“Is it? That’s weird. I’m sure it’s the service provider. They’ll have it up soon enough.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Want some?”

Clare stood at the kitchen door, one hand on her hip, staring him down. She narrowed her eyes, then turned on a dime and headed across the marble entrance.

“Clare!” he called, sloshing his coffee down his T-shirt. “Shit. Clare, wait!” he shouted after her.

She was already past the mahogany circular table with this week’s large floral display featuring five dozen white roses and light-blue hydrangeas, shoots of spiky green somethings that Simon couldn’t identify reaching tall with the purple hollyhock. Her robe fluttered out behind her, her bare feet silent but determined and headed right for his office door.

“Please,” he begged her.

She turned the handles on the double doors to his office and flung them both wide before her. In two steps, Clare had her hands on the cabinet hiding the modem and other various wires and receivers from view. By the time he reached her, she had the modem in her hands and was inspecting the backside.

“The provider is down?” she asked, her tone clearly accusing. She grabbed the exact right cable and plugged it into the exact right port. Shit, he didn’t even think she knew what a modem was. “How bad is it?” she asked, closing the cabinet and turning back to him. “I mean, for you to do this and imagine for even half a second you’d get away with it. It must be bad, right?”

Simon, his shoulders limp with defeat, stared at his wife. “It’s bad, yes.”

Clare’s chin jutted forward, her nostrils flared slightly as she sucked in air and filled her chest. “Okay,” she said, exhaling long and hard. She closed her eyes, shook her head once, and shrugged. “What can you do?” She was talking to herself. “A bad review from Donna Mehan…in the Times.” She paced toward his desk, then back. “How bad? Be honest, because I’m going to go upstairs and read it anyway as soon as I calm down.”

Simon hesitated for a moment. There was no way to even soft-sell it. The review was brutal. “Scathing,” he said.

Clare sucked another lungful of air through her nose, chest full, shoulders wide, her hair a tangled halo around her face. “That bitch,” she hissed. “That pompous, full-of-herself…overrated, bitch!” Clare spun away from him and headed for the office doors.

“Clare.” He trailed after her. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” she snapped, already climbing back up the stairs.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” He raced after her and Charlie, the dog’s long white hair bouncing as he chased his mom up the stairs. The puppy clearly thought this whole morning was fantastic fun.

“Like what? Shoving Donna Mehan’s National Book Award right up her tight ass?”