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Kennedy was staring at a picture of himself in the camera when I got to him. "We just missed you at the church," I told him.

He looked up from the camera and grinned when he saw me. "Hey, I thought maybe you weren't going to make it," he said.

"I don't think I know anyone here," I said.

"These things are like high school reunions," he said, nodding.

"Where is she?" I asked, glancing around the room.

He pointed to a woman on the dance floor. She was in the middle of the crowd but she was dancing alone, as everyone kept a few feet away from her. Her eyes were closed. She was wearing a white bridal gown. I actually took a step toward her before I realized she didn't look anything like Rachel.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"That's my wife," Kennedy said.

The more I stared at her, the more familiar she looked. Then I remembered her. She was one of the women that Kennedy had danced with that night I'd gone over to his place and wound up with Mia. He didn't even know her then, and now here he was, marrying her.

"Where's my wife?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?" Kennedy asked, looking at me.

"You told me Rachel would be here," I said.

"I don't know where Rachel is," he said, shaking his head.

"You said she'd be here when you invited me to the wedding," I said. "You said you'd found her."

"I said I'd found some photographs of Rachel," Kennedy said. "I said I'd bring them to the wedding." He handed the camera to me. "They're in here, somewhere near the beginning."

I looked down at the camera in my hand. It was warm from him holding it, and slick with sweat. "So she's not here?" I asked.

"She's never been here," he said and moved off into the crowd.

I started to go through the pictures in the camera, looking for Rachel, but just then Lane appeared at my side, a gin and tonic in each hand. "You have to pay for the drinks here," she said.

"All right," I said.

"You said they'd be free," she went on.

"I'll get them," I told her.

"I've already paid for these ones," she said, "but you're getting the rest." She took a sip of one of the drinks, then she saw Kennedy's wife. She watched her for a moment and then smiled. "I think I'm going to dance now," she said.

I went around the edge of the room, looking for a quiet place where I could sit down and look at the pictures in the camera. But there were people everywhere, standing or sitting in groups, talking and laughing and watching me pass. I went out into the hall, just as Kennedy was coming out of the restroom.

"Hey, let me see that for a moment," he said, taking the camera from me. He went up to the door of the other room and started taking photos.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. "That's not your party."

"Don't you think I know that?" he said. He took a photo of the other bride as she ran past him and outside. She was gagging and covering her mouth with one hand, while dragging one of the bridesmaids behind her with the other. "This is going to make a great album," Kennedy said.

"Be careful with that," I told him. "I haven't looked at all the pictures yet."

He didn't answer me, though, because just then one of the fighting men from outside came in and saw him standing there with the camera. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" this man asked.

Kennedy didn't answer him, just grinned and took his picture.

"You goddamn perverts," the other man said. He lunged forward, but Kennedy stepped behind me, so the man hit me instead, punching me in the face. I fell backward, into Kennedy, who shoved me forward again, back at the other man. He caught me, holding me in his arms for what seemed like moments, and then dropped me to the wood-tiled floor. Down here, everything smelled like lemons.

When I managed to lift my head again, I saw Kennedy wrestling with the other man. The camera had fallen to the floor, and the other man was stomping on it while holding Kennedy in a headlock. Little pieces of the camera were flying everywhere.

I screamed and grabbed hold of the man's foot. He was wearing one of those shiny dress shoes, the kind you can only get with rented tuxes. He screamed back at me and tried to kick me with his other foot but lost his balance instead. He fell to the floor, taking Kennedy with him, and I heard rather than saw his head bounce off the floor. I got on my knees and grabbed the camera, looked at the picture screen. It was black, a crack running straight down the middle of it. I hit every button I could see on the camera. The screen stayed black.

"Jesus," Kennedy said behind me, "I think you killed him."

I turned around and looked at the other man. He was spasming on the floor, limbs jerking back and forth, his eyes rolled back so only the whites were showing.

"Me?" I said. "You were the one who started this." I could barely breathe. I thought I was going to faint.

"But you were the one who kicked his ass," Kennedy said. He pulled me to my feet and put his arms around me. "This is the best wedding I've been to yet," he said and kissed me.

It wasn't what I really wanted, but it was something.

LATER, WHEN THE other groom - I knew he was the other groom because he was the only person wearing a white jacket - came in and started fighting with Kennedy, I went back into Kennedy's reception room to get Lane. She was dancing with Kennedy's wife, and when I went up to them and told her I was leaving, she just waved me away. I went back into the hall again. Kennedy and the other groom were rolling around on the floor and over the guy having the seizure, biting and clawing at each other and laughing. I went back out into the rain.

Outside, the other bride was sitting in the middle of the parking lot. Somehow, the white dog from the SUV had gotten loose and it was attacking her, trying to get underneath her wedding gown to bite at her ankles. She'd kick it away, and then it would come back again, lunging underneath the gown. The white silk was torn all along the bottom of the dress now and stained from sitting on the wet ground. The woman was crying when I walked past her. "I just want to go home," she kept saying to the dog. It barked at her and didn't pay any attention to me at all.

I stopped and watched this for a moment, then said, "I'll give you a ride." I helped her to her feet. She'd lost one of her shoes somewhere, so she took my arm as I led her to the car. The dog followed, growling and biting at her heels.

There was a couple making out in the front seat of the SUV. I wasn't sure if they were the owners or not, because the car alarm was still going off. I unlocked the passenger door of my car, and the woman got in. The dog got up on its hind legs and looked in at her as soon as I closed the door. Its tail was wagging furiously.

"Where are you staying?" I asked her when I got in on the driver's side.

"The Holiday Inn," she said. She'd stopped crying now, but she made no move to wipe the mascara from her face. There was still a bit of vomit on her chin. She looked like a raccoon.

