At which point Ginny did her best to convey horror to the cute redheaded girl helping us and then declared, "Oh, Ellen. I so admire how laidback you are about these details… I try to be more that way, but just can't."

Bless my heart.

So anyway, here I sit in Margot's family room in my Orange Crush T-shirt, the only bright color in a sea of preppy chic, summery pastels. And the only one who hasn't heard the summer's breaking news-that Cass Phillips discovered her husband, Morley, had purchased a three-thousand-dollar harp for his twenty-one-year-old lover who happens to be her best friend's goddaughter. Which, as you can imagine, has caused quite the stir at Cherokee, the country club to which all pertinent parties belong.

"A harp?" I say. "Whatever happened to your standard negligee?"

Ginny shoots me a look as if I've totally missed the point of the story, and says, "Oh, Ellen. She's a harpist."

"Right," I say, mumbling that I figured as much, but who the heck decides to pick up the harp, anyway?

Andy winks at me and says, "Elizabeth Smart."

As I recall the "missing" posters of Elizabeth playing the harp, I smile at my husband's ability to conjure examples for just about anything, while Ginny ignores our exchange and informs me that she and Craig had a harpist at their rehearsal dinner, along with a string quartet.

"Elizabeth who?" Craig says, turning to Andy, as if trying to place the name in his tight little Buckhead context.

"You know," I say. "The Mormon girl who was kidnapped and then found a year later walking around Salt Lake City in a robe with her bearded captor."

"Oh yeah. Her," Craig says dismissively. As I watch him slice a big wedge of Brie and sandwich it between two crackers, it occurs to me that while he is like Webb in some ways-they are both ruddy, joke-telling, sports guys-he has none of Webb's affability or ability to put others at ease. Come to think of it, he never really acknowledges me much at all or even looks my way. He brushes a few crumbs from his seersucker shorts and says, "I did hear the harpist was smokin' hot…"

"Craig!" Ginny whines her husband's name and looks aghast, as if she just caught him jerking off to a Penthouse magazine.

"Sorry, babe," Craig says, kissing her in such a way that would suggest they've only just begun to date, when in fact, they've been together since virtually the first day of college.

Webb looks amused as he asks how Morley was busted.

Ginny explains that Cass found the charge on Morley's corporate Amex. "She thought it looked suspicious and called the store… Then she put it together with his sudden interest in the symphony," she says, her eyes bright with the scandalous details.

"Did he not think that, given his womanizing reputation, she was going to check his corporate Amex, too?" Margot says.

Craig winks and says, "It's usually a safe harbor."

Ginny whines her husband's name again, then gives him a playful shove. "I'd leave you so fast," she says.

Right, I think. She is exactly the sort of kept woman who'd put up with serial shenanigans. Anything to keep up their perfect appearances.

As the group continues to untangle the sordid harp saga, my mind drifts to Leo, and I consider for at least the hundredth time whether, in a technical, poll-one-hundred-people-in-Times-Square sort of way, I cheated on Andy that night on the plane. Always before, I wanted the answer to be no-both for Andy's sake and for mine. But on this night, I realize that a small part of me almost wants to fall in that dark category. Wants to have a secret that distances me from Ginny and this whole desperate-housewife world I have found myself in. I can just hear her gossiping with her Buck-head-Betty friends-"I don't know what Margot sees in that tacky-font-selecting, T-shirt-wearing, unhighlighted Yankee."

The rest of the night is uneventful-just lots of golf and business talk among the men and baby talk among the girls-until about halfway through dinner when Ginny sips from her wineglass, winces, and says, "Margot, darling. What is this that we're drinking?"

"It's a merlot," Margot says quickly, something in her voice tipping me off to trouble. I glance at the bottle and realize that it's the one I brought tonight-and upon further inspection, the very same one that my father and Sharon gave Andy and me after we moved into our New York apartment.

"Well, it tastes like arse," Ginny says, as if she's British, a pet peeve of mine. (Just earlier tonight, she mentioned that she and Craig were planning a trip to Meh-hee-co.)

Margot flashes Ginny an insider's look of warning-a look that you'd think they would have perfected in high school-but Ginny either misses it or intentionally ignores it, continuing her banter. "Where did you find it? Wal-Mart?"

