"Oh no, Maddie. I'm glad you came to me. I just wish there was some way I could help."

"You've done enough just listening to me. I don't know what-"

Suddenly Madeline Kurnitz was weeping. She cried silently, tears welling from her eyes and straggling down her powdered cheeks. Zoe went over to the couch, sat next to her, put an arm across her shoulders.

"God, God," Maddie wailed, "what am I going to do?"

Zoe Kohler didn't know. So she said, "Shh, shh," and held the other woman until she stopped crying. After a while, Maddie said, "Shit," blew her nose, took her bag and went into the bathroom.

She came out about ten minutes later, hair combed, makeup repaired. Her eyes were puffy but clear. She gave Zoe a rueful smile.

"Sorry about that, luv," she said. "I thought I was all cried out."

"Maddie, would you like to stay the night? You can take the bed and I'll sleep out here on the couch. Why don't you?"

"No, kiddo, but I appreciate the offer. I'll have one more drink and then I'll take off. I better get home before that shithead changes the locks on the doors. I feel a lot better now. What the hell, it's just another kick in the ass. That's what life is all about- right?"

She sat again on the couch, put more ice in her glass, filled it with vodka. She stirred it with a forefinger, then sucked the finger. She bowed her head, looked up at Zoe.

"Seeing as how it's hair-down time," she said, "how about the sad story of your life? You never did tell me what happened between you and-what was his name? Ralph?"

"Kenneth. And I told you. Don't you remember, Maddie? At that lunch we had at the hotel?"

"You mean the sex thing? Sure, I remember. You never got your rocks off with him. But there's got to be more to it than that."

"Oh… it was a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Silly things."

"Other people's reasons for divorce always sound silly. First of all, how did you meet the guy?"

"He was with an insurance company and was transferred to their agency in Winona. He handled all my father's business policies, and Daddy brought him home for dinner one night. He called me up for a date and we started going out. Then we began getting invited to parties and things as a couple. Then he asked me to marry him."

"Handsome?"

"I thought so. Very big and beefy. He could be very jolly and charming when there were other people around. But about six months after we were married, he quit the insurance company and my father hired him as a kind of junior partner. Daddy was getting old, slowing down, and he wanted someone to sort of take over."

"Oh-ho. And did your husband know this when he asked you to marry him?"

"Yes. I didn't know it at the time, but later, during one of our awful arguments, he told me that was the only reason he married me."

"Nice guy."

"Well… a handsome man says you're beautiful, and he's in love with you, and you believe it."

"Not me, kiddo. I know all he wants is to dip Cecil in the hot grease."

"I believed him. I guess I should have known better. I'm no raving beauty; I know that. I'm quiet and not very exciting. But I thought he really did love me for what I am. I know I loved him. At first."

Maddie looked at her shrewdly.

"Zoe, maybe you just loved him for loving you-or saying he did."

"Yes. That's possible."

They were subdued then, pondering the complexities of living, the role played by chance and accident, the masks people wear, and the masks beneath the masks.

"When did the fights start?" Maddie asked.

"Almost from the start. We were so different, and we couldn't seem to change. We couldn't compromise enough to move closer to each other. He was so-so physical. He was loud and had this braying laugh. He seemed to fill a room. I mean, I could be alone in the house, and he'd come in, and I'd feel crowded. He was always touching me, patting me, slapping my behind, trying to muss my hair right after I had it done. I told you they were silly things, Maddie."

"Not so silly."

"He was just-just all over me. He suffocated me. I got so I didn't even want to breathe the air when he was in the house. The air seemed hot and choking and smelled of his cologne. And he was so messy. Leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor. Throwing his dirty underwear and socks on the bed. I couldn't stand that. He'd have dinner, belch, and just walk away, leaving me to clean up. I know a wife is supposed to do that, but he took it for granted. He was so sure of himself. I think that's what I hated most-his superior attitude. I was like a slave or something, and had no right to question what he did or where he went."

"He sounds like a real charmer. Did he play around?"

"Not at first. Then I began to notice things: women whispering about him at parties, his going out at night after dinner. To see customers, he said. Once, when I took his black suit to the cleaners, there was a book of matches in his pocket. It was from a roadhouse out of town. It didn't, ah, have a very good reputation. So I guess he was playing around. I didn't care. As long as he left me alone."

"Oh, Zoe, was it that bad?"

"I tried, Maddie, really I did. But he was so heavy, and strong, and sort of-sort of uncouth."

"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?"

"Something like that. And also, he wanted to do it when he was drunk or all sweated up. I'd ask him to take a shower first, but he'd laugh at me."

"Hung?"

"What?"

"Was he hung? A big whang?"

"Uh, I don't know, Maddie. I don't have much basis for comparison. He was, uh, bigger than Michelangelo's David."

Madeline Kurnitz laughed. How she laughed! She bobbed with merriment, slopping her drink.

"Honey, everyone is bigger than Michelangelo's David."

"And he wanted to do disgusting things. I told him I wasn't brought up that way."

"Uh-huh."

"I told him if he wanted to act like an animal, I was sure he could find other women to accommodate him."

"That wasn't so smart, luv."

"I was past the point of worrying if what I said was smart. I just didn't want anything more to do with him. In bed, I mean. I would have kept on being married to him if he just forgot all about sex with me. Because I felt divorce would be a failure, and my mother would be so disappointed in me. But then he just walked out of the house, quit his job with my father, and left town. Lawyers handled the divorce and I never saw him again."

"Know what happened to him?"

"Yes. He went out to the West Coast. He got married again. About a week ago."

"How do you know that?"

"He sent me an invitation."

Maddie exhaled noisily. "Another prick. What a shitty thing to do."

"I was going to send a gift. Just, you know, to show him I didn't care. But I, ah, tore up the invitation and I don't have the address."

"Screw him. Send him a bottle of cyanide. All men should drop dead."

"Oh, Maddie, I don't know… I guess some of it, a lot of it, was my fault. But I tried so hard to be a good wife, really I did. I cooked all his favorite foods and I was always trying new recipes I thought he'd like. I kept the house as clean as a pin. Everyone said it was a showplace. We had all new furniture, and once he got angry and ripped all the plastic covers off. That's the way he was. He'd put his feet on the cocktail table and use the guest towels. I think he did those things just to annoy me. He swore a lot-dreadful words-and wouldn't go to church. He wanted me to wear tight sweaters and low-cut things. I told him I wasn't like that, but he could never understand. He even wanted me to wear more makeup and have my hair tinted. So I guess I just wasn't the kind of woman he should have married. It was a mistake from the start."

"Oh, sweetie, it's not the end of the world. You'll find someone new."

"That's what I told you," Zoe said, smiling.