“Or something.”
“It wasn’t a skiing accident?”
“Oh man.” He shook his head. “This is way too embarrassing to talk about.”
“That’s it. Now you have to tell me.”
“If you’ll have dinner with me.”
She paused as the elevator opened and a man and woman emerged. They walked up the hall, arms linked, clearly together and unafraid to show it. The way couples should act, she thought, as the pair stepped into a room and the door closed behind them.
She looked at Douglas. “I’d like to hear that story.”
3
THEY FLED THE PATHOLOGISTS’ COCKTAIL PARTY EARLY AND DINED at the Four Seasons Resort in Teton Village. Eight straight hours of lectures about stabbings and bombings, bullets and blowflies, had left Maura overwhelmed by talk of death, and she was relieved to escape back to the normal world, where casual conversation didn’t include talk of putrefaction, where the most serious issue of the evening was choosing between a red or a white wine.
“So how did you break your leg at Stanford?” she asked as Doug swirled Pinot Noir in his glass.
He winced. “I was hoping you’d forget about that subject.”
“You promised to tell me. It’s the reason I came to dinner.”
“Not because of my scintillating wit? My boyish charm?”
She laughed. “Well, that, too. But mostly the tale behind the broken leg. I have a feeling it’s going to be a doozy.”
“Okay.” He sighed. “The truth? I was fooling around on the rooftop of Wilbur Hall and I fell off.”
She stared at him. “My God, that’s a really long drop.”
“As I found out.”
“I assume alcohol was involved?”
“Of course.”
“So it was just a typical dumb college stunt.”
“Why do you sound so disappointed?”
“I expected something a little more, oh, unconventional.”
“Well,” he admitted, “I left out a few details.”