Grand Avenue by Joy Fielding Page B

after the patient has died. She wasn’t sure how long she sat like that, shoulders slumped forward, swollen breasts balanced on her belly, the phone buried into her ear, her eyes staring blankly toward the window, the baby inside her surprisingly still. Nor was she sure at what precise moment she became aware that she wasn’t alone. Perhaps she caught a glimpse of Tony’s reflection in the glass of the window or heard the sound of his breathing from somewhere behind her back. Maybe there was a ripple, a stirring in the air that disrupted the room’s normal flow of oxygen. Maybeshe’d smelled him, the way a doomed gazelle catches a fleeting whiff of the hungry tiger in the instant before he strikes. Or maybe she’d known all along he was there, Chris realized, a dull certainty settling into the pit of her stomach, the baby inside her shifting to accommodate the intruder.
    “Hang up the phone, Chris,” she heard Tony say, his voice the serrated edge of a blade.
    “Tony …” The word froze on Chris’s tongue.
    “Hang up the phone and turn around.”
    Chris felt the phone drop from her shoulder, bounce toward the floor. It dangled from its cord, like a man dropped from the gallows. She made no move to pick it up, to return it to the security of its carriage. Instead she watched it sway back and forth above the steel-blue broadloom, like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock, ticking off the moments of her sad, stupid existence.
    “Turn around,” Tony said again.
    Chris took a deep breath, lay a protective hand across her stomach, then slowly, reluctantly, did as she was told.
    “Looks like I decided not to go away after all.” Tony smiled. “What’s the matter, Chris? Aren’t you happy to see your husband?”
    Chris watched Tony’s smile twist into a sneer as his right hand swooped into the air, his fist flying toward her with mesmerizing speed. And then, suddenly, the world split apart in a flash of blinding light, and she saw nothing.

Seven
    W hen did you say she called?”
    “Not more than two minutes ago. Right before you walked in.”
    “And she said it was important?”
    “Said she wanted to speak to you right away.”
    Vicki brought the arched slivers of her eyebrows together at the bridge of her nose, wondering if something had gone wrong during Barbara’s surgery. “Was she calling from the hospital?”
    “She didn’t say.”
    “What exactly
did
she say?”
    “Just that she was a friend of yours and that it was very important she speak to you as soon as possible.”
    “She didn’t give any hint what it was about?”
    “Said something about reviewing her options,” the secretary said.
    What options? Vicki wondered, reaching across her cluttered desk for her phone and punching in Chris’s number, listening impatiently to the subsequent busysignal. What options could Chris have been talking about? She immediately redialed the number, received the same annoying signal, slammed down the receiver. Vicki took busy signals personally. They offended her in ways she recognized were completely irrational, having little to do with either logic or common sense. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that some intentional malice was directed at her by the person tying up the other end of the line. Busy signals slowed her down, got in her way, proclaimed she was just one of the crowd. Grab a number, get in line, wait your turn. Vicki sighed, glared at the phone. “Well, I guess she’s going over her options with someone else.” Vicki dismissed her irritation with a wave of her long fingers, her large diamond flashing through the air as she walked around her desk and sank into the high-backed, black leather chair. “Any other calls?”
    “Your husband, reminding you that dinner is at seven o’clock sharp in the restaurant of the Cincinnatian Hotel, and you should prepare yourself for at least an hour of speeches.”
    Vicki groaned. Another boring dinner honoring her husband. Not that he wasn’t