Alex shrugged. “Could have been worse.”
“Worse? I’m supposed to be shooting a commercial next week, anationalcommercial for Clorox, my right arm pouring bleach into a damn measuring cup—”
“You’re an actress too?”
Cassie’s quiet question stopped Ophelia’s tirade. She flicked her eyes toward Alex. “What the hell did you do to her?”
Alex smiled at Cassie, reassuring her. “You ever read the papers, Opie, or is that past your level of education?”
“Reading gives you crow’s feet. I watch the news on TV.”
Alex leaned against the marble island in the center of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest. “Cassie got into some kind of accident last Sunday and hit her head. She was found by a cop in a graveyard, and she didn’t remember her name. She’s still just getting her memory back, in bits and pieces.”
Ophelia’s eyes widened until Cassie could see a ring of white around the green. Then she turned to Alex. “How convenient for you,” she said.
“No doubt you’ve painted yourself as a saint.”
Alex ignored Ophelia’s comment, leaned over, and kissed Cassie’s forehead. “Her name’s Ophelia Fox, and it’s not her real one—but then there isn’t too much of her that’s real anymore. She’s a hand model; she was your best friend in college and your roommate when we first met, and as far as I can tell, she’s the only character flaw I’ve ever found in you.” He tightened the towel around his waist and headed toward the stairs. “And Ophelia,” he said, grinning, “if you’re real nice to me, I’ll autograph your cast.”
Cassie wondered how an anthropology major would have ever met anyone like Ophelia Fox, but before she could even put the question into words, Ophelia came toward her. She ran her long, tapered fingers over the fading cut at Cassie’s temple. “Thank God,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll scar.”
Cassie burst out laughing. That had been the least of her worries.
She stepped back from Ophelia, scrutinizing her face, this time for recognition. “You’re beautiful,” she said honestly.
Ophelia waved her hand in the air, dismissing the compliment. “My eyes are too close together and my nose twists a half-centimeter to the right.” She held out her good hand, pale, nearly hairless, capped by five sculptured nails with white moon tips. “Nowtheseare beautiful. Each time, they use a little bit more of me. The last ad got up to my shoulder, so I figure it’s only a matter of time.”
Even Alex, who Cassie figured was as big a star as they came, wasn’t as wrapped up in himself as Ophelia. But she looked so serious, holding her hand out and flexing it just so, that Cassie could only smile. “Can I get you something else?” she said, pointing to the empty juice glass.
Ophelia walked toward a cabinet and stuck her hand inside, rummaging and coming up with an English muffin. “I’ll get it. I know my way around.”
“Good,” Cassie said. “Maybe you can give me a tour.”
Ophelia turned away from the toaster, anxiety drawing her features tight. “God, Cass, how long is it going to take? It must be awful.”
Cassie shrugged. “I’ve got Alex here.”
“Fat lot of helphe’llbe,” Ophelia muttered.
Cassie faced the counter and began to cut a strawberry into eight tiny slices. She cut methodically, listening for the click of the blade against the marble with each slice. “Why do you hate each other?” she asked.
Cassie couldn’t be sure if Ophelia didn’t want to answer the question, or if she hadn’t heard it. “Butter?” Ophelia said. She closed her eyes as if divining its location, and then opened a compartment of the refrigerator. “Ah,” she said. She tried to hold the muffin with her bad arm while she spread the butter with the other hand, but the muffin kept slipping out of her grasp.
“Here,” Cassie said. “Let me do it.”
She handed half to Ophelia, who was staring at her forearm as if it were a foreign object. “I can’t put any pressure on it yet. It’s driving me up the wall. And it itches like hell.”
“How did you get hurt?”
She shrugged. “It was the end of a perfectly horrible day. I was at this photo shoot forParentsmagazine, and I’d spent the afternoon holding a series of naked three-month-olds in the air—” She reached her arms in front of her as a demonstration. “Anyway, they were zeroing in on the baby’s ass and my hands under its armpits. So this one kid—a boy—starts peeing on me. And I’m wearing that washed silk shirt I got at Versace last month—remember? I showed it to you—and I justknowthe stain isn’t going to come out.” She paused, taking a bite of her muffin. “And then they tell me before I leave that they’ll let me know if—if—they decide to use the picture for the next issue. So I step outside and it’s raining cats and dogs and I have no umbrella, and next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground in the middle of a mudslide, and my arm is caught underneath me and I’m dying from the pain.”
She grinned. “I did, however, make a date with the doctor in the emergency room.” She turned to Cassie. “Did you know that they don’t just make white casts anymore? You have a choice of anything—pink, green, even fuchsia. I thought I’d go with black, you know, because it matches most of my night outfits.”
Cassie leaned against the counter, exhausted from Ophelia’s explanation. “Enough about me,” Ophelia said. She smiled, and Cassie could see what she meant—her nose was a little bit off center. “How are your bones holding up?”
“Bones?”
“God, Cass, all you’ve been talking about is your field class this semester. I figured it was lodged so deep in your mind that a coma couldn’t make you forget. You’re going to . . . let me think . . . Kenya, I believe, in May, with the seniors.”