"Is that where your husband's staying?" I asked.

"Of course that's where he's staying," she said. "Where else would he go?"

"I just want to make sure he'll know where to find you," I told her.

On the way out of the parking lot, the headlights caught a fox in the shrubs. It looked like it had a kitten in its mouth, but I wasn't certain because it ran off.

"Is this your first wedding?" I asked the woman.

"This is my only wedding," she said. Then, "Do you have any cigarettes?"

"I don't smoke," I said. "But I'm sure you can get some from one of the hotel's vending machines."

"I don't have any money," she said.

"It's your wedding night," I said. "Think of all the money you just made."

"No, what I mean is that this dress doesn't have any pockets."

"On our wedding night," I went on, "we piled all the money we got on the bed and made love in it. We didn't even count it until we were done. Nearly six thousand dollars. We left a hundred- dollar tip for the maid. For luck, my wife said."

"Where's your wife now?" she asked me.

"She's dead," I told her. It was true. I knew now I was never going to see Rachel again.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman said.

I shook my head. "I've never had that much money since," I said.

She didn't say anything for a moment, just looked out the side window. I could see strands of the dog's saliva still on the window, trapped in her reflection. "This is it then," she sighed. "The best night of my life."

"It doesn't get any better," I agreed.

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME By Peter Darbyshire

I WAS WORKING as an actor. I got the job through a number Eden gave me after they let him out of jail. When I called the number, the woman who answered told me to come in to the office so she could see what I looked like. She didn't want to know anything else about me.

"Should I bring a resumé?" I asked.

"If you like," she said, "but it's not really necessary."

"What about references?" I asked. "I'm sure I could find somebody to give me a good reference."

"It's not really that kind of job," she said.

"But don't you need to know about my work experience and all that?"

"All I need to know is that you look normal."

The office was a studio in an east-end warehouse. There were Asian men working behind computers in the room next to it. They stared at me as I walked past but they never stopped typing. A fan blew the smell of sweat out into the hallway.

The walls of the office I went into were lined with old movie posters and black-and-white photographs of people I didn't recognize. Half the office was taken up with sealed packing boxes. The woman I'd talked to on the phone sat behind the desk that was in the other half of the room. She was dressed in shorts and a black T-shirt, and she was playing solitaire on her computer when I walked in.

She just looked at me for a moment after I introduced myself, then nodded to herself. "I guess you look all right," she said, "but I need to ask you a few questions." She motioned for me to sit in one of the two chairs, then pulled a form out of her desk. There was a coffeemaker with a full pot of coffee sitting on the windowsills, but she didn't offer me anything to drink.

"Do you have a car?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Have you ever threatened a co-worker with violence or stolen from your employer?"

"That's one question?"

She tapped her pen on the table but didn't say anything.

"No," I said.

"Bondable?"

"What does all this have to do with acting?" I asked.

"I should tell you now," she said, gazing out the window, "that this job will not lead to any big breaks in the movie industry."

"Bondable," I said.

"Have you ever tried to associate with any actors against their will or followed them without their knowledge?"

"Not really," I said.

"Not really," she repeated, looking back at me again. "Now what does that mean?"

"No," I said.

She made a few more notes, which I couldn't see because she shielded them with her hand, then put the form back in the desk.

"So, do you have a job for me?" I asked her.

"I have the perfect job for you," she said.

THE AGENCY GOT ME a television commercial job. I was paid seventy dollars and a free breakfast for an hour's work. There were fifty of us, all from different agencies around the city. We were playing the parts of business people on our way to work. The shoot took place in front of the stock exchange downtown. The street was blocked off at either end with yellow tape. We walked along the sidewalk in front of the cameras in small groups, carrying briefcases and bags the costumes woman had given us. I was wearing the same suit that I'd worn the day I married Rachel.

The assistant director briefed us at the beginning of the shoot. He was chewing gum rapidly and his hands shook the whole time he talked to us. "Look like you have somewhere important to go," he said. "But don't overact - you're just the background for the shot." It was the only direction anyone ever gave us. The only other people who spoke to us were the production assistants, two women in baseball caps and sunglasses who stood at either side of the set and told us when to walk in front of the cameras. They kept coffee cups to their lips the whole time, breathing in the steam even when they weren't drinking. It was five in the morning. The buildings all around us were lit up even though no one was in them yet.

I watched the shooting from the side of the set while waiting my turn to walk in front of the cameras. The stars, two men in nicer suits than anyone else's, stood talking at the edge of the sidewalk while the extras walked at least five feet behind them.

"They have to keep them on a different plane," one of the other extras, a black man with a French accent, told me. "Or the audience won't know who's important."

One of the stars was Mercedes's boyfriend, the man that I'd whipped in The Code that day. I was afraid that he would see me and have me kicked off the set. But he looked right at me during a break in the filming and he didn't even blink.

There was garbage everywhere on the streets that morning. When it was my turn to walk in front of the camera, the wind carried a stray piece of newspaper into my leg. I tried to shake it off, but it wrapped around my leg. There was a photograph of a group of firemen standing around a burning tanker truck on the outside page. I bent down to pull it off, but the man with the French accent bumped into me from behind. "Keep going," he hissed. I kept walking until I was at the edge of the set. The newspaper remained on my leg the whole time.

The real business people began showing up a few hours after we began shooting. They stood behind the tape at the edges of the set, checking their watches and waiting for us to finish. Those of us who'd already been in the shoot stood around the food tables, eating muffins and drinking lukewarm coffees. While I watched, a pair of men in tan overcoats and black briefcases stepped around the tape and walked through the set the same way we had, while the cameras were rolling, and went into the building. No one seemed to notice.