“When was this?”
“Just as Sheila was leaving,” Wes said. “She and Fay were by the door to the closet. Marion was telling me about mutated fruit flies that had their eyes in their asses.” He laughed again.
I walked through the kitchen and out a door that led to a small back porch. In between the branches of the eucalyptus trees, stars twinkled feebly in the Silicon Valley haze. I thought about the guests in the living room. Was I just getting old? Everyone in there was close to Jenny’s age, thirty. Only a handful of years separated me from them, but it felt like a chasm. Except for Sheila, they all seemed so sure of themselves, so entitled, so on the make. But then, I’d been out of step with the world around me for months. I wondered if I was beginning to fall out of step with Jenny, too.
I closed the door and went back into the living room. It was almost eleven. Some people had left already, others were saying their goodbyes. A few were going back to work, I suspected, and others out to clubs. Bed sounded good to me, though. I was glad I wouldn’t be spending an hour on the freeway back to my flat in San Francisco.
Marion and Wes were the last guests to leave. Marion was not shy about giving him her card and planting a kiss on his mouth. As soon as I closed the door, Jenny and Fay commenced a review of who was there, how much funding this one’s venture was getting, how soon that one’s startup would crumble. The dinner party was judged to be a success. They were particularly pleased by the sparks flying between Wes and Marion.
“I’m glad he latched on to Marion,” Fay said. “She’s much better for him than Sheila.”
“What’s wrong with Sheila?” I asked.
“She’s just kind of…flimsy.” Fay pursed her lips. “Flimsy and stubborn.”
I was too tired to pursue it. Who cared what Fay, or Wes, or the rest, thought of Sheila? She was the most interesting person at the party, and the one I most hoped to see again.
It wasn’t until the next morning that we learned she was dead.
4
When the phone rang, I was still in the bathrobe that Jenny kept for me. I was collecting stray wine glasses, coffee cups, and cracker bits hidden around her apartment from the night before. She was in a soft cotton nightie that ended just below her hips. I was enjoying the way her polished toe scratched her calf as she cradled the receiver.
Then her face went pale. Her hand shook. Maybe a client was reporting some server meltdown.
“Yes, she was here…No, no, we didn’t…” Her mouth gaped. “That’s impossible… But we knew…”
I sat on a sofa. Jenny’s gaze was fixed in a line that ended at a point on the wall. “I guess so… Yes, I’ll be there in half an hour.”
She stared at the phone for a good ten seconds before remembering to click it off. She didn’t look at me, but sat down mechanically. Her whole body was trembling. “Sheila’s dead. They found her in her car out on Page Mill Road last night.”
I blurted the first word that came into my mind. “Suicide?”
Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. “No, it was something else. Anaphylactic shock.” I put my arm around her and held her to my chest while she cried. “They said it was probably caused by a food allergy.”
“Food?”
“That’s what they said.” Suddenly Jenny straightened and flung the phone to the floor. Her fists clenched and her arms quivered. “Bill, that means it could have been something she ate here last night!”
I took her to my shoulder and tried to soothe her. “I know she had hay fever. But did you know of any food allergies?”
“Yes!” Jenny shrieked. “She was allergic to shellfish. Fay and I were so careful. We asked her about the salmon. Sheila said it was fine.”
“Maybe they’re wrong about the cause of death. Who was it that called?”
“It was the hospital. They want me to come and”—she broke into tears again—”confirm her identity. They called her parents in Massachusetts but got a machine. It said they’re out of the country. They found my number in her organizer. They know she was here last night.”
I pictured Sheila lying on a gurney. Her black curls against the white sheet. Her olive skin, now waxen. Her wrist empty of the bracelet. Then I thought of Jenny having to look at her. “I’ll go with you to make the identification,” I offered. “Do you want me to do that?”
“M-m-maybe,” she sobbed. She drew in a breath. “Thanks, Bill. I better get ready. They’re waiting for us.”
She dragged the heel of her palm down her wet face and went to her room. I stared at the fingerprint-smudged wine glasses, dark with sediment, still on the coffee table. I remembered Sheila’s troubled look after the meal, her retreat to the bathroom. Should I have realized what was happening? She seemed in control of her condition. She was a biologist and would have known how to handle it. Marion saw her, too, just before she left. If there was something seriously wrong, Marion would have spotted it.
We drove to the county hospital in the Scout. The building was a well-funded postmodern arrangement of cubes, cylinders, trapezoids, and cantilevers. The lobby felt more like a corporate office than a hospital. On the one hand, I didn’t miss the aura of illness. On the other, it made me wonder what the bottom line was.
The morgue was in the basement. Jenny walked to the elevator with her back straight and shoulders square, her flats clop-ping softly on the polished floor.
At the entrance to the morgue was a small office. A man named Perkins said he was the one who’d talked to Jenny on the phone. I told him I’d be making the identification, then looked to Jenny. She nodded. The official took down my information and led me through double doors.
The formaldehyde hit me like a punch. There were three empty gurneys and two with occupants.
He lifted the corner of the sheet on the far gurney. “Is this Sheila Harros?”
I hadn’t prepared myself for the moment. I felt instantly transported out of my body, as if floating, watching a film of myself. There she was, lips parted just a fraction, deep well under the collarbone. But inert, like some object, speechless, drained, stony, as if she could care less what we thought of her now.
“Yes,” I said.
“Thank you.”
We went back to the office. Jenny watched my face. I gave her a small nod and signed the form.
“Thank you,” Perkins said again. “Now, we need instructions on removal of the remains. You should do everything you can to help us find her parents. Otherwise, we’ll have to send her to the county undertaker.”
“Removal… of… the… remains…” Jenny repeated.
“Yes. To a mortuary, or—”
“We’re not the ones who should be doing this,” I said.
“We tried her parents, as I mentioned,” the official replied. “We’ll keep trying them, of course. Do you know of any other family?”
Jenny shook her head.
“No? Well, you’re the closest party we have for the time being. There was a mention in her organizer of meeting a Karen yesterday afternoon, but no last name. You were probably the last to see her alive.”
“What about her work?” I asked.
“We called LifeScience Molecules before we talked to you. No one was available to come down.”
“Not even Marion?”
“I didn’t speak to anyone by that name. I’m terribly sorry. I know this is difficult. But we can only keep the corpse refrigerated for twenty-four hours.”
Jenny straightened abruptly. “I’d like to talk to the doctor who saw her. I want to know what happened.”
Perkins cocked his head. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Look, our friend is dead,” I broke in. “The least you can do is let us speak to the doctor.”
He uncocked his head, made a call, and then told us to go to the ER desk and ask for Dr. Curran.