"I'll do it. Just keep them going with the coffee and wine, if they want it."

Out in the kitchen, I located my manual squeezer and extracted the juice from a dozen lemons, then cut paper-thin slices from two more using a knife from a wall mount. After a few moments Arch came in.

"Now what?" I asked.

He was opening cupboards and looking through them.

"Well," he said as he pulled over one of the kitchen chairs to climb up for a better view, "now somebody wants herb tea. All we've got out there is that Lipton stuff." He strained to look in the high cupboards. "So I have to find some."

I left the lemons and joined Arch in his search. In the process I finally found Laura's sugar in a canister with a magazine picture of Sugar Ray Leonard taped on the front. But there was no herb tea.

"See if whoever it is will try this," I said as I handed him Postum. "I'll be out in a minute with the lemonade."

He left. The running water foamed up over the sugar and juice. When I brought the pitcher into the living room, Arch had disappeared again, and there were only a few people left in the food line. I hoped the lemonade shortage would be our last crisis of the day.

Within twenty minutes people were nearly finished with the last of their plates. Conversation settled into small pockets around the room. Quietly I began to gather plates and ashtrays to take out to the kitchen. Clients do not like to have dirty plates around at a party, but they don't want to hear you wash them either. Luckily there was a door between the kitchen and the main room, and I could begin the cleaning unobtrusively.

Hot water and suds were just churning over the silver- ware when I heard a sound that made me shudder. Someone was moaning.

I turned off the water. From the living room came the same loud sound, the kind of deep groaning you associate with...

Associate with...

I didn't even want to think. If someone vomited at a function I catered, that would be the end of the business. Or close to it.

I pushed through the door to the other room. The groan became a howl. There was a crowd gathered around the sound, and several people were walking quickly toward me uttering names of things they wanted.

"Water-"

"Phone-"

"Towel-"

My face was suddenly cool with the sweat of fear, as prayed, Please not Arch, please let him be all right. I made my way past tables and chairs as if in slow motion. Please let my child be okay. At the outskirts of the crowd I could hear Vonette's high whine, words like What is it, honey? Oh what is it, honey?