"Why?"

"I don't want assets if I have tax problems. And I don't want your assets under any circumstances. But thank you for the gesture."

"All right." She asked, "Well, will you be staying?"

"Let me think about it. I'm going to spend a few days out on the boat. I'm afraid I won't be able to come to your unveiling this evening." She replied, "If you'd like, I'll tell… Anna to call it off."

"No, Anna would be disappointed. Please pass on my regrets to Anna."

"I will."

"I'll see you in a few days." I turned to leave. "

"John?"

"Yes?"

"I just remembered. Mr Melzer came around the other day. Thursday or Friday, I think."

"Yes?"

"He said you were supposed to make some sort of initial payment on your taxes."

"Did you tell him we haven't gone to closing on the East Hampton house yet?"

"Yes, I did. He said he'd see what he could do, but he sounded concerned." "I'll get in touch with him." I hesitated, then said, "Susan, we have a long way to go."

She nodded. "Maybe we can go away together as soon as things settle down, John.

Just you and I. We can take the boat to the Caribbean if you'd like." She was certainly trying, and I was certainly not. But the hurt was too deep, and the lies were not making it any better. I had the sudden compulsion to tell her I'd slept with a famous TV news reporter, and I might have if I thought it would do either of us any good. But I felt no guilt at all and didn't need to confess, and Susan didn't need to hear a confession that was given out of vengefulness.

"Think about a boat trip, John."

"I will."

"Oh, Edward and Carolyn both called. They send their love to you. They're drafting letters, but that might take a while." She smiled. "I'll call them when I get back. See you in a few days."

"Be careful, John. You really shouldn't go out alone." "I'll stay in the Sound. Nothing tricky. I'll be fine." I added, "Good luck tonight." I turned and walked away and heard her call out, "Don't go to the Caribbean without me."

I pulled into the yacht club an hour later, having stopped at a deli in Bayville to pick up beer, baloney, and bread. You can live on beer, baloney, and bread for three days before scurvy and night blindness set in. I carried the case of beer and the bag of groceries to the boat in one trip and set everything down on the dock. As I was about to jump aboard, I noticed a cardboard sign encased in a sheet of clear plastic, hanging from the bow rail. I bent down and read the sign:

I stared at the sign awhile, trying to comprehend how this thing got on my boat.

After a full minute, I stood and loaded my provisions on board. As I went about casting off, I noticed that people in nearby boats were looking at me. I mean, if I needed a final humiliation, this was it. Well, but it could have been worse. Let's not forget that right here on Long Island in colonial times, people were put in wooden cages and dunked in ponds, they were tarred and feathered, locked in pillories, and whipped in public. So one little cardboard sign was no big deal. At least I didn't have to wear it around my neck. I started the engine and took the Paumanok out into the bay. I noticed that on the door that led below was the same sign as the one on the bow rail. I saw yet another one tied to the main mast. Well, I couldn't say I didn't see the sign, could I?

I cut the engine and let the boat drift with the tide and wind. It was late afternoon, a nice summer Sunday in August, a bit cooler than normal, but comfortable.

I really missed this while I was in Manhattan: the smell of the sea, the horizons, the isolation, and the quiet. I opened a can of beer, sat on the deck, and drank. I made a baloney sandwich and ate it, then had another beer. After five days of menus, room service, and restaurants, it was nice to make myself a baloney sandwich and drink beer from a can.

Well, I went through about half the case, drifting around the bay, contemplating the meaning of life and more specifically wondering if I'd done and said the right things with Susan. I thought I had, and I justified my not telling her I didn't buy her story by reminding myself that she was borderline nuts even under the best of circumstances. I wasn't looking to destroy her or the marriage. I really wanted things to work out. I mean, on one level, we were still in love, but there's nothing more awkward than a husband and wife living together when one of them is having an affair, and the other one knows about it. (What I had done is called a fling. Susan was having an affair. Bellarosa had explained that when we were all having dinner at The Creek that night. Right?) Well, you don't sleep together, of course, but you don't necessarily have to separate and file for divorce, either. Especially if you're both still emotionally involved. There are other less civilized responses, I know, like having the big scene, or one or the other spouses going completely psychotic and getting violent. But in this case, the entire mess had evolved in such a bizarre way that I felt I shared in the responsibility.

Actually Susan had not verbally acknowledged that she was having an affair with our next-door neighbour, and that sort of complicated the situation. To make a legal analogy, I had made an accusation but had never presented evidence, and the accused exercised her right to remain silent, sulky, and withdrawn. And in truth, though Bellarosa had tacitly acknowledged the affair, my evidence was purely circumstantial as far as Susan was concerned. So, I think we both figured that if we just avoided the issue and avoided each other, we might eventually both come to believe none of this had happened. It was sort of the reverse, I suppose, of our sexual fantasies; it was using our well-developed powers of make-believe to pretend that what was happening was just another sexual melodrama, this one titled, "John Suspects Susan of Adultery." Anyway, somewhere around the tenth or eleventh beer, I realized that it was Frank Bellarosa who stood in the way of a real and lasting reconciliation. Well, the sky was turning purple, and the gulls were swooping, and it was time to go back. I rose unsteadily, went below, and retrieved a fire axe that was clipped to a bulkhead. I went into the forward head and swung the axe, cutting a five-inch gash in the fibreglass hull below the waterline. I pulled the axe out and watched the sea water cascade down the hull between the sink and shower. I swung the axe a few more times, cutting a good-size hole in the hull. The sea gushed in, swamping the floor and spilling out into the forward stateroom. I went topside and opened the flag locker, pulling out seven pennants and clipping them to the halyard. I ran the pennants up the main mast. Proud of my idiocy, and with the Paumanok listing to starboard and me listing to port, I lowered myself onto the aft deck and pulled a small inflatable life raft from under the cockpit seat. I put the remainder of the beer aboard the raft along with two small oars, and I sat in the raft. I popped a beer and drank while my boat settled deeper into the water around me. The sea came over the starboard side first, sloshed around the tilting deck and raised the life raft a few inches.

The Paumanok took a long while to sink, but eventually the stern settled into the water and the lifeboat drifted away over the swamped stern. I watched my boat as it settled slowly into the sea, listing at about 45 degrees to starboard, its bow rising up out of the water and its mast flying the seven signal pennants that proclaimed to the world Fuck you. It was nearly dark now, and as I drifted away, it became more difficult to see my boat, but I could still make out the mast and the pennants lying almost perpendicular to the water. It appeared as though the keel had touched bottom and that she was as far down as she was going to go.