The Groaning Board

had been removed and four round tables were set with elegant
crystal and china. Each table sat six.
    Wetzon took the glass from Ellen. She
was still agitated by the sight of Silvestri and the woman, the domestic scene
she’d witnessed. Her heart palpitated unevenly as if she were on a caffeine
overload.
    “How are you, kiddo?” Twoey Barnes
gave her shoulders a squeeze. “What’s the good word?”
    “Business is lousy, and I’m
unattached again. How are you doing?”
    Twoey had legitimate freckles that
went with his red hair. “Weeeeell,” he said, drawing out the word the same way
Smith did, which was enough to give Wetzon an ominous twinge. “I’m going to
co-produce Softly with you and—“
    “Huh? What do you mean, with me?”
    He looked down at her, his eyes
blinking behind his metal-rimmed glasses. “Xeni, you, and Mort. Mort and I will
be general partners. You and Xeni will be associate producers. But you know
that.”
    “Xeni and me? No, I don’t know that. Xeni’ s been full of surprises lately.” She growled under her breath.
    “I’m sure. Now what’s this about
being unattached?“
    “It’s over between Silvestri and me.”
Sure, go ahead, tell the world, Leslie Wetzon. Telling it will make it so.
    Twoey was easing her into an empty
patch. The room seemed full of people all talking at once.
    “You know, Alton still asks about
you—”
    She shook her head. “Can’t go down
that road.” Alton Pinkus had come into Wetzon’s life the last time she and
Silvestri had split up. Successful, solid, wealthy, Alton was a widower with
grown children. She’d come close to making a terrible mistake by marrying him.
“He was the wrong man for me, Twoey.”
    “Is there a right man for you,
Leslie?” The voice came from behind her.
    “Bill—” Twoey gave Wetzon a curious
leer and reached around her to shake Bill Veeder’s hand. “How’s Evelyn?”
    “Fine, fine. She’s been overdoing it;
otherwise, she’d be here tonight.”
    Uh-oh, Wetzon thought. He’s alone.
I’m alone. It’s just the kind of thing Smith would... “Is Sunny here?” she
asked Twoey. He’d been seeing sometime producer Sunny Browning for the past two
years.
    “Sunny and I have split up too,
Wetzon.”
    “Oh, I’m really sorry, so I must be
your dinner partner tonight then?” What a relief.
    “Well, now, Wetzon.” Twoey beamed at
her. “Xeni and I—”
    Veeder interrupted. “I’m afraid you
and I will have to suffer each other as dinner partners, Leslie.” He seemed to
be enjoying her discomfort, playing with her head.
    At this moment, Smith suggested that
dinner was about to be served and that everyone should look for place cards.
    Veeder clamped his hand on Wetzon’s
elbow; she wiggled it away. “Stop trying to control me,” she told his tiepin.
She didn’t trust herself to meet his eyes. The attraction was there, and he was
a married man.
    He laughed. “We’re over here.”
    Their tablemates were Mort and Poppy
Hornberg and Hem Barron and Minnie Wu. Poppy flounced into her seat with an
aura of pure disgust; Mort kept a nervous smile glued to his face. As perhaps
one would when handling a time bomb. True, Poppy could go off at any moment.
She wore a tight green dress with metallic glitter. Her bosom was flaked with
cracker crumbs. Her lipstick still outlined her lips but she’d eaten away the
inside. “I don’t know why we have to be here,” she said, ignoring everyone at the
table. She twisted off the crunchy end of Eli’s Bread and slathered it with
butter, then pushed the whole thing into her mouth.
    Minnie Wu, another winning
personality, whom Wetzon had found rude and unpleasant at their first meeting,
was still rude and unpleasant. She glared at Hem, and picked at the fringe on
her red dress, hardly the ideal choice for her lumpy figure.
    “The table from hell,” Wetzon
murmured. Get me outa here.
    “As soon as we can do it
comfortably,” Veeder said, answering her thought.
    She sneaked a look up at him now. He
was very attractive and he was reading her mind. He was married.
    Ellen and the very mincy young man
from the shop, who also wore black silk, served the vegetable terrine with a
small ball of grapefruit ice. The terrine was strongly defined by spinach.
    Was Micklynn in the kitchen, Wetzon
wondered. “Has anyone seen Micklynn or A.T.?” She directed her question to Hem.
As A.T.’s brother, he ought to know.
    He did. “A.T.’s in the kitchen. I
think Micklynn left a