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  She had really liked everything she read and she was eager to get this job. It was the best "fit," as career advisors called it, of the six interviews she had lined up, but she had to make sure that she wasn't going to be working for some egomaniac.

  Philip Liman was affable enough when she was finally shown into his office. "Are you sure that advertising is the right field of work for you?"

  His first question caught her off guard. "I don't know for sure." Wrong answer, she thought. "I want to feel as if my skills are being used well, that I can participate in a creative process. I don't want to sell my soul to do it, or be somebody's hamster on a twenty-four-hour-a-day wheel." She stopped blabbering

  and found a nervous smile. "I'm still young. I still think these things are possible." There. She'd put all her desires on the table.

  "Let's look at your portfolio."

  She'd arranged it carefully. She had nothing to show from the first job, so it was all undergrad and graduate work. She'd done posters for the campus Race for Life, several America Night event posters when she'd been at the Sorbonne, and an entire P.R. package — logo to letterhead — for a family planning clinic. In between the commercial art displays, she'd sprinkled her freehand drawings in colored pencil to demonstrate her range and ability at composition.

  As he turned the pages, he said, "Your year abroad is what intrigued me the most. We have so many locally trained people that we felt we could use a breath of fresh air. Tell me about it."

  Teresa remembered to breathe so her voice wouldn't quaver. "My grandmother lives in Paris and without her willingness to provide room and board I would have probably stayed in the States. She wasn't an easy person to live with, but it was well worth the conflict." He's not interested in the personal stuff, she reminded herself. "The students and instructors were international, so the exposure I got was really broadening. I haven't had a chance to put it to practical use." She sounded like a school brochure.

  "You would get lots of that here. What do you think you learned there that you wouldn't have learned at an American university?"

  Images of Paris streets, French food, the sight of her first DaVinci, and musty classrooms mixed in her head with her unrelenting homesickness and her grandmother's volatile personality. It had been a year

  of extremes. "Oddly enough, I think I learned more about American masters there. I certainly saw a lot more art in Paris and on short field trips than I would have at home. There was also a valuable personal lesson." He didn't look bored, so she went on. "I know that my work is good. I knew that when I went. But graduate school including that year in Paris brought me into contact with people who have been honing and thinking about their life's creative effort since they were two."

  He smiled. "I think I know what you mean."

  "I just don't burn with that kind of fire. I really missed home, by that I mean the States. And once I grappled with the reality of the status of artists in this country — which is not great — I decided that a career in the arts didn't have to be as a practicing artist. That's why I changed my masters program to Fine Arts Administration."

  "That brings us back to my first question — is a career in advertising what you're looking for?"

  Well, there it was. Wrong answer, no job. But she couldn't lie. "Certainly not the typical career. Like I said, I want to feel like a contributing part of a team and not someone's lackey in the endless pursuit of money."

  He turned over another page, saying, "I can cer¬tainly understand that." He stopped short and studied one of Teresa's favorite pieces. Layers of paper with two scalloped cutouts, each saturated in increasingly brilliant orange, led down to a smudged watercolor of tan, blue and yellow. He smiled. "It's like opening your eyes when you've been lying in the sun. Very creative."

  "Thank you."

  "I like what I see," he said. "There are times when we sorely need someone who is grounded in the basics of design. Our art department is full of self-taught smarties who get a little too wild from time to time. I'm a self-taught smartie, too. Half the time I don't know why what we do works."

  Teresa didn't believe that for a second. "Well, I can say that I may have gone to art school, but a lot of people feel that art is not something you can really learn in a school."

  "And advertising is not high art. It just uses some of the same skills."

  She grinned. "This interview is not going the way I thought it would."

  "I believe that the word most often used to describe this firm is 'unconventional.' You'll need to get used to that."

  "Does that mean..." She gulped. "You mean I got the job?"

