In the back of the cab I felt filthy, like the whole day was sticking to me, and I couldn't wait to wash it away. It was going to be so great to take off all my clothes, stand on the soft, shaggy bath rug, then get under a hot blast of water. I'd just stand there and let the water pound on my head and run down my neck, and I'd feel my muscles relax and peace overtake me, and I'd know I was away from Charlotte and that whole nightmare.

I paid Aziz, giving him a two buck tip, and I went into my building.

Opening the door to my apartment I was thinking about the warm water, my tension releasing, the filth swirling down the drain. Then I saw Rebecca standing in front of me, wearing the same black dress she'd been wearing when I'd left, but she was obviously drunk and wasted. Her eye makeup had run, giving her dark "raccoon eyes," and she was swaying as she tried to stand still. The apartment had a faint odor of pot.

"Where the hell've you been?"

I'd almost forgotten about Rebecca and all our problems.

"Where do you think I was?" I said. "I was at work."

"Work, my ass."

I noticed the empty bottle of wine, on its side on the dining room table, next to a few empty beer bottles. She was acting like she was coked-up too.

"I'm not gonna deal with this shit again," I said.

I headed along the hallway toward the bedroom, watching over my shoulder for flying bottles, but Rebecca was following me.

"What's her name?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, why can't you be a man and tell me? What's the bitch's name?"

"Leave me the hell alone."

We were in the bedroom.

"Who is she?" she asked. "How long has it been going on? Have you been cheating on me since we met? Is that why you never want to go out with me anymore, why you want to break up with me, because you started screwing some ho? Come on, tell me who the bitch is. I have a right to know the slut's name."

In the middle of taking off my sweatshirt, my face covered, I said, "I know you're dying to fight with me again, but it's…" I finished taking off my sweatshirt and glanced at my watch "shit, four-thirty, and I'm going to sleep."

I took off my jeans and plopped onto the mattress. The pillow against my head would've felt so good if Rebecca weren't still standing there, shouting.

"I should've known you've been getting some on the side. Making it out like you have all these problems with me I go out too much, I spend too much, I do this, I do that. Meanwhile, it's you you're the bad one, not me."

I ignored her, hoping she'd leave me alone.

"So who is she?"

I was starting to conk out, but I knew she wouldn't shut up if I didn't answer her.

"There's nobody," I mumbled.

"You're lying," she said.

"I'm not lie… li… lying," I said, my voice fading.

"Do you work with her? You screwing some cunt at your office?"

Her voice jarred me awake.

"No," I said crankily. "Will you just stop with this already?"

"So where were you tonight? Her place?"

"What the hell're you talking about?" I said, burying my head under the pillow. "You know where I was."

"No, I don't know."

"I was at work."

"What?"

She couldn't hear me through the pillow. I pushed the pillow up slightly, revealing my mouth, and said, "Work. Work, all right?"

"I called work. Your voice mail kept picking up."

"That's because I was working. That's what people do when they're at work they work, but I guess you wouldn't know about that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I didn't want to get into another senseless argument, so I didn't say anything. The room got quiet. I was hoping I'd hear footsteps and the door slamming but instead she said, "I called your cell too, but you didn't pick up. Why didn't you pick up?"

I waited, then said, "I didn't have my phone on."

"Bullshit. It was on because it rang the first time I called anyway.

You didn't answer, then you turned it off. You didn't bother checking your messages either I left, like, five of them."

"I didn't know it was you calling."

"You have caller ID."

"My battery was running out."

"Bullshit!"

I burrowed my face deeper into the mattress, the pillow still atop my head. But Rebecca wouldn't let up.

"What were you doing at work?"

"Working," I said, "what do you think? Now can you leave me the hell alone?"

"I thought you just had to give them a file or something?"

"The whole system crashed, and I didn't back it up after all. I had to rewrite it from scratch."

"Why didn't you check your messages?"

"Because I didn't," I said, angry that I'd been explaining my whereabouts to some crazy girl I didn't even want to be with.

Rebecca grabbed the pillow.

"Give it back," I said.

"Not till you tell me her name."

"You're so pissed off, what're you waiting for? Why don't you just leave me? Get out of my life!"

"I want to know her name!"

She stopped, staring at something to her left. I realized what it was right away. Before I'd taken off my jeans I'd put my wallet on the dresser.

"What's that?" she asked.

"What's what?"

"That… Your wallet."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "It was returned to me."

"By who?"

"I have no idea."

"What do you»

"Somebody dropped it at the office I don't know who."

I reached for the pillow, but Rebecca yanked it back away.

"Can you please give me my pillow back?"

"You're such a liar," she said. "Your wallet wasn't stolen you just made that up because you thought I wouldn't be able to use my credit cards. You thought if I didn't have any credit cards I'd leave you, because that's why I'm with you, right? Because you're like my sugar daddy or something."

"A woman found it on the First Avenue bus."

She swung the pillow hard against my head. The force jerked my head back, stunning me.

"Are you cheating on me?" she said.

"Yes," I said, dazed. "I'm cheating on you, all right?"

She glared at me with the pillow cocked, ready to belt me again. Then she said, "With who?"

"I don't see what difference that makes."

"I want to know her name."

"I'm not telling you her name."

I was ready to raise my arms to block the blow.

"Do you love her?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I love her."

She would belt me with the pillow again at any moment, or maybe she would forget the pillow go for the picture frames on the dresser. She would fling them at me one after the other and there would be more broken glass, and this time there wouldn't be anything I could do to stop her. She would keep coming after me, or maybe she'd pick up pieces of broken glass and try to cut me. I'd try to fight her off, and maybe I'd get her in a headlock. I'd just be trying to defend myself, but I'd lose control and start ramming her head against the wall.

But Rebecca wasn't coming after me. She was staring at me, looking wounded, and then she shook her head slowly and turned and left the room without saying a word, closing the door quietly behind her.

I felt like I'd finally gotten through to her. Later, or even right now, she'd start packing her things, and by the end of the day she'd be gone. I wished I'd thought of the "other woman" breakup technique sooner.

I fell asleep quickly, but it felt like I'd been out for only a few minutes when I was jarred awake by a nightmare. I was carrying Ricky's body down the stairs in Charlotte's building, but the body in the dream weighed much more than the actual body, and the stairs were at least twice as steep. I wasn't making any progress; it felt like I was trying to go down an up escalator. As I became more frustrated, I realized that Ricky was alive, squirming in my arms. He kept saying,

"You fucking my lady?" Then he was behind me chasing me, his head hanging to the side, as if it were attached to the rest of his body by a piece of string.