Before Margot can offer a preemptive strike, Craig grabs the bottle from the table, scans the label, and scoffs, "Pennsylvania. It's from Pennsylvania. Right. Everyone knows how world-renowned the vineyards are in Philadelphia." He laughs, proud of his joke, proud to be showcasing his sophistication, his appreciation of all the finer things in life. "You shouldn't have, really," he adds, anticipating all of us to burst into fits of laughter.

Andy gives me a look that says, Let it ride. Like his sister and mother, he is one to avoid conflict of any kind, and deep down, I know that is exactly what I should do now. I am also fairly certain that no one meant to offend me-that Craig and Ginny likely didn't piece together that I brought the wine-and that it was only a good-natured ribbing between close friends. The sort of foot-in-the-mouth remarks that anyone can make.

But because they come from Ginny and Craig, and because I do not like Ginny and Craig and they do not like me, and because at this moment I want to be anywhere in the world but sitting at a table in my new town of Atlanta having dinner with Ginny and Craig, I pipe up with, "Pittsburgh, actually."

Craig looks at me, confused. "Pittsburgh?" he says.

"Right. Pittsburgh… not Philadelphia," I say, my face burning with indignation. "It's Pittsburgh's finest merlot."

Craig, who clearly has no clue where I'm from, and certainly has never bothered to ask, continues to look puzzled while I catch Webb and Margot exchange an uncomfortable glance.

"I'm from Pittsburgh," I say, drolly, apologetically. "I brought the bottle tonight." I shift my gaze to Ginny and swirl my wine. "Sorry that it's not up to snuff."

Then, as Craig looks sheepish and Ginny stammers an awkward retraction and Margot laughs nervously and Webb changes the subject and Andy does absolutely nothing, I silently raise my glass and take a big gulp of cheap red wine.

twenty-four

On the short, muggy walk home that night, I wait for Andy to rush to my defense-or at least make cursory mention of the merlot episode. At which point, I plan to laugh it off, or perhaps chime in with a few choice comments about Ginny and Craig-her insipid chatter, his misplaced superiority, their relentless, almost comical, snobbishness.

But surprisingly and even more disappointingly, Andy doesn't say a word about them. In fact, he has so little to say that he comes across as uncharacteristically remote, almost aloof, and I start to feel he actually might be mad at me for causing a ruckus at Margot's so-called barbecue. As we near our driveway, I am tempted to come right out and ask the question, but refrain for fear that doing so would suggest guilt. And I don't feel that I've done anything wrong.

So instead I stubbornly avoid the subject altogether and keep things neutral, breezy. "Those were some great filets, weren't they?" I say.

"Yeah. They were pretty tasty," Andy says as he nods to a night jogger passing us in crazy, head-to-toe reflective clothing.

"No chance that guy's getting hit by anything," I say, chuckling.

Andy ignores my half-hearted joke and continues in a serious voice. "Margot's corn salad was really good, too."

"Uh-huh. Yeah. I'll be sure to get her recipe," I mumble, my tone coming off slightly more acerbic than I intended.

Andy shoots me a look that I can't read-some combination of doleful and defensive-before dropping my hand and reaching in his pocket for his keys. He fishes them out, then strides more quickly up the driveway to the front porch, where he unlocks the door and pauses to let me enter first. It is something he always does, but tonight the gesture registers as formal, almost tense.

"Why, thank you," I say, feeling stranded in that frustrating no man's land of both wanting to fight and wanting to be close.

Andy won't give me either. Instead, he steps around me as if I were a pair of tennis shoes left on the stairs and heads straight up to our room.

I reluctantly follow him and watch him start to undress, desperately wanting to define what's in the air between us but unwilling to make the first move.

"You going to bed?" I say, glancing at the clock on our bedroom mantel.

"Yeah. I'm beat," Andy says.

"It's only ten," I say, feeling both angry and sad. "Don't you want to watch TV?"

He shakes his head and says, "It's been a long week." Then he hesitates, as if he forgot what he was about to do, before reaching into his top dresser drawer to retrieve his best pair of fine, Egyptian-cotton pajamas. He pulls them out, and, looking surprised, says, "Did you iron these?"