Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult Page A

up in himself as Ophelia. But she looked so serious, holding her hand out and flexing it just so, that Cassie could only smile. “Can I get you something else?” she said, pointing to the empty juice glass.
    Ophelia walked toward a cabinet and stuck her hand inside, rummaging and coming up with an English muffin. “I’ll get it. I know my way around.”
    â€œGood,” Cassie said. “Maybe you can give me a tour.”
    Ophelia turned away from the toaster, anxiety drawing her features tight. “God, Cass, how long is it going to take? It must be awful.”
    Cassie shrugged. “I’ve got Alex here.”
    â€œFat lot of help he’ll be,” Ophelia muttered.
    Cassie faced the counter and began to cut a strawberry into eight tiny slices. She cut methodically, listening for the click of the blade against the marble with each slice. “Why do you hate each other?” she asked.
    Cassie couldn’t be sure if Ophelia didn’t want to answer the question, or if she hadn’t heard it. “Butter?” Ophelia said. She closed her eyes as if divining its location, and then opened a compartment of the refrigerator. “Ah,” she said. She tried to hold the muffin with her bad arm while she spread the butter with the other hand, but the muffin kept slipping out of her grasp.
    â€œHere,” Cassie said. “Let me do it.”
    She handed half to Ophelia, who was staring at her forearm as if it were a foreign object. “I can’t put any pressure on it yet. It’s driving me up the wall. And it itches like hell.”
    â€œHow did you get hurt?”
    She shrugged. “It was the end of a perfectly horrible day. I was at this photo shoot for Parents magazine, and I’d spent the afternoon holding a series of naked three-month-olds in the air—” She reached her arms in front of her as a demonstration. “Anyway, they were zeroing in on the baby’s ass and my hands under its armpits. So this one kid—a boy—starts peeing on me. And I’m wearing that washed silk shirt I got at Versace last month—remember? I showed it to you—and I just know the stain isn’t going to come out.” She paused, taking a bite of her muffin. “And then they tell me before I leave that they’ll let me know if— if —they decide to use the picture for the next issue. So I step outside and it’s raining cats and dogs and I have no umbrella, and next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground in the middle of a mudslide, and my arm is caught underneath me and I’m dying from the pain.” She grinned. “I did, however, make a date with the doctor in the emergency room.” She turned to Cassie. “Did you know that they don’t just make white casts anymore? You have a choice of anything—pink, green, even fuchsia. I thought I’d go with black, you know, because it matches most of my night outfits.”
    Cassie leaned against the counter, exhausted from Ophelia’s explanation. “Enough about me,” Ophelia said. She smiled, and Cassie could see what she meant—her nose was a little bit off center. “How are your bones holding up?”
    â€œBones?”
    â€œGod, Cass, all you’ve been talking about is your field class this semester. I figured it was lodged so deep in your mind that a coma couldn’t make you forget. You’re going to…let me think…Kenya, I believe, in May, with the seniors.”
    â€œI haven’t been to UCLA yet. Alex has to get back to Macbeth , so we decided I’d take a leave of absence and go with him.”
    â€œWe decided?” Ophelia shook her head. “You mean he decided. You never go on location with Alex. Not during the school year, anyway. You must have knocked out more than your memory, because the Cassie I know couldn’t stand to miss two lectures in a row without having apoplexy.” Ophelia