    “You have nothing to worry about.” Luke, the product of a culture in which the unchecked display of feeling was proof of an
     insufficiently rigorous upbringing, was surprised by an overwhelming surge of sappy, sloppy affection for his girlfriend.
     Nicki was sexy, vulgar, and dangerous. She cared about him, in her own peculiar way. They understood each other. They had
     never promised each other more than they were able to give.
    A pillow from the pile next to him tumbled into his lap. He flipped it onto the floor. “Come over here.”
    She stroked the arm of her chair. “
You
come over
here
.”
    Luke’s nerves vibrated with the inevitability of what would happen next. He pointed down at the throw pillows scattered on
     the rug. “I’ll meet you halfway. Right there.”
    “That’s not halfway.
That’s
halfway.” She pointed to a spot on the floor a few inches closer to her side of the rug.
    Luke’s nerves began to vibrate a little less. Did everything have to be a dispute, every time?
    Nicki continued pointing fixedly at her spot on the rug.
    Luke glanced past her, at the rhinestone clock some artisan had given her in barter at a