Catch a Falling Star by Jessica Starre

Mrs. Curtin said. “But I can’t find Mr. Gustafson.”
    “I haven’t seen him all night,” Brianna said.
    “He’s here,” Mrs. Curtin said. “
Somewhere
. I saw him earlier.”
    “I’ll go hunt him down,” Brianna said.
    She checked out the East Gallery and then the smaller ones that radiated from the main gallery. She spooked a couple groping in a corner, but she couldn’t seem to scare up Mr. G. Still, if she showed up empty-handed, Mrs. Curtin would just make her keep looking, so she might as well cut out the middle man and keep looking. She stepped out into the courtyard but no one was out there.
    Mrs. Curtin gave her an inquisitive look when she came back in but she shook her head. She spotted Donald Burke, whom she knew was Mr. G’s partner in his law office. She buttonholed him. “You mind checking the bathroom?”
    “I’m on it,” he said, but a moment later he returned, shaking his head, too.
    Across the room, Mrs. Curtin’s lips were a thin unhappy line in her face. Brianna supposed she had to go report.
    “I’ve looked everywhere,” she said, enumerating the places where she’d been. “And Mr. Burke checked the men’s facilities for me.”
    “Where could he be?” Mrs. Curtin looked extremely vexed.
    “He might have gone home,” Brianna said.
    “He knew I was going to introduce the donors before the silent auction ends at midnight.”
    “He’s not that interested in, you know, acclaim.”
    “It’s not
acclaim
, dear,” Mrs. Curtin said. “It’s
recognition
, and everyone wants it.”
    Duly corrected, Brianna said, “Sure. Do you want me to call his house?”
    Mrs. Curtin sighed. “I suppose you may as well.”
    Brianna went down to her office, dug her cell phone out of her handbag, which she’d stashed in her desk earlier, checked for a message from Natalie (there was none) and then dialed Mr. G’s house from her desk phone. There was no answer. Beverly must have gone home for the day. And either he wasn’t there or he was ignoring the phone. She knew from having borrowed it that he had a cell, but she didn’t have that number memorized, so she had to boot up the computer, and look up his file, and by the time she’d found it, Mr. Burke was sticking his head in the door and saying, “Mrs. Curtin sent me to tell you he’s been found.”
    “Where the heck was he?”
    “Canoodling with someone on the grounds, I suspect.”
    The idea of Mr. G canoodling with someone on the grounds made her smile. He was much too proper for that.
    She dropped her cell phone back into her bag, dropped her bag in her desk drawer, and walked out of the office back to the main gallery. She saw Mr. G talking to Mrs. Curtin, and waved in his direction.
    “Ms. Daniels?” It was one of the valets. Which meant, uh oh, someone had gotten a ding. Brianna sighed and went to see what she could do.
    • • •
    She had been so lovely and ethereal in the garden, a sylph in the darkness, glowing, a north star, maybe his north star. He had gathered her into his arms, and it had felt so right and perfect that he’d felt lightheaded, and then he did something unexpected; he had kissed her in a public place. Just leaned down and kissed her because he wanted to and he suspected she wanted him to. And she had … and it had been sweet and giving and perfect.
    And then the kiss had ended, and she had taken his hand and brought him back to the courtyard, which was right, because the way to end a magic moment was not to try to sustain it for too long but to accept it for the gift it was.
    And then he’d come in for more champagne and Mrs. Curtin had accosted him and he was amused to find that he had been missed, and search parties sent.
I was kissing a girl in the garden,
he wanted to say, but that was so unlike him no one would believe it.
    “That’s fine,” he said. “I have to have a word with someone; I’ll join you in the East Gallery in just a moment.”
    Mrs. Curtin did not seem inclined to let him