  "Not quite. I misspoke — you do have my vote. You seem like the kind of artist that would really add to our skill set. Your next hurdle is an interview with Amy Bledsoe, the art director. She's a bit of a lame duck, having resigned for personal reasons, and it will take a while to find the right replacement. She wants to leave a fully staffed department in the interim. She'll also do a pretty hard-nosed job of explaining our philosophy."

  "Ninety percent of the people who work at Liman's do it because this is a fabulous place to work." Amy Bledsoe was endlessly in motion. It was motion with

  purpose, not like Carla's anxious hovering for fear of taking two seconds too long to get where she needed to be. Most of their interview had been spent walking the art department floor. Teresa would wait patiently while Amy quickly reviewed or settled some matter, then went to the next cluster of cubicles.

  All of the conversations were friendly, the atmo¬sphere as collegial as any she could have hoped for. It was too good to be true. She pushed away the little voice that reminded her that just when she got settled and happy the other shoe would drop. For the life of her, though, she couldn't find any fault with the place or the people.

  Amy was in motion again. "The other ten percent work here because they're crazy. And no matter what, if you don't fit in, it becomes pretty obvious pretty fast. We have a couple of rules. They're easy to follow. One. When you're here you pull your own weight. Two. You can make a good living working here, but you're not going to get rich. So stop trying. Three. When you have to, you're here twenty-four hours a day. Four. When you don't have to, you're not here at all."

  "That seems pretty straightforward." Teresa stutter-stepped around a pile of videotapes. She had to lean forward to hear Amy over the blast of a soft drink jingle from a conference room.

  "When you're on a project team you are expected to speak your mind. Going along with the crowd is not acceptable." Amy stopped abruptly and leaned into a cubicle. "Where's Wallace?" The response was

  muffled, then Amy said, "I'm going to have to deal with it. I can't let it go any longer."

  Finally it appeared they were at Amy's office. It was large but cluttered with art boards, televisions with multiple VCRs, a sophisticated stereo system and a basketball hoop.

  Amy followed Teresa's line of sight. "It relaxes me. Well, now I have two openings to fill. My last word of warning. We believe strongly in live and let live, but if your private habits prevent you from pulling your own weight, you're out. We function as a team because each and every person is here to do their part." With¬out pause, Amy went on, "So, when do you want to start?"

  Teresa blinked, then found her voice. "I can start anytime. My curator's job ended on Christmas Eve."

  Amy leafed through two stacks of paper on her desk, then yanked one out. "That sucks. Merry Christ¬mas, you're fired." She leaned out her office door. "Henry! Where's Hen —"

  A breathless young man rushed up.

  "There you are. Give this to Leila or Doug. Thanks. I need a cup of coffee really bad." She glanced at Teresa. "Do you want anything?"

  "No, I'm fine. Really," Teresa said.

  The young man turned a friendly but slightly vacant smile on her. "I make good coffee. Everyone says so."

  "I won't be here long enough to enjoy it," Teresa said. Her stomach rumbled. Her next stop was dinner.

  He shrugged and
hurried away with the papers.

  "He makes fabulous coffee, like an angel," Amy said. "It's all that keeps me going sometimes."

  "I look forward to having some."

  "Did Philip tell you I'm leaving? Health reasons I won't go into. But the work will always be there."

  "I'm sorry I won't get the chance to work with you," Teresa said. "But I'm very excited about this."

  "Let's go see Diego." Amy was out the office door again, turning left and right through the cubicle groups. "Diego will be your senior for the first three months. He'll dump all the menial stuff he can on you, but that's how you learn." She rapped her knuckles on a cubicle frame. "Diego, I found the person you've been dying to train."

  There was a groan, and Amy stood back to let Teresa into the cubicle. It was oversized compared to all the others, but when she saw Diego's wheelchair she understood. She took the two steps necessary into the cubicle to keep him from having to shift his chair and held out her hand. "Teresa Mandrell."

  "You sing?" Diego had extraordinary eyes. They were a depthless black and overloaded with charm and suggestive warmth. Bedroom eyes, big time. His hand¬shake was firm but not overwhelming.

