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Elliot said.
    Helen turned to Elliot and looked at him squarely, taking on the stance of a lawyer. “So you need a wife,” she said, driving the point home.
    â€œI got a call from my sister today, telling me I’d better produce a wife or else.”
    â€œOr else what?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t want to piss my mother off on her deathbed,” Elliot said. “She’d haunt me the rest of my life.” It was meant to be a joke, but his voice held a somberness that couldn’t be ignored.
    â€œSo you do want something,” Peter said. “A wife—at least temporarily.”
    â€œNo, no,” Elliot said, shaking his head, laughing it off. “I don’t know what I’ll do really. But I don’t need a wife.”
    â€œBut,” Peter said, “we asked you what you wanted and that is what you said.”
    â€œThat’s not how it happened,” Elliot said. He turned to me. “Is it?” And then he answered the question himself. “No, no, that’s not how it went.”
    â€œAre you going to propose?” Peter asked, then he reached out and held Helen by her shoulders. “Helen, he’s going to propose to you!”
    â€œNo, no,” Elliot said, flustered and embarrassed.
    â€œAlways a bridesmaid, but now’s your chance,” Peter said.
    â€œOh, shove it up your ass,” Helen said, shaking him off.
    â€œCome on!” Peter said, not letting it drop. “You two would make a delightful couple! Mr. and Mrs. Hull!”
    I wanted to tell Peter to leave Elliot alone, to let it go, but I kept quiet. I liked seeing Elliot in this precarious position, and I found myself willing to put up with Peter for the moment. He goaded people when he was drunk. He could be a bit of a bully.
    â€œNo extreme measures necessary,” Elliot said.
    But then Helen spoke up kind of slyly. “You need a pretend wife,” she said, “for your mother’s sake. It would be very gallant.” She turned to me. “Gwen, you should be Elliot’s pretend wife.”
    And this is where everything turned on itself. Elliot glanced at me. His face looked stricken. I imagine now, looking back, that he was terrified. I was. I felt exposed even though no one could have known that a part of me wanted to know what my life would have been like with Elliot; and no one could have accused me of that because I was actively trying to defuse things. And maybe he was also terrified because this was what he wanted too, where he’d been hoping the conversation would go all along.
    â€œWhy me?” I asked.
    â€œBecause I’m tired of pretending with men,” Helen said, and this was true. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it. Pretending was a term she used in place of dating. “Plus, he saved your life, after all, not mine. Right, Peter?”
    â€œThat’s right!” Peter said, not backing off of the whole idea at all. In fact, he looked lit up. “This makes perfect sense. It’s so, I don’t know, European. ” He had this whole spiel on how Europeans were so advanced in their definitions of marriage—especially the French. I glared at him whenever he went on this jag in public—usually aftersome cocktails—but he always mistook my glare for something else—a sexy leer?
    â€œWe could also just buy him a nice bottle of Cristal and call it even,” I said.
    â€œWhat?” Helen said, turning on me with a frenetic pitch that bordered on a stylized version of anger. “Don’t you have confidence in your marriage? I mean, if Peter were against it, that would be one thing. But you? Do you really think Elliot here is a threat to the institution?”
    â€œHey,” Elliot said. “Be nice.” He turned to me. “I thought she liked me.”
    I was keeping a wary eye on Peter. “I have confidence in my marriage,” I said.
    â€œWell, then,”