"One wedding at a time," Archer told her. He picked up his wristwatch from the nightstand and looked at it. "And if I don't get a move on, I'm going to be late for Mortimer's."
"I don't care about Mortimer's," she wailed. "I only care about our wedding!"
"We'll talk about it!" Archer promised as he started to get dressed.
"Then you will marry me?"
"We'll talk about it."
"What do you mean? I want a straight answer. Will you marry me, or won't you?"
"Well, I'm certainly not going to be pressured into making any hasty decisions." Archer wagged his finger in her face. "You know what they say: 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure.'"
"But if you don't marry me I may repent in some home for unwed mothers," she cried.
"I understand some of them are very nice. Good food. Pleasant surroundings. Understanding counselors."
"For God's sake, Archer, we're not talking about some Girl Scout camp! We're talking about you maybe making me pregnant with child." "Maybe? Aha! Then you're not sure!"
"Not absolutely," she admitted reluctantly. "But if my timing's right, it seems pretty likely. And it's your child, too, Archer. So you'll just have to marry me."
"Not necessarily. There are things that can be done, to-"
"Archer! Are you suggesting-?"
"Well, we should think about-"
"No! Absolutely no! I don't see how you could even suggest such a thing if you love me."
"I have this problem in giving love," Archer admitted. "My analyst says it's part of my larger problem of feeling alienated from people. Honest, I'm really not a very good bet for any kind of long-term relating."
"Do you love me?" she demanded.
"Well now, let's face it, love is a very difficult emotion to define. Down through the ages the wisest men have tried and-"
"If I thought you didn't love me after everything that's happened between us, I'd kill myself."
"Now, let's not do anything drastic, anything we might regret later. I mean, acts like suicide and marriage, those are very large questions, and haste in such matters could be-"
"You don't love me!" she decided. "I knew it all along! You don't love me and I'm pregnant!"
"Maybe."
"What?"
"Maybe you're pregnant."
"That's what I've been saying," she wailed. "Maybe I'm pregnant by a man who doesn't even love me! Oh! I can't stand it!" She got to her feet and ran toward the bathroom door.
"Where are you going?" Archer inquired.
"To kill myself!" The door slammed behind her.
It was very quiet for a long moment. Then Archer walked over to the door and broke the silence. He knocked lightly. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"No! I can't find anything in this damned bathroom! God, you're a slob, Archer! Where do you keep your razor blades?"
"Behind the shaving cream on the second shelf of the medicine cabinet."
There was another long silence.
"What are you doing?" Archer asked finally.
"I'm slashing my wrists." Her voice sounded like it was coming through clenched teeth.
"I'd sort of like to get in there," Archer said timidly.
"What for?"
"It's one of those things I have to do every morning just after I get up."
"Oh. Well, you'll just have to wait."
Archer waited. After what seemed quite a while, he spoke again. "Will you be much longer?" he whined plaintively.
"How the hell do I know? Every one of these damned razor blades is dull and old and rusty. How the hell are you supposed to cut anything with them?"
"I manage to slice up my face very nicely every morning," Archer told her. "You're just not used to them."
"Ouch!"
"What happened? Did you cut yourself?"
"I did not!" The sound of her gritting her teeth was audible. "I was pressing down on the blade so hard that I slipped and banged by elbow on the washbasin."
"Why don't you just give up?" Archer suggested.
"I am! Damn rusty blades!" There was a multiple clinking sound as she evidently flung the blades away from her.
Again there was a long silence.
"I really have to go very-" Archer started to break in.
He was interrupted by a loud crash from the other side
of the bathroom door. Alarmed, he backed off and rushed the door, using one shoulder like a battering ram. He needn't have bothered. The door had been unlocked all along. He went hurtling through it so hard that he slammed his head into the towel rack. It was a moment before he stopped seeing stars and found his voice.
"What the hell are you trying to do?" He looked down at the girl.
She was down on the tile floor with the shower curtain and the metal rods which had supported it on top of her. Around her neck was an old athletic supporter of Archer's. The other end of it was tied to one of the shower rods.
"I'm hanging myself," she told him with as much hauteur as she was able to summon.
"On that thing? It wouldn't support the weight of an incubator baby. Didn't you ever take Physics in high school?"
"Why should I? I'll have you know that I've never had any trouble whatsoever with my stomach or regularity or anything like that. Furthermore, I don't particularly like discussing such matters with you!"
"Skip it," Archer said. "Sorry I mentioned it," he added. "Do you think I might get into the bathroom now?"
"I'm not finished yet."
"Goddammit! I have to go!"
"There's no need to be vulgar. I'm well aware that the only one you ever think of is yourself."
"I'm not thinking of myself. I'm thinking of my cousin Mortimer. He's getting married today. And I'm going to be late to the wedding."
"Well, at least there are some weddings you don't mind going to." She picked herself up off the floor and marched into the bedroom.
Archer joined her there a few moments later. Quickly, she once again sprang to the attack. "Go on! Get dressed arid go out," she told him. "By the time you come home, I'll be dead," she announced dramatically. "But a lot you'll care."
"Now look,.." Archer began.
It was only the beginning. An hour later they were still wrangling. The only progress Archer was able to make with the situation was to extract a promise from her that she wouldn't kill herself until he returned from his cousin Mortimer's wedding. Once assured of this, Archer at last felt free to leave.
He drove the road to Birchville like a bat out of Lugosi-land. But he'd delayed leaving too long. Even a Bela-bat zooming for blood couldn't have made it in time. Archer spotted the church soon after he crossed the township boundary line and he realized immediately that he'd missed the ceremony.
He caught a flash of the bride and groom darting into their car amidst a shower of rice. As he drew closer he saw the guests pouring out of the church and into other cars which followed in the wake of the wedding couple. Archer remembered then that he'd neglected to get the bride's address, where the reception was to be held, from his mother. So he simply fell in at the end of the line of cars leaving the church and followed along to the festivities.
It was a madhouse. The very street itself was jammed with merrily honking cars. Archer parked blithely in front of a fire hydrant and made his way through the throng in the front yard to the porch. Inside, the caterers were just finishing setting up for the guests. When the front door opened to admit them, Archer was the first one inside. He hadn't had any breakfast and his stomach was growling its need for sustenance. He quickly double-crossed it by feeding it a double Scotch when it had every right to expect ham and eggs and coffee.
The second double Scotch hit Archer hard. It swished around his stomach like molten lava and sent waves of confusion to his brain. The confusion was matched by that in the room, which had by now filled up with people. Archer looked out over a sea of sweating, celebrating faces and was struck by the implied lechery which had drawn them together for this post-ritual anticipating of the deflowering of a tribal virgin. The faces were unfamiliar to him, blending before his eyes into one blob of liquor-swigging, caviar-munching babblers.