  "No relation. I don't even like country music."

  "Blasphemer!" Diego flicked his gaze to Amy. "How could you do this to me?"

  "Bye bye," Amy was saying. "You'll work it out." Henry appeared out of nowhere with a mug of coffee and a file folder for Amy. "Henry, I love you." They disappeared in the direction of Amy's office.

  Diego waved his hand at a stack of folders and storyboards. "So when can I give you this pile of suicide-inducing minutiae?"

  "Well, I can start anytime." She grinned ear-to-ear. "I can't believe I got the job."

  "Why? You lie about something on your resume?"

  "No, it just feels really lucky."

  "Please. If you weren't the right person you'd have never made it past Philip the benevolent dictator."

  "If you say so. It's nice to be appreciated. Is every¬one always in this good a mood?"

  "This is the lull between Christmas and New Year's. Half the staff is on vacation."

  "Oh. So it gets a little more noisy then, I guess."

  Diego sighed. "Why do they always give me the lambs to slaughter?"

  Teresa blinked. "Say again?"

  He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "It's always this quiet. Everyone here is always in a good mood. We love each other. No one ever yells. There's no stress and you'll just adore every minute of every day. So much so you won't mind sleeping here."

  Teresa swallowed. That sounded more like the art department she had expected. " 'Kay. I can deal with all that."

  "I will personally feed those words to you. I'll bet Amy didn't tell you about our commitment to punctu¬ality."

  "No, she didn't." What the heck was that?

  "Don't be late to meetings. They start on time so they can end on time. Everyone who is late pays a buck a minute into the fund for the charity of the month. The max is ten bucks, plus you get volun¬teered to do shitwork." His gaze flicked to his screen as it announced he had mail. "It looks all easy-peasy on the outside, but underneath, this place is as much a machine as anywhere else. You just won't be slaving

  like a dog so some guy can have a vacation house in the Hamptons. Plus, you won't have to dig down for your best artistic impulses to sell a cigarette to a twelve-year-old."

  "Those are big compensations. I'm not afraid of hard work."

  "Ooh, doggie. And I get you for three months. This is so cool." His phone buzzed. "Go see Angela in H.R. to do all that salary and insurance stuff. That's back on Philip's floor — just ask reception. Do you really want to start this week? Take the rest of the year off, you'll need the stamina later."

  Teresa chuckled. "Maybe that would be for the best. So I'll see you next week."

  His voice followed her over the cubicles. "Staff meeting is at nine-fifteen pronto Monday morning. New person brings the muffins. We need at least a dozen big ones."

  After she'd filled out the numerous forms and floated out of the building, her first order of business was dinner. She congratulated herself for landing on her feet. It had been terrific luck and maybe, she allowed, just a little bit of talent. She gobbled a sandwich and then, given that her paycheck would shortly be 25 percent larger, she let her credit card have its way with her at Georgiou's. New job meant new clothes. A royal purple blouse with an emerald suede collar had been calling her name.

  "Thanks again for doing this, Ray." Judy waddled out of the elevator. "I'm glad you're backing us up." "I have all the time in the world and Dee has the

  schedule from hell. Really, it's no bother." The only thing that punctuated her weeks now was Judy's childbirth classes. She was Dedric's backup, and she went along whether Dedric could be there or not. Today Dedric didn't end her shift until after the class.

  Rayann had not thought it possible to do less than she had before but she'd found a way. It was all she could do to lift her head from the pillow when she woke from one of her rare sleeps. She'd showered that morning for the first time in days and even managed a load of laundry. She'd have to do the same this Sunday when Nancy was holding a New Year's Day grand opening for the new Louisa May Thatcher Women's Center. She'd told Nancy that Louisa wouldn't have expected to have it named after her, but Nancy had insisted.

  Judy pulled her capacious maternity dress hard against her enormous stomach. "I want them to take it out now."

