her pajamas, then brushed her teeth at the sink, wondering if her face looked guilty just to her or if Bruce had been able to read the panic in her eyes. She rinsed her mouth, washed her face, and studied herself again. She had always been pale, but right now Abigail thought she had a chalky, unhealthy pallor. She actually pinched her cheeks to bring color to them, like a heroine in a Regency-era novel trying to look prettier.
She went directly from the bathroom to the bed. It had been turned down, but before getting in Abigail loosened the sheets at the foot, knowing it would have been made too tight. She looked up at the poster of Midnight Lace—the image of Doris Day’s face under a twisting Saul Bass–like graphic—and tried to remember the happiness she’d felt just a few hours earlier when she’d first seen it. But that happiness was gone. She slid under the covers, her pajamas crackling against the flannel sheets, and felt tears well up in her eyes. The gift of the poster really was one of the nicest gifts she’d ever received. Bruce had reminded her, not for the first time, of her father, and how thoughtful he was, how eager to please. The thought of hurting him was almost too much to bear.
She was relieved that Bruce was still by the fire with his drink. It was hard for her to imagine having sex right now. She turned onto her stomach, the position that she usually fell asleep in, and pressed her face into the too-firm pillow, prepared to pretend she was sleeping.
As far as she could see, there were two possible scenarios. In the first, Scottie really did believe that the two of them had fallen in love in California, and he wanted a moment to try to convince Abigail of this. Why he had decided to try this on their honeymoon was another question, but in this scenario, she imagined that Scottie was more or less sane, just acting out of true infatuation. If this was the case, then Abigail thought there was a chance, a slim one, that she could convince him to leave her alone. The other scenario—the more likely one—was that Scottie was unwell, maybe even delusional, and that simply talking to him wasn’t going to work. If that was the case, then Abigail knew that the smartest and safest move would be to tell Bruce about Scottie right away, to alert the authorities (where were the nearest authorities, anyway?), and throw herself on Bruce’s mercy. There were two ways to do this, Abigail thought. She could tell Bruce the entire truth, that she had slept with this man in California. Tell him she’d been drunk, and that she regretted it the next morning, and beg for his forgiveness. But Abigail knew that if she told Bruce the whole truth, the marriage would be over. He felt so strongly about his mother’s infidelity that there’d be no chance he’d forgive her. The other option, of course, was to tell him half the truth. Say that she’d met this guy on the night of her bachelorette party. She’d been drunk, and maybe she’d flirted a little with him. He’d tried to kiss her, and she’d rebuffed him, but maybe not strongly enough. And now he was here, stalking her. Of course, he could tell his side of the story to Bruce, but it would be his word against hers, wouldn’t it? He couldn’t prove they’d slept together.
Abigail thought this option—she was calling it the half-truth solution—was the best. The problem was that she’d have to do so much lying. In a strange way, she believed that she hadn’t lied yet to Bruce. She’d cheated on him, of course, but it wasn’t like he had asked her directly if she’d ever been unfaithful to him since they’d met. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d asked her during the lunch they’d had at that midtown Mexican restaurant after she’d gotten back from California. She’d assured him, hadn’t she? Or had she just made some sort of joke? Either way, if she went with the “half-truth solution” there would be a lot of lying involved. Not only was Abigail a terrible liar, she knew that it would be a fatal way to start a marriage. And would Bruce ever really believe that this man, after simply talking with Abigail at a vineyard, would stalk her all the way across the country?