We cut to Rebecca’s bedroom, see her writhing in her sleep. She lets out a cry, bolts into sitting position. Her eyes still closed, she brushes an imaginary bug from her face. A teenaged baby-sitter (her boyfriend a step behind her) rushes into the room. They are both disheveled, partially undressed. Rebecca opens her eyes, squirms. You’re having a bad dream, the sitter says.
Adrienne comes out of the bathroom in her nightgown. We follow her into the bedroom where Yuri is sitting up in bed waiting for her. I’m really tired, she says. Can we hold off this talk you’ve been pushing on me until tomorrow?
You were the sexiest woman at the party, Yuri says. When I saw you from across the room, I said to myself that’s the woman I should have married.
Adrienne gets under the covers, pretends to drift into sleep. Yuri lies stiffly on his back, eyes closed, eyes open, eyes closed again, hours of discontent pressed into a minute. Adrienne, who is not sleeping after all, turns on her side toward him. Will you hold me? she asks in a child’s voice. I don’t want sex. I just want to be held.
Yuri says okay under his breath.
Yes? she asks.
You can always lie with me, he says. Fade to black.
Carroway is in therapy session with Adrienne. If we met under other circumstances, he says, at a party or something, would you have found me attractive?
I don’t see any use in taking this any further, she says.
If you really want to help me, says Carroway slyly, why stop short of doing the very thing that might help me the most?
Adrienne laughs at that, says, Since when has sex solved anything in your life?
It’s the final solution, he says.
Later in the session, Adrienne says, I can see this is not going to work out. I could give you the names of some other therapists, people I’d be willing to recommend.
That’s exactly it, Carroway says, getting out of his chair. Do you see what the bitch is doing to us?
We cut to Yuri getting out of his car at the hospital parking lot. Noticing Anna Marie waiting for him at the main entrance, Yuri goes around the block and into a side door. When he gets to his office, she is waiting for him in the anteroom.
She lifts her hair and shows Yuri a bruise on the side of her face. If Carroway did that, Yuri says, leave him. She says she wants to move out but is afraid to take the step, that Carroway has threatened her. He has also threatened to hurt Yuri, she says, if he finds them together. Yuri says he’ll talk to her later.
Leaving the hospital, Yuri discovers Anna Marie leaning against his car as if posing for a fashion photograph. She pleads with him to go with her to get her things — she wants to move out — and though Yuri says he doesn’t have time, we see him driving her to her house in Port Washington.
I’m sure Carroway’s not home, she says. Today’s his day at his studio.
We see Yuri accompany Anna Marie to the door of her designer suburban house. As she unlatches the door, Carroway emerges from the other side of the house and invites Yuri in at gun point.
Yuri says he has to get back to his office to see patients.
Think of this as a house call, says Carroway.
In the interview that follows — Carroway and Yuri face each other in a parody of the therapeutic situation — Carroway alternates between insinuating geniality and righteous anger. Anna Marie sits in a neutral corner reading a magazine apparently unconcerned with the discussion. What Carroway wants, it becomes apparent, is to watch Yuri and Anna Marie make love so as to validate his suspicions. Yuri deflects the offer by pretending not to understand it, tries to cajole Carroway into giving up his gun.
Without looking up from her magazine, Anna Marie says, Why not give the asshole what he wants and get it over with.
When Yuri moves toward the door, Carroway fires a shot just over his head.
I want to get this straight, Yuri says, taking a seat. Am I to understand that you would kill a man for not going to bed with your wife?
Carroway says, I have no problem with that. Yuri says that he needs privacy for sex, that it wouldn’t work for him with Carroway watching them.
Pointing the gun at Yuri’s head, Carroway says that no Long Island jury would convict a man for killing an intruder in his own house.
Anna Marie comes over and sits down on Yuri’s lap. There is a mix of rage and fascination on Carroway’s face.
Why don’t you make love to Anna Marie while I watch? Yuri says.
The idea intrigues Carroway momentarily, but then he rejects it, shaking his head regretfully. She’d rather make it with you, he says.
Yuri asks Anna Marie if what her husband says is true. It’s best to play along with him when he’s like this, she whispers. She puts her arms around Yuri’s neck and kisses him open-mouthed. Punctuated by a groan of rage, Carroway picks up a ceramic ashtray and flings it against the wall, missing Anna Marie and Yuri by no more than a foot. Anna Marie gets up and rushes into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
That concludes our session for today, Carroway says, putting the gun away in his jacket pocket. I’ll tell you I feel a whole lot better now.
Before Yuri leaves, Carroway gives him a bottle of champagne as a token of apology. No hard feelings? he asks. Yuri reluctantly shakes his hand. Have a drink with me, Carroway says.
Yuri says he has to get back, has appointments to keep.
In the manner of a host escorting a friend, Carroway walks Yuri to his car. He apologizes again, is profuse in his regrets. Drive carefully, he says.
As Yuri drives away, the camera peers through a side window of the Carroways’ house. The room seems empty at first, then we discover Carroway and Anna Marie locked in sexual embrace under the piano.
Adrienne has completed clinic and is walking toward the subway when she sees Carroway coming toward her.
What are you doing here? she asks.
He looks around him as if wary of being observed. I have a loft space a few blocks from here where I make sculpture, he says.
Adrienne nods, starts to move on, stops herself. I don’t believe you, she says. I think you were waiting for me.
Carroway offers to bet her ten dollars that he is telling the truth, offers her ten to one odds.
We see them walking through the local streets, arriving at a seemingly deserted industrial building. Adrienne nervously follows him up three flights of stairs, stands behind him, fascinated, as he unlocks the door.
We see the disbelief on Adrienne’s face as they enter the loft space. There are sculptures around the room in various media — pop art assemblages of a marginally competent if imitative sort. The room is sparsely furnished: acouch, alove seat, two wooden chairs, a plexiglass table. “We see the scene through Adrienne’s eyes. On the single upper level, there is an elegant spiral staircase leading to an open room with a kingsize bed.
All right, she says, you have the key to this place, but how do I know you’ve done these sculptures.
In the next scene, we see them at the table, drinking wine out of the same glass. And then we see her following Carroway up the spiral stairs to the bedroom.
I don’t know what’s going on, Adrienne says, sitting down on the bed. I really don’t know why I’m here.
You wanted to see for yourself, Carroway says. And you want to get even with your husband.
We match dissolve to Yuri and Adrienne sitting opposite each other in their living room, each with a glass of white wine in hand. They have been discussing their problems for several hours and seem to have run out of things to say.
A robbery is going on in a house direcdy across the street. We cut away from Yuri and Adrienne’s conversation to the scurrying of figures on a roof. Two police cars drive up and double park in front of the Tiptons’ house. The two policemen in the first car get out and, after some apparent confusion as to where to go, head toward Yuri and Adrienne’s door.