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A black box theater off Melrose. Billy Truman. Forty-three years old. Living in a hatchback. Twenty thousand dollars, cash, for the week. A new name — Zephyr.

There was never a documentary.

That I wrote his rules. That I told him to stay off specifics, because specifics can be checked. That I told him the people in this house had spent forty years and a great deal of money trying to feel one true thing and couldn't manage it, and that all he had to do was give them the version of the moment they were hoping for.

And that Billy did it better than I'd hoped. That I watched a stranger read this family more accurately than I could have briefed him to, and that what I felt watching it was relief.

And Saturday. Bex on the terrace with her heels in her hand, and the thing I invented while the guests were arriving. And Billy behind the catering tent telling me he was going to come up to this house and tell them the truth before the ceremony — and me stopping him by saying that if he did, I would tell them he'd done it alone.

Twice on the way up that hill I had felt a sentence start arranging itself into something better than it was. Both times I looked at the tap over Rhoda's sink and said the ugly version instead.

Then I ran out of things that had happened, and stopped.

Nobody said anything.

"I knew," said Lance. "I'm at fault too."

Everyone looked at him.

"Gregory told me about it before the wedding." He had both arms wrapped around himself. "I told him he was insane, and I said it about nine different ways. And then I sat at your table and ate your food and let Zephyr tell me the truest thing anybody's said to me in four years. And I said nothing, for a week, because Blaine's my oldest friend and I have never once been any good at—"

"Lance," said Blaine.

"I'm saying it out loud. Somebody in this room ought to say a thing out loud without being marched here to do it."

Rhoda shook her head slowly back and forth.

"On Saturday night," she said. "In the guest house. I took his hands."

"I know."

"I was crying and I took a stranger's hands and asked him to tell me what had happened to my son." Her voice was completely level, which was the worst of it. "What was he doing? While I did that?"

"He was trying to leave," I said. "He'd packed and called a car. Billy was trying to get out of your house without hurting you, and you caught him at the door."

"So he was being kind."

"Yes."

"Because he's a good actor?" Her voice thickened.

"No," I said. "Because Billy is a decent man doing a rotten thing for money, and he was the only person in that room who told you the truth."

Rhoda nodded once.

"And he said a name, and the name was Billy. I asked you about it twice, Gregory." She looked up. "You had a clear opening to tell me, and you didn't."

"Yes," I said, and thought I might be sick.

"Why?" Her voice dropped to nearly nothing.

"Because I wanted one more day," I said, and wiped my face with the back of my hand.

Harold hadn't moved from the end of the island.

"On the porch," he said. "Wednesday morning. What you said to me about Esteban."

Oh, God.