Square in the Face (Claire Montrose Series) Read Free Page A

the order they had held in the original pig, the slices were displayed in formaldehyde, each one dangling from a piece of fishing line. Visitors were invited to agitate the Lucite box in which they floated and watch the weird and somehow lifelike way the whole thing rippled.
    Next to Aryeh was sara (she insisted on lowercase), a publishing executive who had just returned from a solo trek in Nepal. She wore a black dress the size of a postage stamp and heels high enough to make her a good three inches taller than Claire’s five foot ten. Claire wondered if the air was better up there.
    Ant was seated next to sara. A silver ring pierced his right eyebrow, and the white tablecloth hid his kilt. His shaven head showed not a trace of stubble. How much work did it take to maintain, Claire wondered. Had he shaved off his five o’clock head shadow before joining them for dinner? Ant played lead guitar in the band Muck. Claire had never heard of Muck - but the way Dante’s friends talked about it, she felt as if she should have.
    The four of them were now engaged in an animated discussion of Aryeh’s and Tabitha’s newly remodeled condominium. Only in New York could an apartment encompass more than two floors, and it seemed as if this one had at least four. Claire gathered that the basement housed a triple-width Italian marble lap pool lined with Spanish tile, and on the third floor was a screening room that seated sixty. At one point, Dante rolled his eyes in Claire’s direction, but still, she felt intimidated just hearing about it.
    To Claire, the four were representative of Dante’s old friends from Harvard, the kind of people who climbed Everest and spontaneously flew off for weekends in Paris. They had grown up using Mommy’s charge card at Bloomingdales, and Daddy was either on Wall Street or a senior partner at a white shoe law firm. The one time Claire had ventured this theory, Dante had gently chided her, reminding her that his family had made its money in the bakery business, and that their success had come only after years of hard work. Dante was the anomaly, though. Most of his friends had been born with the benefits that only old money, the best education, and family connections could bring. Now they knew people - or sometimes even were people - Claire had only read about in People . When she was around them, she felt herself receding behind her face, while always maintaining an interested expression.
    “How are you enjoying our fair city, Claire?   Do you miss Oregon?” sara was all sweetness, but Claire noticed how she continued to pronounce the state’s name as Ory-gone instead of Ory-gun, even after hearing Claire say it the right way. Sara specialized in ghostwritting celebrity books, and, Claire had quickly figured out, had once dated Dante. Even though her left hand occasionally grazed Ant’s pate, Claire sensed an undercurrent of jealousy from sara’s direction whenever Dante leaned over to whisper in Claire’s ear. Claire could see herself through the other woman’s eyes. Some creature from the piney woods who hardly wore makeup.
    “I like it here; I like it there.” She realized her words unconsciously echoed the rhythm of Green Eggs and Ham , one of Rainy’s favorite Dr. Seuss books. Once a week, Claire spent an hour struggling to teach seven-year-old Rainy to read at one of Portland’s inner city elementary schools. Rainy was one of four siblings who had one mother and four different but equally absent fathers. “Oregon has things that New York doesn’t. Then again, I went to MoMA today, and that’s not an experience you can duplicate in Portland.”
    There was a pause while Tabitha and sara exchanged a sideways glance. Sara speared a pumpkin ravioli and then leaned forward. “Claire, you should know that the acronym is pronounced ‘Mohma.’ Not ‘Mama.’” Her smile didn’t reach her pale eyes. Dante shifted. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw him shake his head slightly,