Fatal Reaction

been hard to get all those thin lines perfectly straight using a brush.”
    “I wouldn’t care if you told me it was painted by an armless Buddhist monk holding a toothpick in his teeth using his own blood. It still looks exactly like a big sheet of graph paper.”
    The lights flickered, signaling dinner. We took our leave of my parents, who would wait until the majority of the guests were seated before slipping out to their next function. Stephen and I made our way up the stairs to where tables had been set up in the galleries housing the museum’s permanent collection. Ours was beneath a series of Calder mobiles from the thirties that I recognized from art history class. I wondered whether that made them too old to be classified as contemporary, but I was so grateful that they’d decorated the tables with flowers instead of something more avant-garde that I didn’t feel inclined to quibble.
    I took my seat beside a partner from corporate whom I barely knew. His wife, plump and pretty, seemed flustered to find herself seated beside Stephen, who immediately applied himself to the task of charming her. My other dinner companion had not yet arrived. I thought nothing of it until, turning my head to tell the waiter that I wanted wine, I chanced to glance at the place card, partially obscured by flowers. I must have said something, or at least drawn back in shock, because Stephen turned to me, a look of concern on his face.
    Memory flooded back. A heated discussion about art over lunch at the Standard Club nearly three months ago. Danny raving about the work of Dorothea Lange, a famous realist photographer whose work was scheduled for an exhibition during the coming year. A note jotted down and cast from memory as soon as it was handed to Cheryl. Until that moment I had completely forgotten I’d invited Danny to join us at the benefit that evening.
     

CHAPTER 14
     
    Sunday morning when I came home from Stephen’s I was surprised to find my roommate sitting at the kitchen table companionably enjoying coffee and bagels with Elliott Abelman. For the first time in months Claudia wasn’t wearing scrubs. Instead she was dressed in a brown turtle-neck and corduroy pants. She’d put her hair into a French braid and she was smiling. She looked like a completely different person.
    “Well, good morning, all,” I announced. “What’s the occasion?”
    “I’m leaving for the airport in a couple minutes. I’m going to California for my Stanford interview.”
    “And I’m on a mission of mercy,” chimed in Elliott with a grin. “I took a look in your refrigerator yesterday and realized you ladies are in danger of starving to death.”
    “Oh yes,” replied Claudia, patting her stomach. “The dietitians are always stopping me in the halls to tell me how undernourished I look.”
    The front door buzzer sounded harshly. “That must be my cab,” she announced, rising to her feet and brushing crumbs from her lap.
    “Good luck tomorrow,” said Elliott, standing up. “Do you need any help with your bag?” Obviously they teach more than hand-to-hand combat in the marines.
    “No thanks. I just have the one,” replied Claudia.
    “I’ll walk you out,” I said, itching with curiosity. From the looks of things Elliott had been there for quite a while. I was dying to hear what they’d been talking about.
    “Okay, what were you saying about me?” I whispered as soon as we were out of earshot.
    “You are out of your mind.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “This guy is terrific. I don’t know what you’re doing with Stephen. You know, somebody just told me he was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world’s coldest human.”
    “You must be mistaken,” I replied dryly. “I know for a fact that my mother still holds that title.” All joking aside, I was less than happy with the direction this conversation was taking. “If you think Elliott is so marvelous maybe you should go out with him yourself.”
    “I would,” replied Claudia as she opened the door to the cab, “except for one little problem.”
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “He’s completely in love with you.”
     
    “Bagel?” inquired Elliott innocently as I returned to the kitchen.
    “Did Joe tell you about the autopsy results?” I asked, rooting in the bag for a pumpernickel.
    “Yeah, the ME thinks he bled to death from a perforated ulcer. Nasty.”
    “So what does that mean from the point of view of the