The crowd was beginning to thin out when I noticed Cynthia circling Judith. I had heard rumors about Cynthia Standall, and I felt an immediate lurch of protectiveness toward Judith. I’d heard that Cynthia—and her husband, Thad, for that matter—were sexual predators, who, thanks to their millions, were used to getting what they wanted.

As I watched Cynthia corner Judith near the shadows of the stairs to the gallery mezzanine and clink glasses with her to the delight of both, my first instinct was to fly to Judith’s side and assert my recently solemnized position in her life. But people were leaving, very important and influential people were demanding one last short conversation with a member of the architectural team of Caldwell and Parnell. This opening of drawings and perspectives of Judith’s and my considerable architectural projects in this rich little ocean-resort town was our first, an event that marked our ascendance to acceptability by the wealthy "first towners" of Winston Harbor. Tonight had been a huge success, as Thadeus Standall was making quite clear to me, in urgent whispered tones, his handsome, expensively creamed and massaged face leaning down to mine and his perfectly capped and whitened teeth and diamond cuff links flashing in the overhead lighting as he held my elbow in with his long, manicured fingers.

"What, right now?" I answered with surprise at the suggestion he was making while I waved the Thorndikes through the door into the warm, star-clad night.

"No time like the present," Standall said with a big smile. "What you’ve put on display tonight has convinced us that you and your wife would be perfect for the addition we want to make to Cynthia’s Box."

"Cynthia’s box," I said in embarrassed confusion, as I searched his face to see if he was joking. Probably because of my last thought of what his wife was up to, I’d jumped to a conclusion about what he was referring to. But I knew that couldn’t be right. Standall was looking intensely into my eyes, trying to convey I know not what.

"Yes, our ocean house up on the bluff at the headland," he was saying, showing me those big pearly teeth again. "We call it Cynthia’s Box. We had it built in our cubist period, and now we want to add a wing that will soften its lines without destroying its character. We love what you did with the Winston Harbor community center, and we can’t wait for you to see our house and give us some first impressions on what you can do for us."

"We’d love doing that, of course," I said, while my mind was already racing, calculating how many zeros I could flip on the backside of a project estimate and not queer a gigantic deal like this. "But we can’t leave the opening just like that. All these guests. . ."

"All what guests?" Standall asked with a hearty laugh. "It’s well past closing of the exhibit, and all of your guests seem to be gone now. You don’t have to pick up the glasses and do cleanup duties, do you?"

I looked around, and sure enough, Standall and I seemed to be alone in the vast gallery. The waiters were already moving around and picking up glasses and napkins and hors d’oeuvre trays and just then the lights went out in the mezzanine.

"Well, OK, that would be great," I said weakly. "If Judith doesn’t think it’s too late, of course. I’ll have to track her down."

"Oh, your wife has already left with mine," Standall said. "They’ve gone ahead up to the house. Your wife seemed to