  "It's three weeks to your due date. From what I've heard, first babies are always late and the worst is yet to come." Who would have thought it was almost a brand new year and Judy's baby was almost here? The holiday season used to be a cycle of parties and celebrations. Louisa had loved the solstice concert at Davies Hall. She had spent Christmas with her mother and Jim, but otherwise December was a blur of nothing.

  "You're such a ray of sunshine. No pun intended. God, my back is killing me."

  "My godchild just wants to be taken seriously."

  Judy rubbed her stomach fondly, then resumed her slow pace toward the parking garage. Her long coat, which was designed for Judy's regular stomach,

  flapped in the wind. "Oh, I take this baby very seriously. Kicks me all night and just for fun dances on my bladder every five minutes. Which makes fifty-minute therapy sessions hard to sit through."

  "You always had a bladder the size of a pea."

  "Put a bowling ball on your bladder and see how long you can hold it."

  "And they say pregnancy makes a woman glow with happiness."

  " 'They' are all men."

  Rayann helped Judy lower herself into the passen¬ger seat. The baby was going to get bigger before Judy pushed it out, which boggled Rayann's mind. Today's birthing class had emphasized the chemical reactions that made the cervix dilate, the birth canal more elastic, and how the baby's skull was in pieces to compress in the birth canal. But to Rayann it still seemed like pushing a basketball out a nostril. She admired Judy vastly for wanting to go through with it. She had no desire to do it herself.

  Judy catnapped on the ride home. She fell asleep everywhere, she complained. Dedric was just parking in their driveway when Rayann pulled up. She had a familiar thrill at the sight of Dee in her navy blue uniform and gun belt with her night stick under one arm. She shook Judy. "Dee's home."

  Judy snored.

  "Dee and I are running away together."

  "Huh?" Judy surfaced with a puzzled frown. "Oh. Well, you always did have the hots for her."

  "Me and the entire lesbian nation. I don't know what she sees in you."

  Judy slumped in the seat. "Ray, I have gained twenty-eight pounds. My breasts reach my knees and

  I'm just about incontinent, not to mention the acne in surprising new places." Her voice quavered. "I do not need to feel insecure."

  Oops. She'd broken one of the major rules of deal¬ing with extremely pregnant women. Rayann quickly said, "I'm just teasing you, Jude, you
know that."

  "It's true. I don't know what she sees in me." Judy seemed desolate.

  "Well, I never knew what Louisa saw in me..."

  "Don't be silly." Judy looked at her as if the answer was obvious.

  "I won't be if you won't be."

  Judy half grinned. "Okay. You would have made a good therapist."

  "Please. I'd be screaming whiner at my patients all the time."

  "Not to mention you won't set foot inside a therapist's office."

  Rayann tried to look as if she didn't understand Judy's meaningful stare. Judy still wanted Rayann to go to the grief counselor she'd recommended.

  "I want you to make me a promise. Just one promise. I haven't asked anything of you and you have to humor a pregnant woman."

  "That's emotional blackmail, Jude."

  "Call a cop. Geez, Ray, one little promise."

  "What?" Rayann sighed with all the weariness she could muster.

  "I want you to do one of the steps in the book I gave you. Just one step. One little step. If it doesn't help, then I'll stop bugging you."

  "Which one?"

  "You pick."

  "Oh, all right. Christ." Judy might be her oldest

  and closest friend, but she was still a pain in the ass sometimes.

  "By Sunday. When I see you at the grand opening I will want your assurance that you did it. You don't have to tell me about it, just that you did it."

  "And you'll believe me?"

  Judy gave her a long, level look. "I'm just trying to help Louisa rest in peace."

  Rayann drew a ragged breath. "That's low."

  "I'm desperate, Ray. You look like shit. I'll bet you aren't sleeping, and you're clearly not eating. I never asked exactly how you managed to hurt yourself with chisels you've been using for years, but I can guess. You have all the classic signs of depression and that's one of the stages."