hitting him over the head with a cruet of salad dressing.” When the joke had been told to Peter, it had been about a husband killing his wife, but he couldn’t resist reversing the roles in the hopes of planting the thought in Hans’s head that Hans’s wife might not approve of his philandering.
“Well,” Peter continued, “the case finally comes to trial, and the crown attorney wants to introduce the murder weapon. She picks up the cruet off her desk. It still has a little glass stopper in its mouth, and is mostly full of liquid. She begins carrying it toward the judge. ‘Your Honor,’ she says to the judge, ‘this is the very item by which the deed was done. I’d like to enter it as Crown exhibit number one.’ The lawyer holds it up to the light. ‘As you can see, it’s still full of oil and vinegar—’ Well, at once, the defense attorney rises to his feet and pounds the table in front of him. ‘I object, Your Honor!’ he shouts. ‘That evidence is immiscible!’”
They all stared at him. Peter grinned to show that the joke was over. Cathy did her best to laugh, even though she’d heard the joke the night before. “Immiscible,” Peter said again, weakly. Still no general response. He looked at the pseudointellectual. Pseudo made a condescending little chuckle. He got it, or was pretending to have. But the other faces were blank. “Immiscible,” said Peter. “It means they can’t be mixed.” He looked from face to face. “Oil and vinegar.”
“Oh,” said one of the painted ladies, and “ho ho” said another.
Peter’s orange juice arrived. Hans pantomimed a bomb dropping, whistling a descending note as it fell, then making a sound like an explosion. When he looked up, he said, “Hey, everyone, did you hear about the whore who …”
Peter suffered through another hour, although it seemed longer. Hans continued to hit on the women collectively and individually. Finally, Peter had had all he could take of him, of the noise, and of the lousy orange juice. He caught Cathy’s eye and glanced meaningfully at his watch. She smiled a thank-you-for-your-indulgence smile just for him, and they got up to leave.
“Off so soon, Doc?” said Hans, speech noticeably slurred, his left arm now having taken up residence on the shoulders of one of the women.
Peter nodded.
“You should really let Cath stay out later.”
The unfair remark angered Peter. He nodded curtly, she said her goodbyes, and they headed for the door.
It was only 7:30, but it was already black overhead, although the glare from the streetlights banished the stars. Cathy took Peter’s arm, and they walked slowly along.
“I get pretty tired of him,” said Peter, his words appearing as puffs of condensation.
“Who?” said Cathy.
“Hans.”
“Oh, he’s harmless,” said Cathy, snuggling closer to Peter as they walked.
“All bark and no bite?”
“Well, I wouldn’t quite say that,” she said. “He does seem to have dated just about everyone in the office.”
Peter shook his head. “Don’t they see through him? He’s only after one thing.”
She stopped, and reached up to kiss him. “Tonight, my love, so am I.”
He smiled at her and she at him, and somehow it didn’t seem cold outside anymore at all.
THEY’D MADE WONDROUS LOVE, their naked forms mingling, each attentive to the other’s desires. After thirteen years of marriage, fourteen of living together, and twenty-two since they’d first dated, they knew the rhythms of each other’s bodies. And yet, after all that time, they still found new ways to surprise and please each other. Finally, after midnight, they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, calm, relaxed, spent, in love.
But about 3:00 a.m., Peter awoke with a start, sweating profusely. He’d had the dream again—the same dream that had been haunting him for eighteen years now.
Lying on an operating table, pronounced dead, but not. Scalpels and sternal saws cutting into him, his organs being removed from his torso.
Cathy, still naked, awoken by Peter’s sudden movement, slipped out of bed, got him a glass of water, and sat, as she had on many nights before, holding him tight, until the terror had passed.
CHAPTER 3
Peter had seen the ads in magazines and on the net. “Live forever! Modern science can prevent your body from ever wearing out.” He’d thought it was a scam until he saw an article about it in Biotechnology Today. A California company apparently could make you immortal for a fee of twenty million dollars. Peter didn’t really believe it was possible, but