Silver Linings

vibrant quality that might translate very well into the sort of thing I can sell here at Sharpe Reaction.”
    “You mean if she makes her work pretty enough to appeal to your middlebrow businessmen, shopkeepers, and computer-nerd clients?”
    Mattie grimaced. “I know you don't have a high opinion of the sort of people who buy the work in my gallery, Ariel, but I could do without another lecture on the subject. Face it, I'm one of those hopeless cases who really does believe there's such a thing as good art for the masses. Like Mrs. Eberly says, why hang something in your living room that nauseates you whenever you look at it?”
    Ariel's smile was bitter. “Yes, we both know your own tastes, don't we? But that's not really what I want to talk about.”
    “What do you want to talk about?”
    “Tell me, sister dear, do you like playing Earth Mother to my Castrating Bitch role? Personally, I'm getting a little tired of it. I'd appreciate it if you'd leave my men alone.”
    “Oh, hell,” Mattie said. “It's going to be one of those unpleasant big sister versus little sister chats, isn't it? You know how I have those. You always win.” Mattie leaned precariously back in her chair and checked to see that there was water in the small hot pot sitting on the floor behind her. When she saw it was full, she switched it on.
    “Mattie, this has gone too far.”
    “You want some herbal tea and some oat bran muffins? I have a couple left over from breakfast.”
    “For God's sake, Mattie, no, I do not want an oat bran muffin. How can you think about health food at a time like this? But that's you right to the core. I can't stand it. I have never been able to stand it. No one in the family can stand it. The rest of us vent our emotions in a normal, healthy way, but not you, you always try to change the subject.”
    “You know I'm not very good at confrontations,” Mattie reminded her humbly. She eyed the oat bran muffin and decided she wasn't hungry. “They make me tense.”
    It was true. When it came to arguing with anyone in her temperamental, high-spirited, high-strung clan, she was always at a disadvantage for the simple reason that she was the only one in her family who truly dreaded scenes. They made her physically sick. Everyone else thrived on them. What's more they were very good at them. On the rare occasion Mattie had tried to stage a major scene, she had always felt outclassed, outgunned, and outacted.
    Except when she had staged one with Hugh, she realized. She had actually lost her temper with Hugh more than once, and she had not felt nauseated at all.
    “Maybe you don't handle scenes well because you're such a wimp, Mattie. If you'd just fight back once in a while, you wouldn't get so tense.”
    Mattie sighed. “I don't have the personality for the kind of dramatics you and Mom and Dad and everyone else in the family enjoy so much. That kind of thing just puts me under a lot of stress. You know I try to avoid stress these days.”
    “You don't know what stress is,” Ariel shot back. “I'll tell you what real stress is. Last night was real stress for me.”
    “Last night?” Mattie glanced up in surprise. “What was so stressful about last night? The retrospective of your work was a great success.”
    “Oh, sure. You think it was my work everyone was talking about after you left? Well, it wasn't. The main topic of conversation was that cozy little scene of you and Flynn and Emery and Hugh all huddled together out on the sidewalk talking like the great friends you obviously are. And then you, my dear sister, had the gall to get into a cab with my ex-husband and my ex-fiancé and drive off into the night. How do you think that made me feel?”
    “I didn't think anyone noticed,” Mattie said weakly.
    “Bullshit. You like doing things like that, don't you? You like making me look like the Wicked Witch while you play Snow White.” Ariel sprang to her feet and took a turn around the room.
    “That's not how it is, Ariel.” Mattie watched her sister warily. Ariel was working herself up into one of her full-scale storms. She was capable of generating real thunder and lightning when she got going.
    “Don't tell me how it is. I know how it is. It's always been like that. Everyone thinks I'm some sort of Amazon goddess in a cast-iron bra who gets her kicks from destroying men. But it's not true.” She spun around and glared at Mattie. “The divorce from Emery was not my fault, you know.”
    “I